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LIVE: Friday 23rd October 2026 – THIS BLASTED HURRICANE …

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… or whatever you would like to call it, is still going on and showing no sign of abating. That’s about twenty-six hours that we’ve been battered, and the damage in the town and especially up here in the old town is “significant”. At least it was when my faithful cleaner went into town this morning. It must be much worse now.

At about 05:00 a gust of wind of 143 km/h was reported, and there have been others at 120 km/h, so I see from the site of the weather station down at the end of the rock. And in Finisterre, they’ve had gusts of over 150 km/h.

The prevailing wind all day has been from the north-west, and there’s nothing between us and the eastern coast of North America in that direction except the Atlantic Ocean, so there’s nothing to slow down the wind.

As I mentioned yesterday, the wind was getting up as I was coming home last night, but it really began to blow at about 20:30, and by the time that I went to bed, at about 23:30, it was really giving it a good go. I’m surprised that I managed to go to sleep. I was down the bed under the quilt, and I could still hear it howling.

But go to sleep. I did, although it wasn’t for long. At about 02:40 I had another phantom alarm call, and although it awoke me, it didn’t entice me out of bed. However, I couldn’t go back to sleep as the wind continued to roar with an intensity that I haven’t heard for a good few months.

When I looked at the time later on, I saw that it was 06:10, and I was tempted to make an early start but I thought better of it. However, at 06:25 I swung my feet out of bed and onto the floor, thus claiming an early start.

After both the alarms had gone off, I went into the living room and unlocked the door to let Isabelle the Nurse in when she arrived, and then I went to sort myself out in the bathroom.

Back in here, I attacked the rest of the notes left over from last night and they went on line when they were finished. At that moment, Isabelle the Nurse put in her appearance. She was supposed to give me my anti-flu injection this morning, but when she saw the state that I was in, with a streaming head cold that won’t go away, she wanted me to check with the doctor at dialysis that it’s OK to give it to me right now or whether we should wait a while.

She was soon on her way out to continue to fight the good fight with the hurricane outside, and I could go and make breakfast.

While I was eating, I was reading some more of THE REPORT OF THE WOOLHOPE NATURALISTS CLUB 1867.

We’ve finished the story of the Herefordshire Beacon, and now we have another expert waxing lyrical about the primrose and its various developments. “Well, in a cowslip’s bell I lie!” I thought to myself.

Once breakfast was over, I went back into the bedroom to send off my Leclerc order, but to my dismay, all deliveries are cancelled today because of the storm. I shall have to wait until tomorrow for my delivery to arrive. I hope that it’s before I go to dialysis.

My faithful cleaner sent me a video of the storm in the port this morning, the waves crashing over the harbour wall and causing nothing but mayhem in the outer harbour. It really was impressive, so I sent it on to a few friends for their perusal.

There were a few more things to do, as well as being engaged in several animated chats as a result of the video that I sent, and then it was time to start work on the notes for the radio programme.

It wasn’t long, though, before I had to stop for my midday medication and disgusting drink, and I was caught in flagrante delicto by my cleaner, who had come in to do her thing. We chatted for quite a while as she was working, and after she left, I carried on with work.

By about 18;00 I had finished the notes and they are ready to dictate, but I could have finished a lot earlier had I not crashed out at some point. And it seems that it’s not just Rosemary who has installed a camera in here, because as soon as I awoke, a friend sent me a message on the computer, and I ended up chatting to him for a while.

It’s a shame, though, because while I was asleep, I was away with the fairies, although not in any manner that would excite comment from the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine.

While I was asleep this afternoon, I was doing something with a group – something like Grand Funk Railroad. Then the group split up and I immediately joined another group but my former colleagues had not and this was confusing the authorities who did not understand that I was not out of work. There was plenty of other stuff too, such as being in a house and being in a department store, something like Woolworths, but as soon as I awoke, someone sent me a message on the computer and that completely destroyed my thought pattern and the dream disappeared.

That’s always a problem when dreaming during the day. At night, I’m usually uninterrupted … "chance would be a fine thing" – ed … but in the day, there are all sorts of things going on.

When I’d finished work, I summoned up my friendly neighbourhood chatbot, and between the two of us, we worked out some music for the next radio programme after the one that I finished today. This will be yet another one that will overflow my hour with more than enough artists and albums. My chatbot is becoming more and more efficient at tracking down what I would like.

Teatime was next – my regular Friday night tea of vegan sausage, baked beans with cheese and pepper and air-fried chips. For some reason, the chips were even better today – as perfect as they could ever be. This method that my friend showed me, of par-boiling the chips before putting them in the air fryer, is making some delicious chips and I’d wished that I’d known about this before.

No pudding tonight – just a handful of biscuits because we had football. The match that I’d chosen was newly promoted Trefelin, near the bottom of the table, and an established Y Fflint, struggling likewise near the foot of the table.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … Y Fflint play some really nice football and it beats me why they are so low in the table, but tonight, for the first half-hour, it was a kick-and-rush game. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’m a big fan of this “long ball over the top”, and Y Fflint certainly have the goalkeeper in Jack Flint who can do it, but firstly, you need to be accurate with the ball, and secondly, you need a couple of quick forwards. Most of Jack Flint’s balls out of defence were going nowhere and to nobody.

Trefelin had by far the upper hand at first, but by the half-hour mark, Y Fflint had found their composure, settled down and began to play proper football.

Early in the second half, Y Fflint won a penalty and Trefelin’s keeper was sent off after he brought down an opposition attacker. The penalty was no trouble for Y Fflint’s centre-forward against the young substitute keeper, and the centre forward scored a second goal shortly afterwards when, unmarked at the far post, he turned in a cross from across the goal.

After that, it was all one-way traffic towards the Trefelin goal, but Y Fflint couldn’t increase the score.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … that the idea of increasing the size of the league has just been to add some cannon fodder and to provide some easy relegation candidates to save the established clubs. And sure enough, the result in one of the matches tonight, an established club against a struggling new promotee, would have made a useful rugby score.

Now that my notes are finished, I’m off to bed before I turn into a pumpkin, and go to sleep, if the high winds let me.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the high winds … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of my friends from the USA asked me if anyone had ended up today like Lottie Michelle Belk of Chester, Virginia.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"She was walking along the promenade at Virginia City in a wind of 40 km/h when she died, stabbed to death by the pointed end of a beach umbrella that had broken free from its mounting."

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LIVE: Saturday 17th October 2026 – AND ONCE AGAIN …

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… we had yet more problems at dialysis. And just to prove how polyvalent everyone is at dialysis, they were a completely different set of problems than the usual ones. It seems that my whole life is going to be spent encountering these dialysis issues, and when one is solved, we can simply pass on to the next one.

But I don’t understand at all why I seem to have so many problems at places like that. It’s almost as if someone thinks that I don’t have enough of my own at home, like sleeping, for example. It seems that I can sleep perfectly well when I don’t want to, like in the middle of the day, but when I want to, like at night, I don’t seem to be able to manage it.

Last night was a perfect example of that. I was writing my notes up after the football, admittedly at some kind of very late hour, and suddenly, I could feel myself starting to drop off. That was the cue to abandon the notes, post online what I’d done, and go to bed. And then, not be able to go to sleep for ages.

Eventually, I managed to drop off and go to sleep, but it wasn’t for long. I’ve no idea what time it was when I awoke, but it was definitely in the small hours. I know that I was still awake at 04:59 because I checked the time and debated with myself whether I should get up at that point, but the next thing that I remember was the ‘phone going off at 06:29.

Once more, it took a real effort to haul myself out of bed and off into the living room to unlock the front door ready for when the nurse comes, and then go into the bathroom to sort myself out for the morning. I even had a good scrub up and a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant at dialysis this afternoon.

Back in here, I attacked the notes from last night, and I’d almost finished when the early arrival of the nurse confounded me.

While he was sorting out my legs and feet, we chatted about the weather. Apparently the temperature is going to drop dramatically over the next few days, and a proper autumn will be upon us quite rapidly.

After he left, I made my breakfast, and while I was eating, I was reading some more of THE REPORT OF THE WOOLHOPE NATURALISTS CLUB 1870.

Our author is still waxing lyrical about some of these trees, and I don’t suppose that he’ll ever stop. But interestingly, he talks about some fine young chestnut trees in the grounds of one of these stately homes in Herefordshire, and when I went to look it up on the internet to see how things are today, the hall is now in possession of the National Trust, who make some very favourable comments about the chestnut trees that are now one hundred and seventy years old.

Back in here after breakfast, I finished off the notes from yesterday and they are now on line, as you have probably noticed. And then I went to transcribe the dictaphone notes.

I was at a football match last night when the two teams playing, each one having a substitute who played in a reserve league who had never come into the first team. So the first team had their new player in defence and the other team had their player in attack, and the attack players and the defence players of the different teams had to be involved in finding space and waiting to be passed the ball and so on, and then be taught how to control it once they had already received it, because far too many balls were bouncing off them and going out of play and that sort of thing.

This dream about players finding space relates to a certain training session for a certain hockey team somewhere, but that’s yet another story that the World is not yet ready to hear.

In fact, the part about the reserve players coming into the team also relates to the same story. But as that story is something reasonably current, it’s no surprise that it’s coming up now in a dream.

There was some Eastern European guy whom I knew – he might have been Polish or something like that – and he worked as a bacon slicer in a meat factory somewhere or other in the area. He was telling me about his aim to become a motor mechanic. He had this yellow Mk IV Cortina which looked fairly nice but there were a few things that needed doing to it, and he told me that he’d done them. He took the car for its MOT. There was also someone who was going to fetch my injections for me. I was supposed to have two injections, one on a Monday and one on a Friday. I’d had the first two, but for some reason I’d forgotten to collect the next two, so some woman or other, an elderly woman, she had a bottle of the stuff that the first injection used, and she filled the syringe with it and injected me with that. Then I had to take the prescription down to the doctor to explain what had happened and get him to write a new one for the product on the Friday and for subsequent ones. I put them in a brown envelope and gave them to this Polish guy. I went down to the MoT station afterwards, and his yellow Cortina was there, and it had failed on four or five things, nothing very complicated, but I heard that this guy had handed in his notice at work and was going to start being a motor mechanic, working underneath cars in the street, that kind of thing. But seeing the work that he’d done on this Mk IV Cortina and it hadn’t worked, I could see his next adventure ending in tears at some point.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I used to have a fleet of yellow MkIII and MkIV Cortinas in the past, although I didn’t know anyone Polish like that at the time. And the garage certainly didn’t resemble the garage at the salt mine where my father used to work, so where it was, I don’t know.

The story about the injections is interesting too because regular readers of this rubbish will recall that quite a few years ago, I had to have a series of injections a couple of times each week and had to fetch them from the chemists regularly. That’s how I first encountered these nurses who come to visit me every morning.

I forgot to mention the confusion when I went down to that garage. I’d given all the paperwork for these injections to this Polish guy and put them in a brown envelope. I walked into the garage where his car was being MoTd – at the back of Bedford Street near the old police station. I pulled out and told someone “here’s the envelope”. They picked it up, and it was the wrong one. The second one was the wrong one. The third one was hanging up by a magnetic attachment thing on the workplace by where this Polish guy was working. He brought it over to me and this other guy. We had a look at the paperwork together.

If this is confusing you, don’t worry. It’s confusing me too.

That was all that I had time to do this morning, although I might have had more time had I not crashed out between 10:20 and 11:00.

When the alarm went off, I headed into the kitchen to have my midday medication and my disgusting drink, and then to start to pack the travelling laptop ready for dialysis. My faithful cleaner came down to apply the anaesthetic on my arm too.

