… two of the rest of my life in the dialysis ward sorted out.
And to my surprise, apparently I’m something of a celebrity. The doctor in charge of the dialysis department listens to my rock programmes on the radio and has told the rest of the clinic who I am.
We’re not at the stage where people are asking for my autograph or where I’m being besieged by groupies (more the pity) but still ….
That’s the advantage of living in a small place – it’s much more fun being a big fish in a small pond than it is being a small fish in a big pond (or maybe talking about fish, I should have said “place”). I’m not cut out to be a city-dweller
Another thing that I’m not cut out for is going to bed early. It was another horribly late night last night, but that’s because the Highlights (if you can call it that) of Y Bala v Aberystwyth.
Over the last few seasons Aberystwyth have been getting worse and worse. They narrowly escaped relegation two years ago, and it was only an administration issue affecting Pontypridd United that saved them last season.
This season, slugging it out with Y Fflint for the other relegation place alongside LLansawel, they are doing badly and were swept aside by Y Bala last night. In fact the highlights had them in the Bala half just once
It’s a good job that it wasn’t the live match this weekend because it would have been painful to watch, I reckon.
So I was soon in bed after the final whistle and once more I didn’t need much rocking before I disappeared into the ether.
Just one or two brief awakenings but I went back to sleep almost straight away and there I stayed (for a change) until the alarm went off.
In the bathroom I had a good wash, a shave and a change of clothes. After all, at the Dialysis Ward I might even meet Emile The Cute Consultant so must look my best.
Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. We were working for a Sports Radio. There was an apartment available to let and we’d been asked to show some people round it. It was only a single-roomed apartment, bedsit-type of place that doesn’t take much showing around. The guy who came to look at it was extremely interested even though it was untidy and dirty. He asked a few questions about the gas fire, whether it was connected to the mains and whether it was a good connection. While I was poking around in there having a look I came across firstly another key which had presumably been left down underneath the fire and some money too, some Euros and some £5 notes totalling (thinks) €30:00 and £10:00. There was something about this €30:00 but I can’t remember what it is. There was certainly rather more to this dream but I can’t recall it. The guy was extremely interested in this place. Finding the key and the money was the icing on the cake as far as he was concerned but the place was dirty and needed a really good clean-up after the previous tenant had left. It looked like the person smoked and there was cigarette ash everywhere.
And in a minute I’ll tell you a funny story about a Sports Radio. But finding stuff hidden under the gas fire is one thing, but it’s not where I would have hidden it. In the book of THE MALTESE FALCON Sam Spade hid the falcon in the ice compartment of his refrigerator
A friend of mine from Chester was talking about the collieries at Llay. It turned out that that was where a friend from school had gone to work. He said that it was his first real job and his last one too because the colliery had closed down. It was just over the Christmas period and never reopened. The people knew that it was closing but the fact that they didn’t reopen it after Christmas showed that they had changed the plans without communicating this to the workforce. The workforce was of course all laid off, part of the industrial desolation in North Wales. The site was left to rot for several years but eventually it was cleared away in some kind of demolition control. The Wrexham Maelor Council was left to look after what was left of the property. The site was now some kind of industrial estate. My schoolfriend said “why don’t we go to have a look at it?”. I thought that this was something that we should have done a long time ago, many years ago, but I suppose that now as as good a time as any. It would have been nice to have been there fifteen years ago when it was working but you can’t have everything
Llay has been in the news over the summer. The local football club won promotion to Wales’s second tier in dramatic circumstances. The name of the club, Llay Miners Welfare FC, recalls the days when there were collieries in the area. And if the family Bible is anything to go by, my grandmother’s people came from Penrhiwceiber in South Wales and likely came north when there was a wave of pit openings in the early years of the 20th Century.
But there’s another question. I rescued her Bible from a skip where it had been thrown after her bungalow was cleared out. Who’s going to rescue it when my apartment is cleared out after I’ve gone? Apart from the fact that it has her family tree in it, it’s actually one of the rare Bibles that was written in Welsh
I dreamed that some woman had come into my bedroom and began to lick and hug my door. She said that she was my teacher but I didn’t recognise her from school at all
And what on earth is that all about? Women coming into my room and licking and hugging my door? Obviously I’m not famous enough yet despite what goes on in the clinic and I’ll have to work hard at that.
