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Saturday 4th April 2026 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

… the dictaphone again from last night. That tells you just how deep my sleep must have been.

And I needed it too. I’d been exhausted all day and as the evening went on, it went from bad to worse. With no tea again, apart from a slice of my delicious chocolate cake with home-made ice cream, I’d finished everything by 21:30 and by 21:45 I was tucked up in bed with my head buried under the quilt, and I went straight to sleep.

However, regular readers of this rubbish will recall what happens every time I have an early night. And round about 01:20 too. But this time it was for reasons that any person of my age will understand, and I was obliged to leave the bed.

Once I climbed back in, I was asleep almost straight away and that’s how I remained until the alarm went off at 06:29. And surprisingly, I was in exactly the same position in the bed as I had been when I went to sleep. I can’t have moved a single muscle during all that time.

It took an age for me to summon up the courage and energy to leave the bed, and what with a clothes-washing session too, I was hours late going into the kitchen for my hot drink and medication.

There was also a task that I had to carry out while I was in the kitchen. As I said yesterday, Isabelle the Nurse and I had had a discussion about hot cross buns, and she had asked me if I had a recipe. And so, taking the book in which I write down all of my recipes, I wrote out the recipe for her, ready for when she arrives.

Back in here, with no dictaphone notes to transcribe, I had a few other things to do. And while I was doing them, I discovered that the attendance at the game between Colwyn Bay and Caernarfon attracted a crowd of 2357. That was higher than the average gate of Accrington Stanley in League Two and higher than eight games in League Two in March.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up as usual and was grateful for the recipe. We had the usual chat about nothing at all, and after she left, I could make breakfast and read some more of THE ROMAN FORT AT BALMUILDY on the Antonine Wall, written by Stewart Napier Miller.

In fact, read all of it because it’s now finished. And my assumption about the attacks by the natives on the fort are confirmed by his assumptions. He can, in fact, name two periods when the destruction was likely. The first being an invasion from the north that occurred, according to some contemporary writers, in 155 AD and another one being an attack some time later that prompted the evacuation of the Antonine Wall and the retreat to that of Hadrian.

So tomorrow, I’ll be starting a new book, if I wake up, which at this moment appears to be extremely unlikely.

As for my breakfast, my hot cross buns were excellent again, even if they are somewhat over-baked. In future, I’ll cook them at 180°C, regardless of what the recipe says.

Back in here, I had a few things to do, such as to watch the highlights of last night’s matches in the JD Cymru League, and then I attacked the next lot of notes for a future radio programme. And now, the two halves of the programme are complete, the joining track has been chosen and the notes written, ready for the next dictating session, whenever that might be.

And it might have been finished a long time beforehand, had I not fallen asleep for well over an hour round about midday.

After all of that I went into the bathroom and went one better than Dave Crosby, probably because I had the ‘flu for Christmas, and right now, I’m definitely not feeling up to par.

Later on, I went into the kitchen to make some more ice cream.

This time, it’s based on some chocolate milk with coconut cream, and by the time that it’s finished, it will have a stream of mint syrup running through it.

And I remembered my mistake about the cornflour when I made my first batch. This time, I heated half of the milk and added the cornflour into it to thicken it. When it cooled, nice and thick, I added it into the rest of the milk, and it seemed (to date) to have worked.

There was plenty of time left after that, and regular readers of this rubbish will recall a project that I mentioned on thirteenth of March or thereabouts, so I concentrated for a few hours on continuing that. It’s not going to be finished for ages, if at all because it’s an enormous piece of work, and it will take me forever, bearing the time that I have available.

Mind you, this is another one of those things where I could have done much more had I not fallen asleep at one point. In fact, I’ve been fighting off wave after wave of sleep all day, quite unsuccessfully at times. You wouldn’t think that I had had such a good sleep last night.

While I was having a little doze during the late afternoon, there had been a snowplough with a blade and rotating brush at the front and a salt spreader at the back, working the Trans-Labrador Highway. It came to a fast-food or coffee place and actually drove inside to clean up the inside of the building, especially the area in front of and behind the counter.

Part of the things that I have been doing today did include a discussion about the Trans-Labrador Highway and MY FIRST TRIP AROUND THERE IN 2010. And there was a discussion about snowploughs, although not cleaning out a Tim Horton’s or one of those places that was found by a High Court judge to be "guilty of exploitative marketing to children, some animal cruelty, anti-union practices, low pay, and misleading health claims.".

Anyway, that’s enough of that. These waves of fatigue have been doing me in all day and it’s surprising that I’ve accomplished as much as I have done. And so, I’m going to go to bed.

Once more, I’ve had no tea except for a lump of cake with some home-made ice cream. I’m more interested in sleep and trying to keep my weight down for dialysis rather than eating right now, although I won’t say “no” to my cake.

And in any case, with a lie-in tomorrow … "he hopes" – ed … tonight is a good night for an early night, so I shan’t hang about. I’ll go back into the kitchen and give the new ice cream a good forking, and that will be that.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my home-made ice cream … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of my friends asked me "where did you actually learn to make ice cream?"
"Simple" I replied. "When I was small, I used to go to Sundae School. "

Friday 3rd April 2026 – I HAVE HAD …

… another miserable day today and I’ll be going to bed in a few minutes regardless of how early or late it might be. And if I have yet another evening without any tea, I really don’t care at all.

Last night, as I said earlier, I was in bed at 20:20 or thereabouts, and I was asleep almost straight away. But not for long, though. By about 00:30 I was awake, and try as I might, I couldn’t go back to sleep.

In the end, round about 03:00, I left the bed and went to sit at the computer. After doing the stats and backing everything up, I wrote yesterday’s entry and replaced the terse note that I had written earlier.

Back into bed at about 04:30, I set the alarm for 07:30 and went back to sleep – except for a brief moment round about 05:00 when I definitely heard someone shout “wake up, wake up”.

When the alarm went off, I staggered … "eventually" – ed … to my feet and went off to the bathroom for a kind-of wash. Not very much of a wash, it has to be said, because I was still fully dressed.

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

There was something about a girl who was writing some kind of biography about the Beatles, or one of the Beatles. She was choosing all kinds of music for the programme. She’d borrowed a pile of books to read but her teacher had borrowed half of those and she was having a great deal of difficulty getting them back. It turned out that this teacher wanted to be involved in the project too but the girl writing it wouldn’t have her in the project at any price. Eventually, she managed to come up with some kind of notes, but there was all the music and she didn’t really want to be involved in the music. She was going to leave this to the producer to sort out the songs and insert them into the programme where he thought fit, despite where otherwise she might have put them.

There doesn’t seem to be very much of any relevance in this dream, so I’ve no idea about anything that might have been going on. It seems that quite recently, we are having a lot of dreams that don’t relate to anything that’s been going on, so I’ve no idea what’s happening these days. It’s probably something to do with these extra pills that I have to take.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up as usual and we had an interesting chat about hot cross buns. Apparently, she’d seen something on TV about them and wanted to know more. I told her that I’d give her my recipe and let her find out for herself.

After she left, I made breakfast and read some more of THE ROMAN FORT AT BALMUILDY on the Antonine Wall, written by Stewart Napier Miller.

Today, we’re discussing pottery, would you believe? And it’s interesting to note that these experts can identify the individual potter, where and when he worked from just a small fragment.

And just like James Curle at Newsteads, they note that pottery from the earlier period is of much better quality than that of the later period, quite the reverse of what you would normally expect.

As an aside, I have to say that my home-made hot cross buns are absolutely excellent. They really have turned out very well indeed and I’ll have to make another batch like that, but not have the oven so hot. I should have realised that 200°C is too high and I should have stuck to my usual 180°C

Back in here, I had things to do, such as to check my e-mails, and I found that there was work to do. Someone had written to me to tell me that I had misidentified a building on ONE OF MY WEB PAGES, so I had to amend the entry.

While I was at it, I was able to identify a colour for which I had been searching for quite a while and I can now use it, as you might already have noticed.

When I’d finished everything, I began to edit one of the sets of radio notes that had been hanging round for quite a while. So right now, the two halves of the programme have been prepared, the joining track has been chosen and the notes for it written, ready for the next lot of dictating.

That was despite several interruptions. Firstly, at midday, I had to put the dirty clothes into the machine to wash them. And then take them out later and prepare them for my faithful cleaner to hand up when she comes this afternoon.

When she turned up, round about 14:00, I was feeling too ill to stand up and say “hello”. I just grunted a few things to her from in here and let her get on with it.

After she had left, there was football on the internet, Llanelli v Y Bala.

And I have to say that I have never ever seen a team play as badly as Llanelli. Bottom of the table and already relegated, for the first sixty minutes, they played so badly that they made Y Bala, next to bottom, look good. The game was already over at that point, with Y Bala 4-0 up and it was no exaggeration.

For the final thirty minutes, Llanelli were much improved and played with much more fire and spirit. They even hit the woodwork a couple of times, but couldn’t score a goal. And in fact, near the end, Y Bala scored a breakaway goal that made it 5-0.

The battle for the second relegation place is now hotting up. From being eight points clear a couple of weeks ago and looking quite safe, Y Fflint are now just two points ahead, with one game left to play.

After the game was over, I crashed out in my chair for an hour or so. I’d been fighting off wave after wave of sleep all day. When I awoke, I really was feeling dreadful.

As it was almost teatime, I cut myself a slice of chocolate cake and put a dollop of home-made ice cream on it, and then brought it in here. That’s my tea for tonight and, once more, it really is excellent. I’m quite pleased with how the cake has turned out.

So now that my notes are finished, I’m off to bed, hoping for a good night’s sleep, but I doubt it.

The heating is turned up full in here tonight as I’m freezing cold, I’m coughing like never before, a streaming cold and non-stop sneezing. At least, in bed I can keep warm, and I’ll stay in bed for as long as it takes. I really am feeling quite dreadful right now;

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my cake … "well, one of us has" – ed … a man walking on a beach finds a magic lamp and gives it a rub. Suddenly, a genie appears.
"You have liberated me from my prison" said the genie. "I shall grant you three wishes."
"First, I’d like a motor yacht on a trailer"
"No problem" said the genie. He waves his wand and a motor yacht on a trailer appears.
"Now I would like a million Pounds" said the man.
"No problem" said the genie. He waves his wand and a million Pounds appears.
"Now I would like to be totally irresistible to women" said the man
"No problem" said the genie. He waves his wand and transforms the man into a chocolate cake.