After she left, I adopted the usual position of slumping across the table with my head resting on my arms so that I could have a little doze, but that wasn’t for long either as the taxi turned up at, would you believe, 12:40. Not that I’m complaining, of course, because, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the earlier I arrive at dialysis, the earlier I’ll be home, and that suits me just fine.

However, the best-laid plans of mice and men and all that, we first had to go to Champeaux to pick up someone there to take to dialysis, and then at the autoroute interchange at Marcey-les-Grèves, we ran into a barrage of gilets jaunes. And what annoyed me about that was that there was a warning sign in the centre of the village, just by where there’s a turning that goes through a village called Saint-Jean-de-la-Haize, and from there via a couple of narrow lanes, you end up just four hundred yards from the hospital.

Now if I know that, why didn’t our driver, who has been working for the taxi company for thirty years?

So after using all our powers of persuasion, we eventually arrived at dialysis ten minutes early. And this is where the fun began.

If you want to know whether I had a new nurse or an experienced one today, you only need to look at the plasters that she put on my arm when she took out the needles at the end of the session, and that will tell you all that you need to know. I don’t think that I’ve ever seen such a dog’s dinner in all my life.

But the fun began when she was trying to plug me in. The first needle, in the lower part of my forearm, went in fine. The second needle, in the upper part of my arm, well, not so fine. She ended up having two tries at it and they both failed. In the end, she had to call for the senior nurse and it was a case of “third time lucky” when she did it. But I now know exactly how a dartboard feels.

Further bad news is that my internet subscription at the dialysis centre has expired. It’s only good for a year and then I have to renew it. And of course, with it being Saturday, there’s no-one on duty at the tech department of the hospital. So, without the internet, I read a paper on Lack of Moral Fibre in the Royal Air Force in World War II.

Apart from that, there were no other interruptions. Not even from Emilie the Cute Consultant, who came into the ward and went to chat to almost every other patient in here, except me, of course. She clearly doesn’t love me any more.

But seeing as we have been talking about the other patients … "well, one of us has" – ed … my favourite patient who is usually in the bed beside mine was brought in this afternoon on a stretcher. Apparently she had developed a breathing problem and, even with a cylinder of oxygen, was having difficulty breathing. I do hope that she’s going to be OK.

Today, the nurse let the session run to the full time, which makes a change, but when the session finally finished, she spent ten minutes cleaning the machine first before she dealt with me, and that was disappointing too. I wanted to be away.

When I was finally free and the wounds compressed and sealed (with the plasters stuck on any old how), I went to weigh myself. And I was actually bang on my dry weight, which is where I should have been those three times before. And the driver was waiting for me – the same one who had brought me – and I was the only person in the taxi too, so I was home at about 18:30.

My faithful cleaner was waiting for me, and she helped me into the apartment where she stuck a disgusting drink into my sweaty little mitt. And after she left, I made some food – a baked potato, peas and carrots and a burger on a bap. It’s been quite a while since I’d had that for a Saturday tea, and it shows that, bit by bit, my appetite is returning.

Football was next, another match in the Welsh Cup, this time between Y Fflint and Caernarfon, a repeat of the cup final a couple of months ago.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … Y Fflint play some nice, tidy football and don’t deserve to be as low down the table as they are, so it was no surprise to anyone when they scored the opening goal after just five minutes.

However, Caernarfon scored an equaliser almost straight from the restart and gradually went on to impose themselves on the game. By the final whistle, it was all on-way traffic towards the Y Fflint goal, with Caernarfon winning 3-1.

So tomorrow early afternoon, we have the final match of our Welsh Cup trilogy when Penybont, third in the Cymru Premier League, leave Bridgend to travel down to the beach at Port Talbot to take on Afan Lido, tenth in the second tier.

When the football was over, I attacked the dictaphone notes, but I really didn’t realise just how late it was. When the waves of fatigue began to sweep over me, it was almost midnight and I didn’t want to be letting it all hang out much later, so I posted on line what I’d written so far, added a “to be continued” sticker and went to bed. I’ll finish off the rest of my magnum opus tomorrow morning.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about bacon slicers … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of my friends told me about the woman from Crewe who went into her local butcher’s and sat on the bacon slicer.
"What happened?" I asked.
"The butcher was most annoyed" she said. "he ended up getting behind in his orders."

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LIVE: Saturday 10th October 2026 – I REALLY MUST …

… pull out of these dramatic sleeps that I seem to be having. They really can’t keep going on like this because they are devastating my life right now and I don’t seem to be able to snap out of them. It wouldn’t be so bad if I were having them in bed where I can enjoy them, but that seems to be the only place where I don’t have them.

The other night, for example, falling asleep while riding the porcelain horse – that really is the nadir of all of this, isn’t it?

Anyway, I eventually went to sleep last night, not straight away like I was hoping. And once I’d fallen asleep, I didn’t stay that way for long. I was soon awake, although I have no idea at what time. It seemed as if I was tossing and turning for hours. I went through the Welsh course question book in my head while trying to go back to sleep, hoping that I could answer the verbal questions from Head Office when they arrive, but no-one at all contacted me with the questions … "and that sounds like a dream too" – ed ….

When the alarm went off, I had to struggle to leave the bed as usual, but once I was up, I dragged myself to the front door to unlock it for when Isabelle the Nurse arrives.

The next stop was the bathroom for a good wash and scrub up, and even a shave in case Emilie the Cute Consultant comes to see me today at dialysis.

Back in here, I carried on with writing up the notes from yesterday, and although I made good and rapid progress … "which makes a change" – ed … I hadn’t quite finished when Isabelle the Nurse put in an appearance. We had a little chat about nothing in particular, and after she left, I could make my breakfast.

While I was eating, I was reading some more of THE REPORT OF THE WOOLHOPE NATURALISTS CLUB 1870.

“Famous Trees” is still the topic of conversation today, but there’s nothing of any special interest in there, although the author of the report is trying to identify historical storm damage to some of the oldest trees. He seems to be quite confident in identifying damage as far back as the early-mid seventeenth century and has suspicions of damage even further back than that. But, of course, nothing is proven.

Back in here after breakfast, I finished the notes from yesterday and they went on line. Now I was free to attack the dictaphone notes.

I dreamed that I was walking again without crutches. I had some kind of dramatic improvement over one evening. I’d stayed behind at school one evening to see a few Shakespeare plays being rehearsed. I walked out of there and walked downtown. By now, it was morning, and I really fancied some croissants but I carried on walking and I crossed the river into the town centre. I saw two people eating croissants that made me jealous, that kind of thing, and I can’t remember now. I can’t remember now – it’s just gone. Yes – that’s right – we were in a DIY shop, and I was looking at the greenhouses with the plants in them and tried to price up the greenhouses when one of the servers came up to me and said “you’re our squash expert, aren’t you?”. “Well,” I replied. “Not really”, so he sent a man over to me carrying a small racket, with the strings being replaced by a wooden lattice-type of work. He asked me if this would be any good for playing squash. I replied “no” and pointed him to where the squash rackets were. Then it came down to when we came to the entrance to that shop and we walked past a plate with free croissants on it for the morning, so I helped myself to one and so did someone else, then a third person, and we chatted about that, but I can’t remember now what happened after that.

There’s no doubt in this dream that when I was walking away from the Shakespeare plays and across the river into the town centre that I was in Nantwich, so it must have been my old grammar school where the rehearsals were taking place.

And it’s a big surprise to me that I was watching the play rehearsals. It’s hard enough to persuade me to go to watch a real play, never mind some rehearsals. The theatre – or plays, at least – is simply not my thing at all.

And at one time, I used to play a lot of squash and was even on a squash ladder … "but not very high up" – ed … in a local club in Crewe, but I certainly wouldn’t call myself an expert. When I was living in a van, it used to be how I’d manage to shower regularly. But finding me in a DIY shop was an everyday situation, and there even was one in Montlucon, “Brico Depot”, that used to open at 07:30, and they did have free coffee and croissants for the early arrivals.

The next task was to have a quick look at my e-mails. And I do mean “quick” because there wasn’t very much time. I was amazed at how long it actually took to finish everything off.

And there was an e-mail from Grahame, who had seen my notes yesterday on the two oak trees, “Adam” and “Eve”. Eve was the famous hollow oak at Moreton-on-Lugg, Herefordshire. Struck by lightning in 1839, its shattered upper trunk was later thatched and fitted with a door and stove, serving as the railway station’s booking and stationmaster’s office.

Historic photograph of Eve oak tree, a hollow lightning-damaged oak at Moreton-on-Lugg, Herefordshire, converted into a railway booking office and stationmaster’s office beside the railway line. Grahame sent me a photo of “Eve” in its role as station master’s office and booking office at the railway station, where you can clearly see the storm damage and how it has been converted.

If you click on the image, you’ll see a larger … "although not very much larger" – ed … image where you can probably see things in better detail, including the chimney at the rear which is connected to the stove inside the tree trunk, and also the thatched roof that covers the part where the upper part of the tree broke off.

So thank you very much for that, Grahame. And a quick note to all the other regular readers of this rubbish – I’m always pleased to interact with my audience, and “comments” on this blog are now enabled if you have something to say. And if you don’t want to “go public”, there should be a “contact me” feature in the bottom right corner of the screen. Don’t hesitate to use it.

And if you can’t see the “contact me” feature, SEND ME AN EMAIL

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … office, the alarm rang to let me know that it was time to head for the kitchen for my disgusting drink and midday medication. Once I’d done that, I began to sort myself and my things out for dialysis.

My faithful cleaner turned up too to apply the anaesthetic to my arm and to have a little chat about nothing in particular, and after she left, I had my usual crash-out over the table in the dining area while I awaited the taxi.

Properly crashed out, I was beginning to have a lovely dream when the doorbell rang, and the dream evaporated immediately. I thought “blimey, that’s early” and it was too – at 12:50, but it seemed that I’d only been there a minute, not almost thirty minutes.

Today, I was the only passenger, so we arrived early at dialysis. However, so had everyone else, so it was still 14:25, almost fifty minutes after my arrival, when I was finally coupled up. And woe is me! I had one of the two nurses who have been there for centuries but do the barest minimum of work to comply with the regulations rather than going very far out of their way.

Once everything had settled down, I started to have a footfest, something that went right on until bedtime, would you believe?

The first on the agenda was to watch the rest of Llansawel v Colwyn Bay from a week ago. It was 1-0 to Llansawel when I left it, and surprisingly, that’s how it finished up. Despite Colwyn Bay’s superior skill and tactics and their lethal strike force of “perm any three from Jack Kenny, Adam Davies, Jordan Davies and Louis Robles”, they were simply unable to break down the resolute Llansawel defence and their goalkeeper, Will Fuller, even though Llansawel were reduced to ten men after an hour.

That’s definitely three points thrown away by Colwyn Bay as they drop to fifth in the table and Llansawel climb further away from the bottom and are now in eleventh out of sixteen places.

The next match, which I saw in its entirety, was Cardiff Metropolitan v Trefelin. Trefelin, second bottom in the table with no wins and just three draws, and the Met, seventh with six wins and three draws from twelve matches, looked like the kind of game where we would be expecting one-way traffic towards just one goal. However, it was rather different than that.

Whatever Trefelin manager Andy Hill had put in his team’s pre-match cuppa, I’ll have a drink of that myself because it seemed to work wonders. Trefelin came out of the blocks at an alarming rate and took the match straight to the Met.

And after eleven minutes, we had a really controversial moment. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that yesterday, I discussed the idea of “let’s play it out from the back, lads” and how I reckoned that it was nothing but nonsense. And we had a lovely example of this today.

The Met were awarded a goal kick, so former Port Vale keeper Arron Davies took it quickly and passed it to one of his defenders who was in the goal area with him. The defender, not realising that his keeper had played the ball, picked it up to find a suitable spot to take the kick. Obviously, a penalty was awarded, from which Trefelin scored.

