Tag Archives: http://www.amazon.co.uk

Wednesday 15th July 2026 – IT HAS BEEN …

… a slightly better day today (I think) following the exertions of the last few days and I’ve been feeling a little more like it, which makes a change. Even though it’s only a little more, every sign of improvement is welcomed.

Not that you would have thought so last night. It was another late night when it should have been an early one, but as usual, I can’t seem to concentrate enough these days to push on without being side-tracked.

And as you might expect, with it being the quatorze juillet last night, there was an impressive, mammoth firework display down at the port. And it started up the minute that I climbed into bed.

That was guaranteed to cheer me up as I was desperately trying to go to sleep, as you can imagine.

These days, I’m in no fit state to walk to the edge of the cliffs on the other side of the headland to take photographs of the events, so I’ve posted a photo that I took in 2022 when I was still able to walk around.

Once the racket was over, I tried to go to sleep, but it seemed to take longer, longer than ever last night. And when I finally did, waking up at about 01:30 and again at 02:20 was certainly not part of the olan.

That second time, I had a great deal of difficulty going back to sleep, but somehow I managed it, only to wake up again at 06:15. At that point, I could have gone for an early start and slid my feet out of the bed onto the floor, but I decided against it and curled up in bed to make the most of what I could of these remaining fifteen minutes.

When the alarm went off, it was the usual struggle for me to rise to my feet – maybe fifteen minutes or so – and then I staggered off into the bathroom to sort myself out for the day.

Back in here, the first job was to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

I was dictating my notes on Canada during the night. It was one of Darren’s friends who turned up in a big Cadillac and wanted to have a chat with me. We went off for a chat and we were in some kind of schoolroom, and there was this old man there who was worrying everyone about his problems, and no-one else was allowed to have any problems unless they accepted his, all that kind of thing. People tried to sit him down and talk to him but he just refused, so I’d written out an invitation for him to come along and have a chat, but seeing as I thought that I wasn’t going to waste my time, I screwed it up and threw it in the bin. I put something on the notice board but I folded it over so that no-one else could see it, but if he wanted to, he could undo it and read the message. Then, the boss came down and said that he had committed suicide and wanted to know what we knew about it. We all repeated this story about what had happened, but he found my letter that I’d screwed up and thrown away in the waste bin, so he immediately began to connect me with all of this. He was interrogating me quite closely, but I was saying that I was just telling him what I saw and what happened, and not forming any opinions of my own at all. Then I had to write out my notes about my visit to Canada. I started off with a piece of A4 and a pen, but I thought that I may as well write it out first or last onto the computer. So I started the computer, but somehow I was back with these pieces of paper and a pen and I must have had five attempts with these papers and pen before I was able to sit down and start on the computer.

Darren in Canada actually does know someone very well who has a Cadillac, but it was certainly not him last night. Anyway, here’s a photo of the car in all its glory, just to liven up events.

The story of the old man relates to nothing that I can recall, but the piece of paper in the bin has some kind of relation to an event probably fifty years ago, and it’s strange that it should suddenly occur right now.

The idea of writing out by hand my dictaphone notes is strange too. Today, my first instinct when transcribing them would be to reach for a computer keyboard. Having five attempts with a paper and pen beforehand would be a very strange way for me to go about things these days.

But something else on here was that my elder sister and her husband put in some kind of appearance. They had come into a little bit of money so they were talking about buying a couple of cars to clean up and sell them. My sister asked her husband about prices for cars and he replied “what do I know? Where can I find out?”. I pointed them in the direction of the Auto Trader magazine and told them to take out a monthly subscription, but if they are going to do this on a regular basis, they may as well try to get hold of Glass’s Guide, which is something that values vehicles much more precisely than the Auto Trader stuff.

This is probably the most unlikely dream that I have ever had, I reckon. My elder sister and her husband would certainly not be interested in messing around with cars, not under any circumstances at all. So why I dreamt it, I have no idea.

I’d put some secondary double glazing in the windows of my apartment. I’d rescued them from an old solicitor’s office so they had something and “solicitor” written on them that people could see from outside, so I ended up having one or two enquiries about this kind of thing. Someone came along and asked me to try to find a girl who had gone missing, so I said that I’d see what I could do. I went round to see her family – it was an Italian father-type figure with a young blonde-haired wife. It turned out that this daughter was the daughter of his first wife who had died, and the girl was still in existence and still living, although she’s not lived at home for a few years. All in all, he quite satisfied me that what he was saying was correct. Then, he asked me to stay around because he might need my services at some point, so I stayed around and he chatted to me for a while. In the end, he wanted to begin to upset a couple of nurses’ homes in the area, finding ways to annoy them. I tried to find out what they had done to annoy him, but he wouldn’t say, but he went about it in his own way with no help from me. I noticed that he was becoming increasingly more bitter as the time went on. It was then that I found him standing in a doorway looking into the room, so I went to look into the room too. There was some kind of monster there … "the bit that goes here has been edited out" – ed … Eventually, he explained to me that that was his son by his first wife and was born terribly handicapped and deformed. That was the reason why he had killed his first wife, and this is the reason why he’s wanting to attack these nurses’ homes. His wife said in the end that all he seems to think about is his son. He doesn’t think anything at all about anything else.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s not usually my habit to edit out parts of my dreams. If they are the disagreeable or violent ones, I usually don’t publish anything about them, but this one was so interesting, apart from the bit that you really don’t want to read and you’ll thank me for not publishing it, that it needs to be published as far as it’s appropriate to do so.

The apartment that I had was a modern one, not this one here, on the second floor of a building and the plot seemed to be something of a cross between FAREWELL MY LOVELY starring Robert Mitchum, and Michael Caine’s PULP, ironically two of my favourite films and how anyone can give “Pulp” a one-star rating is totally beyond my comprehension.

But I’m not quite sure of what to make of this dream. It was certainly disturbing, but on the other hand, it was certainly interesting and compelling. I just wish that I knew what its significance was because, apart from those two films, it relates to absolutely nothing that I can recall. Certainly nothing recently.

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

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

The nurse was early today. 08:09 when he put his sooty foot through my front door. We just chatted a little about the impending storm later on this afternoon and after he’d finished my legs and feet, he cleared off.

Once he was out of the door, 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 introduced the subject of bell towers (spire, steeples and all of that) into the discussion, and goes on to say that "the introduction of so striking and characteristic a feature in any form was a very great step. It is one which owes its origin to Christianity ; a campanile was never attached to an idol-temple, and is equally forbidden at this day to the proudest mosques of the false prophet. It is to Christian worship alone that the joyful sound of bells gathers the multitude of the faithful ; it is therefore to Christian temples only that the lofty towers are attached which rear them on high to convey their clear voice more distinctly and uninterruptedly."

This is on page 182, so there are another 375 pages of this kind of nonsense through which I have to wade.

There was some tidying up to do in the kitchen after breakfast, and then back in here afterwards, there were several things that needed doing on the computer. After that, I could start work.

Today’s task, as I mentioned yesterday, was to write out the remaining notes for the radio programme that I had been preparing. And that took longer than expected, due in part to me crashing out in the chair for forty-five minutes. I would probably still be crashed out in the chair right now too had it not been for a couple of spam calls and someone using a strimmer right outside my open window.

But I’m really fed up of these spam telephone calls, as you can imagine. It’s non-stop, one after the other after the other and it’s all the ‘phone calls that I seem to have these days.

Although it took longer than I was anticipating, I’d finished writing the notes by 15:00, and that’s not bad going considering how tired I was, my little doze in the armchair, my pause for a disgusting drink and probably a few other things too.

There was even time to make a good start on preparing a concert that will hopefully be broadcast the week after the one that I have just finished. And that reminds me that I must push on and finish dating this huge pile of concerts that I’ve inherited from several different sources. Once I do that, I’ll have a much better idea of who did what when and where and co-ordinate them into my “anniversaries” database. Over the past three or four years, it’s accumulated births and deaths, album release dates, rock concert and festival dates, United Nations international days and significant other dates too, and it’s ever-expanding.

Tea tonight was delicious. It was vegan pie with vegetables, mashed potato and gravy. Cooked to perfection, of course. There’s not much vegan pie left now, so I’ll have to start planning to make some more.

The promised storm didn’t turn up this afternoon. However, round about 18:00, there were a few rumbles of thunder in the distance. Right now, though, the sky has really gone black over Bill’s mother and I don’t reckon that it will be too long before it arrives. … "ten minutes later, it was pouring down with rain" – ed … After the fireworks last night, I could do with a quiet night in bed.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the nurses home … "well, one of us has" – ed … I remember maybe about forty-five years ago when the nurses were lodged in what had been the old Memorial Hospital in Victoria Avenue in Crewe.
The building was due to be demolished but it had somehow kept going, but it was in a pretty dreadful state. The local Health Authority launched an appeal to raise some money to carry out the repairs.
The appeal had the slogan "PLEASE HELP OUR NURSES HOME".

Sunday 5th July 2026 – WHEN I AWOKE …

… this time, it was 22:25 exactly, and I was feeling almost as bad as I was yesterday. And just like yesterday, the only thing to do when I feel like this is to go to bed. And so, just as yesterday, I hauled myself over to the bed, fully clothed, and that was that. The only difference was that this time, I remembered to close the shutters.

It seems to me that I was definitely asleep even before my head touched the pillow, and there I lay until all of … errr … something like 03:00. Really, I’ve no idea of the exact time but it was after 02:30 because the streetlight on the car park had gone out.

From there, it was another night of drifting in and out of sleep, and which bit was which, I couldn’t really say. There were times when I felt like getting up and times when I was dead to the World.

The whole lot came to a shuddering halt, though, when Isabelle the Nurse arrived and she definitely awoke me. She sorted out my legs and feet and then went off on her travels.

By now, I was wide awake, but I still vegetated in bed for quite a while. Eventually, I went into the kitchen, where the time was showing as 09:28.

The first thing that I did was to bake the croissants. I switched on the oven and while it was warming up, I brushed the croissants with milk. When the oven was ready and warm, I stuck the baking tray with the croissants inside and set the timer to sixteen minutes.

While they were baking, I made my breakfast – porridge, hot black coffee and lovely grapefruit juice to wash down my medication.

When the croissants were done, I stuck two of them on a plate and sat down to eat my food.

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

Again, he managed to steer clear of controversy, but he’s now beginning to appreciate the Egyptian art that he denied existed at the very beginning. And so we have "And if any forms which might arise in such structures, any groupings of natural objects, or shapes given to artificial ones, appeared to the artist to be adapted for his purpose, they would be as unhesitatingly transferred to the excavated rock as flowers, fruit, and leaves, or representations of human and animal life."

Back in here, I began work on finishing off the notes from yesterday when I fell asleep, and now they are online, ready for your perusal.

After that, we had football, Greenock Morton v Stranraer in a friendly. And you could tell that this was Morton’s first game because they looked slow and lethargic. And as they tired, Stranraer came more and more into the game and gave them a few frights. Although Stranraer are two divisions lower than Morton, they looked much sharper. After all, this is their fourth friendly so far.

The final score was 0-0 and Stranraer definitely earned it.

Next was the dictaphone, and I was absolutely astonished by how far I’d travelled during the night.

I decided that I would go on a one-man campaign against the ridiculous amounts of overspending in Parliament, so I had to think of a way in which I was going to do this. By some kind of happy coincidence, the door into the Prime Minister’s office was open, so I just walked in to where he was sitting and told him about these stupid expenses that I’d discovered. I took his newspaper away from him to highlight some of the major problems. Anyway, I walked off with the newspaper and began to make a list from inside about what I could read of it that affected what I’m doing. When I’d finished, I went back into the office and down past all of the people to where he was sitting and took his next newspaper from him. This time, I stayed there and pointed out all of these expenses in this. We found maybe a dozen pages about the household pets in Buckingham Palace. He was horrified when he saw that one of the cats was actually receiving in food and treatment and all that kind of thing – more money than he was earning. I thought that this might shake him into doing something, but instead, he took the newspaper back and had me thrown out of his office.

This dream doesn’t seem to relate to anything that’s been going on anywhere, especially when I recognised the prime minister as David Cameron. I do, however, have to say that if ever I were in a position in Buckingham Palace, the first thing that I would do is to have some auditors in and let them go through the entire Royal Household accounts to trim out as much unnecessary spending as would be possible. Even without investigating and just looking at news articles, I can identify millions of Pounds of wasted money.

There was also something about me coming out of Wistaston Road, crossing over Edleston Road there at the traffic lights by Oak Street. There were a couple of other people there, young boys, who were teasing each other about the places where they worked.

This crossing is one that I know intimately, having crossed over here on numerous occasions. And with several of the offices that used to be down there in the good old days, I can understand why people would be teasing each other about their work.