Tuesday 31st March 2026 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… day it’s been today. And I don’t mean just this last twenty-one hours, but all twenty-four hours since 21:45 last night.

With having tea – the other half of Sunday’s pizza – already prepared, it didn’t take too long to eat and to come back in here. With not very much to write last night, I’d soon finished. It didn’t take long to do the stats and the backing-up either, or to sort myself out ready for bed. As a result, at 21:45, I was crawling into bed under the covers.

And how much sleep do you think that I had?

One of the side effects of one of the medicaments prescribed by Emilie the Cute Consultant is “insomnia”. Ad as I have enough trouble sleeping already, it doesn’t take much more for me to have what the French call a nuit blanche – a night where you don’t go to sleep at all.

So there I was, head tucked under the quilt, tossing and turning, doing in-bed physiotherapy and all kinds of things, but sleep just never came and I lay there awake all night.

When the alarm went off, I managed to haul myself out of bed, but it took a good while for me to find the strength, courage and energy to stagger off into the bathroom.

In the kitchen, I made my hot drink and took my medication and then came back in here to see if there was anything on the dictaphone. And, to my surprise, there was too. I must have gone to sleep at some point during the night.

There was something about the Royal Navy last night. It was supposed to be fitting out a ship but for some reason, the finishing time was being delayed for an hour here and an hour there and an hour something else and no-one was actually catching up with it. Then there was an explosion in Portsmouth harbour as one of the British battleships spontaneously combusted. It threw metal and everything all over the town. Everyone on board, including a load of sea cadets, were killed. That wasn’t the only catastrophe that happened to the Royal Navy. There were two ships on blockade duty off the coast of Belgium, and they somehow managed to collide with each other.

What the boat is doing being fitted out in my dreams, I don’t know. But the story of the exploding battleship reminds me of THE MONT BLANC – an ammunition ship that exploded in Halifax harbour after a collision, taking half of the town and half of its population with it in its way to the hereafter.

Whether that’s the reference to the collision or not, I wouldn’t know, but ships on blockade duty colliding with each other was a regular occurrence.

I was living in a small village where the highlights of the occasion were things like people ringing up the police saying that someone’s goat is free, things like that. And if you were to go into the police station, you would usually find the police officers asleep, slumped over the desk. Where we were living, there was something about someone with some kind of music list and when I was twelve, I reported it to the police for some kind of reason that wasn’t clear. I don’t really know what happened after that.

This sounds like several villages in which I’ve lived at one time or another, although I wouldn’t be the type of person to report anyone to the police.

But it does remind me of a sign that I saw once in Fredericton, New Brunswick, that read “on this day in” … (some year or other) “nothing happened”.

Isabelle the Nurse breezed in, all happy and relaxed after her week’s rest, much of which was spent with her daughter in Paris. I told her about my encounters with Emilie the Cute Consultant and the pills that she’s prescribed for me. She asked about the cough, so I explained that they were trying to sort out a thoracic scan and an appointment with a lung specialist.

After she left, I made breakfast and read some more of ESSAYS ON THE LATIN ORIENT by William A Miller.

Today, we’ve been working through the story of Anna Komnena, daughter of the Byzantine Emperor Alexios Komnenos. She wrote a biography of her father, which is said to be a fascinating eyewitness account of the Byzantine Emperor and the goings-on therein during the period 1081 – 1108.

There’s a translation of this into English, dated 1928 and I’ve actually found a copy to download. It will make interesting reading if ever I have the time to read it.

But that’s Miller’s book finished, and I certainly did learn a lot, which is the whole point of reading. Tomorrow we start a new book.

Back in here, I started a couple of things, but the next thing that I knew, it was 11:20. I’d fallen asleep in my chair for about two hours, and I can’t say that I’m at all surprised.

It comes as no surprise either for me to say that after that, I just couldn’t concentrate on anything. Most of my effort went on trying to stay awake.

However, I remixed the soundtrack for the concert that I’m preparing for the radio, and it’s a much better mix than the one that I prepared yesterday. It’s even a couple of minutes longer too, which means that I don’t have to write as much text.

Anyway, the text is all written for it now and I just need to find the time somehow to dictate it. There’s quite a bit building up in the pipeline right now that needs dictating.

There were the usual interruptions too. My faithful cleaner turned up to do her stuff and she chased me into the shower for a good scrub. While I was in there, she changed the bedding so the nice, clean me is going to have a good sleep in a nice, clean bed, if this insomnia has worn off. Which, judging by however many times I’ve almost fallen asleep this evening, it probably has.

There was still some time left at the end of the day, so I tried to prepare the next radio programme but my heart and my head just weren’t in it at all. I managed to make a few notes, but that’s about all. I shall have to do better than this tomorrow.

Tea tonight was a gorgeous bowl full of pasta and veg in a vegan cheese sauce, followed by more trifle. It’s beginning to break up now, the trifle, but it’s still delicious.

And that reminds me, I have to cover the chocolate cake with chocolate sauce.

But that’s tomorrow because right now, I’m off to bed, hoping for a better night than last night.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about ships and collisions at sea … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of my friends was telling me about a ship carrying blue paint that collided with a ship carrying red paint.
"Really?" I asked. "What happened?"
"The survivors were marooned."

Sunday 1st March 2026 – DYDD GWYL DEWI …

… hapus iawn, pawb!

Did you all enjoy your leek soup? And did you arrange your daffodils neatly in your living room? And did you give your pet dragon a little treat? As long as you did all of that, you aren’t likely to receive a visit from an angry druid today.

As for me, I’m afraid that I didn’t. Sunday here is pizza day, and as well as that, I can’t go out hunting for daffodils, although Rosemary did send me some virtual daffodils via an internet chat program.

Instead, I’ve had something of a lazy day, and you’ll be surprised at just how productive I have been, because I know that I am.

Last night wasn’t as I had planned it either. It ended up being horribly late, just after midnight, when I stopped letting it all hang out and went to bed instead. And instead of the decent sleep and long lie-in that I wanted, it was one of those mobile nights where I was tossing and turning, half awake and half asleep, without actually going into a really deep sleep.

When the nurse put in an appearance, I was actually awake, and so I pretended to be asleep so that I didn’t have to leave my comfortable bed. He sorted out my legs and feet and then disappeared. I curled up under the bedclothes and tried my best to go to sleep, but with no luck at all.

Eventually, round about 09:15, I gave it up as a bad job and arose from the Dead. I gathered up my clothes from the chair and, throwing my slippers in the general direction of the bathroom, I scored a beautiful hole in one, right into the toilet bowl. What a way to start the day!

In the kitchen, I forgot my medication, but I had a lovely breakfast of porridge, hot coffee and two of my homemade croissants. That’s a really nice way to start the day, especially when you take your time and don’t go into your office to start work until 10:45. I wish that every day could be like this.

What took me so long was that I was engrossed in my new book, ESSAYS ON THE LATIN ORIENT by William A. Miller.

Today, we’re discussing the complicated relationship between Thebes, Athens and Sparta, a relationship that sporadically erupted into warfare, with any two pitted against the third. It’s helping me brush up on my classics from when I studied Latin at grammar school, and it’s amazing just how much of the old classical stories have been proved by modern archaeology to be true.

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

I was living in some kind of communal living thing. There were lots of different people there doing lots of different things. There should have been a meeting late one night before going to bed, but it turned out that the guy on whose behalf the meeting was being held had simply gone ahead and applied the texture mix to his skin, which meant that he’d be busy recovering or whatever, changing or something, and so the meeting was cancelled. That was extremely disappointing, so I gathered up a couple of things from the radio, some old English-language programmes that I’d done years ago and went to see the girl in the next room who worked for the local radio. She thanked me for coming but said that they were doing things in a different way these days and didn’t need the programmes that I had. However, there would be plenty of opportunity to do stuff in the future. She was thinking of having some kind of doll or something and she would want me to write the speech for it. I took my things to go back to my room, but on the way back, I heard that there had been some kind of announcement that Jim Dale, one of the CARRY ON stars, had been seen hiding in a tree near the old airfield up near Wardle – it was described as “Stoke Bank” in this news report. He’d been repeating one of his “Carry On” speeches from out of this tree and it had made the local news in all the papers.

Whatever the significance of the first part of this dream might be, I have no idea. As for the second part, I have a whole stock of English language radio programmes that Liz and I prepared when we were running “Radio Anglais”, programmes that were broadcast on French local radio. A short while ago, a radio station in Nantwich was calling for radio presenters and programmes, so I sent them one or two as tasters, to see whether they might be interested in a programme from me every now and again. It goes without saying that they never replied.

There is a “Stoke Bank” along the A51 a couple of miles from the old Wardle Airfield, which was my home … "the airfield, not Stoke Bank#34; – ed … for a short while when I was a baby. But there aren’t any trees there in which Jim Dale could loiter, whether or not he might be repeating a “Carry On” speech.

And I did once live in some kind of commune. But not for long, though. Firstly, I’m not a sociable animal, and secondly, most people in that place preferred to live off the backs of other, hard-working people. In the end, I preferred to live in my van.

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.

There had been a couple of girls who had come over for an environmental conference. I’d been chatting to one and I was getting on extremely well with her. For some reason, my brother ended up with their contact details, but I didn’t. On the Sunday, we had various things to do, like we had to pack our place up as we were moving house that weekend. We were busy organising everything, and there was this beautiful cupboard that I’d had my eye on for ages with several drawers in it. It just looked like a huge bass speaker. The price on it was something like £275.00, which I thought was too much. Someone whom we knew came along and asked about it. The woman said “if you take it now, you can have it for £180.00. He paid her cash on the spot, and I felt really annoyed because I would have had it for £180.00 any day of the week. I told her to wait a minute because it had some of my paperwork in it. I had to go through and find somewhere to put this paperwork. I asked someone if they had a sack, and my mother made some kind of comment about that, but I wasn’t in the mood to joke. In the end, someone found a large paper sack and I began to put my things into it. One thing that I’d noticed was that a plot of land on which I’d had my eye too, which was formerly a garage in Audlem, had come back onto the market. The announcement from the paper was that there was a confusion about the closing date of the auction. Of course, I was far too busy to concentrate on this and we were still putting away our things. I came across a press cutting that showed that this conference to which we’d been was going on today, and there was a chance to meet all the contributors. That really annoyed me because I could have gone along and seen that girl again. Then my brother came up with some kind of story about how his car, with a trailer on it, had an electrical fault and he’d had to manually flash the rear lights to make some kind of brake lights every time he stopped. I was still in no mood for any kind of joke

This is quite a regular theme, isn’t it? Here I am, just about to Get The Girl, and a member of my family comes along and throws a spanner into the works.