They scored a second later on, and although the Met pulled one back, Trefelin scored a third with ten minutes to go to make the game secure. And that was a surprising result, to be sure.

The third match was Hwlffordd v Caernarfon, but I didn’t finish that, so I’ll tell you all about it on Monday evening.

Having seen and noted the instruction about “letting him leave at his dry weight”, the nurse, despite my insistence, stopped the procedure ten minutes before the end, and for why I have no idea. Consequently, I left yet again at 200 grammes over my dry weight, and I’m getting totally fed up of this.

It’s as if, at the dialysis clinic, I’m talking to the wall instead of to a doctor and a group of nurses. It’s high time that I did something about it, and I know what I’ll do, but let’s see what happens on Monday.

The taxi arrived as I was making my way to the door and as I was the only passenger, we were here for 18:20. There was that much wind that the driver dropped me off at the back door – he can park alongside that so I only have to take three paces and I’m inside, instead of the twenty-five metres round the front.

My cleaner was waiting and she helped me inside and to my apartment, where once I was sitting down, she stuck a disgusting drink into my sweaty little mitt.

After she left, I found some of those square toasted biscuit things and took a packet – the last one – into my office along with some of that vegan spreading cheese and an orange. I made myself comfortable and watched the live game of Y Fflint v Colwyn Bay. I’d missed the kick-off by half an hour, but there’s a function “start from the beginning” on the streaming site.

It actually was quite a good game, and as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I don’t know why Y Fflint are only third from bottom because they do play some very nice, tidy football and Jack Flint, their goalkeeper, is one of the best in the league.

They conceded a goal in the twenty-sixth minute but that was the extent of the scoring. Colwyn Bay could and should have had a few more, except for Jack Flint, but Y Fflint couldn’t get a shot over the goal line. A really good and lively striker would make a world of difference to this team.

By now, I was thoroughly exhausted as a result of my dialysis session, and although I made my best effort in writing my notes, I’d written about 300 words before sleep finally overwhelmed me. When I awoke, I posted on line what I’d written so far and went to prepare myself for bed. And what should have been an early night turned out not to be so after I’d fallen asleep yet again while riding the porcelain horse.

When I eventually fell into bed, I didn’t even have time to make myself comfortable before I fell asleep, and that was that.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about trees … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone once asked me if I knew how many trees I’d cut down in the forest on my farm in Virlet.
"One thousand three hundred and forty-seven" I replied
"How do you know that kind of figure exactly?" he asked.
"It’s easy" I replied. "I keep a log."

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LIVE: Thursday 8th October 2026 – WE HAVE HAD …

… another day of disputes down at the dialysis centre, as some people totally fail to understand exactly what “stay connected up until he’s down to the dry weight” really means, and want to shut down the procedure with ten minutes and one hundred and fifty grammes still to go.

“Is it me?” I wonder, or are there really some people who just can’t understand a plain and simple instruction?

My body is a bit like that sometimes. It can’t understand a plain and simple instruction either. All I wanted it to do was to act like the previous night and let me have a really good sleep until the alarm goes off, but no such luck. I was in bed quite late last night and it took me an age to go to sleep as well, but I awoke, probably with the wind, as we had a gale blowing outside, at whatever time it was – I don’t know, but whenever it was, I couldn’t go back to sleep. I just lay there, tossing and turning, until the alarm went off at 06:29.

For once in my life, I was actually up and about quite quickly because I had a lot of things to do. I went to the front door and unlocked it, and then I went into the bathroom to organise myself and have a good scrub up. I even had a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon at dialysis.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d gone to during the night. Unfortunately, I hadn’t gone very far.

Last night, we were doing something with a couple of teams in the Cymru Premier League or the Cymru North League. I remember that Drenewydd was one of them. What we were doing was trying to work out some kind of either a handicap for the scores or some kind of adjustment in respect of their league positions. But Drenewydd, who were currently third in the table, were not very happy about this, and their manager had all kinds of things to say to us about the situation while we were doing it.

As it happens, Drenewydd are lying third in the Cymru North table. But this dream is, I reckon, all about the forthcoming match on Friday night between Trefynnon, adrift at the foot of the table with the unenviable record of just one point and conceding the most goals so far this season, and TNS, way out front at the top and who have been scoring goals for fun just recently. Their 9-0 thrashing of mid-table Cambrian United the other week must make gruesome reading for Trefynnon.

We’ve had a 9-1 result just recently too, and then there’s this campaign by a “journalist” who wants to open up all of the results that have been censored by some of the leagues due to the extremely heavy defeats that some clubs lower down the pyramid have suffered, despite his “article” six months or so ago deploring the heavy thrashings that some clubs have had and how demoralising and embarrassing it must be, etc., etc.

Isabelle the Nurse worked her way in later and dealt with my legs and feet. I told her about my bad night again and she wasn’t all that much help in helping me find a solution. Maybe there isn’t one. I dunno.

After she left, I made my breakfast, and while I was eating, I was reading some more of THE REPORT OF THE WOOLHOPE NATURALISTS CLUB 1870.

Today, we’re still carrying on with all of the papers that have been read before the club in the year 1870. There have been all sorts of subjects addressed, but right now, we’re reading a speech by an eminent mushroom expert called Elias Magnus Fries from Sweden, one of the people who were mainly responsible for the differentiation and classification of mushroom types.

None of it is controversial, however, and in any case, I don’t know enough about mushrooms to argue.

When I’d finished breakfast, I stayed sitting at the table because I had some important work to do. My chatbot and I started work on a brand new project the other day, but when I tried to open the relevant file yesterday, I couldn’t find it, despite looking and looking.

It turned out that I’d downloaded an upgrade of ChatGPT onto the big desktop machine, and the installation had installed without deleting or overwriting the old installation, and yesterday, I was trying to open the older version. And files made with the new version are not, surprisingly, backwards compatible with the old version, so the old version won’t show them.

So to cut a long story short, when I opened the new version, the file was sitting there as it should be, and so are the old files too, which are forward-compatible with the new version.

Thus yesterday, feeling full of confidence and reassurance … "the fool" – ed … I went to upgrade ChatGPT on the travelling laptop. That was no problem. I made sure that my Windows shortcut was pointing at the new version, which it was, and then clicked to open it.

And guess what? That’s right. The file wasn’t there. And copying the URL link from the chat that was open on the desktop computer into the laptop’s chat window address bar simply produced an error message.

Consequently, Chatbot and I spent two hours trying different things to make it appear, but nothing worked. Not even rubbing this brass lamp that I have in here.

When the alarm went off, I had to stop and prepare myself for dialysis, sort out a disgusting drink and my midday medication. Once I’d done that, I had to prepare the travelling laptop to take with me. My faithful cleaner came along too in order to deal with putting the anaesthetic on my arm.

After she left, I took up my usual position of “slumped over the table with my head resting on my arms” and slowly drifted away into a nice peaceful sleep for what seemed like all of thirty seconds when the doorbell awoke me.

“It can’t be the taxi already, surely?” I thought, but it was. And when I checked the time with the clock on the microwave, it was 12:58. I’d been asleep for over half an hour.

At first, I was the only passenger, but we stopped to pick up our usual Thursday voyager from the Aqua Gym at St. Pair to take to the other side of Avranches. We had a nice drive in the lovely weather … "it’s still summer here" – ed … down to Avranches, where I arrived five minutes early. Nevertheless, it wasn’t until 14:20 that I was plugged in.

When I weighed myself on entry, there was another huge spike in my weight. My calculations were that if I were to stay for four hours with the machine on maximum, it would clear it. The nurses tried to dissuade me, even though they had the doctor’s authority to do it, and in any case I insisted. So we had the “on your own head be it” and they eventually did as I instructed.

There was an injection that I had to have today to boost my immunity system, so my cleaner had fetched it from the chemist the other day, and I took it to the clinic with me. When I saw the doctor (not, unfortunately, Emilie the Cute Consultant), I told her “here’s a little present for you, doctor”. She wasn’t sure whether or not I was being serious, but when she saw the injection, she took it and put it in the fridge.

Once everything was up and running, I settled down to watch a football match from the weekend – Hwlffordd v Y Fflint.

Even though these teams are near the bottom of the table, they usually play some classy, stylish football. However, that certainly wasn’t the case in this match. Y Fflint certainly tried, but their midfield was overrun by the Hwlfforth midfield. Hwlffordd certainly had the better of the play, and even though they had a player sent off three quarters through the game, they still appeared to have too much in the tank for Y Fflint.

That’s how it seemed, anyway, until the ninetieth minute when Y Fflint’s Joe Malkin glanced a header into the Hwlffordd net. Y Fflint hung on until the end of the game to give them a most unexpected victory.

With staying on for four hours, I could see most of a second match, so I chose Llansawel v Colwyn Bay.

This should have been an “away banker”, but it didn’t turn out like that at all. However, I’ll tell you about the game after I’ve finished watching it.

With about ten minutes and one hundred and fifty grammes to go, the nurse came to unplug me. “Why?” I asked.

“We can see that this black line, which shows us how much fluid there is to collect, has grounded out. So now, all we’ll be doing is taking out your normal body fluids”.

“You heard what the doctor said,” I replied. “I can’t leave until I’m down to my dry weight”.

And then we had a big argument about it all. In the end, they telephoned a doctor who basically said “let him do what he wants,” so I stayed.

Even so, I was still 200 grammes over my dry weight when I left, and that was so disappointing because I’ll just have to take it off on Saturday along with everything else that has accumulated. But it really is bad news when I have to fight with these people.

What made things worse was that there were two nurses around my bed while I was being unplugged, and they were talking about me as if I wasn’t there. It was hardly polite, as were some of the comments. Not that I was upset by it, just bewildered as to why it was happening.

The taxi was waiting for me as I came out of the building, and as I was the only passenger, we could go straight home.

When I arrived at … gulp … 19:20, my cleaner was waiting for me to help me into the apartment. That was just as well because as the evening drew on, it was quite cold. And it’s soon going to be jacket-wearing weather in the morning and evening, I reckon.

Once I’d sat down, my faithful cleaner bunged a disgusting drink in my hands so that I didn’t forget, and then went up to her apartment.

After she’d left and I’d drunk my disgusting drink, I went to make my tea – some more of that potato salad that I made the other day with some ordinary salad and a spicy burger. It was a strange meal, but there were bags of protein in it, and that’s what I need.

In here later, I began to write out the notes for the day, but once again, found myself asleep on my cjair later on with my notes only half written. I posted them on-line with a “to be continued” stamp and I’ll finish the rest tomorrow morning.

Before going to bed, I went for a ride on the porcelain horse and at one point, I almost fell off. Then in the bathroom and trying to stand up after sitting on the chair, my hand slipped off the freezer and I smashed my head really hard on the fridge door as I almost fell. I really was in no fit state to be around, so I was glad that I had decided to go to bed. I wasn’t safe anywhere else.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my cleaner … "well, one of us has" – ed … she told me when I arrived home "there was a report on the TV about a 75 year old guy who was stopped by the police for going at 157 kilometres per hour (about 95 mph) in an area with a 90 kilometre per hour (about 55 mph) limit."
"Really?" I asked. "He was probably afraid that he would be late for his own funeral."

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LIVE: Saturday 26th September 2026 – SOMEONE ELSE HAS …

… now said how much better I’m looking these days. Admittedly, it’s been a while since I’ve seen her, the taxi driver who used to live down the road from me in Brussels when she was young, but she actually made a point of coming over to see me after she and her oppo had put their patient out of a stretcher onto the bed.

There have been quite a few people who have said that just recently, and it is nice of them, and you have to admit that so many different people can’t all be wrong, but I just wish that I actually felt like it.