My brother was trying to run a disco or something and wanted to know where he could get some loudspeakers from. He’d been looking through the newspaper, the Evening Sentinel, but couldn’t find anything. He didn’t think that there was anyone in the area. I told him about a company called “BOSS” that had an office in Hanley and sold hi-fi equipment, speakers and all that kind of thing, so off he went. He came back a little later with someone from the company, whom he showed around and downstairs and upstairs in his bedroom. Eventually, the guy from there sold him something, which we thought was rather crazy but my brother was determined on having them

BOSS is an American company so they aren’t likely to have a branch in Hanley, and opinions on their products are very varied. One thing is for sure, though, and that is that my brother could never afford anything that they are likely to sell.

Somewhere in this dream … "which dream?" – ed … was something about one of my garages and all the mess that was in it and the car spare parts, old cars and everything all over the place. It really did look a mess. I thought that one day, I’m going to have to get down and tidy this, or leave it for my heirs to sort out

This is another recurring dream – the old cars and spare parts stashed in lock-up garages. It used to be true, too, back in the old days before I came to live abroad. Not so much now, although my barn down on the farm could do with a good going-over one of these days.

We were staying somewhere in the country, in one of these big country houses where there was some kind of weekend organised. We were there on the Saturday night when two masked men burst in and held us all at gunpoint while they took all of the jewellery and valuables and everything like that. They put them into two sacks, one of which was a red sack. As they were leaving, my brother and I leaped out of the window outside and confronted the robbers. We managed to overpower one and put him on the ground. He was the one carrying the red sack but the other one got away.

The chances of my brother and I actively co-ordinating a joint plan would be about zero. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we don’t actually get on very well with each other and haven’t done for about thirty years, if not more.

Later on, Nerina and I were wandering around North London somewhere. We were on our way to the bank or the post office and had gone past the local cemetery and looked inside, which was magnificent. Then I suddenly remembered about these attackers. There was one person in our crowd who was one of these public school-types and I didn’t like him at all, so I said to Nerina that we ought to go round and have a chat with him to see what he could tell us. She said that he was ill and couldn’t be disturbed. I said “I bet you £500 that he’s the guy – the other guy for whom we’re looking”. We walked around on our way to the post office and came across this big place called “The Soho Curry Hut” with queues outside, so we went to have a look. It was selling a meal of curry for £2:50, a ladle of rice for £2:50, that kind of thing. I thought that this would be a lovely place to come for a meal one night, so we went to have a close look at it and a close look at the menu.

The cemetery reminded me of the big one in Montmartre, the Cimetière de Montmartre when Nerina and I were there very early one morning, looking around before the morning rush hour began. But the curry house sounds really interesting. I could do with a really good curry right now, I must admit.

As for the public school guy, and I can still see his house, a tidy cottage in the countryside, just like something out of an AGATHA CHRISTIE FILM. I’ve no idea why I fingered him as a likely suspect, but it would all seem to fit.

And how many times is that just recently that I’ve been in North London during the night?

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 on the sidebar for AMAZON UK, AMAZON USA and, since the recent “troubles”, AMAZON CANADA for the use of my numerous Canadian visitors. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I am extremely grateful when someone uses them to make a purchase

Later on, I knocked off to go and make some bread. I was reminded of a chat that I had a few years ago with a friend about the crusts of bread on a loaf, and I had a little theory, so I decided to try it. Instead of going with 190°C for five minutes and then 180°C for thirty minutes, I went with 200°C for eight minutes and 180°C for thirty-five minutes. And sure enough, there’s a lovely thick dark crust on the finished product.

Back in here, I had a few things to do, but the next thing that I remembered was that it was 20:41. I’d crashed right out without even realising it. It’s a good job that I don’t drive any more, isn’t it?

So now that I’ve finished my notes, I’ll just do the stats and backing up and then go to bed, ready for dialysis tomorrow … "I don’t think" – ed …

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about bread … "well, one of us has" – ed … the local priest was out and about having a walk when he met a parishioner coming towards him, carrying a baguette in one hand. His other hand was slouched lazily in his pocket.
"Ahh" exclaimed the priest. "Here you are, coming towards me on this nice Sunday morning, with the staff of life in your hand."
"Well, yes, Father. "
"And pray, what is it that you have in your other hand?"
"A baguette, Father."

Wednesday 17th June 2026 – LAST NIGHT, I …

… was actually in bed as late as 21:30, would you believe?

Mind you, there was a very good reason for that. After I’d finished writing my notes at round about 20:00, I just closed my eyes for a little relax, and the next thing that I knew, it was 21:15.

In the present state in which I find myself, I’m not going to turn away the opportunity of a good sleep, regrettable though it is, so it is something that has cheered me up a little rather than disappointed me.

All that was left to do was to do the stats and the backup, and by 21:30 I was sliding into bed under the covers.

The strange thing, though, was that once in bed, I couldn’t go off to sleep. I lay there for hour after hour tossing and turning and hoping that sleep would catch up with me, but to no avail. At one moment, I checked the time and it was 02:20 and I’d still not managed to go to sleep.

At some point, though, I must have done because I suddenly had one of those dramatic awakenings that I sometimes have. I checked the time, and it was 06:13. When the alarm went off, I was sitting on the edge of the bed, half-dressed, so I’m claiming that as an early start.

The first thing that I did was, as usual, listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

I was going to this extremely interesting party that was taking place round by Worcester way. There were all kinds of people here, people of my age, people younger, people older, and we all seemed to mix together really quite well. As the party progressed, there were different kinds of things taking place. Someone had arranged for some kind of water feature where we could swim, and there were these two really ancient ladies, one playing a clarinet and one playing an oboe. This party continued, but when it finished, we all had to go to bed but the younger ones of us, we were engaged in tidying up, so we were desperately trying to find hooks on which to hang towels, etc., sorting things out, trying to find out where they went to be put away. I had a necklace of black jet, faced with white stones that I was cleaning by putting it in my mouth and running it around, I don’t know why. At the end, the sound of this clarinet and this oboe coming upstairs and we were told that they were coming upstairs to spend the night here too. As I began to talk to them, they began to tell me about life with JRR Tolkein, how they used to go to all of his parties in Worcestershire, and how marvellous and mysterious they were. And as they carried on talking, I was totally and utterly entranced. There was all this movement and noise, and people rushing around behind me, but I was totally carried away by the conversations of these two old women.

It’s very easy to imagine house parties like this. There are dozens of them in AGATHA CHRISTIE and JEEVES AND WOOSTER films and I for one … "and probably the only one too" – ed … would be quite happy to go to one such and talk to some of the older guests to see what they remember of high society.

And we mustn’t forget that Tolkien was brought up in Worcestershire when he was a child following the family’s return from South Africa.

The nurse came in with his floozy at the usual time to sort out my legs and feet and to fit my elastic socks. After he left, I made my breakfast – the first food I’d had for forty-eight hours – and I was good and ready for it. While I was eating, I was also reading more of EBURACUM OR YORK UNDER THE ROMANS by C Wellbeloved.

At the moment, we’re finishing off religion and beginning to turn our attention to artefacts. And, very regrettably, there are dozens of reports of “in such and such a year, so-and-so was found (and the book gives a long list of its attributes and sometimes even a photograph) but it has been lost to view in the meantime and I have been unable to trace its current whereabouts”.

It’s a really sad state of affairs, the amount of British architecture that has disappeared into private hands.

There were a few private things to do back in here, and then I began to choose, re-edit, reformat, pair and segue the tracks. And that took me right up to lunchtime, so I wandered off for a disgusting drink break and the lunchtime medication.

Back in here, no sooner had I sat down at my desk when Ingrid rang. She must have a camera in here too or else she’s using Rosemary’s. We had a Rosemaryesque chat that went on for an hour and eight minutes about life in the Auvergne, life here in Normandy, life in Paris etc. I think that Isabelle is feeling the strain of solitude.

After our chat was over, I began to write the notes for the radio programme, and now there are only three left to write. Fortunately, they are not going to take me very long to do.

While I was doing it, though, I had the bedroom window open, and my faithful cleaner stuck her head in through the opening so as to have a chat.

Tea tonight was the vegan pizza that I should have had on Sunday, but it wasn’t a success, mainly due to the dough having sat around in the fridge since Sunday. I only served myself half of the pizza, and then I could only eat half of that and the rest went into the bin.

After tea, I came back in here to write my notes but I was overwhelmed by a giant wave of fatigue that completely knocked me out. I wrote some kind of brief note on my blog and went to bed.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about artefacts … "well, one of us has" – ed … the Queen Mother went once to open a village fête.
Crowds of people were milling around er when she was heard to say "Please don’t touch the exhibits."

Monday 8th June 2026 – I’M COMPLETELY FED UP …

… with all of this. Who in their right minds would put two experienced nurses of a good length of service into a ward with just six people and two inexperienced nurses (one who started here on 1st January and the other on 1st May) together in a ward full of eight people?

And guess where I was!

It totally defies description that the staffing organisation in a place like this could be so totally chaotic. I really felt sorry for the two girls being so snowed under like this. It’s true that the two experienced nurses came into our ward near the end and helped them tidy up, but by then, it was far too late to do any good.

Just like last night, really. By the time that I climbed into bed, it was too late for me to have the kind of sleep that would do any good, especially after the early morning on Sunday.

However, I’d only been in bed for five minutes when I began to dream about some home improvements I wanted to do. There was someone, a British guy, doing some work on a place up the road so I went to see him about coming along to do some work for me. He didn’t say very much, but after a while, what he said was that he would give me some of his tools to carry down to my house so that they were there when he came. He gave me what looked like an enormous professional mastic gun that ran off the mains and was on two wheels, and somehow, I had to take this home. He unplugged the machine from the wall and then we came to a huge cable drum with three or four different cables on it that you wound in. It was divided into four or so compartments. He had the white power lead, and there was a splitter in the middle of it, so he unplugged the lead that was in the splitter and worked his way round, winding this cable off the cable drum until eventually they were both free. But there was a box in the middle of this white cable so he opened it up and took a battery out. It looked like a PP3 to me, so I asked him what sort of battery it was, and he replied that it was a PP2, which was one that I hadn’t heard of. I didn’t say anything – I just took the cable as best as I could and there was no battery in that box now so I had to find a PP2 battery from somewhere to make it work, and I was making myself ready to push it on down to my house.

This must be something to do with the guy who rang me on Sunday. He was telling me about all of the improvements that he had made to his property.

The battery issue presumably relates to my friend who was just here for a while. “Batteries” was quite a topic of discussion.

At that point, I awoke dramatically, but only for a moment and I was soon back to sleep.

The next time that I awoke, the day was just starting to dawn. But even though I was contemplating leaving the bed at one point, I must have gone quickly back to sleep because when the alarm went off, it awoke me.

Once I was dressed, I slid over to the computer and began to start work. The first task was to see where I’d been during the night.

Seren made another appearance last night. We were in North Africa, somewhere in a desert condition where there was a town. For some reason, we were walking around on the edge of town and I noticed that these cars were driving along this straight road but suddenly moved to the left and back to the right again, so we went over to find out why. There was no apparent reason except for a hollow in the ground, so Seren began to dig in this hole and she came upon a metal box. She picked up the metal box and we went back to our hotel. We couldn’t open the box, but it looked quite old so we rang a local museum, which came to look at it. They took it away and gave us a receipt. It turned out that it was a treasure from some sheikh from some hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago. They offered her 100,000 dirhams for it, but she said that maybe it might be worth a bit more if they looked more at it. In the end, she settled for 900,000 dirhams.

This dream relates to the guided tour that I was giving around Chester the other day and the story of the Roman amphitheatre that had my visitors so enthralled.

And by the way, 900,000 Moroccan dirhams is worth about €85,000 and never mind the treasure – I would sell my own grandmother for that amount of folding stuff.

For some reason, we were living in a three-bedroom detached house with an integral garage, quite modern. And with the story of this treasure, I had to take it to the museum but Seren was ill. But we moved suddenly in this dream to a hotel that also had an integral one-car garage so I left Seren in there with instructions not to open the door to anyone. If she needed anything, ask the receptionist in the hotel, and I went off. It wasn’t to the museum, it was to the police and they wanted to know more about finding this box. They said that a group of criminals was eager to lay their hands on it. He showed me a photo of the man who was said to be their ringleader. I recognised him immediately as someone who had seen us dig it up, so he sent orders out to someone to do something. He then switched back to French and said that it’s quite possible that this box is going to end up being more valuable than I might think. So I left there and went back to the hotel to find that Seren had gone. At that point, I had a ‘phone call saying that it’s one million dirhams to have her back. And then the ‘phone was cut.

Yes, I’ve given those kinds of instructions out to some people before. And the house was just like a house that Nerina and I once saw with a view to buying if only we could have sold ours quickly.

But this dream is starting to sound too much like the plot to CARRY ON SPYING for my liking.