The chest of drawers sounds interesting, and had I been healthy, I would have gone all-out to make one. And moving house, cars with electrical faults and looking for plots of land were habitual themes in real life back in the day.

There was also something about a Grand Prix around by Monte Carlo, the Monaco Grand Prix, twisting and turning through the streets with all of these cars taking part. We were watching it from a distance, and suddenly, after about half of the cars had gone past, there was complete silence and nothing. Then, all of the Grand Prix drivers who hadn’t gone through in their cars, they came through, and they were running. Apparently, there had been a major accident somewhere and they couldn’t proceed any further with their cars – this major accident behind the leading group so they couldn’t proceed with their cars, so they were going to run the rest of the course.

Before I went to bed last night, I was reading a news article about Cadillac’s entry into the Formula One circuit, but that their engine is not considered to be as reliable as it needs to be. Running the course on foot would be a novel way to proceed, though.

There was some kind of dream going on about a football competition. One of the teams had been relegated. There was something about a particular match and it involved my vegan ice cream somewhere, but I really can’t remember any more about it because I awoke as it was under way and it all evaporated … "the dream, not the ice cream" – ed …

Llanelli has just been relegated from the JD Cymru League, and lest night, we were watching the Welsh League Cup Final, complete with its very emotional ending, followed by vegan ice cream for dessert.

Seeing as we have been talking about the Welsh League Cup Final … "well, one of us has" – ed … this is the LINK TO THE HIGHLIGHTS. This is the LINK TO THE FULL MATCH. If you have the time, it’s well-worth it from a footballing point of view. The highlights don’t really show anything like a fair representative proportion of the game.

When I’d finished the dictaphone notes, there was yet more football. Morton were comfortably beaten by Airdrie after going down to nine men, and then Stranraer’s long unbeaten run came to an end as they were beaten at home by Elgin City.

After a disgusting drink break, with some of the medication that I’d forgotten, I had a pile of *.html coding to edit.

First thing though was to upload my graphics program onto this laptop. That’s easier said than done because there is no DVD drive on it. I had to rummage around deep in the bowels of the box where all of the redundant hard drives are hiding, and there it was, right at the bottom. And to my surprise, the USB cable and power pack were with it. Usually, knowing me, I would have expected them to have been scattered to the four winds a long time ago.

The next step was to open the drive. With not having been opened for years, the springs had seized. Luckily, there’s an escape hole, and a straightened paper clip fitted in quite nicely to lever down the internal catch.

Having uploaded the program, I could then go ahead and prepare some graphic images. And then I had to hunt down a few web links to tie to the images, and that wasn’t as easy as it might have been.

The next task was to edit the *.html coding to include the images and their links, and I was dismayed at how much *.html coding I’ve forgotten. Turn the clock back thirty years, and I was writing web pages by hand in “Notetab” and even teaching basic web design to a couple of interested people, but I couldn’t do it now.

There was an hour to spare, so I made a start on the Welsh homework. I’ve done about two-thirds of it, and as it doesn’t have to be done for two weeks, I’m glad that I’m well in advance because I can have a relax at some point.

At 16:30 I knocked off to go a-baking. A loaf of bread and a vegan pizza were today’s output. The bread rose like a lift and looks excellent, and the pizza was absolutely delicious, with half left over for tomorrow.

But right now, I’m off to bed, ready for dialysis tomorrow … "I don’t think" – ed … and to reflect on what a busy day I’ve had, considering that Sunday is supposed to be a Day of Rest.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about The Monaco Grand Prix … "well, one of us has" – ed … Percy Penguin once told me that she’d like to go there to watch the Formula One race.
However, I told her "we don’t have the money to go to watch the Formula One race in Monaco. And in any case, it’s pronounced Gron’ Pree."

Saturday 21st February 2026 – IT’S BEEN ANOTHER …

… day when I seem to have accomplished quite a lot, without really realising it.

Mind you, I did have something of a head start this morning, and that can quite often make a great difference.

It wasn’t like that last night, though. Once more, everything that I needed to do seemed to take so long to do it that it was 23:30 once more when I finally crawled into bed and threw the covers over my head, as I usually do.

And there I lay, fast asleep, until all of … errr … 03:25 when I awoke. And from that moment on, try as I might, I simply could not go back to sleep.

So for about two hours or so, I lay there tossing and turning to no effect whatsoever and in the end, round about 05:30, I arose from the Dead.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that this week, I’ve prepared two radio programmes. The notes had yet to be dictated, and so I made the most of the early start by dictating both of them before we started having people strolling around outside and making a noise.

Once I’d finished, I went into the bathroom to sort myself out, change my clothes and have a clothes-washing session. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … having lived out of a suitcase for several years, I always try to keep on top of the washing of the undies so that I’m not overwhelmed or, even worse, run out of clothes. Handwashing my undies is no big deal.

In the kitchen, I made my hot lemon, honey and ginger drink with which to take my medication, and then came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out what I’d been up to during the night.

And I was surprised that I’d been up to so much, given how little sleep I’d had during the night.

There was a big group of us sitting around on the chairs and settees and the floor of a living room somewhere. We were discussing various things that had happened, various illnesses, and someone began to talk about a mining disaster up in the Cumbria region where people had been killed. They were discussing how it happened, and someone turned round to me and said “I suppose that if you’d been in charge, Eric, you’d have pleaded ‘Not Guilty'” to which I replied “not at all”. Someone said “yes, but you don’t want to say that at the top of your voice, do you?”. I replied “no, but you review the evidence first before you decide on what you are going to say”. The chap then turned round from that same subject towards the medical and said … “that’s why” I said “I have this illness but no-one is going to say that I die of it because I might die of something else in the meantime”. People usually hedge their bets as to when I’m going to die etc and no-one will give me a date because they are all making sure that they don’t pre-empt anything.

Yesterday, I was writing the biography for a musician who came from Aspatria in Cumbria. And as well as that, it was the anniversary today of one of the SPRINGHILL MINING DISASTERS, the one that took place in 1891.

Later on, we were singing a song called “Rebecca”. It’s a song in French and concerned a girl who was walking around Maiden Castle reviewing all of the changes etc that had taken place there. The song was in homage of what she saw. Of course, it was much more complicated than this and included a dream as well, but it was the song that stuck in my mind mostly, even though I’ve forgotten it now.

This is one of those dreams that I have mentioned before, where I remember nothing at all about it.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I am actually asleep when I dictate my notes during the night but even so, I usually have a recall of something or other when I’m transcribing them. However, this is one of those where I didn’t and I’ve no idea to what it relates.

It certainly sounds interesting, though, and I wish that I could remember it.

We were back right at the end of the American Civil War and the siege of Richmond or Fredericksburg. The Union Army was of course on top, and there was one Union soldier who was quite famous for a lot of things. He was running agents behind Confederate lines, doing all kinds of things that had made him something of a hero. The Confederates learned that he was in the front line in their sector, so one of their private soldiers made a kind of search amongst the Union soldiers as best as he could from his own trench, and thought that he was able to recognise the soldier by the accolades that he was having from his friends. One evening, the soldier went and constructed a kind of tent in the front line, a shelter using a tent half and installed himself in it. The Confederate soldier took a rifle from the rack and inserted a bullet in it. He took careful aim but of course the rifle was extremely heavy and he was unable to control it properly when he was standing up. Nevertheless, when he thought that he was correct, he fired. It hit the Union soldier in the leg and rebounded into his chest and there had to be all kinds of immediate, urgent reactions to try to save him, otherwise he’d die. So in the pause that was taking place, a couple of Confederate officers and their wives decided that they would try to cross the lines into the Union Army area and go to do their shopping. When the general heard about this, he was appalled and sent the strongest instructions around. A couple of days later, the Confederate Army surrendered and it made no difference. One thing about this rifle while I think about it was that it wasn’t a muzzle-loader with a paper cartridge and a Minié ball but a breech loader with a proper bullet. In the American Civil War armies, it was extremely rare to find that.

This dream actually concerned the siege of Petersburg, and regular readers of this rubbish in a previous existence will recall that WE WENT TO VISIT PETERSBURG on one of our trips around the USA back in the past.

And I do have to say that I’m so impressed that I can remember from my reading in the past, so much that is relevant to this dream. The Spencer Repeating Rifle that this Confederate private seems to be using was a very rare issue, only issued to Union cavalry and sharpshooter infantry regiments. It had a chamber that could hold seven bullets of the type that we know today

The ordinary “footslogger” used a Springfield rifled musket. These were long-barrelled and had to be loaded at the muzzle. A paper cartridge of gunpowder would be rammed down the barrel and then a Minié bullet, a lump of lead about six tenths of an inch in diameter, would be rammed down afterwards.

The discharge of a Minié ball from a Springfield was of a very low velocity, so rather than the bullet passing through clothes, flesh and everything, the Minié ball would push clothing deep into the body and the weight of the ball would shatter the bone. Consequently, there were many, many cases where gangrene developed, because of the dirty and stained clothing that the victim would be wearing. A surgical amputation of the limb in what passed for a casualty clearing station was a very common result of being hit by a Minié ball.

The survival rate of amputation after being hit by a Minié ball was not very optimistic. I’ve seen figures to suggest that over twenty-five per cent of such amputations resulted in death.

As for the tent, every Union soldier carried as part of his kit a “shelter half” which was half a tent. And when the troops stopped for the night, they would form pairs and make one tent from their two “shelter halves”.

And as I said just now, I’m impressed that I could remember all that in a dream.

Isabelle the nurse turned up as usual and told me that somehow, she’d been locked out of her health card-reading machine. That’s going to cause a few complications if she can’t unlock herself.

After she left, I made breakfast and read some more of MAIDEN CASTLE EXCAVATIONS AND FIELD SURVEY 1985-6 by Niall Sharples.

He has now moved on to discuss pottery. And it’s going to be a very long discussion too because his team found a total of 10,432 grammes of pottery from the Neolithic Age alone, never mind the Bronze Age, the Iron Age and the proto-Roman occupation.