Having said that, I suppose that I ought to feel like it because I had another one of those rare nights when I was actually in bed before my curfew time of 22:30, a time that I go beyond with monotonous regularity.

As for what happened after that, I really have no definite memory. I might have awoken once or twice during the middle of the night, but I wouldn’t like to say so for definite, and I was certainly asleep when the alarm went off.

As usual, it took me a good while after that to find the enthusiasm to stagger to my feet and head off to the bathroom to sort myself out. And while I was in there, I had a good scrub up and shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon at dialysis.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out what had been going on during the night.

I was somewhere in the Balkans last night and we were fighting a revolutionary war against whoever had taken over the state. One of the things that we had was this huge St Bernard dog. Whenever there was any firing or shooting in the neighbourhood, the dog would rush off to try to join in, so we had to restrain him quite heavily. Then we saw the peace treaty that had been drawn up between the country’s militia and our regional militia. There were many, many people with us who didn’t agree with it, so it might be of some use or it might be not, and it might only apply to that immediate area rather than to a wider area, so we decided that we’d test it. We went down in one of the vans and that told us that this peace treaty was to be enforced in our area too, so we trained the dog, and we had it so that it could intercept coded messages and decode them. But it would only be for half an hour or so and then we’d lose this doggy shredder tool for ever.

Although I’ve been in the Balkans on a couple of nights in the recent past, there doesn’t seem to be anything in here that relates to anything that has been going on just recently. A couple of weeks ago I was reading something about the Greek resistance in World War II and the civil war afterwards, but there was certainly no mention of a St Bernard dog anywhere, and no-one had a van.

But the idea of a doggy shredder is a very interesting one. We shall have to try that out on the Hound of the Baskervilles.

There was a lot of us on holiday in Austria. We were staying at someone’s property where they ran an agricultural repair business. The guy who ran the business had just had an operation on his arm, so he wasn’t able to do any heavy maintenance tasks on other people’s vehicles, so his wife, when someone came, she was turning them away and telling them to come back. He had a great deal of difficulty doing this, so he was accepting jobs for two or three weeks hence. The boss of the organisation actually had a camera to film people working in his office to make sure that they were doing the right kind of work. Of course, everyone protested but he still kept them. There was a girl who was the loudest complainant, but the boss said that she spent a lot of time talking to her boyfriend. She said that she does it on a streaming service that runs in parallel with her work so that it doesn’t interrupt her work at all. The boss began to become really heavy on this subject, so I had to intervene. I said that surely the acid test is how much post she has left over at the end of the month. He just threw down his tea towel and marched off. In the meantime, a dumper had pulled up outside. It was one that needed repair and he had seen it a week ago and had put it off until today. And when it came in, it was in no state at all … fell asleep here … As well as this, we’d been skiing. The guy in the dumper asked us if we’d been skiing around here, so we said yes. He was surprised because he didn’t know that there was any snow, but we’d been having a really good time. I’d met this young girl, and she was one of these young girls to whom you could give a tickle and she’d laugh, that sort of thing. I happened to quite like her, so I was lucky enough that one day I managed to take her out. We ended up having a kiss and a cuddle before I took her home. After that, I noticed that she’d cooled off a little and wasn’t so tactile as she had been. When I gave her a tickle, she didn’t do anything, but when the boy sitting next to her did, she laughed. I thought that he’d obviously managed to put himself between the two of us. I thought that that was really a shame because I’d like to get to know this girl better.

There were loads of bits missing from this dream. I remember having a big, full A4 binder, as full as my Welsh one, and having to take certain papers out of it because I imagined that the garage guy would be asking me to fix the machine, the young girl was dressed in a black skirt and black jacket, and there was another, older girl there dressed in a green top and blue skirt.

But there’s plenty of mileage in this dream. Yesterday, I’d been listening to A CHRIS ISAAK CD which includes the song WRONG TO LOVE YOU and that presumably has triggered something off, and it does remind me of one particular skiing trip when we used to go to Aviemore in the early-mid seventies.

As I said, the folder relates to the Welsh folder from last year and the year before that I’ve just put away. As for fixing the dumper on behalf of that garage guy, it wouldn’t be the first time that I’ve had to do that in the garage of someone else.

The area of Austria where we were is that near the Czech border, which we have visited on several occasions in the recent past, and the operation on the arm causing him not to be able to work – an operation on the arm (having an implant inserted for dialysis) is one of the reasons why I haven’t played the guitars for a couple of years.

Turning work away is another thing that I could never do, no matter how inconvenient it was. And there’s plenty more too in that dream, but if I were to start to write it out, I’d still be here in the morning before I finished.

Incidentally, throughout these pages, you’ll see links to Amazon products appearing every now and again. Being a sales associate of Amazon, I receive a small commission on goods sold via my links. It costs you nothing at all extra, but helps defray … "part of the" – ed … cost of my not-insubstantial web-hosting fees.

There are also links for AMAZON UK, AMAZON USA and since the recent “troubles”, AMAZON CANADA for the use of my numerous Canadian visitors, and now in response to a request that I received, AMAZON GERMANY. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I am extremely grateful when someone uses the links to make a purchase.

Hurricane Isabelle the Nurse blew in rather later than usual and treated me here in the bedroom where I was working. Apparently, a previous client had held her up for fifteen minutes and she had two patients programmed to meet her down at her office almost imminently, so she was interested in shaving as many minutes off her appointments as she could.

After she left, I went into the kitchen to make breakfast, and while I was eating it, I was reading some more of THE REPORT OF THE WOOLHOPE NATURALISTS CLUB 1870.

Today, we are reading about the Rhipiphorus Paradoxus or “wasp nest beetle”, whose larvae are parasites of the wasp larvae. This is really not my sort of thing at all, but if I keep on reading, I might actually learn something, and isn’t that why I’m reading all these books anyway?

Back in here, there were a few things that needed doing, and then I had to search around for all the music that I need for the radio programme that I’ll be preparing next week. I needed to track down some music for five of the artists who will be making their appearance, but I managed that before I had to go to make myself ready for dialysis.

My faithful cleaner came too to apply the anaesthetic on my arm, and after she left, I had to wait for the taxi. Not that I had long to wait because the driver was here ten minutes early. And as I was the only passenger today, she had me there by 13:30.

And there, I didn’t have to wait long before I was connected up either. I was up and running by 14:05.

No-one bothered me at all today except the nurses who came running every half an hour when the blood pressure alarm sounded. No doctors or anything. So I could watch the football in peace.

We started with a match from several weeks ago, a qualifying match in the Welsh Cup between Evans and Williams v Port Talbot Town. I managed to see just over half of it before today’s matches kicked off.

My choice this afternoon was the basement clash between Y Fflint and Rhydaman. This was a match that both clubs needed to win if they were to have any chance of hauling themselves out of the mire at the bottom, so I expected them both to be going at it hammer and tongs.

And I was right too. Y Fflint played the nicer football – much nicer, in fact, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … but Rhydaman had the best of the early chances, hitting the woodwork when it was easier to score and also having a goal disallowed for offside.

Y Fflint really do play some nice football, though, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … and it really is a mystery why they have had such poor results. What they haven’t had in any of their matches is a fair share of the luck.

However, all of that changed this afternoon. An over-hit kick upfield from the Fflint midfield found Rhydaman’s goalkeeper and central defender in a helpless tangle as they both went for the same ball, leaving Y Fflint’s centre-forward with the easiest of tap-ins to open the scoring, and a few minutes later, the Rhydaman goalkeeper dropped what should have been a simple catch right at the feet of the Fflint centre-forward, who thanked him very much for the opportunity to score again.

And later in the game, while Rhydaman were throwing everything, including the kitchen sink, at the Fflint defence, a quick clearance out saw a Fflint midfielder run the whole length of the pitch and slide the ball past the stranded keeper for a third.

Y Fflint have been threatening to give some club a right doing-over, but while 3-0 is not actually the score that I had in mind, it’s good enough to be going on with. And it really was an enjoyable game to watch too.

And just a mention about the crowd who saw Penybont come from behind to beat Airbus UK Broughton. It was the fourth-highest crowd in the history of the Cymru Premier League, and if that’s not an achievement, I don’t know what is.

The taxi was waiting for me when I went outside afterwards. It was the same driver who brought me, and once more, I was the only passenger, so I was home by 18:15. My faithful cleaner was waiting for me and she helped me into the apartment. When I was sitting comfortably, she shoved a disgusting drink into my sweaty mitt.

After she left, I made the baked beans, chips and sausage that I should have had yesterday, and then had a soya yoghurt and a prune for pudding.

Back in here, I saw the start of the match between Trefynnon and Llansawel, and then I began to write up my notes from today. And now that they are done, there are just a few more things to do, and then my Sunday lie-in. Isabelle the Nurse can deal with my feet and legs while I’m in bed.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about crowds … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of the time a man squeezed into a crowded lift.
"Ballroom, please" he said.
"I’m sorry" said the woman in front of him. "Am I crowding you?"

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LIVE: Friday 18th September 2026 – THIS IS THE …

… last day of my summer holidays today.

The other day, I know that I said that I would start work today, but falling asleep at my desk after breakfast and remaining like that until exactly 11:21 rather made up my mind for me.

It’s understandable though. Even though I crashed out last night by about 21:30 and was well-tucked up in bed, going to bed early just means that I wake up early, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed …

The thing that startled me most was hearing the “click” from the immersion heater relay. “Surely it can’t be 06:38 already, it’s switching off and I’ve slept through the alarms?” No it wasn’t. It was 01:10 and the immersion heater was just switching on.

From then on, I just tossed and turned all night until I finally checked the time again – 05:52. That made up my mind so I leapt to my feet … "well, sort of" – ed … and went over to the computer to finish off last night’s notes, which are now on line.

There was time to do a few other things, including checking the stats, where I found that once more, an AI chatbot has visited my website and used ONE OF MY WEB PAGES as a reference. I forget how many times this is now.

When the nurse arrived, he was very disappointed to find me all alone. He’d grown quite fond of the Hound of the Baskervilles, and I’m sure that the feeling was mutual. But never mind. He sorted out my legs and feet and then cleared off on his travels.

After he left, I made breakfast and read some more of THE REPORT OF THE WOOLHOPE NATURALISTS CLUB 1870.

This report, written in 1871 or so, describes the field trips of the members and guests and includes verbatim copies of the “papers” that were read at their lectures. The one that we’ve been discussing today is meteorology, and, bearing in mind that this is 1871, this following quote is bound to be of interest to almost everyone and takes my “earliest mention of global warming” back yet another few years.

"it appears plain from this diagram that our climate has become warmer, the month of January particularly, say from 2 to 3 degrees. There is not so much difference in the summer months, or even of March; but the whole year is somewhat warmer on the average than at the close of the last century."

This is a fascinating quote from a group of committed and determined observers, and it’s a shame that it’s been missed by most modern means of mass communication. And it’s a good indication of the fact that global warming has been around longer than most people realise.

Back in here again, I had a few things to do but found myself fast asleep in my chair yet again, as I said earlier. How I wish that I could avoid it, especially when it takes a good twenty minutes at least to pull myself together afterwards. In fact, I don’t think that it was until I had my disgusting drink and midday medication (and midday plum) at about 12:40 that I was ready to go.

Back at my desk, the first thing was to transcribe the dictaphone notes from last night.