There was also a dream about two German women coming out of a cafe. One of them was saying to the other about her daughter can stay with her for a couple of days and then return home, then her son could go to stay with her too. This woman was something to do with the German military. The subject came up about a motorbike somewhere in a town along the Rhine. The woman wondered if it would be suitable for her son so she went to ask some kind of German officer if she would borrow some kind of transport to go down to pick it up but the German officer was not impressed at all and told her that he’d already said in the past that she’s not allowed to borrow any transport for this kind of purpose
That’s not very relevant to anything at all that I can think of. I’m clearly losing my grip.
When the nurse came, she sorted out my puttees (which fell down again later), issued an order for supplies and tried her best to give me some encouragement for this afternoon. I asked her what time I should apply the anaesthetic patches and she told me to ring the hospital
And it’s a good job that I did because they didn’t have me down to come and they hadn’t therefore booked the taxi to bring me
And then I could finally make breakfast and read my book. And do you know? I can’t remember what it was that I read today
After breakfast I watched that new Sports programme showing the highlights of Newport City’s game last night. And the reporter "and (the ‘keeper) hangs onto the ball like my missus hangs on to an Easter egg" .
That’s my style of commentating so I sent the commentator a mail of encouragement and we struck up quite a conversation
There was some photocopying to be done so I attended to that, interrupted by my loyal cleaner. She’d brought up the post and was going to apply the anaesthetic patches.
The post had some good news, for me and for her. That Society that deals with personal autonomy who came to see me the other week considers that I need at least 13 hours of assistance per month (instead of the current 8) and will give me a grant for the extra hours.
One of the tasks for which I need assistance apparently is “moral support” – although what moral support I can have in 13 hours is a matter of debate.
The taxi came and whisked me off to Avranches. The driver was a rocker and so we had rock music all the way which made a nice change.
And who should be on duty today at the Dialysis Centre but Emilie The Cute Consultant. It really was my lucky day.
Today I was in the public ward where it was rather warmer but I was still stretched out on a bed and thus unable to work
Instead I carried on reading Colonel Carrington’s reports about life on his frontier post “across the lines” in Indian Territory. And we reached a crucial point in the narrative today.
He’s been accused by his own junior officers of timidity in confronting the Native Americans but it’s clear in that sending troops to the forest to bring trees back to build the stockade, to cut planks to make the buildings etc, he doesn’t have the time or the resources to go on the offensive.
However, one of his subordinates takes a couple of troops, totalling 80 or so men, on an independent command and disobeying all his clear orders, goes in an impetuous chase of a party of natives.
It goes without saying that this group of natives is just an advance guard for an ambush, and of all the palefaces, there’s not even one survivor.
When we were there IN 2019 and walked across the battlefield, you could see just how ideal it was for an ambush
Carrington noticed it too when he went to retrieve the bodies, and in his notes he describes – in lurid, gruesome detail – the mutilations that they had suffered, many of which had been committed while the victims were likely still alive.
When they were disconnecting me and unplugging me, they talked about my “unwillingness” to become involved in the more gruesome parts of this dialysis procedure.
They talked about sending the psychiatrist to see me and asked if I would like that. Well, apart from the fact that I think that anyone who wants to see a psychiatrist needs his head examined, I am actually quite comfortable with my problems. And if anyone can help me overcome them it won’t be a trick cyclist. I shall have to do it myself.
It was a silent drive back here with a very taciturn chauffeur, and then my cleaner watched as I fought my way upstairs alone
And Rosemary had sent me a message. She tells me that this morning she saw the snow on the Puy de Sancy. Winter’s on the way already.
Having mentioned Aberystwyth’s disaster last night, it’s even worse because Y Fflint surprisingly beat Hwlffordd this afternoon to pull away up the table.
Tea was, for a change, a burger on a bun. It’s been a while since I’d had one of those, made with the stuff that my friend in Munich had sent me ages ago. I’d made it up and then frozen the burgers to use bit by bit.
And my roly poly was delicious too.
So now I’m off to bed – when I’ve dictated the radio notes that I’ve written during the week. High time I went back to work
But on this psychiatry thing, the last time I was there they gave me the Rorschach test
The psychiatrist showed me a photo of an ink-stain and asked "what’s this?"
"Rorschach test image number six" I replied
"Ohh come on" he urged. "Be serious"
"OK" I said. "It’s a loaf of bread"
"And this?"
"A dragonfly"
"And this?"
"An octopus"
"And this?"
"Eeeuurrgg" I shuddered. "That’s an evil parasite that sucks out the lifeblood of human beings and gorges itself on their energy and shrinks the willpower …"
The psychiatrist looked at the card. "I’m very sorry" he said. "But that’s a photo of my wife"
"But was I close?"
"You were close"