At the moment, he’s trying to categorise it into rim formation and shape. I have a feeling that we’ll be here for a rather long time.

After breakfast, I had things to do. Up on the top of my shelf unit were some boxes from the move back in August. I can’t reach them so while my cleaner had the ladder here yesterday, I asked her to bring them down.

And you’ll be amazed at the stuff that I found in them when I was sorting through the contents. It really is quite impressive. Loads of stuff that I’d either mislaid, couldn’t find or didn’t even realise that I’d brought with me from the farm.

The problem now is to find a place to put the things because it’s no use putting them back on the top shelf where I can’t reach them. A lot of it is stuff that I ought to need.

After a disgusting drink break at lunchtime, I came in here and began to edit the notes that I’d dictated a couple of weeks ago for another radio programme. And by the time that I’d knocked off, I’d edited them all, assembled the two halves of the programme, chosen the joining track and written the notes for it ready for dictation on the next early morning.

Then we had the football. And at last, after several weeks, we finally had a match where both the teams were interested in the game and wanted to play it.

Llansawel, fourth from bottom, were entertaining Y Bala, second from bottom. Y Bala were desperate for points to haul themselves out of the relegation places and Llansawel had hopes of catching up the teams ahead of them and pulling further out of danger.

Consequently, they were at it hammer and tongs right from the kick-off and there was no respite.

The result, 2-1 to Llansawel, was probably about fair, but if Y Bala can play like that all the time, they might give Y Fflint, third bottom, a few things to think about.

After the final whistle, I went into the kitchen and sorted out the pastry to make my croissants. I tried my new technique and it seems to work, but we’ll have to wait until I bake them tomorrow morning to see;

By then it was teatime and I made baked potato, a vegan salad and some of those vegan nuggets that I like, followed by apricot with vegan sorbet

Right now though, I’m going to bed ready for my lie-in, I hope. I have to say that I deserve it. Tomorrow, I’m going to try to find a recipe for a ginger cake so that I can make a ginger layer cake, with some vegan ginger cream filling in between the layers, if I can find a recipe for that too.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about Neolithic pottery … "well, one of us has" – ed … Niall Sharples was asked about all the pottery that he had collected.
"The problem is" he said "that it’s all broken into small pieces. To all intents and purposes, it’s effectively dead."
"So why are you collecting it all?"
"We’re going to have to try to return it to its next-of-kiln."

Tuesday 20th January 2026 – AS I HAVE …

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

So last night, having had a quick, ready-made tea and with nothing much to say for myself … "makes a change" – ed … I was able to finish everything off at some kind of respectable time, like 21:55, and I was in bed about twenty minutes later.

Not only that, I was fast asleep quite quickly too despite the wracking cough and the stabbing pain in my foot, and there I lay until all of … errr … 02:30. And that, dear reader, was that.

Well, not exactly, to be honest. I did manage to fall asleep again round about 04:30 but only for about 30 minutes. I lay there for another half-hour trying my best to go back to sleep, but in the end, I abandoned the idea and left the bed.

Taking full advantage of the early start, I dictated the radio notes for no fewer than three radio programmes that were in the pipeline. I’d even managed to edit one of them by the time the alarm sounded.

When the alarm sounded, I headed off into the bathroom for a superficial wash (because I’ll be showering later) and then wandered off for my hot 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 to find that, despite the short night, I had actually managed to go travelling.

For some reason, there were a few of us being handcuffed. First of all, when they went to try to handcuff me, they dropped the handcuffs and fell about twenty feet down onto the ground. It took them quite some recovery time in order to rescue them. Then, when they had rescued them and they had to start again, it still wasn’t actually working correctly at all and I had a feeling that my whole upper body was totally twisted round and I had no idea what was going on when this was happening

As Europe prepares for imminent war, this dream is not as far-fetched as it may seem. As well as that, I’ve been deliberately steering clear of commenting on the state of current events because there is much more going to be going on in the very near future, but it’s interesting to recap on something that I WROTE IN MAY 2005 that is likely to come to pass in the very near future.

This was about a tribe of Africans, somewhere in Africa in years gone by who had invented a process of heating water. They had managed to make flexible copper pipe and had succeeded in coiling it around the chimney of a cast-iron stove. They poured cold water in at one end that went down a pipe and swirled around the coil that was around the chimney. When the chimney was lit, it heated the water and the water came out the other side and it was quite hot. This was the kind of thing that took the earliest European explorers completely by surprise.

This was actually a project of mine for down on the farm when I finally had my big stove installed on the ground floor. However, we never managed to make it that far. But it would be interesting indeed if some fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Africans had developed flexible copper piping.

I had plenty of things to do in the garden so I went outside and began to make a start. I was gradually organising everything and there were all these people heading past. They all seemed to be on their way to the local school, the children and adults. They were chatting and one of them was talking about the swimming baths, and they might need a bath cap to go into the swimming pool. They were trying to arrange between themselves where to pick one up and who would lend one to them. There were a couple of little girls going past, picking wild flowers as they went. Then I had to go for a walk to somewhere else so I set off. It was up some kind of hill and there was that much water, even though it was a nice day, that the road was like a river. It was very difficult to find a dry spot in order to go to where I wanted to go. My appointment was at 17:30 but I’d set out at 17:00, but I’d seen this motorcycle for sale, a big five-litre two-wheeled thing, and I was so impressed with it that I thought that I would come back to have a ride on it and maybe even to buy it. But one thing that I’d been noticing throughout this dream was that I wasn’t on my crutches at all and was walking quite normally. When someone asked me about it, I said that I had days when I could walk around like this and other days when I needed crutches. But it’s rather embarrassing when I go back to school when I’m on crutches because I’m called all kinds of names by the other kids.

My house at Gainsborough Road was at a junction of roads that led to four different schools so there were always kids and parents going past. The motorbike was interesting too – five litres on two wheels! But how many times is this now that I’ve been walking without my crutches during the night?

Isabelle the Nurse came by this morning to start her round. She was dressed as a leopard today, furry jacket and spotted slacks. We had a brief chat and then she pushed off, leaving me to my breakfast and A ROMAN FRONTIER POST AND ITS PEOPLE

Today, we’ve moved on beyond armour and are discussing weapons. James Curle has identified some of the swords as being of Celtic origin and believes that this indicates that a cohort of native mercenaries was recruited to swell the numbers in the garrison.

On the other hand, it could equally mean that it was Celtic warriors from Galloway who actually attacked the fort and drove out the Romans, causing them to flee to Hadrian’s Wall in round about 120 AD.

Back here, I revised for my Welsh and then went for my lesson. It was another one that passed quite well, due to the amount of preparation that I’d done. I wish that I could persevere and do this all the time.

When my faithful cleaner appeared, she shooed me into the bathroom for a shower, so I’m a nice, clean boy now. And then I had to pack up and wrap the computer that I’m sending back to my online retailer, mainly because it was so late arriving.

Once my cleaner had left, I attacked the next radio programme whose notes I’d dictated earlier. That’s now finished and ready to go, and there was even time to make a start on the next one.

Tea was the last of the leek, potato and mushroom soup, which I had with some bread out of the freezer. It was followed by Christmas cake, which still seems to be going strong. Not much left now, and then I can go back to the jam roly-poly and the spotted dick.

But right now, I’m off to bed again, hoping for a better night tonight, although I doubt it very much with this cough, this pain in my foot and now my nose that’s streaming like a tap again.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about kids going to school … "well, one of us has" – ed … I once heard a story about someone who refused to go.
When his mother asked him why, he replied "I don’t want to go to school. All the kids hate me, all the teachers hate me, all the dinner ladies hate me, the gardener and the secretary hate me, and even Norah the Nit-Nurse hates me. In fact, everyone hates me<"
"Look dear" said his mother, soothingly. "You have to go to school"
"Give me one good reason why."
"Well, dear, You ARE the Headmaster."

Monday 29th December 2025 – I AM FEELING …

… a little better today.

But there again, that’s not too difficult because I’m convinced that I couldn’t possibly have felt as bad as I did for two days running.

You’ve really no idea of how I was feeling yesterday evening. Not eating any tea is a testament in itself because that’s something that very rarely happens. Instead, I just wrote out my notes and by 21:30, I was in bed.

Being awake at 02:45 was definitely not part of the plan though. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed …. it’s pretty pointless going to bed early because all that it means is that I awaken correspondingly early the following morning.

This time, however, I was lucky. I managed to go back to sleep quite quickly, and there I lay until about … errr … 05:45. Having checked the time, I decided that I’d give it ten minutes and then make an early start. However, what I remember after that was the alarm going off at 06:29.

And after that, the next thing that I remember was the repeater a few minutes later. That’s the first time that I’ve actually been asleep for the repeater alarm, as far as I can remember.

It took a good few minutes to haul myself to my feet and head off into the bathroom. As well as having a wash and scrub up, I also had a shave just in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant at dialysis today.

After the medication and hot drink, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone. I was walking home from the bus stop – I’d just alighted from the bus – and a dark green MG Midget went past and pulled up at the side of the road just ahead of me. As I approached it, the driver hopped out. He was one of the people from work. He said “come on, Eric, hop in. I’ll take you home”. I thought that that was nice of him but I didn’t have far to go. But I hopped in anyway, and I asked him about the car, if it was a 1967 model. He replied that it was a 1969 one. I thought that it was in very good condition for its age. We drove a little way further along Rope Lane and turned into Vine Tree Avenue. Eventually, I managed to tell him where to stop and he had to reverse a little way. I pointed to our house and said that that had been our family home as children since 1956. My brother came out then and helped me take my shopping out of the car. The driver then asked if he could have a drink of water. That was all that I needed because the house was probably in a total tip and I didn’t want anyone from work coming in because I didn’t want details of my private life like that being the subject of discussion, but there was nothing that I could do about it except to let him in. He came in and went up to the bathroom. I went into the living room and all over the floor were bottles and jars and things so we started to have a quick tidy-up. There was a huge pile of plastic bottle tops, so I asked my brother where he kept them. he opened the door so I put them all in there. Then the guy came down and said “quick, find me a chair!”. I asked “what on earth has happened?”. He replied that he was putting his contact lenses in but he’s put them in the wrong eyes. He needs to change them. I had to find a chair then and let him sit in the kitchen. I thought “this situation here is going from bad to worse”.

Why on earth would I suddenly start to dream about a former colleague, about whom I haven’t given a moment’s thought in over twenty years? But this idea of living in total chaos is nothing new, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. It seems to be how I spend most of my life.