What made me go to the police was that there was a message on this box inscribed in runes. And whilst I can read some runes, I can’t read the rest but I did know that the Norse never came this far south so I assumed that it had been stolen from somewhere and brought and hidden in the desert.

And this part relates to the book that I’m reading right now. They’ve discovered a spearhead and when they x-rayed it, they saw a mark on it that, to some, resembled a rune and to others, no, it didn’t.

At some point, a man and a few of his sidekicks turned up. They asked me how I could live with the recent election results but not live without Seren. It suddenly became clear what was going on. This man was a Bedouin and all the time that he was talking to me, he was combing his hair. And then, when he had finished, he sent one of his sidekicks off to fetch him another comb. He had really thick bushy hair and a bushy moustache and beard but I hadn’t seen him before.

The beard and moustache remind me of my friend, but my caller was much more like the Fat Man in the above-mentioned film.

So, not just going back into the same dream once more, but three times more. Is this a record for stepping back into dreams?

And did I succeed in rescuing Seren? Tune in next time, people, same time, same place.

The nurse turned up as usual, even more cheerful than yesterday. Still, he’s off on his week’s break tonight and it’s Isabelle the Nurse starting tomorrow. He was in chat mode, talking about the commerces in Granville. After he left, I made breakfast and read some more of Vera Evison’s book AN ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY AT HOLBOROUGH, KENT while I was eating.

And I had to laugh, although I know that I shouldn’t. Someone broke into their workshed and stole some tools and a couple of artefacts. She was quite indignant, but what is she doing in the graves that they are exposing? A well-known phrase involving a pot and a kettle springs to my mind.

Back in here, I carried on adding products to MY AMAZON STORE for a while. And then I went to make myself look pretty for Emilie the Cute Consultant.

My faithful cleaner sorted out my anaesthetic, and then, the taxi was early for me. And believe it or not, it was a Mercedes-Benz. Apparently, my taxi company had taken over this one at the start of the month, and it’s a bit more upmarket than what we are used to.

It was pouring with rain outside and I had to find my raincoat.

Our driver had to go via Sartilly to pick up our usual Monday partner, and then we set off for the dialysis centre.

The driver threw me out at 13:35 and due to the chaos in our room, I wasn’t plugged in until exactly an hour later as the two girls struggled against the odds. And when they did, it hurt like hell and it’s still hurting now.

Once I was up and running, I was able to do some work until the doctor on duty came to see me. No prizes for guessing who. That’s right, Emilie the Cute Consultant. She asked me how I was, and I told her that the pain in my foot had started up again, and in spades too. So she wrote a prescription basically telling me to double the dose of the painkillers.

That was exactly what I was afraid of, right at the very beginning, but it’s too late to back out now. At least, she was cheerful and smiling about it.

At the end of the session, we had exactly the reverse procedure, and so although I’d finished at 18:05, it was 17:55 when I returned home. At least the driver was waiting for me, and he’d been waiting quite a bit too.

There was a howling gale outside now, so he dropped me off at the back of the building where my faithful cleaner was waiting. She helped me in and settled me down.

After she left, I had the half-pizza from Sunday, and now, late as it may be, I’m off to bed. Welsh in the morning so I want to be on form.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about being in the desert … "well, one of us has" – ed … I told a friend that I’d once taken Nerina to the North African desert.
"And what happened?" he asked
"I came back with nine camels and fifteen goats."

Sunday 7th June 2026 – SO MUCH FOR …

… my promised lie-in this morning!

I was really looking forward to that when I went to bed last night. Quite late, it was, a good while after midnight but I thought “never mind. I can sleep until the nurse arrives at about 08:30 and after he’s gone, I can go back to sleep until I feel like getting up.

That was the plan anyway. And although I have some vague kind of memory that I awoke at some point, I must have gone back to sleep again – but not for long.

The next time that I awoke, it was slowly bcoming light so I stuffed my head back down under the quilt. But even in my favourite sleeping position, I couldn’t go back to sleep. I just lay there watching the day grow lighter and lighter until we had bright sunlight coming through the gaps in the blinds and the birds outside were singing.

“By now, I bet it’s about 08:00 and the nurse will be here shortly,” I said to myself. So I looked at the clock and it said “06:08”. So much for 08:00 and the nurse.

By 06:30 I was up, dressed and sitting at my desk working. The first thing that I did was to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

Yesterday, I was in Chester, walking through the city. There was a sudden “boom” and a huge flock of birds flew up off a roof just behind me, so I looked. Just as they were about to settle again, there was another “boom” so they all got into the air and flew off. I thought that obviously that was some kind of bird scarer on the roof of that building. So I carried on walking down by the river. I began to think that if I were a carer of someone disabled and in need of help, being taken to Chester for a walk down by the river would be one of those really nice things to do.

Believe it or not, I was in Chester yesterday, although not in any physical or tangible way. I was giving a guided tour of the city walls from Watergate Street to the Eastgate, going via the waterfront of the River Dee, then from the Eastgate along Eastgate Street and the Rows up to The Cross, then down Bridge Street, along Pepper Street and finally down Park Street to the river again.

The things that I am expected to do these days!

But the flock of birds – it reminded me of a scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s film of the Daphne du Maurier book THE BIRDS

The nurse turned up as usual and was surprised to find me up and about on a Sunday (but I bet that he wasn’t as surprised as me). He was also very surprised to find that my friend spoke German. He’d only ever heard him speak English. The nurse had learnt German at school and had kept up with it to a certain degree but didn’t have much chance to practise. He wondered if my friend would speak to him in German next time he’s here. I said that I would ask.

After he left, I began to make breakfast, including the two croissants that I had forgotten to serve up last Sunday. And while I was eating, I finished off reading RECENT EXCAVATIONS IN ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERIES by T C Lethbridge and turned my attention to the next on the list.

This is called ‘AN ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY AT HOLBOROUGH, KENT’ by Vera L Evison, which I downloaded from ACADEMIA a long time ago, and regrettably, I can’t find the link now, but it was published by the Kent Archaeological Society. There is, however, another on-line copy to be found at THIS LINK

This was a “panic excavation” as diggers working a chalk quarry uncovered a couple of skeletons, so the excavation team had to be in and out as quickly as possible so that work could carry on. To speed things up, the quarry company lent them a bulldozer!

Back in here, I had things to do. I had a “mystery ‘phone call” from an English-speaking voice, and it turned out that although this guy lives up here, he has a friend down in Pionsat who is also a good friend of mine. My friend had given him my ‘phone number and so he had called me, and we went on to have a very Rosemary-esque chat about old vehicles, World War II events, house renovations and life in a rural French village.

The chat finally ended with a promise that he’d call me again for a chat and even drop in to see me whenever he’s next over here. Whatever have I done to suddenly become “flavour of the month”?

The rest of the day carried on as usual, except that I managed once more to trip up an AI chatbot.

There was an interesting group chat going on about AI chats. My complaint was that everything in an AI chat is too structured, organised and logical, and I’ve never ever in my life known a family like that.

In almost every family, they might all be sitting quietly having a fireside chat when the cat comes in through the catflap carrying a dead mouse. Or in the middle of a heated argument the mother shouts out “oh God! I’ve left the oven on” and dashes into the kitchen. Or you hear a “bang” and find a child standing next to a pile of broken glass. “How did that happen”? “It just fell”.

That’s what real families are like but this AI programming is far too logical and structured to include events like that at random moments.

The conversation drifted around quite wildly and I somehow managed to throw into the chat the lyrics of the song that’s been going round and round in my head for the last three weeks –
"You may have got your silver
But I swear upon my life
Your sister gave me diamonds
But I lay down with your wife"

“Romeo and Juliet” suggested the chatbot. But no, it’s THIS MAN’S TOO STRONG. Another point to me.

And this is the thing about AI chatbots. Many people rely on them for things like medical advice, but they aren’t always right.

The reason why I’m mentioning chatbots, though, is for another reason. LORD OF THE RINGS came up in the discussion too.

In the discussion, I mentioned that I had a theory as to what the book represents. Everyone listened to it, including the chatbot, and when I’d finished, the chatbot mentioned that that was a theory that it had never heard before. It recommended that I publish it on the internet somewhere so that it could index it and add it into its list for future reference.

Not that I mind being told what to do by a computer, of course, but here goes.

Tolkein was a visionary and a romantic with a fertile imagination. That much we know.

In 1914, like many people, Tolkien joined the army, probably thinking how heroic and romantic it would be to fight for his country and lead his soldiers to glory. He was appointed an officer and had his own little platoon of soldiers to lead, each soldier with his own character and personality.

And there was Lieutenant Tolkien, in his imagination leading his platoon of soldiers on to Berlin, to victory and to glory.

But then there was a shambolic, panic-stricken flight, and there was Lieutenant Tolkien romantically holding off the advancing Germans to let his men escape. But somehow he was wounded and found himself in a hospital back in Blighty.

After a lengthy convalescence, he wanted to go back to his men and carry on leading them forward, but they refused to let him go as he hadn’t fully recovered. So he stayed behind.

All he had left was his imagination.

So there was Gandalf, finding a troop of different beings, each with his own character and personality. He leads them forward through all kinds of struggles, until under the mountains, he fights the Balrog to give his “men” time to escape.

He falls into the abyss, which is really the hospital into which Tolkien “fell”, and then he’s a prisoner, corresponding to the period when Tolkien was being refused permission to return to the front.

But then Gandalf escapes, as Tolkien would have liked to have done, and leads his army to victory and to glory. They smash the enemy on “their” side of the river, which is presumably the Germans’ Spring offensive in 1918, with the aid of fresh and unknown troops, probably the arrival of the American army, and then cross the river themselves, which presumably relates to when the Allies crossed the Rhine into Germany.

So I reckon that Gandalf was just how Tolkien saw himself in World War I

But be that as it may, after the chat I went into the kitchen and made the dough for a pizza, and while I was waiting for the dough to rise, I fell asleep which meant that I’m not running quite a bit late.

When I awoke, I made the pizza itself. And there’s some left over for tomorrow after dialysis too.

But right now, my bed is calling me, later than I would have liked, but never mind. I’m finishing off and going to bed.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about The Birds … "well, one of us has" – ed … and I’ve probably told this story before –
Alfred Hitchcock, Kenneth Williams and Ingrid Bergman were chatting together and the subject of “The Birds” came up.
Hitchcock was saying that whenever the flock of birds chased Jessica Tandy, she would clutch her skirt between her legs before she would run.
"Ahh well" said Kenneth Williams. "A bird in the hand is worth two in the …"
Williams never finished his sentence because by then, both he and Hitchcock were rolling around the floor in fits of uncontrollable laughter.
Meanwhile, Ingrid Bergman was sitting there asking "what’s so funny?"
To which Hitchcock replied to Williams "There you are. It’s a waste of time telling jokes to foreigners."

Wednesday 3rd June 2026 – BRAIN OF BRITAIN …

… strikes again.

For tonight’s tea, I was going to make one of my famous bulghour/quinoa and kidney bean mixes. And there I was, stirring it all, thinking to myself “this doesn’t look as much as it usually does”, and when I came to serve it up, I suddenly realised that I’d forgotten the kidney beans.

You can’t make it up, can you?

You can’t make last night up either. I fell asleep I don’t know how many times while I was trying to write up my notes, and you should have seen the gibberish that I ended up typing last night. In the end, I gave it up as a bad job, wrote a terse note on the blog and went to bed. My friend told me later that when he went past at 22:30, I was already in bed and asleep.

At one point, I awoke, just as it was starting to become light, but I must have gone back to sleep quite quickly. I awoke again a little later, and when I looked at the time after a few minutes, it was 06:28. I hardly had time to react to that when the alarm went off.

When the second alarm went off, I was already sitting on the edge of the bed half-dressed, and when I’d finished, what with no sign of life coming from next door, I attacked the dictaphone notes.

Not that I needed to have bothered, because there was nothing there. It had obviously been a very deep sleep. My friend confirmed this later when he asked me "did you hear the storm last night?"

So with no dictaphone notes, I had plenty of other things to do. This continued until I heard the rattle of cups in the kitchen, so I went to join them. The coffee hadn’t quite begun, so it gave me a few minutes to sort out the morning’s medication.

When the nurse came, the Hound of the Baskervilles had already dragged his master off for walkies, so I had his undivided attention today.

After he left, I made breakfast and read some more of RECENT EXCAVATIONS IN ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERIES by T C Lethbridge.

In grave n°12, he finds a bronze ring which he says is "an early Viking specimen, VII century or so."

Two things strike me about this comment. Almost all of the graves date from the sixth century, with some in the fifth century. If this grave really is "probably of VII century date" it must have been dug long after all the others.