This is a dream that I can only remember bits of because it all evaporated when I reached for the dictaphone. I was with another younger boy from school, and there was something going on there that I can’t remember. And then I ended up in London again and I was driving away from the city centre and the North Circular Road in a sort-of North East direction through one set of housing after another after another after another, and it basically involved Liz, “that Liz”, not “this Liz” and me, and we were somewhere at some kind of fête and they called the tombola number winners, and it was a ticket that I had, and the prize was something like £113,000. Naturally, we were both delighted. We met someone who was obviously jealous because she began to ask us what we were all going to do with it and all of that. Liz seemed to think that splitting it in half was not the right kind of thing. I think she wanted her daughter to have a share too. She was annoyed when I was talking to this person about splitting it in half and stormed out. I stormed off after her but I couldn’t persuade her to come back in. In the end, she just disappeared. I went to find her daughter, and her daughter and I looked around for a while. Her daughter showed me her wedding photos, and I hadn’t realised that she’d married. That was when I had that bit about driving through London thousands of miles later while I looked to find her, and I remember the road that was dark and damp and all these terraced houses and old-type semis. I pulled up at a house at one point, and another Ford Granada pulled up behind me. I went in, and these two women asked me if I was their taxi, so I replied “no”. The other driver said that he was theirs, but he sounded completely drunk from my point of view.

“That Liz” appears quite often in my dreams, but this is the first appearance for many a long year of her daughter. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I TOOK HER TO CANADA IN 2010 after her mother died. And in any case, neither of them was the kind to make a fuss about money.

However, I’m back in London again, aren’t I? This is becoming quite a habit.

There was another dream about being back in Pionsat. Half of the football club was there waiting for the other half to go for a match. Eventually, they turned up and they went. There were plenty of players whom I knew from before, and not one of them said “hello” to me. They went off, but they came back a few hours later this Sunday morning, but they didn’t tell me how the game had gone.

This is possibly something to do with the merger nine years ago of Pionsat and Marcillat football clubs in an attempt to make a much stronger first XI. However, it didn’t work out that way, but that’s another story.

It’s interesting to see that they don’t notice me. Was I a ghost at that moment? That’s always an intriguing possibility.

When I was working in an office, there was a girl who was working there. She was married and had two children, or was it three children? But her husband was flirting around with one of her work colleagues. It turned out that they went swimming together and doing all sorts of other things together, leaving this girl pretty much on her own, so she used to come along to talk to me about it. I said “I know what advice I would give you, but it’s not my business. She had another friend who used to come along and talk to the two of us, and she made some kind of remark that I hadn’t noticed that I’d started to hold this girl’s hand. I felt “well! What’s happening here?”

I know this girl right enough, and she certainly didn’t have three children. The situation also related to her too, although I was never lucky enough to hold her hand, much as I would have liked to.

But being lucky in a dream is an unusual situation for me anyway. My family usually comes along and puts the spanner in the works long before we get to this point.

And then, of course, I was back in London again and was walking around the streets. I’d parked the van up somewhere on the edge of the city and I’d walked in. There had been some kind of confusion that Nerina and I had won all this money, but a solicitor just picked it up and walked off with it and refused to hand it back. I went to see my friendly solicitor at work, who happened to be there at the time, and had him write out the statement as to what he saw, because I was going to take it to the police. Then I had to walk back to my van through the streets of north-east London that I’ve walked through dozens of times in a dream. I started it up, and I was surprised that it started. I set out to drive away, but I realised that I hadn’t had anything to eat for ages, so I turned round and headed back. There was a bakery that I’d visited when I’d been walking around London in a dream, and with a chip shop next to it. So I parked up there and went off to buy some food.

This looks as if it might be connected to the first dream, although Nerina is there instead of “that Liz”. As for my friendly neighbourhood solicitor, I know him too, and he’s certainly not a solicitor, not by any means.

And back in London again, and in the same street as the bakery and the chip shop that I have visited on numerous occasions in recent dreams.

Having finished all of that, I began to write chapter nine of my story. This is an important chapter, the key in fact to the whole book and, if I’m lucky, the whole series. It’s where the heroine suddenly finds her feet in her new world after her tragedies in the earlier chapters, and it took quite a while to write. However, it’s turned out exactly as I would like it to.

All I need now, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … is to find myself a target audience willing to read it to see what she thinks. So if you have a girl in your entourage aged, say, between nine and twelve who might like to read it, let me know.

Chapter ten will be next, but I’ve no idea when I’ll find the time to write it now. It won’t be tonight because there’s football on later – newly promoted Airbus UK Broughton v established Y Fflint, lingering third from bottom without a win.

This is a game that Y Fflint must be targeting if they are to close the gap that’s widening at the foot of the table, cutting off the bottom three.

My cleaner put her sooty foot into the apartment and did some cleaning in the middle of all of this, and, poor girl, she was here for almost three hours this afternoon. She’s still not convinced that she’s collected everything, even though this is the first ever time that I’ve seen her use a vacuum cleaner. At least, I think that the place is spotless now.

When chapter nine was finished, I fed it through the first of my two chatbot proofreaders, and he liked it very much, so I fed it through the second one. There were a couple of typing errors and missed punctuation that it found, but the continuity and the chronology are holding up really well.

Tea tonight was my usual Friday favourite – air-fried chips with vegan sausage and baked beans with cheese and black pepper. It was delicious beforehand, but since my friend advised me to boil the chips first in order to soften them before frying them in the air fryer, they have come out even better, so I really enjoyed my meal tonight.

Especially when it was followed by a mixture of tinned apricots and tinned fruit cocktail with some of that lovely vegan ice cream from Noz. It’s a shame that I don’t know anyone else who shops there, otherwise they would be getting a weekly order.

And having said all of that, I can’t believe that I’ve had a meal and enjoyed it. God knows what it’s done to my water retention issues, but ask me if I care.

Back in here, there was the football – Airbus UK Broughton v Y Fflint. As I said earlier, this was a match that Y Fflint needed to win to kickstart their season, and indeed they played some really nice football – in fact, they showed much more skill than Airbus did. So what I simply do not understand is why they lost the match 4-1. They were the much better team, I reckoned, and they had the Airbus defence under siege for some very long periods, even after they had had a player sent off.

Mind you, their goal was a cracker. A young lad – Levi Morrison, I think – had just come on as a substitute and was playing right-back. He played a magnificent ball right over the top of the Airbus defence into the path of an onrushing striker who had the simplest of jobs to lash it into the net.

And my “man of the match”? Lassana Mendes, Y Fflint’s Spanish midfielder, who ran the game better than anyone I have seen for a long time.

It has to be said, however, that playing football in a monsoon with hurricane-force winds and the distractions of aeroplanes taking off and landing in the background can’t have been easy.

And whatever happened at Caernarfon? Four players (three from Cambrian United) were sent off, eighteen minutes of stoppage time and a 9-1 victory for the home side. That has to be a game worth watching, and I shall be looking forward to it tomorrow at dialysis.

But right now, later than ever, I’m off to bed. I need my beauty sleep if I am going to look my best for whoever knows who comes along.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about winning at tombola … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of the time Nerina asked me what I would do if I won the lottery.
"Give you half and throw you out" I said.
"Good!" she said. "Here’s £6:00, half of my win last night. Now clear off!"

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LIVE: Saturday 12th September 2026 – EVEN AS I …

… type the first few words of the notes for today, it’s 04:01 on a Sunday morning. So whatever is going on?

The answer is that although my health has been bad for quite a while, I’ve hit rock bottom, and it looks like it’s just a matter of time now.

Things were, for once, looking quite good on Saturday morning. It’s true that I’d awoken quite early, but on and off I managed to doze a little until the alarm went off at 06:29.

As usual, it took the usual ten minutes or so to rise to my feet, and then once at my desk, I began to dash off the rest of the notes from yesterday. I’d almost finished too when I could smell the smell of fresh coffee, so I abandoned work for pleasure and went into the dining area.

Whatever the secret is of the coffee that my friend makes, I wish that he’d pass it on to me because it really is delicious, and it’s just the same coffee that I use. But anyway, we sat and drank and chatted for a while until Isabelle the Nurse arrived.

As soon as she rang the doorbell, the Hound of the Baskervilles leapt to the door with his tail going thirteen to the dozen, and we wouldn’t let her in until she’d made a big fuss of him. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … he has far more luck with the women than I ever had.

She was also obliged to give him a belly rub before leaving, and once she’d gone, he dragged his master off on walkies and I made my breakfast.

Still no computer cable, of course, so I couldn’t read my book this morning, so I was soon finished, so I went into the bathroom for a good wash and scrub up, and even a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon.

Back in here, there were things to do, such as to finish off the notes and put them on line, and then, after that, would you believe that I fell asleep?

It was 11:15 when I awoke, and then I set about catching up with a few other things before it was time to prepare for dialysis.

My faithful cleaner arrived to apply my anaesthetic, and, once more, the Hound of the Baskervilles levied his taxe d’entrée and taxe de sortie.

The taxi was a couple of minutes early, and it was also my favourite driver, so I was at Avranches in double-quick time. They gave me my charging cable and stuck me into a separate room, but I had to wait to be plugged in. It was 14:15 when I was actually en route, and I settled down to watch Y Fflint v Cardiff Metropolitan.

These two teams play a very similar style of football, which is exciting, end-to-end play, constant counter-attacking and the like, and this game was no different. I enjoyed it tremendously. The game finished 1-1, and that was also the score in the sendings-off. But as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I just don’t understand how it is that Y Fflint are so low down the table. They are much better than that.

During the dialysis, I was left pretty much alone except for the half-hourly dash to switch off the blood pressure alarm.

However, right at the end, along came Emilie the Cute Consultant bearing gifts. They’ve finally decided to put me back on the heavy antibiotics, so she’s written a prescription.

She also brought me some devastating news. The recent blood test has shown them that my immunity system has finally disappeared, and I now no longer have any protection against any kind of bug that’s floating around. I must now consider myself a priority for the Covid and flu injections.

But worse than that, there are moves afoot that will change my life considerably. There is talk (and it’s only talk right now) that I might be moved to a hospital. No-one knows when, where, for how long or even if. But I have to keep alert “just in case”. They think that I need much more haematology care than I can have around here.

So six months of a hospital diet – I really don’t know if I can cope. And I hope that there won’t be any mice in the hospital as THERE ARE IN THE ONE IN PARIS.

It was my favourite taxi driver who brought me home again, so I was a lucky boy today. My cleaner was waiting for me and then she escorted me into the apartment where a meal of mashed potato and peas was awaiting me – I’d told my friend that I wouldn’t be wanting much this evening.

Once I’d washed up, I came in here to watch Colwyn Bay v Connah’s Quay, but I managed sixteen minutes of it before I was in bed, fully clothed and asleep. And bed is where I’m going right now to sleep, perchance to dream, until Isabelle the Nurse arrives.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about infections … "well, one of us has" – ed … two builders on a building site in Crewe were discussing things connected to their work.
"What’s a cubic foot?" asks one.
"No idea" replied the other "but claim for it anyway."

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LIVE: Tuesday 8th September 2026 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… day I’ve had today! It’s been another contender for “the worst day in my life”.

Last night, as you might recall, I abandoned my blog at some strange hour and staggered off to bed. I was thoroughly exhausted after dialysis yet again.

The expectation was to have a good and refreshing sleep and a nice, comfortable wake-up so that I could carry on writing the notes with some sort of enthusiasm. Well, such was the plan. The reality was far, far different.

Firstly, I began to cough again, despite the menthol and eucalyptus sweet that I’d had on going to bed. Secondly, the Hound of the Baskervilles began to bark at about 00:50. I thought at first that he was having a nightmare, but according to his master, someone had come into the building and stood outside our door. His Nibs was simply reminding whoever it was outside that he was here and on guard.

After that, it was impossible to go back to sleep. I was coughing far too much, almost as much as when this cough was at its worst a few months ago, and I just couldn’t calm it down.