There was a situation where I was in the clutches of some evil guy. He’d imprisoned my sidekick, a young girl. He was trying to find out a few things from me that I wasn’t all that keen on telling him. Then his sidekick came in and suggested that the two of us, my sidekick and me, be put in the same room together. If we were locked in there for a while, things might change. Eventually, the boss agreed and the sidekick took me off. When we reached the room where he’d locked up my sidekick, he opened the door and let her out. He said to the two of us “right clear off while I go and sort him out”. We didn’t need telling twice. We dashed off down the stairs to the half-landing and caught the lift. The lift was quite full but we squeezed in, reached the ground floor and cleared off. It was pouring down with rain outside, and I thought that I had well over an hour to drive now so I’m going to leave the top down on the car. We climbed aboard a bus and it set off, but we had to stand, and we were standing near the back. When it arrived at the bus stop near the car park, we pressed the bell and went to alight but there were too many people in the way. The bus was just about to start off again so my sidekick shouted and he stopped again. We managed to climb out. I could see my car on the car park. It was the yellow Mustang, covered in dust from its long drive across the desert abd currently being soaked in rain. When we climbed out of the bus, there was an old lorry there, a four-wheeled lorry with a tipper body on the back, an old Dodge, and it was carrying licence discs from the past. The earliest one was 1966. There was even one from 1935 that said “two times”, which made me think that there must be an identical lorry to this one somewhere in the vicinity used by the same person. It was nice to see an old lorry like this, and even at that age, it wasn’t all that unusual in the USA to see lorries of that age driving around – these old Dodges

And where has this all come from? It reminds me of nothing whatsoever that is relevant to anything recent. However, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall I did once DRIVE THROUGH AN AMERICAN DESERT IN A YELLOW FORD MUSTANG

Isabelle the Nurse came around as usual to sort out my legs. It’s her last day for a week so when she left, I wished her a really nice break. It’s her oppo tomorrow for a week. I wonder how cheerful he’s going to be.

Then it was time for breakfast and some reading. I’m still on this Roman military engineering right now. But as usual, I was sidetracked off into reading about the Roman Emperor Caligula. And what I read drew some very disturbing parallels with a certain person in a position of power across on the other side of the North Atlantic Ocean. It’s really uncanny. HERE’S ONE TYPICAL EXAMPLE

After breakfast, I came back in here where there were things to do and then a radio programme to review before sending it off for broadcast. With what time was left, I began to edit the next radio programme notes and they are now almost all completed.

My faithful cleaner turned up to apply my anaesthetic and then I had to wait for the taxi. It was late arriving but as I was the only passenger, we still arrived on time. Even so, I had to wait forty-one minutes before they could come and sort me out.

They asked me how I was feeling so I explained my woes. They insisted on a full blood sample and a few other tests too. They asked me if I would have a full COVID test. My usual response is in the negative but seeing as it was Emilie the Cute Consultant on duty today and remembering what had happened in the past with her requests for COVID tests that I didn’t want to take, I didn’t dare refuse.

She came to see me later, telling me that what they had examined so far had been negative. However, she gave me an appointment for an X-ray on my chest and lungs to see what’s going on with this cough. For that, I’ll have to travel back in time because the appointment is dated 5th January 2025. Still, that’s not going to be a problem for someone as intelligent and resourceful … "and modest" – ed … as me.

Unfortunately, she didn’t hang around chatting very long. The days when, eighteen months ago, she was perched on the edge of my bed chatting away about nothing are long gone.

There was some bad news at the dialysis centre today too. This was the last time that I shall see Julie the Cook. She lives forty-five minutes away from there and the travelling is getting her down, so she applied for a job at a local hospital within walking distance of where she lives. She’s been accepted and she starts in the New Year. I wished her luck, of course, but it’s sad to see one of this very cheerful, pleasant group of nurses fly the nest. In fact, the only reason that I go to dialysis is to be cheered up by them, and they do a wonderful job.

Eventually, late as usual, they unplugged me and I headed for home. The taxi was waiting and it was an interesting drive back because the driver was one of those interesting people who has a lot to say for himself. We always have some very good discussions.

Back here, my cleaner helped me into the apartment and after she left, I made tea – baked potato with a taco roll filled with salad and vegan cheese. Only a small portion, but I managed to clear the plate. I had some steamed Christmas pudding for afterwards and that was nice too.

But thinking about steamed puddings, I wonder how a steamed fruit pudding or treacle pudding, or even chocolate pudding, would turn out. I shall have to experiment. And that reminds me – I still have some fruitcake and the rest of the jam roly-poly in the fridge too.

Back in here, I began to write out the notes, feeling better than I had for a while, but found myself crashed out in the chair after a while. I couldn’t keep on going, so once more, I abandoned the notes, to be finished in the morning. This is becoming ridiculous.

That “feeling better” feeling didn’t last for long, did it?

But seeing as we have been talking about Caligula … "well, one of us has" – ed … he was infamous for his … err … excesses.
One day at the Circus Maximus in the middle of a chariot race, he notices a small boy amongst the crowd who looks exactly like him. He sends for a Praetorian Guard to bring the boy to him
"Tell me" he says. "Did your mother ever visit Rome?"
"Oh no" replies the boy."But my father did, years ago."

Tuesday 9th December 2025 – AS I HAVE …

… said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed …. It’s pointless rushing through everything in order to finish early, because all that it means is that I wake up correspondingly early the following morning.

You are probably fed up of hearing me say that, given the number of times that I’ve repeated it, but believe me – I’m totally fed up of breaking my neck to be in bed before 22:00, only to wake up the following morning at … errr … 02:35. It’s going beyond a joke.

And indeed I did break my neck trying to finish early. Tea – the other half of the pizza – was all cooked from Sunday and just needed warming in the oven so it didn’t take too long at all to prepare. And with there being no preparation, there wasn’t very much washing-up and tidying to do.

Back in here, struggling desperately (and failing every now and again) to stay awake, I dashed through my notes, which went online at 21:43 and it wasn’t long after that that I crawled under the covers, with the bedroom heater turned up so that I won’t freeze to death like the previous night.

However, the best-laid plans of mice and men and all of that. There I was, wide awake at 02:35. There was no chance of going back to sleep, no matter how I tried, and I couldn’t make myself comfortable. At one point I was seriously thinking of leaving the bed but instead, I just lay there in a kind of semi-conscious daze until the alarm went off.

As is usual these days, it took a good while for me to summon up the energy to head into the bathroom and sort myself out, and then I went into the kitchen to sort out the hot ginger, honey and lemon drink for my medication.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I had my old Ford Escort estate and I was in Northwest Scotland, wandering around the surfing paradises there. I had someone else with me. We were looking at everything that was going on and just walking along the beach. The beach was beautiful, but there was some kind of haze although it was cold, well, not cold but not that hot either. The islands offshore were all shimmering and glimmering in the haze. The guy with me pointed to the one nearest to us and said that he didn’t remember that being there. I said that as far as I was concerned, I remembered it from the previous times, but I thought that the one next to it was new. They were all chalky islands, like a chalky peninsula that had been sliced by the tide and the waves. We walked along this crowded beach, and for some reason, I slipped and fell down the beach. I managed to stay on my feet, but he came down to see how I was. I told him that it was one of those inexplicable things, but I was sure that I’d torn a ligament. I had to scramble as best as I could up to the previous level where we were walking. We’d been looking at those islands and they had all been painted white with lilac roofs, and he was looking at the statistics for them. He said something like there were one hundred and seventy-eight houses and one hundred and ninety-three people plus thirty temporary accommodations. I was thinking that it would be nice to have some kind of holiday or break in a small house on a little island like that somewhere.

In the mid-seventies, I often used to wander aimlessly around Scotland, but mainly in BILL BADGER, my old A60 van. And I did once go with a friend.

However, in this dream, I imagine that it’s the houses on the island that are painted white with lilac roofs, not the islands themselves.

Isabelle the Nurse breezed in on the wind and she was impressed with my Christmas tree and my Christmas lights. I’m glad about that, because I’m impressed with them too, almost as impressed as I was with my stainless steel dustbin.

She sorted out my legs as usual and then with a cheery wave, she carried on with her rounds. I made my breakfast and read some more of Thomas Codrington’s ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN.

Today, we didn’t go very far, because I was sidetracked down a blind alley. Something to do with an old railway station led me astray and I wandered off – I suppose you might say “down a branch line somewhere”.

After breakfast, I came in here to revise my Welsh and then go for the lesson. It passed quite well again today but I don’t know why. However, it’s all very well learning the stuff for the actual moment, but remembering it ten minutes later is what is causing me most of my problems.

After the lesson, my faithful cleaner came along and caught me by surprise. She’d bought my vegan butter from the supermarket and now she’d come to help me into the shower. And I needed it too – the help as well as the shower.

Although it takes a lot of motivation to force me into the shower, I always feel better afterwards and today was no exception. I wish that I could have a shower more than once per week but that’s not really possible

My cleaner and I had a nice, lengthy chat afterwards as we sorted out the medication, and I even played doctor for a few minutes while I was examining some of the boxes.

After she left, I came back in here and worked on one of my radio programmes. That’s now as complete as it can be, with the extra tracks chosen. All that is needed for it is the text for the extra tracks writing and dictating, which I can do tomorrow.

Tea tonight was a vegan burger with pasta and veg in tomato sauce, followed by the last of the coconut soya dessert with a couple of biscuits. I’ll bake another cake tomorrow, if only I knew what to make. I’ve run out of ideas.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my appalling memory … "well, one of us has" – ed … I once mentioned it to Nerina, and she took the mickey by saying that I had a teflon brain.
"Teflon brain?" I asked.
"That’s right" she replied. "Nothing sticks to it."

Saturday 6th December 2025 – MY CHRISTMAS CAKES …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sunday 30th November 2025 – WHEN I WENT …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Indian meal reminds me of tea last night.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Monday 17th November 2025 – WE HAVE HAD …

… a showdown at dialysis this afternoon.

This outrageous fatigue is continuing to lay me flat out, so I decided to take the bull by the horns.

The chef de service was on duty today so I seized the opportunity. I explained my week to him – dialysis Monday, Chemotherapy Tuesday, Chemotherapy Wednesday, dialysis Thursday, Centre de Ré-education Friday and dialysis Saturday.