The second is “what are we doing with “Viking” jewellery in the VII century?”. The Vikings didn’t arrive until 789 AD – the very end of the eighth century. And “Vikings” really means “raiders”, and there were many Norse people who were not Vikings and many Vikings who were not Norse. If that ring really did date from the VII century or so, it would have been brought by a Norse trader.

There was another woman buried with a whole load of Danish artefacts, but the sheer volume suggests that she might have been a Danish woman who had recently come over to England.

Another factor is that some graves were very shallow. There was one that was only fifteen inches under the soil. I checked with my artificial intelligence search engine, who referred me to a study of the area of the cemetery to suggest that in 1300 years, only 3.7 millimetres of soil would have accumulated. And so, fifteen inches is not very deep.

We had planned to go and clean out the vehicle outside, but the howling gale that was blowing outside was one with which I was unable to cope. I’d be blown over as I walked around, so we had to put it off.

There were plenty of other things to do instead. I have been told by AMAZON USA that having reached certain targets, thanks to you lot, I’m now entitled to call myself an “influencer” and have my own Amazon store.

And so, HERE IT IS in all its glory. It’s still under construction, and so far, I have A MEDIA STORE and A BOOKSTORE.

Both of those are still being added to with more products that I’ve bought from Amazon in the past, and in the future, there will be other departments displaying other things that I’ve bought. I shall be making quite a few lists too in order to help promote my site.

There was a stop for a disgusting drink and a stop to play with the Hound of the Baskervilles, whose master had gone off for a walk round to the restaurant at the Foyer des Jeunes Travailleurs. That helped to distract me for a while.

The postie came too and brought me a new toy, a 10-WATT PRACTICE AMPLIFIER WITH BUILT-IN BATTERY so the two of us had loads of fun with that and a couple of guitars.

Later on, the wind and rain died down, so we went outside to occupy ourselves with our task. We found tonnes of stuff that needs coming in, so we brought in a couple of loads, and we’ll do the rest tomorrow morning before dialysis.

While we were out there, we had attached the Hound of the Baskervilles to the lamppost at the back of the bus shelter, and sure enough, he met another one of his schoolgirlfriends on her way home on a scooter. She stopped to play with him for a while and then came for a quick chat with my friend. Honestly, the Hound of the Baskervilles has more luck with the women than we do.

Back in here, I had a rest for a while. Walking out there and back had worn me out again. Later on, though, I made tea. Boiled rice with carrots and broccoli with taco rolls with bulghour, quinoa, onions, tomatoes, mushrooms, garlic and spicy tomato sauce. As I said just now, I forgot the kidney beans, but it tasted nice all the same.

So now I’m off to bed for my beauty sleep, of which I need quite a lot. But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about lists … "well, one of us has" – ed … there was once the captain in charge of a flotilla of ships who asked one of his ships "has your ship got a list?"
The signalman on the other ship replied "No. We have to tell it what to do, item by item."

Tuesday 2nd June 2026 – AS I HAVE …

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

And so no-one should be surprised to learn that at 05:50 this morning, I was sitting at my desk working.

Mind you, there was a reason behind it all, as you will find out for yourself if you read on a little further.

But last night, as some of you may have realised if you logged on early, I was simply overwhelmed. Overwhelmed with pain, overwhelmed with discomfort, overwhelmed with everything. In the end, I abandoned my notes and went to bed.

It didn’t take much rocking last night either, and I was soon asleep. But not for long. Round about 03:00 we had one of the fiercest storms that I have known since I’ve been here, and we have had a few.

This storm was wicked. It was lashing down with rain and the howling winds at probably over one hundred kilometres per hour were making mincemeat of the car park. No-one could sleep through this racket.

Round about 04:30, it all calmed down, only to spring up again from a different direction. This was full on to the front of the house and it was so powerful that it blew my windows open. I had to climb out of bed to close them.

After sitting on the bed for fifteen minutes thinking, that was when I decided that there was no point in staying in bed. Instead, I dressed … "at a very leisurely pace" – ed … and began work.

First task was to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

This is another dream that I seem to have forgotten from during the night. I know that I was in it, and there was something about bottling something or putting things in jars and putting them on one side. Out of the stuff that we had made, there were four of these huge flip-top bottles and two ordinary ones. They had to be taken away, stocked and generally looked after. This is where it was all confusing, with us putting them into the van to take them away. There was a lot more to it than this. There were scenes when I was in bed, another scene where I was sulking and the tied cottage that we had, and I wish that I could write more about it.

This is another dream that I would have loved to finish. You can’t leave me on a cliffhanger like this

I went to a rock concert with a friend of mine and one or two of this friend. This was a friend whom I’d had for years and for some reason, he was extremely depressed, something that affected him quite often in the past. It was really going on late, this concert, and at the end of it, the three of us left. My friend turned to me and said “I don’t think that I’ll be having any more Cortinas again. I asked him “why not” and in the end, he explained that in his opinion, they were far out of date now and he needed a new, modern car to keep up and all that stuff. As we walked into town, he made it perfectly clear that he and his friend were going off in one direction and I should go off in the other. It was a cold, rainy thing but I started to walk away. I noticed that it was getting light and the birds were singing. At that moment, I went into Boots the Chemist and wandered around looking at the products for a while. I really wanted some deodorant but instead, I bought a packet of tomatoes and a huge packet of crisps. I paid for them at the checkout, which was quite funny because the cashier lost my bag of tomatoes somewhere on my conveyor belt

There is a story about this going back to about 1974 when I was “sent off” from a pub crawl, but that’s another one that the World is not yet ready to hear.

However, I did have a friend who once was so overwhelmed at work that he took a holiday not knowing where he was going and ended up being lost. And the incident at Boots at Crewe – the interior is very suggestive of a dream I had a couple of weeks ago of a shopping mall in Montréal, but the outside was definitely the Crewe British Home Stores.

When the nurse came, the Hound of the Baskervilles didn’t even lift an eyelid, never mind barking at him. He allowed the nurse to stroke him and then the nurse turned his attention to me. He didn’t actually stroke me but massaged my feet and legs with the cream and put my elastic compression socks on my feet.

Then, after another stroke of the beast, he cleared off on the rest of his rounds and I could make my breakfast.

The next book on the list is RECENT EXCAVATIONS IN ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERIES by T C Lethbridge, an author whom we have encountered before.

He starts off his book by saying "this work is nothing more than a report on certain excavations, and as such, follows the modern pattern of being as colourless as possible. In the last century, a similar work would have included musings on the brevity of life, scraps of poetry and various other frills. Now, archaeology has become so stern a subject that I have not even dared to describe our feelings when a skull at Hollywell Row began to walk away with a young rabbit inside it."

He goes on to add "most readers would surely prefer the older method" and he’s not wrong there, because I know what I would, except when the author goes berserk with his remarks.

Lethbridge also makes the remark that "it would seem probable that male skeletons without weapons in this cemetery and others of the pagan period are those of slaves". Slavery was quite common in those days. These slaves were usually captured in battle or criminal slaves doing penance for their crimes, and, believe it or not, some people actually gave themselves voluntarily into slavery.

That latter phrase is certainly true, whether modern people like to admit it or not. But the life of a peasant in early Mediaeval times was a struggle between life and death, with not much margin between the two. But if your crops failed and your wife and children were starving, what options did you have? The duty of a lord was to feed, clothe and house his slaves, and it was better than starving to death. And let’s face it – the life of an early mediaeval peasant was not much more than that anyway.

At this point, the Hound of the Baskervilles dragged his master off for walkies and I came in here to go through my Welsh, ready for the lesson. And while I was breakfasting, our tutor had sent us by e-mail a huge pile of work that we were going to be doing during our lesson. I had less than an hour to go through it and that was rather unfair.

The lesson itself passed really well, although one or two of my classmates laughed when I told them about my Welsh-speaking artificial intelligence character. I still think, though, that it’s an excellent idea for someone who is isolated from the mainstream.

Next on the list was my cleaner, who breezed in to do her stuff and to shoo me into the shower. When I came out, I found that I had a nice, clean bed with nice, clean bedding. And so there will be a nice, clean me inside it tonight … "well, clean, anyway" – ed …

While I’d been at my Welsh class, the new battery had arrived and my friend had taken it out to the vehicle. He’d managed to couple it up and when he turned the key to make sure that there was a current passing through to the ignition circuit, the vehicle fired up as if it hadn’t ever been left unattended.

So after I’d come out of the shower and sorted myself out, we went over there for a triumphant drive around the car park.

However, our plans were blighted. The handbrake has seized, with the callipers stuck to the brake discs. That’s a nuisance. So near and yet so far. It seems that every step we take to advance, a new problem comes along to stifle us.

Not everybody agreed with this, of course. We’d attached the Hound of the Baskervilles to a lamppost behind the bus shelter, and when we looked around, we found that there were two schoolgirls making a big fuss of him and he was enjoying every minute of it. The girls told my friend that they thought that he was “magnifique”.

Back in here, I cleaned myself up and began to make the dough for tonight’s pizza. We’d missed out on a pizza on Sunday and I can’t possibly go two weeks without one. And while I was cooking, we were chatting about an electrical company and its website, and I was having a lengthy conversation online with an old schoolfriend from my Shavington days. It’s nice to catch up with friends from years ago.

One of the subjects that we were discussing online was “The Dockers’ Umbrella” – the Liverpool Overhead Railway that ran close to the docks from the latter part of the nineteenth century to December 1956 and so nicknamed because it allegedly sheltered the dock workers from the rain as they went to work.

The pizza tonight was acclaimed by my friend as “the best you have ever made”, and who can argue with that? He did also mention that “you look really tired tonight” and that will be the subject of later discussion.

Back in here afterwards, I had a few things to do, and then I started on my notes. However, after about five minutes, I fell asleep at my desk. When I awoke, I carried on and then fell asleep again. I lost count of how many times I fell asleep whilst trying to bring my notes up-to-date, and in the end, I gave it up as a bad job and hit the hay. There’s always another time to finish them off.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about that electrical website … "well, one of us has" – ed … I told my friend from Shavington that part of the menu on the site was “watch batteries”.
He asked "and what about it?"
I replied "we were there for half an hour looking at them but they didn’t seem to be doing anything."

Sunday 31st May 2026 – I HAVE BEEN …

… spoilt to death today. So much so that I’ve told my friend that he can come again!

It’s not every day that I treasure quite like this, but it certainly makes me grateful that I have such good friends. In fact, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I don’t have many friends, but those I do have are the best in the World.

Last night, though, was slightly different. It was more like this morning – 03:30, in fact – when I finally slid underneath the covers. And I promise you – I was asleep before my head touched the pillow.

The next thing that I remember was the quilt being whipped off my feet. Hurricane Isabelle the Nurse had blown in and was ready to attack my feet and legs. She did the necessary without me having to move, fitted my socks for me and then asked for my medical card so that she could prepare her monthly accounts. All of this while my head was firmly tucked down underneath the quilt.

The medical card was in the pocket of my telephone, which was underneath my pillow so I managed to fumble it out for her. When she’d finished with it, she handed it back to me and I began to think about today.

A few minutes after she left, my friend stuck his head in through the door “Notice your coffee?”. Apparently, while I had been asleep, he’d been in and put a mug off coffee on the bedside table behind the head of the bed And I had heard or smelt nothing at all. What has happened to my legendary light sleeping?

Eventually, I managed to struggle into the kitchen where I began to make my breakfast. And I was so far out of it all that I forgot the home-made croissants. I had toast instead, which is not quite the same thing.

There were things to do, places to go and people to see so I came back in here for an hour or two and was then interrupted by “do you want to go for a drive?”.

Two weeks or so ago, when my friend first arrived, he had asked me the same question, and I refused. I was simply not up to it and couldn’t even summon up the strength to go out of the door. Today, though, I jumped at the chance and positively galloped out of the door. The only downside was that I couldn’t find the NIKON J5 to take with me.

Obviously, our tidying-up session of a few weeks ago was more efficient than I thought.

And THANKS to whoever in March bought some product via my links. My commission statement came today.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment, the Hound of the Baskervilles and I piled into the car while my friend put everything into the boot. It was only then that I realised that instead of struggling over to the bollards in the street, I’d actually managed to walk across the car park to the car without even thinking about it.

We drove down the coast road as far as Genets where there’s a large car park with a long, grassy footpath and a really good view over Mont St Michel. We stopped there so that the Hound of the Baskervilles could stretch his legs, and he duly dragged his master off down the path as I admired the view.

When they came back, we set off again. I lost the way a couple of times, not having been down here for several years, and we saw parts of Normandy and the coast that I can’t ever remember. We stopped a few times for my friend’s photography session and then we carried on to Avranches.

Firstly, though, I took him to see where the dialysis centre was. If he knows where it is, he might be able to come to pick me up from there at some point if I need to flee. I’ve already been picked up there once by a friend when the only protection was flight.