When the alarm went off, no one felt less like leaving the bed than I did, but I was soon in the chair by the computer. And the first thing that I did was to fall asleep.

About twenty minutes later, I awoke and dashed off the remainder of the notes before I crashed out again. It took me a good hour or so all the same to finish them.

Just as I was adding the finishing touches to my work, my friend came in and made a “coffee” gesture, so I quickly finished off that I had to do, posted it on line and then wandered off into the kitchen for a coffee and a chat, and also to give a stroke to the Hound of the Baskervilles.

It was quite a nice way to start the day, coffee and a chat about obsolete musical and studio equipment. It brings back many happy memories of our lives on the road.

One of our discussions was about the amps and speakers that we owned. I told him about the six-channel Marshall 200-watt PA amp and the 2 2×12 columns, the 200-watt bass amp and cabinet that I have down in the Auvergne, and the Fender bass combo and “Jaguar” bass that I have in Canada.

My friend said that they aren’t doing much good there. I replied that they wouldn’t be doing much good here either. There would be nowhere to put them. I already have my “stack” of the Genz Benz 200-watt bass combo, the 25-watt six-string combo and the 45-watt Carlsbro bass combo in the living room, along with the Gibson EB3 and the five-string fretless bass as well as the six-string electric guitar. In here, there’s the Roland cube bass amp and the little battery-operated one, and also the Ibanez six-string acoustic and the Ibanez four-string bass.

Isabelle the Nurse was late arriving today, and just as yesterday, the Hound of the Baskervilles rolled onto his back straight away for some tummy tickles. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … he has far more luck with the ladies than I ever do.

Eventually, Isabelle the Nurse tore herself away from the Hound of the Baskervilles and came to deal with me. I told her about my foot, which is now hurting more than ever before, and told her to be careful.

After she left, we continued chatting for a while, and then I went to make my breakfast as the Hound of the Baskervilles dragged his master off for a walk. I didn’t envy them. There was a gale-force wind blowing outside, and it was lashing with rain.

While they were gone, I made my breakfast and sat down to read some more of my book, THE REPORT OF THE WOOLHOPE NATURALISTS CLUB 1870.

We’ve had nothing controversial this morning, but I was often away from the book researching some of the places that they visited and what the opinion is today of what they saw. And there’s nothing really that has changed, although the Eurypterus Brodici,, discovered by the Reverend Brodie, seems no longer recognised as an individual species

Back in here later, I finished off all of the notes from yesterday and they are now on line, but I knew that I wasn’t. Ever since I’d awoken this morning, I’d been good for nothing, so tired was I.

And this carried on too because once the notes were online, I crashed out again on my chair. And it was for just five minutes either.

When I eventually awoke, it was disgusting drink and midday medicine time, so I went into the kitchen to sort things out. I also had my first of the disgusting cement that’s supposed to be an anti-potassium drink. But as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I think that before a doctor prescribes any medication, the doctor ought to take a month’s supply himself so as to see for himself what the patients might think of it.

One thing that I had forgotten was the dictaphone, so I sat down to transcribe whatever there was.

I was responsible for bringing up a young girl, and as a result, I’d been set several tasks which would account for being the new set of rules about different things and ways of expressing them in the 1980s. I’d managed to gope with them all and was quite successful, although I found it difficult to find the local names for one or two of these things. The next thing was a load of twenty of these kinds of rules suddenly appeared, and I was expected to deal with them all, not necessarily in alphabetical order. This was quite a task by the looks of things, but any of them looked fairly straightforward. I was sure that the girl involved would be able to help me with a few of the others, so it wouldn’t look all this difficult. Just as I was getting into it, the Hound of the Baskervilles had a nightmare and barked, waking both of us up in this apartment.

Earlier on, I’d mentioned the Hound of the Baskervilles awakening us, so it wasn’t just a dream. It really was the case.

But this story about the man bringing up the girl and the new set of rules would have been Ohh! So relevant in 1987. But never mind. It might yet be that Biggles Flies Again in much more modern times, although with the same characters as before. Who knows?

I started to work for London Transport last night as a conductor on the buses on my very first day. Even though I’d been to training school, I was feeling quite nervous. So I boarded this bus, which was crowded and had an old man as driver and a woman conductor who was in her forties. She wasn’t very happy to see me because she’d run these buses on her own for a long time but I was determined to help. However, I kept on making a mess of the most simple of things, and nothing seemed to be going right at all and I’m sure that she was extremely frustrated with me. Then, the driver happened to mention “have you fixed the clock?”. I replied “no”. “well we have to go to the clock on the bus to get it right”. So I had to go, and he took me up to the top deck, and there was a little doorway, so we squeezed in and went up. The clock was in a kind of tower. But when we arrived there, there was someone asleep in that little room. It turned out that he was a motor mechanic for one of the repair yards. Of course, they threw him off the bus and if he ever came here again, he’d regret it. We reset the time on the bus, and by the time that I went downstairs, there were only a dozen or so passengers. We began to collect the fares from them, but I couldn’t find my fare sheet. I’d left it somewhere while I was fixing this clock

The clock on each of these buses resembled a miniature “Big Ben” and took quite some maintenance, although people in this tower were never imagined to be sleeping in it.

And although we have the usual (or what used to be usual) panic attack, I can’t think of whatever I might be doing in a London bus.

Later on, the cleaner came round, and before she began to do her stuff, she chased me under the shower again. So there’s a nice clean boy … "well, clean, anyway" – ed … ready for tonight.

Once I’d calmed down, I began to write the notes for tonight. But as I implied just now, my head wasn’t in it. It wasn’t in fact until about 17:00 that I managed to pull myself together enough to put some coherent sentences onto paper.

There was no tea tonight – I really didn’t feel like anything – so I grabbed some toasts and cheese, a disgusting drink and an orange and came in here to watch the football.

We had Caernarfon v Y Fflint, and as I watched the match, I confirmed my assumption of what has been going wrong with Y Fflint, in second-last place in the JD Cymru League. They just aren’t having any luck.

Although Caernarfon won 3-0 as expected, Y Fflint were giving as good as they were getting. They hit the woodwork several times, they had balls kicked off the line a couple of times. Nothing is going right for them this season and it’s high time that they had a change of luck.

But right now, I’m off to bed, later than I anticipated, but it can’t be helped. We’ll see what tomorrow brings if I can survive the coughing and the pain in my foot.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about Biggles … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of my friends has told m that he was a big fan of Biggles and has all of the books – except one.
"Which one are you missing?" I asked.
"Biggles Flies Undone" he replied

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Monday 31st August 2026 – HERE WE GO …

… another Monday out of the way, kicked into touch, or whatever other phrase you like. And I’m ready for a relaxing day at home tomorrow, that’s for sure, although with my faithful cleaner coming round to do her stuff, “relaxing” is probably the wrong word to use.

Last night, though, wasn’t so much fun. It was about 23:00 when I finally crawled into bed. It took an age to go to sleep, despite how tired I was feeling.

And even then, once I was asleep, it wasn’t for very long. I’ve no idea what time it was when I awoke, because I didn’t check. But I didn’t go back to sleep either, and I spent quite a while tossing and turning in my bed.

When the alarm went off at 06:29, I eventually, after much persuasion, managed to end up sitting on the edge of the bed, and it took me a good ten minutes to force myself upright.

The first task was to unlock the front door so that the nurse could come in later. Then I went into the bathroom to sort myself out and have a good wash and shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant later at dialysis.

Back in here, I had another listen to the dictaphone to listen to what had gone on during the night.

And while there was something on the dictaphone last night, it’s another one of these dreams that the World is not yet ready to hear. It’s basically relating to something that didn’t happen on Friday evening and something that the crowd shouted at one of these football matches

The nurse turned up as usual, and for a change, we had something of an intellectual discussion about the difference in working styles between the USA and Europe.

Interesting as the American system might be, though, it’s positively inhuman. I told him about that crazy American company where Alison and I once worked. I was trying to resolve a problem with an American counterpart in New York one Friday, but it was my time to go home. He said that he’d ring me on Monday to discuss it further. So Monday came and at 13:00 (08:00 in New York) I began to anticipate the ‘phone call. But nothing at all came. When it was almost my home time, I telephoned New York to speak to him.

Instead I had "I’m sorry. His position was made redundant on Friday. He doesn’t work here any more."

After he had left, … "the nurse, not the guy in the office in New York" – ed … I went to make my breakfast and read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

Today, he’s carrying on where he left off and talking about Renaissance archaeology in Germany, we have "And when the old heathenish system was beginning to assume that influence which has been at last happily overthrown ; when Italy, its chosen land, was looked to as the exclusive abode of all art and refinement, and the greatest minds of that country were sedulously devoted to the restoration of classic forms ; what wonder was it that the apostate Teuton, crouching at the feet of fallen Italy, should seize with avidity on the new light, and eagerly substitute the arts of the heathen for the once honoured forms which no longer spoke, as of old, to every national and religious feeling ?"

Considering that we’re discussing the end of the fifteenth and most of the sixteenth century, talking about “heathenish systems”, “the apostate Teuton” and “the arts of the heathen” is not only grossly offensive, it is completely inaccurate too.

Back in here after breakfast, I had the usual things to do, and then I had a nice surprise. Liz rang me up for a chat, and how wonderful it was to hear from her.

It wasn’t quite a Rosemary-esque type of chat but nevertheless, it went on for quite a while. The good news is that towards the end of September, I might be having a visit.

The next task was to begin my search for music for the radio programme I’ll be preparing this week. There’s going to be quite a lot of new music in this one.

That took me up to midday … "with lots of music still to find" – ed … when the alarm went off to remind me to sort myself out for dialysis. I found my disgusting drink and my midday medication, but could I ‘eck as like find my keys?

The last time that I remember them, they were in my hand after I walked away from the door after unlocking it earlier this morning. I usually throw them onto the bed as I’m staggering past on my way to the bathroom but they weren’t there.

Just as I was about to start and retrace my steps, my faithful cleaner turned up, and she found them in an instant. What a brain of a duck your hero has!

After she had applied the anaesthetic to my arm, she wandered off and I sat down at the kitchen table to await the taxi. And just as I was starting to doze off and another footballing dream began to appear, the doorbell rang.

This provoked something of a panic when I awoke. I dropped one of my crutches and had to ferret about for it, and there were all kinds of other confusions too before I finally made it to the front door.

It was one of my favourite taxi drivers, so we had a good chat all the way down to Sartilly where we had to pick up someone else. My driver was telling me all about this guy that she had met on the internet and then just happened to drop into the conversation that in three weeks’ time, she was off to see her daughter in Montréal. And how jealous was I? I told her that if there was any room left in her suitcase, to let me know and I’ll squeeze myself in.

Despite now being back to the usual time now that Mrs Dinosaur has left the area, we were still fairly early arriving at dialysis. And the first issue that I had was that I couldn’t get out of the car. I’ve no idea why but I couldn’t manage it. In the end, I had to resort to all kinds of unorthodox manoeuvres to manage to stand upright.

One of the young nursing auxiliaries accompanied me to my bed, but halfway along the corridor I felt a heavy tap on my shoulder. When I looked round, it was one of the other auxiliaries who, for some reason or other, seems to like to flirt with me. Apparently, she wanted to say “hello”.

Today, I was lucky in that it was one of the young experienced nurses whom I like who was in the section where I was. Friendly and efficient, she had me up and running by 14:15. And she “fixed” the machine so that the alarm wouldn’t ring all the time if my blood pressure dropped.

There wasn’t as much fluid to take out today as there has been in the recent past, mainly because I’ve been careful about what I’ve been drinking, so I asked her if she could increase the extraction so that I would be “ahead” on Thursday. I suggested 300 grams, so she winked and said nothing. After she’d left, I noticed that she wound it up by 400 grams.