"When am I supposed to have any time for myself?" I asked. "As if I don’t have anything else to do." And so we had a lengthy discussion. Whether anything comes of it or not, I really don’t know. Probably not, because so far, I have the impression that I am talking to a wall.

It’s no wonder, with a programme like that, that I am thoroughly exhausted. If I could concentrate on my notes and finish them at a reasonable hour, that would be a start. But sometimes I’m too tired to concentrate.

Like last night, for example. It should have been an early night but what with one thing and another … "and until you make a start, you have no idea how many other things there are" – ed … by the time I’d done everything that I needed to do, it was 23:10 when I finally crawled into bed.

So much for my aim of being in bed by 22:30.

Once I’d managed to fall asleep, I was flat out until all of … errr … 04:10, and at one point I was seriously thinking of leaving the bed. However, I must have gone back to sleep because the next thing that I remember was the alarm going off at 06:29.

As seems to be the case these days, it took me an age to raise myself from the Dead and head into the bathroom. And then it was a very leisurely start to the day while I made my ginger, honey and lemon drink with which to take my medicine.

When I’d finished that, I cut the loaf into two and put one half in the freezer. And then I cut up the cake into squares and put them into an airtight container.

Isabelle the Nurse took me by surprise again, and I had to sit quietly … "if that’s possible" – ed … while she took my blood pressure.

Once she’d done that, she looked after my feet and legs, and then I made breakfast.

After breakfast, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. The Confederate Army had a kind of hospital where they put their. I was going there as part of the sick. One thing that I had noticed was that there seemed to be no sense of urgency in defending the fort, and no plan of what to do if the enemy were to attack. They didn’t seem to be in too much of a hurry to have everyone installed. The Union Army launched a campaign in that area and the hospital came under threat. However, it was the Union Army this time that prevaricated and seemed to waste every possible moment before launching an attack. Had it been a decisive attack quite quickly, it might have succeeded. The dream went on from there but unfortunately, I can’t remember it

What a shame that I can’t remember it. But it seems that I’m stuck in the American Civil War and I’ve no idea why. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that WE VISITED SEVERAL CIVIL WAR BATTLEFIELDS and we’ve been reading bits here and there, but I don’t know why it’s become so imprinted in my subconscious mind.

Over the past couple of days, I’ve been reading AB-SA-RA-KA, LAND OF MASSACRE by Margaret Carrington, and at long last, after many years of searching, I’ve found that which I’ve been seeking.

In the back of the book is a large fold-out map of Wyoming and the Dakotas, with the various trails and campaigns marked out, along with the sites of the forts and the major battles.

It doesn’t fold out so well in a *.pdf but a series of judicious screen prints and a good graphics editing program has produced an impressive *.jpg image.

The book does not contain a list of all of the battles (she says that it would be far too long) which is a shame, and I’m sure that the map is not complete, but how I wish that I had had it with me on my various forays into “Indian Territory” over the past twenty-odd years.

Doing that took up most of the morning, and in the remaining time, I edited the radio notes that I’d dictated the other day.

When my faithful cleaner appeared, I went into the kitchen where she applied my anaesthetic. And then I waited for the taxi.

It was early today, so I was early arriving. I was connected up quite quickly, which is nice. However, I tried a couple of times to doze off to sleep, to catch up on the sleep that I’ve been missing, but everyone seemed to awaken me today. In the end, I gave it up.

Towards the end of the session, the chef de service came to see how I was. He gave me a brief explanation of what’s happening, and then he went to leave.

"That’s OK" I replied "if you don’t want to hear what I have to say."

That rather took him by surprise.

Now that I had his attention, I described my week to him. I also mentioned that despite having told the Centre de Ré-education that any more than three sessions per day is killing me, they gave me four last week, and there are four next Wednesday too.

What with the chemotherapy too, I feel as if I’m being kept alive simply for the purpose of being alive for the next medical appointment, and so on after that. There’s no quality of life any more, I have plenty of things that I would like to do that I cannot do because of all of this, and the way that my life is being run right now, I’ve become a slave to the medical system. It’s no surprise that, with all of this, I’m so tired.

His reply was "you are seriously ill and we are doing our best to keep you alive."

My reply was "but if this is the best that I can have, I simply don’t see the point. There’s no point in staying alive if all that they can promise me is another medical appointment the following day. We may as well call it a day, all of it."

Of course, he wasn’t happy. But then again, neither am I.

In the end, he put a note in my file to hand to the chemotherapy people tomorrow, and he says that he’ll send a message to the Centre de Ré-education. As for the dialysis clinic, he’ll chat with his colleagues and see if it might be possible to reduce my sessions to two per week.

Whether he does actually follow it up, and whether the hospital at Rennes and the Centre de Ré-education react remains to be seen, of course. But something needs to change because I can’t go much longer on like this.

And in case you think that I’m not being serious, I promise you that I am.

The taxi driver, the young chatty one, was waiting. He had another passenger with him and we had an interesting chat all the way home. We arrived early for once and after I’d gathered my wits … "with the amount of wits that he has left, I’m surprised that it takes him so long" – ed … I amended the running order of the tracks and re-paired and re-segued them, as I mentioned a week or so ago that I would…

Isabelle the Nurse came to take my blood pressure as usual. It was as high as 13.4 – that’s extreme hypertension for me and it shows just how worked up I’ve become over this affair. She had to wait ten minutes for me to calm down.

Tea tonight was mashed potatoes in butter with peans and a breaded spicy vegan burger followed by chocolate cake. And once more, I ate it all.

Now I’m off to bed, ready for chemotherapy tomorrow, I don’t think.

But seeing as we have been talking about the Wars in Indian Territory in the late Nineteenth Century … "well, one of us has" – ed … General Crook admitted to being impressed with the standard of horsemanship of the Lakota Sioux. He is on record, according to JG Bourke’s ON THE BORDER WITH CROOK as saying that they were "the finest light cavalry in the World"
When he finally met up with Chief Red Cloud, he asked him how they managed it.
"We’ve had plenty of practice riding horses over the last couple of Centuries."
"How come?" asked Crook.
"We had to" replied Red Cloud. "You try carrying a horse and see how far you can travel."

Tuesday 21st October 2025 – HOW LONG IS IT …

… since an old car featured on these pages?

Coming back from Rennes this late afternoon, I encountered a Panhard 24 CT two-door coupé coming the other way

Being driven by someone else, I couldn’t stop to photograph it, and as it was approaching us at some kind of ridiculous combined speed, it would have been an interesting challenge to say the least, so I had to let it go. But as it’s been almost a year since our last old car, I thought it worthy of note.

What else that was also worthy of note was that despite the alarm being set for 06:00 this morning, I was still early leaving the bed.

Having rushed through the usual procedure of notes, statistics, back-up and bathroom last night, I managed to be in bed early last night – round about 22:50. And although I fell asleep quite early, it wasn’t for long. I had a very turbulent night last night.

It was 05:10 when I awoke definitively, and after trying for about half an hour, I left the bed and went to the bathroom.

On the basis that “what doesn’t go in won’t want to come out”, I didn’t have anything to eat or drink this morning. Not even my medication. It’s going to be a long day.

At 07:00, my taxi arrived, driven by my favourite taxi driver. We had a lovely chat all the way down to the hospital at Rennes.

There were a couple of diversions too. Firstly, we had to go back to my driver’s house to pick up her ‘phone that she had forgotten. Then there was someone else to pick up on a housing estate outside Avranches. This passenger offered to show us the short-cut to the motorway, but ended up losing us in the maze of roadworks.

What with one thing and another … "and once you’ve made a start, you’ll be surprised at how many other things there are" – ed … we were twenty minutes late arriving.

It was a young intern doctor who saw me today, and he put me through the mill. He asked me to stand on the weighing machine, which was much more difficult than it ought to have been, and I’m convinced that he arranged it in order to see just if I managed to climb on.

He wasn’t very happy when he had to ring up Avranches to ask about my blood test results, because I’d somehow brought an out-of-date set.

In the end, he said that I was well enough to proceed with chemotherapy, finishing by saying "it’s all not so bad". I replied that as far as I was concerned, everything was an absolute disaster. "It was just a figure of speech" he said, hurriedly, but I still wasn’t impressed.

They took me straight in to chemotherapy, and then they all had some kind of discussion about what treatment I was supposed to have. I was there cringing, because there’s only one treatment of the (many) that I can tolerate with any kind of comfort, and I hoped that they weren’t going to mess it up.

Eventually, about an hour and a half later than advertised, they connected me up. I fell almost immediately asleep, and that’s how most of the day went. Me falling asleep, they waking me up with questions, blood pressure tests etc. At one stage I began to shiver so they gave me a sheet in which to wrap myself.

“This is very significant” I thought. “I wonder if it means anything”. It was certainly enough to put the dampers on everything.

The meal for me was boiled potatoes and fruit. I think that the vegan burger last time was beginner’s luck. And although fruit is banned from my menu, according to the dieticians, the orange and the banana looked so appetising that I couldn’t resist.

They unplugged me at about 15:15 and my taxi was waiting. I had to send for a wheelchair because I was in no state to walk. They don’t allow you even five minutes there to recover before you’re on your way. It’s very industrial there.

Before I left, they gave me a summons to come back tomorrow for part II of the treatment – again at 08:30! So another 07:00 start!

There was someone else to drop off at Avranches, and I finally made it home at 17:00 exactly.

To my embarrassment, I couldn’t exit the car, I was that weak. And once I did manage to raise myself to my feet, it was a real struggle to reach my front door.

After a good hour or so’s recovery, I transcribed the dictaphone notes. During World War I, several captured merchant ships were renamed and handed out to British companies who had already lost ships at sea because of the war. One of these ships became the SS Rhosllanerchrugog or a similar kind of name. When people heard of the name and saw the name written on the back of the jackets of the sailors, they were astonished because they didn’t understand how there would possibly be a name that long for a merchant ship. But she took the name and she took the crew and she sailed quite happily for the rest of the war.

This relates to what I read a couple of weeks ago about merchant raiding ships, disguised German warships capturing merchant ships, siphoning off their oil for fuel, and then either sending the ship to Germany if it had a valuable cargo, or scuttling it if it was valueless.

Interestingly, I pronounced the first syllable of the ship’s name as “ros” which, although is the “official” way of pronouncing the word, I’ve always pronounced it as “hrowse”. That is how it’s pronounced in a small area south of Wrexham and north of Rhiwabon, including in the town of Rhosllanerchrugog itself.