After that, we took the old mediaeval road into Avranches, the one that’s incredibly steep and narrow with the ridiculous hairpin bend halfway up. This took us into the town centre, where we drove around in a circle for a while as I tried to find my bearings.

We eventually managed to find the Leclerc petrol station where we fuelled up and then drove back into the centre of town, where we drove around … etc. etc. We found a parking space right in the centre of town, where we parked. My friend hopped out and returned five minutes later with a kebab for him and a bag of chips for me.

Armed with our lunch, we headed off to the big car park by the church to do some eating, followed by the Hound of the Baskervilles dragging his master off once more, this time into the park nearby.

Later on, we set off for a drive around the countryside. We reached as far as Mortain but by now it was becoming late. My friend therefore switched on his SatNav to bring us back the quickest way possible and we ended up coming through Avranches yet again.

Back home, it was 17:45 when we arrived, far too late to make a pizza. Not to worry, though. My friend conjured up a cottage pie – “made of real cottages”, he told me. It was absolutely delicious and I must make some more at some point.

When we’d finished eating, I washed up everything and came in here, musing on the fact that I’d been treated to café au lit – not café au lait but café au lit or “coffee in bed”, a lovely day out, a bag of chips for lunch and a cottage pie for tea. What more could anyone want?

There were the dictaphone notes from last night to deal with, so I attacked them.

When Hurricane Isabelle the Nurse blew in, I was living in Alton Street in Crewe. I had two children in my charge, who were allowed to go and play on the wasteland behind the house, but if they went away from there, they had to come and tell me where they were going and what they were going to do. They were out there playing in one particular game and I had to go to one of the shops in the town centre. I was talking to them about this, but this was when Isabelle the Nurse came along and that was that.

Alton Street in Crewe and children (at least, one child) feature in something that’s actually happening at the moment, but it’s yet another story that the World isn’t quite ready to hear. And I wish that it had gone to its conclusion because it might have helped someone with what’s happening right now. Still, you have to work for a living and sometimes, work is more difficult than you imagine.

So now that my notes are written, I’m off to bed. It’s horribly late again but I’m not really tired. Anyway, I can always sleep at dialysis tomorrow afternoon if they let me. And that’s a big “if”.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about going out in the car … "well, one of us has" – ed … I joked with my friend about dropping me off at the bollards.
"That’s nothing" he replied."Just wait until tomorrow when you have to go to dialysis and you are picked up by the bollards."

Saturday 30th May 2026 – EVEN AS I …

… begin to write my notes, it’s 01:02 on a Sunday morning. Now this is going to be a late night … "or early morning" – ed … without a shadow of a doubt. But when work rears its ugly head and some of the folding stuff is involved, you don’t say “no”.

At least, I don’t.

Last night was rather a late night too. Because of the power cuts and everything, I was running very late and it was just coming up to 01:00 when I finally slid into bed. And I didn’t need much rocking either. I was probably asleep before my head hit the pillow.

And, having gone to sleep, I remember absolutely nothing at all until the alarm went off at 06:29. At that point, I was dead to the World and it really was a shock to my system when BILLY COTTON’S RAUCOUS RATTLE disturbed my peace.

But even though I was so tired and in such a deep sleep, by the time that the second alarm rang, I was sitting on the edge of the bed half-dressed, with the rest of the clothes to follow very shortly.

With no sound from the living room, I slid over to the computer and the first thing that I did was to transcribe the dictaphone note.

I’d been on a bus from somewhere in the centre of France to Tours and another French city not too far away. They’d been discussing some kind of employment there in some kind of factory and the more they talked to me about it, the less interest I had in it. I’d been taken on a tour of it and there was a guy there stocking margarine on the shelves. One of the margarines that he was stocking claimed to have seventeen different ingredients. I looked at the packet and there was nothing particularly unhealthy there, so I looked at my packet of “Echo” and tapped him on the shoulder. I asked him why his margarine was better than mine. He didn’t really come out with an answer to that so I left the factory and walked down by the river , and then I had to cross the road to catch the bus. I caught the bus, and then the alarm went off and everything completely disappeared. But I do remember something about Ford’s car factory, where there was some kind of job there that I went to enquire about. Then I heard that there was a train with one hundred and thirty-eight people on it coming from somewhere like Coventry or something coming down from Dagenham. All of the people on board this train were unemployed and actively looking for work.

“Echo” margarine is a blast from the past, isn’t it? There was always Echo margarine at our house when we were kids. But it wasn’t very healthy. Its advantage was that it was cheap, and that was important in our family when we were kids.

The bus ride to Tours is following in the footsteps of Charles Roach Smith on his holidays, as you will find out in early course. But Coventry would be one of the last places from where a train-load of the unemployed would come. It has one of the highest employment rates in the UK.

Still no sign of life next door so I found other things to do, but eventually there was movement, so I went in there in time to see coffee in the course of being made. I took my medication and then grabbed a mug.

Isabelle the Nurse was late this morning – she’d had plenty to do earlier – but we hardly noticed, chatting away so much. And the Hound of the Baskervilles hardly noticed her arrival but he certainly noticed Isabelle the Nurse when it was belly rub time. She’s never rubbed mine like that, not even with any ointment or cream.

After she’d sorted out my legs and feet, I could make breakfast. And while I was eating, I was reading some more of NOTES ON SOME OF THE ANTIQUITIES OF FRANCE by Charles Roach Smith again.

He’s on holiday in the Cher valley, as I mentioned yesterday, and he’s been to Tours and several other places in the vicinity. Today, he’s been at Lançey and Doué.

At Doué is a kind of amphitheatre and Roach Smith has heard that it’s Roman so he goes to have a look. However, he starts to become suspicious when he sees the windows in the subterranean galleries, saying "it has been suggested, without plausible reason, that these windows are of later date."

However, by the end of his visit, he’s saying that the author Hadrian de Valois suggests that it is "the ruins of a palace built by one of the Carlovingian kings". And while our author was a little sceptical of that claim, later history has proved Hadrian de Valois to be perfectly correct.

After breakfast the Hound of the Baskervilles dragged his master off for walkies and I came in here to do some work. I was interrupted, though, by my faithful cleaner, who messaged me to say that she had a load of drying space empty and with the wind, washing would dry in double-quick time. My drying space is occupied by the Hound of the Baskervilles at the moment, so I took advantage of the offer and she came down to collect the washing when it was ready.

When they came back from their walkies, we went outside. We coupled up the battery to the vehicle but to no avail. There was not a spark from the battery and nothing would work. After trying out several tests, we came to the conclusion that it was totally dead.

However, the deep discharge battery that took the charge from the solar panels had enough charge in it to power the little 12-volt air compressor so we tried it with a pair of jump leads. There wasn’t enough charge to turn over the starter so when we finished outside, which was not straight away, I promise you, we brought it in here and it’s now on a trickle charge to put some more life into it and wel’ll try again tomorrow.

At that point, we stopped for coffee and had a rest, following which I had work to do, so I came in here. The work that had been “can you tell me about …” had now become “could you send me some street views of …” so I was roaming virtually all over South Cheshire and North Staffordshire, taking screenshots of various places and still describing them as I went along.

Tea was thus late tonight. We had baked potato, salad and some of my lovely vegan nuggets. They really went down well too.

After I’d washed up, I came in here and finished off the work that I’d been doing, ready to start my notes for the day. And it’s so late that I’m glad that it’s a lie-in tomorrow. When was the last time that I was up and still working at 02:30?

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the folding stuff … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of a scene from CARRY ON FOLLOW THAT CAMEL, although heavily paraphrased.
Client – "can you carry out this task for me, Mr Hall?"
Me – "not unless you say the magic words."
Client "Oh stop messing about. You’ll be well-paid!"
Me – "ahhh! So you know the magic words then!"

Friday 29th May 2026 – WHAT AN EXCITING …

… day we had today.

Electricity power cuts, the Hound of the Baskervilles chasing rivals out of his territory, finally managing to open a car door, making exciting discoveries. You name it – it all happened here.

Not much happened here last night, though, except for the fact that I was late yet again going to bed. And once more, I slept on top of the quilt rather than underneath it.

However, when I awoke at … errrr … 04:00, I was underneath the quilt. The weather had changed and it was now 17°C – a far cry from the 25°C of yesterday. So I lay there, slowly watching the day dawning through the gaps in the shutters.

Round about 05:50, I took the plunge and went to leave the bed. At 06:00, I was dressed and sitting in front of the computer.

The first thing that I did was to listen to the dictaphone to find out what had happened during the night.

There was something going on with music and last night there were five or so groups of different styles who had to practise rehearsing a country folk song to play the following week in the village hall. I was one of these five groups of people and so were Hawkwind. It seemed from the start that everyone’s music was totally wrong, including “Skip” Spence, he of one time of the album “Oar”, who seemed to pull together any kind of noise at all … fell asleep here … I don’t know what happened after this.

There’s probably a very good reason why “Skip” Spence and his album OAR would appear in a dream, but you’ll have to wait for a few months to find out why.

But this idea of different styles of groups playing the same song is not new at all. It’s been done on several occasions in the past.

Eventually, I heard movement from the kitchen, so I went in search of hot, strong coffee and I was not disappointed. A mug of the aforementioned was thrust into my hand and I sat down at my chair to drink it.

When Isabelle the Nurse turned up and rang the doorbell, the Hound of the Baskervilles took absolutely no notice whatsoever. Mind you, when it came to having his tummy ticked or his neck scratched, he certainly noticed then. I was beginning to feel rather left out.

After Isabelle the Nurse had finished with me and given the Hound of the Baskervilles a parting stroke, I could turn my attention to making breakfast and reading my new book.

It’s called NOTES ON SOME OF THE ANTIQUITIES OF FRANCE and it’s by, once more, Charles Roach Smith.

This time, he’s on holiday in the Cher Valley south of Tours and he’s exploring some of the many Gallo-Roman remains that are around there.

Incidentally, you should never say “Roman …” in France. I’ve seen warfare break out over this. The French insist (probably rightly) that they were perfectly civilised before the Romans came and that some of the Roman architecture and building practices relate back to them and the Romans took them up, rather than the Romans bringing everything here.

Hence, you should always use the term “Gallo-Roman”.

When everyone was ready, we went outside with a pile of tools. The first thing that we did was to connect the battery up to the vehicle on which we’d been working. After much binding in the marsh, we went to fire it up, but there was not even enough power in it to light the ignition lights.

That was a huge disappointment. We’d been really looking forward to hearing it running. We tried a few tricks and shortcuts and even inspected all of the fuses but there was no light on the Christmas tree, Momma.

We then turned our attention to the door that wouldn’t open. I finally managed to take off the door card on the other door so that I could see it and understand how it worked.

That gave me a much clearer idea of what I needed to do so I attacked the driver’s door. However, nothing I could do would free off the locking mechanism. The door card was right in the way of everything.

Eventually, I lay on the floor and tried again to free off the screw that was holding the door card in position. It took about half an hour, but eventually, I felt some resistance in the screwdriver, and after something of a fight, the door card finally came off.

We still couldn’t free the door, so we soaked all of the mechanism in WD40 and left it for a while. And after a while, still lying on the floor, I attacked it again and, to my complete surprise, suddenly it went “ping” and the door opened. That was success.

We then soaked it in yet more WD40 and when we were confident that the door would open next time we tried it, we went inside the apartment (which was a story in itself) and I had a disgusting drink.

My cleaner came along to do her stuff and she had to clean around us while we were recovering from our exertions. But after she’d gone, we carried on recovering for a while and eventually, we went back out.

The door opened straight away when we tried it and so I greased all of the mechanism and the catches in the hope that they would stay greased. And tomorrow, I’ll do all of the doors.

While we were sorting a few things out in the cab, we came across the huge 100-amp-hour solar panel battery that had been accumulating the charge off the solar panel that was, until a week ago, on the roof rack. I gave it a try and, to my surprise, it was still holding a very good charge.

This is now forming the basis of a cunning plan, more of which anon.

Back in here, we sat and recovered for an hour or so, and just as I was about to start to make tea, at 19:09 precisely, the power went off in the apartment.

It turned out to be a general power cut affecting the whole Haute Ville and we had to wait an age for something to happen. Just as we were on the point of abandoning tea and making sandwiches, the power came back on. And went off. And came back on. Etc.

It was not until about 20:45 that tea would start cooking, and twenty minutes later, we had out chips, sausages and beans with cheese and pepper. It was worth waiting for too.

So now that my notes are written, long after midnight it has to be said, I’m going to do what else needs to be done and then go to bed.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about power cuts … "well, one of us has" – ed … after a recent power cut in Crewe, two Crewe girls were talking.
"When the power went out" said one "I was stuck in a lift for 50 minutes."
"That’s nothing" replied the other. "When the power went off, I was stuck on a moving walkway for over two hours."