Then I could watch some football. The first match was from Friday night’s fixtures. Penybont have made several marquee signings this season in an attempt to put their miserable campaign in the second part of last year behind them, whereas their opponents tonight, Y Fflint, are still struggling in the basement with less experienced players.

However, it was a good match from what I saw. Penybont were, as expected, the more skilful team, whereas Y Fflint were more of heavyweight “sluggers”. Both teams had several chances but when I had to leave the match, just after half-time, Penybont were 1-0 up

The reason I left was because at 15:30, the live matches today started. My choice today was Hwlffordd v Trefelin. These were two bottom-of-the-table teams, with Hwlffordd surprisingly at no points and no goals, with newly promoted Trefelin just above them with one point and one goal.

Having seen how much chaos big burly veteran centre-half Louis Gerrard caused to the Rhydaman defence when Trefelin pushed him up front on Friday night, I was surprised to see him back in defence today. If I had been Trefelin’s manager, I’d have tried again today with him up front to see what he could do.

The game was quite nicely balanced, but I had to abandon it because it was home time, and I’ll watch the rest again at some point.

In between the football matches, I’d had a visitor. Emilie the Cute Consultant came to see me. She asked about the cough, and I told her that there was no change after the useless antibiotics her new colleague had prescribed. I told her that I had told the new doctor that they had been tried twice previously and done nothing, but the new doctor didn’t want to listen to me.

Emilie the Cute Consultant told me that she’d prescribe the powerful ones that work for a bit (although when, though, I don’t know because it wasn’t today) and then ominously added that if they didn’t work this time, because I was unable to cough up phlegm, she would have to prescribe a camera up the nose and down the throat again.

That’s the last thing that I wanted to hear, so after she left, I asked my nurse to bring me one of those sample pots that they have, and I’m going to teach myself to cough up some phlegm, or otherwise find someone else who can.

When the session was over, I had to wait a few minutes to be unplugged, but once she’d finished with me, I could go, so the nursing auxiliary who had tapped me on the back earlier accompanied me to the door.

And by the way, regular readers of this rubbish will recall me talking the other day about the “black line” on the machine’s display panel that refused to go down at one point, so the nurse increased the amount of fluid extraction. I checked today, and it does indeed start to rise again just after we’ve had our mid-session coffee. However, I’ll keep it a secret because if I can get them to increase the extraction every time, so much the better.

On the way to the door, I was weighed. And sure enough, I was below my official dry weight, which suits me fine.

The taxi driver was already waiting for me which was good, and as I was the only passenger on the return, we were soon home. My faithful cleaner was waiting for me as usual, and she helped me into the apartment. Once I was sitting down, she stuffed a disgusting drink into my hands.

After she had left, I grabbed some of those small toasted squares and some spreading vegan cheese and dashed in here. Another football match had started twenty minutes ago, and it was one that I really wanted to see.

Luckily, with the live stream you can either start “now” or “at the beginning”, so I started to watch Colwyn Bay v Llandudno from the kick-off – a real local seaside derby with another one of the biggest ever crowds in the Novira Welsh Premier League.

As you might expect, Colwyn Bay had the better of the game, but newly promoted Llandudno made them work very hard for their victory. The final score, 2-0 to the Seagulls, sent the Seasiders back to Llandudno feeling very disappointed because the score was something of an exaggeration. And had I been refereeing, I would have awarded Llandudno a penalty for handball and disallowed Colwyn Bay’s second goal for a clear foul a minute or so beforehand.

After the match finished, I began to write my notes for the day, but, having had to fight off waves of sleep during the football, I couldn’t keep going. After about half an hour, I was so tired that I couldn’t concentrate. Consequently, I posted on line the notes as far as I had written them and crawled into bed. I can finish them off tomorrow.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about phlegm and borrowing someone else’s … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of my cousin’s medical examination for joining the army.
He was unable to produce enough urine for an examination, so they sent him home to try again and to come back the next day with the little pot full.
Still unable to “produce”, he had a quiet word with his sister.
When he went back a week later for the results, the doctor looked at him with a great deal of pleasure.
"Well done, well done, well done" said the doctor. "You have made medical history."
"Why is that?" asked my cousin
"You are the first man whom I’ve ever met who has tried to join the army when he’s two months pregnant!"

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Sunday 16th August 2026 – IT HAS NOT …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

0

Thursday 13th August 2026 – THIS PHANTOM ALARM …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

0

Sunday 2nd August 2026 – THIS IS WHAT …

… an ideal Sunday is, as far as I’m concerned.

Once I’d cleared up a few outstanding things, I have been footballing for the rest of the day. And not to mention the lie-in this morning … "lie-in?" – ed … I told you not to mention that!

Last night, I was in bed round about 23:00 and asleep quite quickly too. But not for long. I awoke at some point (after 02:30 because the light on the car park was out) and lay awake tossing and turning for a considerable number of hours. When I looked at the time, it was about 05:05, so I thought that I might raise myself from the Dead at some point, but the next time I checked (after it felt as if it had just been a couple of seconds) it was 07:09.

"Right – give me thirty seconds and I’ll be up" I exclaimed. "Just let me close my eyes for another ten seconds or so first!"

And the next thing that I knew, it was 08:15.

"No point in getting up now" I thought. "Isabelle the Nurse will be here very soon." however, it was another good half-hour before she arrived. And that didn’t bother me at all because by that time, I’d gone back to sleep.

She shouted “hello” when she came into the apartment and I vaguely sort-of heard her, but I didn’t react. She came in here and found me still in bed, so she applied the cream and massaged my legs and feet, fitting my compression socks when she finished.

As she was leaving, she shouted “have a good sleep”, and I think that I replied with an incoherent type of grunt.

After she had gone, I climbed out of bed and eventually had enough energy and motivation to head for the bathroom to sort myself out. After that, I went into the kitchen to make breakfast – black coffee, porridge and two home-made croissants, with diluted fruit juice with which to take my medication.

What with one thing or another, it was 09:15 when I started to make breakfast, even having enough time to put Strawberry Moose back on the bed from where he had been during the night.

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

He’s still in deep discussion about Gothic and Romanesque architecture, comparing the differences between them and also the similarities, because there are plenty of similarities. "Still a square abacus, a Romanesque moulding, an intermingled round arch, show that we are hardly yet in the region of pure Gothic. The abaci are intermixed, round, octagonal, and square, the latter seeming to prevail ; and columns of semi-classical character, of which Canterbury affords almost a solitary instance in England, are frequently employed. Lancet windows, of various proportions, but often very short and broad, are most usual ; but circular windows, with or without tracery, and occasionally large pointed windows without tracery, occur. The tooth-moulding is rare, and, when it occurs, is not cut with the same boldness as in England."

Back in here afterwards, after a most enjoyable and relaxing breakfast, I came back in here and after I’d done a few things that needed doing, I made a start on finishing the notes for yesterday. And that took much longer than it ought, because I kept on going through those waves and waves of fatigue that keep on happening. Even after a lie-in this morning, too.

Once I’d finished the notes, I went for a disgusting drink and the midday medication, and then back in here, I started on my little footfest. The first instalment was the remainder of the match between Cardiff Metropolitan and Trefynnon. It was 3-1 when we left it with 17 minutes to go, but in the time remaining, the Met went on to score a further three goals. That was tough on Trefynnon because while they were always second-best in this game, they weren’t five goals worse. But as a newly promoted side, they were just caught on the wrong foot all the time.

The next game was the remainder of the game between Llandudno and Fflint. When we left this game, it was 2-1 to Fflint. However, Llandudno brought on their Dad’s Army of veteran strikers Marc Williams and Mark Cadwallader, both of whom have figured in these pages over a period of many years.

These two turned the game on its head. Each of them scored a goal to give Llandudno a 3-2 victory. This was, by the way, the best match that I have seen so far from the Cymru Premier League’s matches.

Finally, there was the live game – Connah’s Quay Nomads v Caernarfon Town. The Nomads took the lead in this game but not long afterwards, the Cofis equalised with a penalty after a Nomads player handled the ball in the penalty area.

In the second half, the game swung from one way to another with no one really having the better of it, but a snap shot by Zack Clark from the edge of the area towards the end of the game proved to be the decisive difference.

From what I’ve seen so far, Caernarfon and Connah’s Quay looked to be technically the best teams, but the most exciting teams to date are Cardiff Metropolitan, Flint and Llandudno. I’m looking forward to seeing many more matches involving those three teams.

I had no meal tonight – just a handful of crackers and biscuits, and now I’m off to bed.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about football … "well, one of us has" – ed … a little old lady went into the bank in Liverpool carrying two sacks. One was full of £10 notes, and she put it on the counter.
"Where did you get all this money?" asked the bank clerk.
"I live next door to Anfield" she replied. "At half-time, loads of people come into my garden and pee behind my hedge. I’m so fed up of it that recently, I’ve been appearing, brandishing my secateurs while they are “busy” and demanding £10 … or else …"
"So what’s in the other sack?"
"I’m on my way to the pet food manufacturer. Not everyone has got £10."

0

Saturday 1st August 2026 – YET ANOTHER DAY …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She was quite indignant about that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

0

Saturday 18th April 2026 – I HAVE HAD …

… a somewhat better day today. Mind you, that’s not at all difficult because yesterday was pretty awful.

But never mind. After writing my notes and doing everything that I have to do, it was about 21:00 when I finally made it into bed. As usual these days, it took a while to go off to sleep, but once I fell asleep, I remember nothing at all for quite a while.

At some point, and I’ve no idea when, I had to leave the bed, but I was soon back into bed and soon asleep again. At a later moment, I had to go down the corridor again, but I’d only been back in bed fifteen minutes or so afterwards when the alarm went off.

Despite the fact that I’d not long ago been up and about, it was another one of the usual struggles to leave the bed, and I eventually managed to stagger into the bathroom.

Afterwards, I headed into the kitchen for my medication and hot drink and then came back in here to listen to the dictaphone.

Nerina and I had gone on a coach tour and we’d been put into a hotel room like everyone else, and we went to sleep. When I awoke this morning, I noticed that there was a mouse, a crab and two really strange creatures. One was blue and the other was olive green. There was also a huge spider. I managed to deal with the crab straight away and threw it out of the room. The next one was something with a hard shell, so I hit it with a fluorescent lamp tube that was lying around and it shattered the shell, so I threw it out of the bedroom window. The spider – I managed to chase it out of the room and it ran off down the corridor. The mouse was not a mouse – it was the thing that I’d hit with a fluorescent lamp tube. It resembled a mouse of a kind. The two others – they were really gruesome things. The green thing was like a starshell, like a star or something with its tentacles. I managed to catch that at the right time and with the door open, I could flick it outside. But this blue thing was really rapid. Every time I tried to catch it, it ran off down another end of the room. Eventually, Nerina came out of bed and joined in the hunt. We managed to corner it but it still slipped out. In the end, I had the bedroom door open wide and we manoeuvred it over to that side of the room so that when we came close to it, it ran outside the door and off down the corridor so we closed the bedroom door.

These are obviously my brother’s monsters from last night’s notes, following Nerina and me about. But what a hotel in which to stay when it’s infested with things like those. I wonder if any other room had such a collection.

However, reflecting on yesterday, if anyone had asked me even five years ago to go a day without coffee, I would have said that it’s impossible. I used to drink coffee by the bucketful. But ohhh! How times have changed! Needs must when the devil drives and all of that.