Why I pronounce it like that, I’ve no idea because my grandmother comes from South Wales and lived, apparently, north of Wrexham. When she married, they moved east to near the English border so I’ve no connection at all with the area of Rhosllanerchrugog.

We were camping somewhere in the Canadian Mountains. I’d not long arrived, and I decided that I would go to buy a loaf of bread so that I could buy something to eat. I walked round to the nearest shop, but all that they had left were two sandwiches, but someone immediately bought those. It wasn’t a shop, it was a petrol station. I tried to look around for a shop but the only shop that they had didn’t have any bread. We saw a mobile home thing drive off the campsite and shoot off somewhere. We’d heard that he was looking for bread too so we decided to follow him. About twenty miles into the mountains, we came across another small shop and there were several people hanging around there. So we went and asked if they had any bread. While we were doing that, I wandered around and found some loaves on the shelf. I went to pick one up but the woman told me not to pick that up because it was out of date0 I had a look, and it was about twenty years out of date. The guy in charge of the shop said that he had some bread in the back but he’s trying to find the keys for the storeroom. We waited and waited, and he searched and searched. After a couple of hours, he said that he was unable to find them. So we began to search to help him, but we couldn’t even find the lights to the storeroom, never mind the keys. We were there, searching for hours. I had to nip to the bathroom so I disappeared. I came back ten minutes later and found everyone gone. The place was shuttered. It seemed that he had not been able to find it at all. There was some rumour that the shop back in town had had sixteen hundred loaves delivered so we climbed back into our vehicles to head back. But there was someone, an old man, sitting on a bench outside the shop, and after we’d gone, the proprietor came out. It turned out that the little old man was Louis Roblès, the footballer from Bala. Those two greeted each other like long-lost brothers.

There’s a small town – a village really – on the “Forgotten Coast” of Québec called Godbout where I WENT TO STAY FOR A WEEK when they let me out of hospital in 2016. To find bread around there quite often involved a 20 km drive, and more besides at times.

However, although I met the solicitor from my neighbouring village in the Auvergne … "it’s a small world" – ed … I didn’t meet Louis Roblès, who, incidentally, plays for Colwyn Bay this season.

There was also something about me trying on hats. I found a nice, fur-lined olive green hat that I tried on. That seemed to fit quite nicely and it was warm, so I decided to take it. As I was doing that, a friend from school, who lived in Shavington from school walked past. He was surprised to see me and said “hello”. I said “hello” back. Once I had this hat on, two American soldiers walked past. One of them said “you are breaking the law wearing that hat”. I asked him if we were in the USA. He replied “no” so I told him that he could quickly go away, using a rather vulgar, vernacular term.

This dream doesn’t relate to anything at all, as far as I’m aware. And I bet that the boy was surprised to see me too! Considering that I haven’t given him a moment’s thought since we left school, I was surprised to see him in a dream!

Nerina and I had been working in a foreign country. We were sitting on a couple of chairs waiting to go home. We were on a cliff, and there was a real storm raging. The sea was really choppy and we could see trawlers and ships in the sea, struggling to make any headway. Then the currency exchange window opened. I went to the window but no-one would serve me for ten or fifteen minutes. When they finally did, after I’d made some remark, I had all of this money, and it was all in small change. I asked this woman if she would change it. She made some kind of grimace, but said that she would. I hauled out all of these pennies and ha’pennies. Nerina and I had counted them but we weren’t convinced that it was right, so she weighed them and worked out the price. I found some more, but she moaned at that and said that she didn’t think that she was going to add them into the total and give us anything for them. I told her that we could always find another currency exchange place if she wasn’t happy but she moaned even more. She said “your friend who was here last time took me out for a meal”, to which I replied “I’m not interested in going for a meal. I’m interested in changing my money”. I had noticed that on the counter, they had some really competitive prices for gold coin collections. I was wondering whether I had enough money to buy some gold and bring it home with me. But while this had started, Nerina was not in a particularly good mood so I went over and gave her a kiss. Someone sitting next to Nerina made some kind of comment but I ignored it.

There would have been no chance whatever of enticing Nerina to come to work abroad. Her feet were rooted firmly in Crewe, as close as possible to her mother. We had many a discussion about “abroad” but I realised quite quickly that nothing was going to persuade her otherwise, despite how many good arguments I might have been able to use.

And maybe if I’d kissed Nerina rather more when she had been in a bad mood, things might indeed have been different. But as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I can’t turn the clock back.

There was also something about changing my trousers into a pair of red trousers with a Welsh dragon on it, but they were about ten sizes too large for me. I had to draw the drawstrings really tight to keep them on.

This is completely strange too.

Tea tonight was a taco roll with rice. And I did manage to finish it all. That’s no surprise because that and the boiled potatoes are all that I’ve had to eat today. As for drinks, I’ve had 2×200ml disgusting drinks and two mouthsful of water, and that’s it.

So tomorrow, I’m off to chemotherapy again, so I’m off to bed, hoping to be in better shape than I am right now

But seeing as we have been talking about queueing for bread … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of when I was in Poland in 1979, and saw all these people queueing for hours for bread, which didn’t arrive.
One man began to make a fuss, shouting and waving his arms and denouncing the Communists. Subsequently, an armed patrol pulled up and surrounded the protestors.
"Now look what you’ve done, you old fool!" said one of the others. "We’re all going to be shot now!"
"There’s nothing to worry about" replied the old man. "If we’ve run out of bread, I bet that they’ve run out of bullets too!"

Monday 20th October 2025 – I HAVE LEFT …

… on the dinner plate about half my tea tonight. I just couldn’t physically eat it.

The way things are right now, I seem to be in quite a bad way, what with one thing and another, and unless I can find some way to pull myself out of it, I worry about what will happen.

It all had the air of being really good today too. Once more, I was in bed prior to 23:00 – well before, in fact, and I fell asleep quite rapidly.

Although I awoke at about 03:00 or so, it was only for a fleeting minute and then I went back to sleep again. And there I stayed until the alarm went off at 06:29

There was the usual procedure – into the bathroom for a wash and scrub up, and then into the kitchen for the medication.

Back in here, there was the dictaphone. The war was about to hit France in its full fury. I’d been leading one of the French armies. We’d ended up on the Normandy coast not too far from here when the information came through that the Germans were massing ready for a final sweep into Brittany. There was no time to spare so I ordered my army to stand to, and I went back to the base headquarters from where my army was administered. Everyone was waiting there for me, waiting for instructions, but I needed to look at reports and plans, and details from the sentinels as to what the German army was doing before I disposed my troops. But people were in such a rush. They asked if they should be ordered to arms, so I replied “yes”. “So what about being sent to the transport?”. I replied “there’s no harm in them being sent to the transports either”. I asked about Division 1816 which was the one that I wanted to be in the thickest of the fight. That was not actually present at Headquarters at the moment. Eventually, I obtained enough information to go to join my particular division which was at St Pair here and ready for an attack on the German Army.

This is, I believe, only the second time that I’ve dreamed about this area. But, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, there would be no chance whatever of me joining the Army, even in wartime. If I had to choose, I would be in the Merchant Navy.

There were three of us, two guys and me. We had to walk somewhere, which was going to take us about eight hours. We set out and began to walk, but at one point we were in a field where there was a big depression. To go round this depression, it meant climbing up some kind of bank, crossing over higher and going out through a hedge. The first person who went, she was actually a girl. She complained that I was too close behind her for her to manoeuvre at the top, saying something like “the purpose of being perpendicular is so that you can turn easily”, in other words, implying that I had to take a couple of steps back to give her room. At the top, there was a barbed wire fence to slide under. This turned to be more complicated than it might be, and I began to think that it would have been far easier just to jump the depression, and far quicker too. At the top, we had to slide under this barbed wire fence, then another barbed wire fence and into the roadway, but there was a cowpat in the way that didn’t look very comforting. Just then a car pulled up and a little woman was sitting in the car reading something that was on the seat beside her. We thought that if she stays here for long, we’re going to be very late. We have to push on regardless. Later on, there was this announcement that the British Government had discovered traces of three snakes. They described the three snakes, and I wondered if they meant that they had found our tracks on that embankment place where we had had to slide on out stomachs underneath that barbed wire.

It’s amazing how my fellow travellers change sex in the middle of a dream, isn’t it? As for the rest of the dream, including the cowpat, it’s quite meaningless. What would the snakes be doing in all of this?

There was also something about being in a house at the side of a road with a slight incline downhill. I had to come out of there in my van, towing a caravan, go down about 200 yards and turn left. I’d checked the road and it was clear, so I set out. But the van was really struggling to find any acceleration and a car caught up with me, which I thought that I’d have plenty of time to avoid. He cut in front of me at the traffic lights where this left turn was, and turned left, regardless of the light being on red, but just as I approached it, it turned green so I could carry on.

Where the house comes from, I have no idea. But the road junction, minus the traffic lights, is where you turn off the Upper Labrador road near Goose Bay to travel over the Mealy Mountains to the Labrador coast, SCENE OF OUR TRIUMPHS IN 2010. The van not working as it should, especially when towing a caravan, is something that doesn’t fit anywhere.

After that, I turned up in Wrexham after that. There were these people trying to register for something – there was a huge crowd. One girl was saying to her friends “come back here! Look at this!” and took them back to the reception window. As I walked past, I saw one of the guys whom I knew from the previous times that I’d been to hospital. He said “hello” so I said “hello”. I asked him if the way to the hospital that I wanted, which was a different one, was down at the bottom of this particular lane. He said that it was, so I set off. It was through a posh area with these Victorian buildings that looked like a school or a hospital or something. Then out in the countryside, I came across a ruined viaduct, so I had to walk down the valley to find another bridge to cross over, and then climb back up the other side.

This dream doesn’t fit anywhere either. I could easily see it as being the first part of the first dream, except that it’s out of order. But then, the purpose of this project at the beginning was to tie together some of these isolated dreams into some kind of continuous soap opera.

Isabelle the Nurse blew in on the gale (we’re having another storm). She told me that she doesn’t think that her oppo will be here in time tomorrow before I go. She’ll ring me if there’s a change in this decision (but as yet, not at all).

After she left, I made breakfast and then came in here.

There were several important things to do this morning, such as pay a few bills and write a letter or two.