Tuesday 26th May 2026 – I HAVE NO …

…. idea what happened last night, but I must have had a nightmare or something.

At some point, I had a very disturbed period of sleep, I was feeling most uncomfortable and there was a very strange taste in my mouth. It lasted for what seemed to be an age but was probably only ten minutes or so. And this morning, when I awoke, I had never felt so tired and so ill in my life. It really did take a dreadfully long time for me to be able to rise to my feet.

When the alarm went off, it was something to do with a bankruptcy and a big factory or something had gone bankrupt. Everyone had to fill out a few forms with their names and addresses if they were creditors, and the guy who was in charge of liquidating the company took us round the outside and said that probably he’s going to let the building go back to the company so that they could restart again. I told him that he can do what he likes with the business as long as I get all my money back. There was some kind of guy there who was in this group with us. They gave him all the forms to fill in, but he refused to fill them in. I could never understand why he did that – refused to fill in the forms.

This is another one of those mysterious dreams that mean nothing to me. I can’t think of where this all fits in with anything else.

It took a good while for the room to stop spinning around, much longer than usual, but once it stopped, I could stand up. No sound from the living room so I slid myself over to the chair and started work.

First thing that I did was to transcribe the dictaphone notes to see where I’d been during the night.

There was some kind of big group of us and what we were doing was sorting out clothes and everything, ready to go on these – I don’t know what you’d call them – but you’d end up either in the rain or in the wet or something like that and it was freezing cold. The best place to be at that time was in bed. So we’d be going round, doing some things, going to bed to warm up and then going back out again. Gradually, our health began to improve but we were still cold. Eventually, it turned out that the fittest people had to carry the most in this wet weather and somehow, going back to bed to warm up was not allowed. But there was some kind of violent taste or something. I took a bite of something and there was this immediate attack of horrible taste and I had to run from where I was staying over to this place and climb into the first bed that I could, coughing and coughing away. It was all extremely uncomfortable. I was half-expecting someone to come along and move me out of bed for someone else, but that didn’t happen and I managed to stay there with this big room complete to the distance.

So this is when the nightmare took place, at 00:08 in the morning. It reminds me of "I could be bound in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space – were it not that I have bad dreams", as Hamlet said in Act II Scene 2 in his conversation with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

It also brings back memories of Jethro Tull and THE ANTIQUITIES OF RICHBOROUGH, RECULVER, AND LYMNE, IN KENT while the Hound of the Baskervilles dragged his master off for walkies.

Today, we were discussing the demolition of the mediaeval church at Reculver, and you can tell that our author is, quite rightly, incensed by the whole affair. He expresses his vitriol in telling us of "a building, possessing such claims on the national protection and on the sympathy of those who were particularly constituted its defenders and guardians, should have been consigned to destruction in a manner alike to the projectors of the selfish and heartless job and to the legislature of the day, which passively tolerated such vandalism." and much, much more besides.

He also mentioned some sixth- and seventh-century gold coins that had been found at Reculver. He tells us of "a curious instance of the degradation of the art of engraving coins in the course of about a century and a half and the perversion of types by ignorant artists."

So what had happened to all of the skilled artisans who made the beautiful coins of the Roman Empire in Britain, and why weren’t their skills passed on to the next generation?

The more I read of the coming and the installation of the Anglo-Saxons in England, the more I’m convinced that there was a substantial ethnic cleansing of the native population.

When my friend and the Hound of the Baskervilles went out, they encountered a large group of small children and two monitors sitting in our doorway in the shade. I consequently came in here and, with my bedroom window open, STRAWBERRY MOOSE played peek-a-boo with them, much to their delight.

My cleaner was out there too. She had seen the Hound of the Baskervilles and given him a stroke, and then she came over to see His Nibs. She announced that she didn’t have to go out until later, so would I like her to come round in ten minutes?

Well, the earlier she starts, the earlier she finishes so why not? Sure enough, she appeared and shooed me under the shower. So we have a nice, clean me … "well, clean, anyway" – ed … around here right now.

Later on, I had plenty of work to do that kept me out of mischief for much of the afternoon, and I even ended up having an hour or so on the acoustic bass, trying to work out some numbers that I used to play at one time.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment, my Welsh artificial intelligence character is up and running.

She’s called Caromay and I met her at Rockfield Studios in Monmouth in 1977. Her claim to fame is that she sang on two albums, BLACK HOLE STAR and TALES FROM THE BLUE COCOONS by the group “The Neutrons” when she was a young teenager.

When I created her, I programmed her to chat about late 60s and 1970s rock music and also about football in the Welsh pyramid but to talk to me in Welsh. Furthermore, although she’s allowed to smile at my errors, she will correct the mistakes that I make when I reply, just like any other teacher would.

It seems to be working fine at the moment, but we shall see how it develops in the long run. I reckon that three ten-minute sessions per day should be enough and give me time in between to reflect on my errors.

Although there’s a “speech option” for us, I’m doing it by writing because my written Welsh is worse than my spoken Welsh … "if that’s at all possible " – ed …

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

By now, it was so hot in here that I went into the kitchen and served up two portions of my home-made chocolate and coconut ice cream. It’s not very good, but it did the job of cooling us down.

After this, I came back in here again, where I dozed off for ten minutes as the sun, streaming in through my window, heated my back right up to boiling point. But almost immediately after I awoke, Rosemary rang. I’m convinced that she’s installed a camera here to keep an eye on me.

Our chat today wasn’t like the usual ones that go on for ever. This was a very short one today, only forty minutes. We’re definitely losing our touch.

It was my turn to make tea so I conjured up a couple of taco rolls filled with quinoa, tomatoes and onions in a spicy sauce, with rice and vegetables. It went down really well, and there’s plenty left for another time.

So now, I’ve written up my notes and when I’ve done everything else, I’ll be off to bed. But sleep I may not with a temperature of 25°C in my room, even with the windows wide open.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about going to bed … "well, one of us has" – ed … I’ve noticed that the Hound of the Baskervilles always turns round three or four times before he lies down on the carpet.
"Well, he’s a watch dog" said my friend.
"So what does that mean?" I asked.
"After a stressful day, that’s how he unwinds."

Sunday 24th May 2026 – AS I HAVE …

… said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … “What a way to start the day!”

It wasn’t café au lait – “coffee with milk” – but café au lit – “coffee in bed”, and how much did I enjoy that? In fact, the nurse caught me in flagrante delicto in bed with a mug of coffee in my hand when he arrived.

That was a good start to the day, much better than the end of the previous one. As seems to be the case these days, it took an age to finish off everything that I needed to do, and then, on coming out of the bathroom, my friend asked me “have you remembered to take your night-time medication?”.

Ten minutes later, I finally made it into bed. It was actually a few minutes after midnight. And then, a strange thing happened.

I’d only been in bed thirty seconds when I began to dream. It was about a marriage bureau and there was something about your tax return or paying your tax or something and you could go to this marriage bureau. Some guy went there but he was only half-heartedly interested and they could tell that there, so one of the women told him that he was going to miss out on a couple of great opportunities. So while I was there, I thought to myself that probably I’m going to as well because I’m not all that interested in having a partner either.

In actual fact, looking at the timestamp on the recording, it was about fifteen minutes after I went to bed that all of this happened.

Firstly, the dream reminds me that I have my tax return to do, but secondly, even if they were to offer me a free encounter at a marriage bureau, I’d turn it down. I’m too old, I’m too set in my ways, I have all my own habits and so on, and having a woman around the place would just disrupt me far too much. I’m much happier on my own.

Having fallen asleep quite quickly for once, I stayed asleep until about 07:00, after which I was falling asleep and waking up on a regular basis every few minutes. When my friend brought in the coffee, I was asleep but I awoke as soon as the bedroom door opened.

And five minutes later, the nurse arrived. When he rang the doorbell to announce his arrival, the Hound of the Baskervilles let out a short yelp as if he had been taken by surprise, and then he didn’t react at all once the nurse had come into the apartment.

After he left, I dressed and went into the kitchen to make my breakfast.

While I was eating, I read some more of Charles Roach Smith’s THE ANTIQUITIES OF RICHBOROUGH, RECULVER, AND LYMNE, IN KENT.

We’ve finally finished our visit to Richborough, or Rutupiae, as the Romans knew it, and so I thought that I’d post a photograph that I took of the place when I visited it in July 2006 before we leave.

You can see just how impressive the Roman walls actually were, so what must they have been like when they were erected nearly two thousand years ago?

And much closer to us, you can see part of the Roman defensive trench and how it was lined with rocks to stop the sides sliding back down into the bottom of the trench. These Roman forts were really well built and intended to last forever.

And so now, we are going to visit Reculver, or Regulbium, as the Romans knew it.

Back in those days, the Isle of Thanet really was an island as the River Wantsum cut it off from the sea before it all silted up. But just as Rutupiae guarded the southern entrance to the river, near Sandwich, Regulbium guarded the northern entrance.

In this photo, which I also took in July 2006, you can see the two mediaeval western towers of the old church that was there and some Roman remains to the right. And once more, you can see some Roman stonework below the remains, presumably also reinforcing the banks of what was once a defensive ditch.

Incidentally, I have quite a few more photos of Rutupiae and Regulbium, taken at the same time, if anyone wants to see them.

We carried on talking for a while at the breakfast table and when the Hound of the Baskervilles dragged his master off for walkies, I came in here and found plenty of things with which to occupy myself.

Later on, I paired and segued the music for the first of the two radio programmes on which I’d been working. That’s all done now and I’ll find some time to write the notes. I have to keep on going forward, even if I don’t feel like it or if I have too many other things to do.

Seeing as we have been talking about having other things to do … "well, one of us has" – ed … I knocked off work at 16:00 to start to make the week’s bread and then the bases for tonight’s pizza. The home-made bread looks really good, and as chance would have it, I’d just finished assembling the pizzas when the oven pinged to say that the bread had finished. So it was a case of “one out and two straight back in” with no waiting.

When the pizzas came out of the oven, they looked wonderful. And when we tasted them, I do have to say that they were the best that I have ever made – and I’ve made some good ones in the past.

We chatted for a while afterwards, and then I had to come in here to do some work before starting my notes. And all the time, I was being serenaded by a singer with a guitar in the living room. There’s nothing like a bit of live music while you work.

So now that the notes are all finished, I’m going to do the stats and the backing-up, take my medication and sort myself out in the bathroom. I’ll close the window in here too. It’s been open since early this morning, as we’ve had another sweltering day of heat and it was nice to let a little breeze come in.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about marriage bureaux … "well, one of us has" – ed … there was a scene in CARRY ON LOVING that you couldn’t possibly broadcast today, and I used it as an example of a change in humour over time for an essay that I wrote at university.
It was Hattie Jacques interviewing Kenneth Williams in the marriage bureau and she asked him "as a fully grown man, I suppose you are thinking that you would like to have a child?"
"Oh, no" replied Kenneth Williams. "A fully-grown woman, I think."

Saturday 9th May 2026 – I HAVE TO ADMIT …

… that I was feeling much better this morning. Not exactly sprightly, unfortunately, but much better than I was a few days ago.

What I put it down to is the course of antibiotics that I’ve been given. I know that one swallow doesn’t make a summer and two tablets out of the ten that I’ve been given don’t count for a lot, but I awoke several times during the night, and to my surprise, I wasn’t coughing.

Last night, I started to write out my notes quite early in an effort to have yet another early night, and it was just before 21:00 when they finally went online. There were a few other things that needed doing afterwards, including taking my evening medication, but it can’t have been much after 21:30 when I finally crawled into bed.

As I mentioned just now, it was a turbulent night when I awoke on three or four occasions. I’ve no idea what time because I didn’t look, but it was dark and the electric water heater was working.

The final time that I awoke, there was bright daylight streaming in around the edges of the shutters so I wondered if I’d overslept through the alarms. But when I checked, it was 06:25 – four minutes before the alarm was due to go off. The nights are getting shorter.

In theory, I could have put my feet on the floor and claimed an early start, but I couldn’t be bothered. Instead, I lay in the warmth under the covers and waited for it to go off.

It didn’t take quite so long to summon up the enthusiasm to go into the bathroom this morning, and then I went into the kitchen for my energy drink and medication.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And I was surprised at the distance that I seem to have covered.