This was a dream where I was in Edinburgh, and I was asleep in my car. When I awoke next morning, there had been a couple of stickers stuck on it. I wasn’t sure what they were about, so I didn’t read them at first. Eventually, I managed to tear one off because these stickers were on the inside. It said something about bad parking and how my vehicle would be taken away if it weren’t removed. I then had a look at the other stickers. These were car park receipts with £0:00 in them so I don’t know what this was all about. Anyway, I was trying to make up my mind which car I was in because I couldn’t remember and it wasn’t until the day began to dawn that I realised that I was in a gold-coloured MkIII Cortina saloon and I have no idea what I was doing in there because a gold MkIII saloon is one that I have never owned.

Sleeping in my car is nothing new for me and even Nerina has shared a car with me on occasion. There’s a story about Nerina and me sleeping in the car in Cherbourg, but the World isn’t ready to hear it.

Surprisingly, MkIII Cortinas of all shades and colours have passed through my hands at one time or another, either as taxis or to be broken for spares, except a gold one. Even now, I still have a dark brown one and a bronze one, and I shan’t be letting them go at any price. They are both 2000E models so they are worth a fortune. The bronze one, one of the very few surviving 2000E estates, will fetch a mint of money.

I was planning on moving down to London, and I’d noticed this huge estate on the north-east side which was terrace after terrace after terrace of modern houses so I went along to enquire about one of them. It turned out that many of them were social housing, reserved for undergraduates or pensioners, but there was one part of it where single people could either buy or rent one of these places, so I told him that I may be interested in one of those. We went through all of the procedures and everything, and I ended up signing for one of them. Once the contracts were exchanged, they gave me the address of the property, which was in Onllwyn, which is in North Wales, so I went there to see what it was that I’d bought. It was a small cottage with a very large garden. I thought “never mind. I can do quite a lot with this”.

Leaving aside the fact that Onllwyn is actually in South Wales, in between Neath and the Brecon Beacons, I would love a small cottage with a big vegetable garden, but I need to be fit and healthy to cope with it. The housing estate seems to remind me of the flats in Bartle Road in London near Ladbroke Grove underground station, built on the site of Rillington Place where Christie, the mass murderer, lived.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up as usual and was pleased to see me looking better, just as I was pleased to be feeling better. She sorted me out and then wandered off on her rounds. I made breakfast and read some more of THE CELT, THE ROMAN and THE SAXON by Thomas Wright.

And here we go again. We’re revisiting Roman Roads, passing by briefly on our way to agriculture, and out author tells us "Antiquaries seem often to have been misled by their dissimilitude to the great Roman military roads, to imagine many of these to have been British. It is not very probable that the older inhabitants of the island, such as Caesar found them, divided into separate and hostile tribes, which seem often to have changed their boundaries, as they were pressed forwards by other colonies, should have been great road-makers."

How did he think that the “other colonies” managed to press forwards? And how did he think that products only found in certain places, like the blue stones of Preseli, travelled from one part of the country to the other, such as Stonehenge? It has been recognised for a great many years that there is a whole network of prehistoric trackways across Britain dating back to Neolithic days and even before.

Back in here, I had a few things to do, interrupted by a couple of bouts of falling asleep unfortunately, but then I set about editing one of the radio programmes whose notes I dictated a couple of weeks ago. That programme is now actually complete and ready to be broadcast, although editing out thirty-eight seconds of speech was quite a challenge.

After a disgusting drinks break, I was debating whether or not to start editing the next one in the queue, but my mind was made up for me when Rosemary rang for a chat. I don’t know for how long we were chatting, but it took me right up to the start of the football.

It was the last match of the season for the league, and what a dramatic day it was. Two matches were of major interest, Y Bala v Llansawel and Y Fflint v Cardiff Metropolitan.

The situation was simple – Y Fflint had to equal or better Y Bala’s result, and Llansawel had to beat Y Bala and hope that Llanelli would beat Hwlfordd so that Llansawel would qualify for the European playoffs.

We were watching the Y Fflint v Cardiff Metropolitan game, which I thought was the wrong one, and although it was rather “agricultural”, it had plenty of action. And as goal after goal was scored in both the matches, the pendulum swung from one way to the other – Y Fflint stay up and Y Bala go down, and then a couple of minutes later, Y Bala stay up and Y Fflint go down.

Our game finished in a 2-2 draw, but Y Bala were undone late in the game to go down 2-1 after leading 1-0 at one point, so Y Bala are relegated to the Cymru North next season. Llansawel, even though they won, were forestalled by Hwlffordd hitting Llanelli for six with no reply.

Y Fflint threw everything that they had at the Met and did everything they could to keep the Met out. They finished the game with only nine players, two having been sent off for “denying a goalscoring opportunity”. However, I thought that the first one was rather harsh as there were two other defenders rushing back to cover.

Other good news on the football front is that the five clubs whose Tier One licence application was refused – Colwyn Bay, Y Bala, Trefynnon, Caerau Trelai and Caerfyrddin – have all been successful on appeal. For the latter two, they’ll have to wait another season because they both missed the promotion bus this time around.

So right now, I’m going to bed, early as it may be, and hoping for a nice lie-in tomorrow. Isabelle the Nurse can treat my legs while I’m still in bed.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my old vehicles … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone once said that the group “Queen” had written a song about me.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Well, who else would a Cortina landslide in ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ refer to?"

0

Sunday 12th April 2026 – SO FAR, I HAVE …

… managed to avoid falling asleep today.

However, that’s not such a big deal today, because when you don’t wake up until about 09:00 and you don’t leave the bed until about 09:40, there isn’t much time to fall asleep afterwards.

In fact, you might say that I spent twelve hours in bed last night and, believe me, I enjoyed every minute of it. I didn’t actually, to my shame, rush through everything last night – it was something more like a leisurely stroll – and by the time that I’d finished the notes, the stats and the back-up, and then gone to sort myself out in the bathroom, it was just coming up to 21:30.

How long I spent in the bathroom, I didn’t record, but it wasn’t all that long and I was soon in bed, tucked up under the quilt.

And there I stayed until … errr … 03:55, when I had to go walking the parapet, and then back in bed, I slept until 07:05. However, I managed to go back to sleep quite quickly, and there I lay until the nurse awoke me. And that first sleep was not far short of six and a half hours, and it’s the best sleep that I’ve had for ages.

The nurse was having another good moan at me this morning. He was complaining that I hadn’t pulled the curtains. Well, much as I love the dark, seriously, I love the light too so I’m happy in the morning with the sunlight creeping around the edges of the shutters in here. He thinks that I ought to be in a perfect state of darkness in here while I’m asleep.

Once he left, I tried to go back to sleep but without success. And Alison made up my mind for me when she sent me a text message. Trying to reply when you have your head and your ‘phone down under the quilt is not easy, believe me, and when you drop the ‘phone on the floor and the message turns into a load of gibberish that sends itself, it’s even less easy than that.

With all of that going on, I decided to leave the bed, although it took me a good twenty minutes to find the enthusiasm and the energy to stand up. But once I was up, I headed off into the bathroom to sort myself out.

Back in the kitchen afterwards, where I forgot to take my medication, I baked my croissants, and they turned out really well. I was so impressed, especially as I was using some of the cheap pastry rolls.

So, with two of my croissants, some porridge and some hot black coffee, I sat down to read some more of THE CELT, THE ROMAN and THE SAXON by Thomas Wright.

And here we go again. In a footnote on page 115, he launches another attack on one of his predecessors, Thomas Stukeley, saying "The antiquary Stukeley published a “Medallic History of Carausius”, which, although it displays too much of that writer’s hasty speculations and conclusions, shows us with how much advantage the coins might be made to illustrate the history."

Whilst he’s not wrong about the coins illustrating the history, as we have seen before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the phrase “the writer’s hasty speculations and conclusions” reminds me of a well-known phrase involving a pot and a kettle.

After breakfast, I came back in here to transcribe the dictaphone notes.

There was some kind of civic centre opened in a local town. It had a huge ballroom-type of place, meeting room or whatever and there was a small annexe that had a licence for fifty people. Someone had applied to hire the smaller room for a birthday party and had sent in a list of fifty people who would be attending. However, the local council was dithering about this because they were thinking that whilst a couple of people on this list might not turn up, a couple of other people might turn up unannounced and take the attendance to over fifty, in which case there would be all kinds of legal issues, so they were still dithering about this for ages.

We were actually talking yesterday about people turning up uninvited to funerals and weddings. It’s strange how these things come round so quickly. And, of course, fire regulations, particularly in the UK, are such that there is a genuine fear of being found over the limit for the room. And when you see the size of the fines, no wonder people are rather nervous

I was staying with Bob Dylan last night. We were at his house, which was overlooking one of the lakes in either Vermont or New Hampshire. It was a very steep climb up to the front door and the garden was filled with flowers. We were sitting on a kind of terrace, and the way to go back to the front door was to go down, across and back up again, but he went inching his way along the edge of one of the flower beds, which looked extremely dangerous to me. He came back with a plate of cold baked beans. I asked him about why he preferred them cold instead of hot, but he didn’t really answer. Then, he said a little later that we had to go into town for something so I went into the house to put on my shoes. However, every couple of minutes, there was some kind of interruption, and there were lots of things that I had to do. Each time that I tried to put on my shoes, there was something else, but in the end, I managed to put on my shoes. Then, the story skipped and it was about a musician in a group who also played for Y Bala. He had mysteriously disappeared and no-one knew where he was. The police report said something that he had been living in a two-bedroomed terrace but he had seen something that had dragged him out, and no-one knew what that something was. He’d gone to follow it but hadn’t returned. Later on, back at Bob Dylan’s house, he was having an evening with his friends. There were three of his friends there and the father of this missing musician, footballer or whatever. They were all eating mashed potato and baked beans that were cold.

Actually, this looked much more like one of the lakes in northeast Maine to me, a region that we have visited ON NUMEROUS OCCASIONS.

But the cold baked beans are interesting, especially if they are American ones, packed full of sugar and additives. They must be disgusting. Even the “British recipe” baked beans don’t taste the same as they do back in the UK. I can’t recall whether a musician ever played for Y Bala, but Ywain Gwynedd had a long and successful career in the old Cymru Alliance League, mainly for Porthmadog FC.

With all of these interruptions while I was trying to put on my shoes, I’m surprised that a member of my family didn’t turn up. The odds would have been nailed on that they would have been involved somehow with all of that.

After that, I had a few things to do and then I recommenced the editing of the radio notes from where I had fallen asleep yesterday.

Not that I advanced very far because the girls arrived to say goodbye. We had a little chat and then an exchange of presents before they pushed off to catch their train for a girly evening in Paris. It was really nice of them to come to see me, and I appreciated it very much. I hope that they come again soon, and stay for longer.

Once they had left, I carried on with the editing, and the programme is now finished. It’s not very good at all, but given the circumstances that surrounded this concert, it’s lucky that there is a tape recording at all. Its value is in its rarity – it’s probably never been broadcast on the radio previously.

By now, it was time for the football. I’d already seen Stranraer beat Spartans 2-1 away from home and Greenock Morton lose away at Kirkaldy against Raith Rovers earlier this afternoon, but now it was the Welsh Cup Final between Caernarfon and Y Fflint. And for seventy minutes, we had one of the most exciting games that I have seen recently.

It’s a pity, though, that Y Fflint didn’t wake up until the twentieth minute, because the match was all over by then. Caernarfon had roared into a 3-0 lead while Y Fflint were still sleeping.

But as I implied just now, after that Y Fflint made a game of it and had several chances to score, but it was all too late and the score remained the same until the final whistle.

There were a few things to do after that, and then it was time for tea. Just chocolate cake and home-made ice cream again. That will do me for this evening, and now, when I’ve finished everything, I’m going for an early night.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about walking the parapet … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone once asked me "you know how we say ‘spend a penny’ to say that we are going to the bathroom"
"Yes?" I replied.
"So what do you say in Europe?"
"Simple" I replied. "We say that we are going to euronate."

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