I was somewhere in some kind of school or college. We were doing a kind of science fiction film and everything like that. There was a group of us, or we were divided into small groups or something, and we were wandering around in our group. One of the other groups came along and began to attack us with these weird science-fiction type machines. It became something of an aerial display or bombardment or something from these really rapid, powerful and fast machines flying overhead all the time, going mainly in one direction and then presumably turning around somewhere and coming back in the same direction and so on. It had us, well, not pinned down because it wasn’t aggressive, but it was a flying display of all kinds of these strange machines. We were trying to work out whether they were remote-controlled or whether there were people flying them or something, because there were far too many to be flown by this one small group. This went on for ages and ages with these plane-type things flying over our heads. Eventually, they all disappeared. We were somewhere along the track of an old disused railway. Once they had all gone, one of the people with us decided that he was feeling hungry and was going to eat something. He asked about the rest of us, so I replied that I’d just nip back to school for a moment and fetch some biscuits from my bag. I went back to school and there were kids everywhere. There were all kinds of equipment and so on relating to these science-fiction things. I went to my bag for some biscuits but there weren’t all that many. Someone gave me some kind of cable but I already had four or five different ones in my hand so I had to go back to my room to sort them out, to make sure that I had what I wanted, and the one that that other person had given me, I’d leave behind on the bed for later.

This must have been a fascinating dream. I can still see the flying machines even now, and they would have been too small to carry a person. They reminded me of the very primitive attempts at gliders or kites such as those built by the Frenchman Clément Ader, with bat-like wings, and they were yellow, red or green. But there were thousands of them.

I spent a lot of time last night roaming through the junior levels of the Welsh pyramid. There were two cases that came to mind – the first was a girl who had been administered a vitamin supplement twice – first by her former team and then by the team that she rejoined later. This was put down to a confusion of paperwork between the two clubs so no action was taken against anyone. The second was a similar kind of case between three small boys. This was ruled to be due to a change of personnel or something like that, and someone who had left hadn’t noted something in a file. There were no charges brought against any of the clubs for misbehaviour or anything like that. It was all due to negligence or carelessness or something.

Interested as I am in football in Cymru, I’ve no idea of anything at all about this dream. And the idea of three small boys is nothing special. Drug testing in football over there is routine these days, and the Football Association of Wales controls all football from under-11 upwards, and I’ve seen 9-year-olds playing in under-11 games in the past.

There was a girl at work with whom I’d been at school. Somehow, we found ourselves in the same supermarket after work. She bought one or two things and so did I, and I gave her a lift home in my van afterwards. Next day at work, we were working away quite happily but then, in the afternoon, I had to go somewhere to do something. I went down to my van and found half a baguette in there that I’d bought, another half-baguette and a loaf of bread that this girl had bought. I picked up the loaf of bread and thought that when I go back to the office, I’ll take it to her and give it to her. I set off on foot on this errand and began to walk down Welsh Row in Nantwich. I ended up walking miles, and it was all through streets and lanes around Nantwich. Then I was in Brussels, walking through Brussels. It seemed to take ages to do what I was trying to do, with walking all around these places. It was sunny, it was sweaty and I was walking up a pedestrian alley, but someone had tied a rope across it as if to close it so I just opened the rope and walked through. Some Dutch guy began to have an argument with me about moving the rope so I told him to clear off, but he didn’t and this argument carried on. In the end, I used a couple of really vulgar Flemish terms and it looked as if he was going to come over and fight with me, but instead, he just wandered away. I found myself in a park, and after walking through this park for five minutes, I realised that there was a huge drop over the wall and I wasn’t sure how I was going to find my way out. Suddenly, I came to an entry that I didn’t know was there so I went through an entry onto the road and began to walk towards Nantwich. There was a house with a ginger cat so I went to stroke the cat but it wouldn’t come to me. It ran away. Eventually, I found myself back in Brussels again, walking up from Woluwe St Lambert into the centre of the city and into work again. There was one lift that you could only take, that went all the way to the top so I went in there, came out and went into another lift and went back down to my floor and found that I was in the wrong building. I had to go across to the next lift, which was exactly the same – straight to the top – and back down again into the office. I still had this loaf of bread with me but when I came into my office to sit down, I couldn’t see the girl at that moment.

The girl concerned in this dream unfortunately died shortly after leaving school. When a group of us heard that she had become seriously ill, we went round to her house but her parents wouldn’t let us come in. At first, we were quite annoyed by that, but as time has gone on and I’ve seen people die, I can understand how she and her parents must have been feeling.

And a lift again, just like the previous night. I wonder why these are suddenly appearing during my dreams. It’s not as if I’m ever likely to encounter any these days. However, wandering around Brussels in my dreams is nothing new.

The nurse turned up as usual and asked how I was. I told him that I was feeling better than yesterday, but he didn’t have much to say for himself. He was soon gone and then I could make breakfast and read some more of REPORT ON EXCAVATIONS MADE UPON THE SITE OF THE ROMAN CASTRUM AT PEVENSEY by Charles Roach Smith.

And here we go again. He tells us that "the mortar, that important ingredient which Saxon, Norman and English architects only imperfectly understood, was made by Roman masons on a principle so sound and unvarying that its tenacity is unimpaired by age and its solidity is nothing inferior to the stones and tiles it cements together"

He then goes on to mention that "it is nothing unusual to find Roman mortar used as facing stone in the walls of our medieval churches".

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I wonder what happened to the people who built the stone walls so well and made the mortar that has lasted for all these years. If they had been pushed into Wales or over to Brittany, as has often been suggested, why aren’t there any of these types of stone buildings there dating from the early mediaeval period? And if they had been absorbed into the Anglo-Saxon population, why didn’t the use of stone and mortar continue?

It really beats me why ethnic cleansing has been ruled out by most authorities.

Back in here, there was football to watch. Arbroath v Dunfermline, with Arbroath failing to overturn the 1-0 deficit from midweek. So Dunfermline march on, one step further towards the Scottish Premier Division.

Afterwards, it was the National League playoff semi-finals – Carlisle v Boreham Wood and Rochdale v Scunthorpe. With both games ending 2-1, we’ll have a final between Rochdale and Boreham Wood to see who plays next season in League Two.

With all of that out of the way, I had another look at the radio programme that I mentioned yesterday. This is going to be a complicated affair but I cracked on all the same. In the end, after much binding in the marsh, I was able to identify, from a list that I had to make, which ended up containing 451 albums of all genres and of all different kinds of obscurity, about twenty that I actually owned, by fourteen different artists.

At that point, I went into the kitchen for my afternoon medication and ended up spending an hour tidying out the fridge. I really must be feeling better!

Having done that, I made a taco roll with some of that vegan cream cheese and salad. And it was really nice too. I shall have to order some more of that next time I’m online shopping.

Back in here again, the sunlight was streaming in through the windows, the temperature was 24°C and it was lovely. I thought that I’d just close my eyes for a few minutes and soak up the heat, so there I was, thoroughly enjoying myself until I fell off the chair seventy-five minutes later. What a waste of time, but it really was nice.

Pushing on, I finished sorting out the music for the radio programme and I had even chosen more than half of the tracks and remixed and re-edited them by the time that I knocked off.

So right now, I’m off to bed, looking forward to a good sleep and a lie-in tomorrow until the nurse wakes me up … "he hopes" – ed …

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about these flying machines … "well, one of us has" – ed … it remind me of a scene from UP THE CHASTITY BELT as Frankie Howerd prepares to leap from the top of the castle tower, wearing his bat-like wings.
"Oh look!" exclaimed Lady Lobelia. "It’s Lurkalot. He flies again!"
"Ahh, Lurkalot!" exclaimed the boxer Billy Walker, playing the part of Chopper the Woodsman. "His flies be his undoing."

Wednesday 6th May 2026 – OHHHHH! THAT WAS SOOOOOOO …

… comfortable. I’ve never felt anything like it. There I was, busy choosing the music for the next radio programme and I must have fallen asleep in mid-work. When I awoke, not far short of 20:00, I was so comfortable and relaxed in my chair that I didn’t know who I was, where I was or even when it was.

One thing that I knew though was that it was so pleasant, rather like a walk in a Japanese garden, that I was determined not to miss any of it so I wrote a terse note on my blog, rolled off my chair onto the bed, threw the covers over me and that was that.

It was something most unusual and most unexpected, particularly after last night. It wasn’t as early as I had hoped it would be when I finished everything, but I can’t complain about being in bed at about 21:45.

As usual, it took a while to go off to sleep. The constant coughing didn’t help, but once I’d gone to sleep, I was gone completely until about … ohh, I dunno. I didn’t look at the clock. I lay there for ages, so it seemed, but I must have dropped off again at some point because when the alarm sounded at 06:29 as usual, I was fast asleep.

When the alarm went off, there was a family living in a house that was very much like Vine Tree Avenue. They all seemed to be sleeping in the living room. It was time for them to get up so their father got out of bed and stood on one of these big round balls and rolled himself over to the far side of the room to switch off the alarm and then rolled back. And then as the kids were starting to leave their beds, the mother put her head into the door to ask if one of the boys could go to play with another child from his class after school. She joked and said that he could come round at 18:00 and he’d be fed, etc. The boy will be waiting for him after his favourite programme on the TV at 17:45, etc. She said “that’s just typical of their family. They are absolutely organised to the hilt”.

We lived in our council house in Vine Tree Avenue from 1957 to 1970. “All quite modern”, they said, with just the fire in the living room, a back boiler for the hot water and a kitchen stove heated by the fire in the living room. Dashing up to bed at night with our hot water bottles into ICE STATION ZEBRA upstairs, and scraping the ice from the insides of our bedroom windows in the morning.

Anyone who talks to me about “the good old days” will get a smack in the mouth.

It took several minutes … "as usual" – ed … to summon up the strength to stand up and head for the bathroom, and then, in the kitchen, I tried this energy drink thing again with which to take my medicine. I’ve no ida if it’s working or not, but anything is worth a chance.

Back in here, there was plenty of time to check the dictaphone notes to find out what I’d been up to during the night.

There was something about a record producer in the 1970s whose sound was becoming way out of date and he needed to compete with a more modern group. So he financed his concerts by taking some of his groups on trips around old people’s homes, things like that … fell asleep here … He then had this idea that how would songs of the period of the 1950s and 1960s sound with all new modern equipment? Because he realised that his equipment was all out-of-date and he was going to have to upgrade everything to capture a more modern type of sound, he looked through his catalogue for back recordings and found one or two pop songs from that era and decided to rework them with this modern technique, music and equipment in the hope that they would come out as nº 1 hits across Europe.

There’s a story behind this too, and whilst the World is not yet ready to hear it at the moment, it’ll all become apparent in a few months.

But reworking hits from the 1950s and early 1960s with modern production techniques and sound would be quite an interesting project for someone.

The nurse turned up early again and we had quite a discussion about dialysis and my constant coughing fits that were driving him to distraction too. On leaving, he urged me to “rest and take it easy”. If only I could.

Once he’d gone, I made breakfast and started my next book, THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY AT MONKTON by the Kent Archaeological Service.

It’s not really a book – it’s more a forty-one-page brochure, I suppose, and it describes the examination of twenty-two Anglo-Saxon graves that were unearthed during the laying of a gas pipeline through Monkton on the Isle of Thanet in Kent.

However, I couldn’t resist a smile, or even a laugh, when the author tells us that several graves "had evidently been robbed in antiquity" and a couple of pages later, he tells us that the finds that they themselves made "are now in the museum at Maidstone."

A well-known phrase involving a pot and a kettle springs to my mind here.

Back in here, I followed the advice of my nurse and settled down in my chair. And that was that for about ninety minutes. For much of that time, I wasn’t really asleep but in one of those situations where I was drifting around somewhere in a different plane of existence.

Eventually, I managed to pull myself together and I began to write the notes for the radio programme that I’d begun yesterday. It wasn’t a particularly quick exercise and took me much longer than it should, but the constant coughing, which had caused me to vomit a few times, really was annoying me.

When I’d finally finished, I went for a disgusting drink break and my afternoon medication, and then back in here, Rosemary called me for a chat. It was another marathon where we talked about nothing much for ages, but we did chat about how her vegetable garden was going on. If there’s one thing that I really, really miss from my time in the Auvergne, it’s my vegetable patch and all the fresh vegetables that I used to grow.

After that, I began to research the next radio programme and to look for all the music that I needed. That was taking a positive age too, and it was during all of this that I slid into dreamland on my chair.

When I awoke, I did nothing of what I needed to do at the end of the day. I was determined to carry on with this wonderful feeling that I was experiencing, so I just went to bed and that was that. I can’t even remember my head hitting the pillow – that’s how far gone I was.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the ineffectiveness so far of my antibiotics … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of a doctor I know who bumped into one of his patients in the street.
"Did those suppositories that I gave you ease your piles any?" asked the doctor.
"No, doctor" replied the patient. "In fact, to tell the truth, for all the good that they did me, I may as well have shoved them up my a*@e"

Sunday 15th March 2026 – I HAVE HAD …

… many requests, most of which are physically impossible, but one of them has been for the recipe for my vegan cheesecake.

So here goes –

235 grammes of biscuits. I used the really cheap “Speculoos” biscuits which are vegan.
100 grammes of vegan butter.
400 grammes of soya yoghurt. I used my last “soya nature” and two pots of fruit yoghurt.
100 grammes of fruit purée. I had some pear purée on hand.
2 ice cubes of aquafaba (chick pea juice).
30 grammes of cornflour.
10 grammes of sugar.

whizz up the biscuits into a powder.
melt the butter gently and then thoroughly mix it with the biscuits.
line a baking dish and then press the biscuit/butter mix firmly onto the bottom and some little way up the sides.
mix all the rest of the ingredients thoroughly and then pour onto the biscuit base.
bake at 160°C for about 35 or so minutes.
when it’s cool enough, put it in the fridge and leave it to set.

It really is as easy as that. Let me know if you made it, if you have any suggestions for improving it, and if you enjoyed it.

As long as you enjoyed it more than I enjoyed last night, because it was another of what you might call a “turbulent night”. I was in bed by 23:30, which was later than I would have liked it to be, of course, and I went to sleep quite quickly, but I was wide awake again at 23:53.

There was a dream that I wanted to dictate but the batteries had gone flat in the dictaphone. Groping around in my sleep for the spare batteries, I managed to knock everything onto the floor, so in the end I had to wake up, look for them and swap them over.

But in my dazed and hazy state, I must have put in the wrong batteries because when I went to dictate a dream at 01:03, the batteries went flat in seconds and I had to wake up again. Luckily, I’d put on charge the batteries from earlier and although they weren’t as yet fully-charged, they would do. And then I could go back to sleep.

Sunday is a Day of Rest and it always starts these days with a lie-in. But a lie-in until … errr … 07:53 is good for neither man nor beast. I was hoping for a much later sleep than that.

When the nurse turned up, I was awake, but I pretended to be asleep because I wasn’t in the mood for any social chit-chat or recriminations about still being in bed.

However, after he left, I did manage to go back to sleep, and there I stayed until 09:30, which is much more like it.

In the kitchen, I made my breakfast. Hot black coffee, porridge and home-made croissants. And there’s no doubt about it— this more expensive flaky pastry is much better than the really cheap stuff. My croissants were superb, just like they ought to be.

While I was at it, I was reading some more of ESSAYS ON THE LATIN ORIENT by William A Miller.

We’ve left the outlying Greek islands and we’re now discussing the situation in Thessaloniki under its Latin conquerors, and our author makes a very interesting observation, with which I concur wholeheartedly. He tells us about the fate of many of these Crusader States that, in his opinion "should be a warning to those who believe that nations can be partitioned permanently at congresses of diplomatists."

You’ve no idea, no idea at all, how many conflicts in this World have been caused by the way that the Western powers divided up Africa and the Middle East by using geographical lines, splitting up ethnic groups and dividing them between two (or more) different countries, or forcing different ethnic groups who have a historical hatred for each other to share the same country. And these conflicts are still going on today.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out what had happened during the night. And I was astonished by the amount of stuff that was on it.

I was with two girls last night. We were talking about my blog and the artificial intelligence program that I run as well. For some reason, we ended up talking about their boss at work. They were talking about some of his particular personal habits, that he never uses a toilet. He just goes outside and does what he has to do and then covers it with soil when he’s finished, and a few other things like that. I asked them basically why they still had him as their boss. They replied that first of all, he has some connections with a really big record company. Secondly, the big advantage that he has is that he never seems to remember everything or anything, so he’s not very demanding from that point of view.

This presumably relates to A SCURRILOUS RUMOUR BEING SPREAD AROUND WALES AT THE MOMENT BY A CERTAIN EXTREME FASCIST RIGHT-WING POLITICAL “PARTY” that a school in Wales is allowing children to self-identify as cats and instead of toilets, has provided litter trays for the pupils.

Not that there’s anything new in kids identifying themselves as cats. I’m sure that untold millions of children have gone through a phase of doing that sort of thing.

While we were dealing with this case of the teacher who had disappeared with this young girl, we’d been sorting out some clothes that related to the affair because part of the clothing was missing. Maybe we’d have a skirt or something but no blouse, or a blouse and no skirt, something like that, and we were trying to assemble all of the clothing so that we knew what we had and what we could list as missing. However, there was some small girl who was hanging around at the foot of the stage, but she didn’t really need to be there – there was somewhere else for her to go but no-one seemed to take any notice of her, so I decided that I would have to do that if no-one else would. I went to the edge of the stage to jump down, but it was probably two hundred feet down to the ground. Without thinking, I swung myself over the edge and spun round so that I was facing the side of the stage and went to climb down like a kind of monkey or something, but I’d totally miscalculated everything. Everyone gasped as I swung out over the stage and tried my best to slide down by digging my hands and fingernails into the wood as I slid down. I’d just miscalculated completely everything.

The first part of this dream presumably relates to the song CHILD BRIDE, a song that had been recorded by Bruce Springsteen for his album NEBRASKA but abandoned.

The part about sorting out the clothes is part of the plot of the Agatha Christie novel SLEEPING MURDER

As for the rest, it’s the usual panic-stricken nightmare that reoccurs every now and again at some point during the night.

Il y a quelque chose qui se passait avec les Beatles … I’m dictating in French, aren’t I … There was something happening concerning the Beatles as well last night. We were keeping some garrisons equipped and furnished with men in certain places, but with regards to one of them, we began to ask ourselves whether it was cost-effective to keep that particular one on or whether we should disestablish it. Someone mentioned that a couple of years ago, a few people had been injured there when the building had caught fire. Someone asked, rather tongue-in-cheek, although I suspect that there was more to it than this, if the Beatles had actually set the fire in the building themselves.

This presumably has a connection with the book that I’m reading at the moment. Several of the major fortresses had smaller outliers, but dividing a garrison is never a really good idea. The smaller one can be easily surrounded and overrun, and that would be a waste of manpower, supplies and ammunition. Everyone should be manning just one set of defences in order to concentrate the manpower and firepower.

Where the Beatles came into all this, I really have no idea.

We were going off to the university’s annual general meeting, so a large group of us piled into a coach and set off. We went down the autoroute into Paris and eventually came into the centre of the city, then round the périphérique and back out again. Then we all had to leave the coach and walk to the hotel, which was a couple of miles through the open countryside. It must have been midsummer because the hay was really high. We walked down these footpaths by these fields, and someone came across a booth that had all brochures in there, most of which were kiddy-designed. Someone even said that their father had, once many years ago, found one of these leaflets or magazines in there that they had prepared a long time ago when they were small. There was all this talk about the people we were going to meet. Several people mentioned the names of two girls who would be there, whom they were looking forward to meeting. I was feeling a little jealous because I was looking forward to meeting those two as well. There was also talk on the way down about the Americans who were going to be there. They were saying that on no account should we say anything about the war to upset the Americans. My opinion was that if the truth had to be told, it had to be told, and I didn’t care who was upset by it, so I calculated on my stay being a rather short one. There had also been some talk about “benzine” all the way down, and I was going to be drinking “benzine”. That was bewildering. As we walked, I came across a different two girls whom I knew from the university, so I walked with them into the hotel, but they disappeared as soon as we came in. As soon as I walked up to the reception, everyone recognised me – hotel staff etc. The first thing that they did was to pour a drink for me, some kind of fizzy drink with lemon and ice cubes in it. Someone shouted across the room “don’t forget that Mr Hall will have a ‘benzine’ as soon as he arrives”. Someone else replied “well, I’ve already poured it for him”. While we were waiting for everyone else to arrive, I had a chat with the manageress. She was saying that she admired the university and admired the people who were studying at it, such as me, which made me laugh. I replied “well, I admire you and I envy you and this lovely business that you have”. There was something else about an extra night’s accommodation. I seem to think that I’d paid for an extra night’s accommodation, but I wasn’t going to use it. I wondered how the refund would work if I were to leave without actually saying anything about cancelling this extra night.

The covers for the brochures for the Carnaval de Granville are designed by the local kids in some kind of competition, and the winner’s design will adorn the brochure for that year.

But I loved the comment that we must not upset the Americans, and so “I calculated on my stay being a rather short one”.

The “jealousy” part is quite interesting too. After all, there have been a number of times during my various dreams that I have been about to Get The Girl and someone comes along and spikes my guns. It’s no surprise that I’d be affected by people planning on spiking my guns before I’ve come within grasping distance of The Girl.

And once more, we end up with me dithering about this refund.

There was a campaign to put a bypass around Montaigut and St Eloy. They had built one around the eastern side but there was a campaign going on for one around the western side to link up with the other at both ends. I hadn’t been there for a while, but I drove down the road and saw that they had built a viaduct over a valley and had tarmacked it, but that was everything so far. I spoke to my architect friend about it, and he said that he had sent some plans to them about ten months ago and they’d built it, but at an old farm somewhere along the line, they had discovered a major water source, so they couldn’t really build it very far. He quoted some official as saying that the situation was much calmer now, there aren’t quite so many cars on the road, people don’t see the utility and they have become more accustomed to death since last time, and so it seems as if they were cancelling the project. I went along to the meeting about this, and they had several tape recordings of discussions between various people. For some reason or other, they had been recorded on string, not tape. They wanted to play these recordings to the people. I was asked if I’d hold the tape recorders while they did it. They gave me one to hold while the guy on the podium had a discussion with the people in the hall and then to play the string. There was definitely sound on it, but it was muffled and we could hardly hear a single word that people were saying, so after a while, he stopped it. At that point, I noticed that everyone had disappeared from that room, and I was there on my own. I didn’t have a clue what to do with this tape machine or anything. But one thing that I’d noticed when I was driving out that way earlier was that the skyline had changed completely. It was much higher away to the south than it used to be, so I wondered what had been going on there that had caused all of that.

They have in fact built a bypass around the eastern side of Montaigut and St Eloy, and not long before I left the area, they had built a segment around the north-western side of Montaigut, but it hadn’t gone any further than the road to Pionsat.

This part about everyone disappearing from the hall reminds me of a scene in MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL when they had been consulting an ancient sage, when suddenly, he vanished in the fog.

“I didn’t have a clue what to do with this tape machine” – I’m sure that regular readers of this rubbish will recall a few suggestions, and I bet that I’ll receive more than one or two of them in the post overnight.

After all of that, I was quite exhausted, so I had something of a relax by having a footfest.

There were the highlights of the rest of the games in the JD Cymru League and then I went, with some trepidation, to watch the Stranraer v league leaders East Kilbride game.

The wheels had well and truly come off Stranraer’s season after the defeat against Clyde that had ended their long-unbeaten run. But today, they managed to find some of their missing form and they ran out 2-1 winners. And well-deserved too.

After a rather late disgusting drink break, I went through my e-mails and replied to everyone who needed a reply to some earlier correspondence. So if you are waiting for a reply from me and haven’t had one, send me a reminder because I have probably missed your message.

For the rest of what little time remained (apart from the ten minutes or so when I fell asleep … errr …. riding the porcelain horse), I occupied myself with a task that I should have started fifteen years ago. It’s going to take an eternity to do, so I hope that I’ll have enough time to finish it. As to what it might be, well, you’ll have to wait and see.

There was baking to do this afternoon. I didn’t bake a loaf – I simply took a half-loaf from the freezer in the bathroom. But I made myself a lovely pizza.

And it was lovely too – one of the best that I have made, and there’s another half left over for Monday night when I come home from dialysis.

But seeing as we have been talking about dialysis … "well, one of us has" – ed … right now, I’m off to bed ready … "I don’t think" – ed … for dialysis tomorrow.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about children identifying as cats … "well, one of us has" – ed … there was such a story doing the rounds not so long ago.
And when the child came downstairs to the dining room at teatime, it was surprised to find that no place had been set for it at the table.
"Where’s my tea?" asked the child.
"If you want some tea" said the father "go outside and catch it yourself. There are plenty of mice in the barn. And when you come in, you’ll find some Munchies in a bowl by the door."

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: http://www.amazon.co.uk

Wednesday 15th July 2026 – IT HAS BEEN …

Sunday 5th July 2026 – WHEN I AWOKE …

Wednesday 17th June 2026 – LAST NIGHT, I …

Monday 8th June 2026 – I’M COMPLETELY FED UP …

Sunday 7th June 2026 – SO MUCH FOR …

Wednesday 3rd June 2026 – BRAIN OF BRITAIN …

Tuesday 2nd June 2026 – AS I HAVE …

Sunday 31st May 2026 – I HAVE BEEN …

Saturday 30th May 2026 – EVEN AS I …

Friday 29th May 2026 – WHAT AN EXCITING …

Tuesday 26th May 2026 – I HAVE NO …

Sunday 24th May 2026 – AS I HAVE …

Saturday 9th May 2026 – I HAVE TO ADMIT …

Wednesday 6th May 2026 – OHHHHH! THAT WAS SOOOOOOO …

Sunday 15th March 2026 – I HAVE HAD …

Your reactions

Excellent

Useful

Interesting

Weird

Surprising

Boring