To fill in the rest of the time, I prepared for the Welsh class tomorrow. I know that I won’t be there, but I need at least to have an idea of what’s going on so that I don’t fall behind. I’ve been doing too much of that in the past.

My cleaner turned up as usual to apply my anaesthetic. She brought with her a pile of medication too, as I’m running low on that as well. And that reminds me – the prescription is expiring so I need a new one.

Once she had left, I waited for the taxi. And waited, and waited. It turned up eventually at 13:30 or shortly thereafter with another two passengers. The driver was a very young, chatty girl who has taken me once, months ago. She was somewhat insistent on the bell, so I apologised, saying "I’m not able to run".

There was heavy traffic on the road but she put her foot down when she could, and I wasn’t all that late arriving. And although I was last to be coupled up, I didn’t have to wait too long.

Emilie the Cute Consultant came to see me to talk about my infection. She thinks that I’m fit enough to go to chemotherapy tomorrow. I told her about all of my medical appointments this week and asked her if she couldn’t find one for Sunday, so that I would have a full week.

While I was at it, I told her that I was going to sell my apartment and live in one of the taxi company’s ambulances. That would save everyone a pile of trouble.

They have also re-organised my dialysis sessions for when my niece and her daughter arrive so that I can spend all the time with them.

One of my favourite taxi drivers was waiting for me, and we had a nice chat on the way home, but I was battered by the storms once I left the car, trying to return to the apartment.

After my faithful cleaner left, I made a stuffed pepper with pasta and veg but as I said, half of it went into the bin. I’m throwing away tons of stuff just now and it’s not at all good.

So tomorrow, I shall be up at 06:00 ready (I don’t think) for chemotherapy. I’m not looking forward to it at all but I suppose that I have to go through with it.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about snakes … "well, one of us has" – ed … one day, mummy snake saw baby snake crying.
"What’s the matter, dear?" she asked
"It’s the snakes next door" sobbed baby snake. "They won’t let me hiss in their pit."
"Don’t you worry about them" replied mummy. "I can remember them when they were so poor that they didn’t have a pit to hiss in."

Monday 13th October 2025 – CHEMOTHERAPY IS …

… officially cancelled for tomorrow. Emilie the Cute Consultant seems to think that I’m far too ill to go and that chemotherapy will only make things worse.

Yes, lucky me! I’ve had Emilie the Cute Consultant soothing my fevered brow at dialysis this afternoon, and I reckon that I ought to be ill more often when she’s on duty.

But joking aside, after yesterday, I needed someone to take me in hand and sort me out. The day began awfully and as time advanced, it went from bad to worse. Those of you who saw the half-dozen notes that I posted last night will probably have gathered that I was in bed before 21:00, and it’s a long, long time since that has happened.

Once in bed, I was asleep straight away, which is no surprise. And I stayed asleep too until all of … errr … 00:30.

At that point, I was giving some light-hearted consideration to leaving the bed but in the end I decided against it, and spent several hours drifting in and out of sleep. Round about 05:30, I gave up trying and arose to my feet.

After the bathroom, I had another leisurely period of medication-taking, before coming back in here to restart writing my notes. But not for long, though. At about 07:00 I set the alarm for 08:05 and, something that I don’t recall doing for years, I went back to bed and slept for another hour or so. That’s the kind of state in which I found myself this morning.

Once the nurse had been and gone, I made breakfast and, once more, took my time while I ate it. I was in no real hurry, and I certainly wasn’t in any kind of mood to read my book.

Back in here afterwards, I finished off my notes from yesterday and then had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. We were in the American Civil War this time (not the Revolutionary War). We were trying to track down the enemy, or the enemy was trying to track us down. I was suffering from fever and having to use my toilet frame to walk around. It was becoming extremely complicated. At one point, I knocked some things off the kitchen worktop, and with my improvised walkframe, I positioned one of the feet on top of two of the spice jars that I have. I thought that it was a good job that I noticed this before I put my weight on it otherwise they would have broken. But I still don’t know what I’m going to do about my health and how I was going to deal with the issue of the enemy, of them looking for us or us looking for him.

If I’m dreaming about a war in the USA, it makes a change not dreaming about the Revolutionary War. But then again, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, when I was in Eastern USA in 2005 for Rhys’s wedding, I VISITED SEVERAL SITES CONNECTED WITH THE CIVIL WAR.

Later on, there were three ships, the Ateb Harry, the Ateb something else and a third one. The Ateb Harry was coming back from the USA to Europe as a passenger liner, and was intercepted by the contraband patrol. The patrol found, underneath the coal, a pile of shells and ammunition. The captain tried to argue that it was for his own self-defence but they saw that it had been manufactured in Germany and was of a German calibre rater than an Imperial one so they decided that they would take the ship and intern it.

This relates to something else about which I’ve been reading recently – the British blockade of Germany in World War I. They set up plenty of barrages across the North Sea and intercepted as many of the vessels that they possibly could that were heading east, in an attempt to stop supplies reaching Germany. They were quite successful too and by the end of the war, there were shortages of every kind of imported goods over there.

At some point though, I had my Welsh lesson to do and I was parked in a car park. There was a lorry in front of me and its rear door was open. A policeman told me to close it so I closed it as best as I could and explained to the driver that there was only one of the two catches was working. He replied in a foreign accent “never mind” – to leave it with him and he’d sort it out. I went back to my van, which was a dark blue Sherpa long wheelbase towing an enclosed trailer that looked like the rear of a Sherpa. I climbed in, and could see on the laptop that my Welsh class had started. I took off all my excess clothes and found my sleeping bag. But my sleeping bag was inside-out so I had to turn it the other way, and then I could climb into the sleeping bag and begin to attend the lesson.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I had a Sherpa for a couple of years. It was quite nice when I bought it but it rotted quickly and ended up being unsafe. Furthermore, trying to find spare parts for it in Belgium was impossible in the end and it became a liability.

Next task was to finish off my Welsh homework and send it off, and the rest of the morning was spent revising.

At one point though, I could no longer stand the cold in here and so I switched on the heating for the first time. It’s not like me, and it shows just how ill I am right now.

My faithful cleaner turned up to apply my anaesthetic and then I had a long wait for the taxi. Not that I minded, because it was one of my favourite drivers. However, rather regrettably, I wasn’t in the mood for chatting.

Once again, we were late arriving, but for a change I was seen quite quickly. Because of my health, they put me into a private room and then spent half an hour examining me, including a Covid test (I was negative). I wasn’t too keen, but Emilie the Cute Consultant insisted on it being done, and I noticed that there seems to be no argument or discussion with her when she makes up her mind.

Having been wired up and plugged in, they left me alone pretty much. That was just as well because I slept through most of the session. All that I seem to be doing right now is sleeping.

At the end of the session, Emilie the Cute Consultant gave me another thorough going-over, and wanted me to spit into a container so that it can be analysed. She is of the opinion that I have a pulmonary infection. I can’t go to chemotherapy like that so she’s going to cancel it.

One thing that was nice though was that she patted my shoulder, and as I said earlier, I’m going to be ill again when she’s on duty if that’s the reward.

The poor taxi driver had to wait hours for me, and then we had to find a chemist’s that was open so that we could buy some medication that was prescribed. There was someone else to fetch too, so I ended up being the latest back here that I have ever been.

After my cleaner had sorted me out, I made tea. Burger with pasta and even though it was a small portion, some of it still ended up in the bin.

So I shall be at my Welsh lesson tomorrow then. In that case I’d better go to bed. It’s already later than I would like.

But seeing as we have been talking about spitting into a container … "well, one of us has" – ed … I remember taking my niece to see my premises in Canada, situated as they are with one border of my land being the international border with the USA.
"Blimey!" she said. "You could spit into the USA from here!"
"I know" I replied. "Now ask me how I know."

Tuesday 30th September 2025 – IT WAS ANOTHER …

… afternoon that ended up just like so many others just recently – with me hunched over the table in some kind of catatonic fit for well over an hour.

Perhaps not exactly a catatonic fit because for a good part of that time, I really was asleep. I know that because of how far the Byrds’ concert that I was listening to had advanced.

That’s the thing, though. When I’m having one of these fits, I can hear quite clearly everything that’s going on, but I’m just not capable of reacting to anything. Perhaps one of my followers from Avranches, presumably the dialysis clinic, can supply some information in this respect to help me understand what is happening.

But all of that is for another time. Right now, I’m more interested in what happened last night.

What also seems to be the case is that no matter how quickly I finish my notes, everything else seems to take correspondingly longer and I’m still no earlier in bed, no matter how I try.

And such was the case last night. My notes went on-line at 22:41 yet it was 23:30 when I finally crawled into bed and made myself comfortable. I don’t know why it takes so long to motivate myself these days.

During the night, I remember awakening and turning over a couple of times, but when I awoke at about 05:50, that was that and I couldn’t go back to sleep.

After vegetating around for a while, I left the bed and went for a good wash, followed by the medication and something to drink, because I had a thirst that you could photograph.

Back in here, I listened to the dictaphone to find out what had been going on during the night. It was in the Revolutionary War again. We were there patrolling the outposts of the British front line. We noticed that one of them had seemed to be under attack by the Native Americans because there was food scattered around, indicating that there had been some kind of fight during the lunchtime. We had to think about how to reinforce these posts with enough men to defend the front line, making sure that first of all we didn’t step on the toes of any colonist there, and secondly, that we could find some trained troops to do it, who wouldn’t panic and run if the Native Americans decided to attack.

By the looks of things, I seem to be totally immersed in BATTLES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. I wish that I could dream like this about other things in which I have an even greater interest.

And then the Social Services had intervened in the case of a girl and her baby. One of the many things that they were doing was trying to sort out her car for her, an old Ford Escort estate. They had been in contact with a female friend of mine about this car. She had asked me to come along to look at it. The guy from the Social Services had sent a long list of work that needed to be doing on this vehicle, much of which wasn’t really all that important, such as grinding off the surface rust and treating it, painting it etc. I noticed that one of the gutters had come away and was flapping around. While I was examining it closely, I saw that the sill on the nearside was rotten. It would need to be replaced. First of all, I went to attack this gutter mount but I couldn’t find any self-tapping screws the correct size so I would have to go back to my garage to look for some. But the sill, I marked it off with a big piece of chalk where it needed to be replaced. I thought that at the weekend, I’d go to the body panel shop to see what I could find. But as soon as I’d put this chalk mark on, my brother went to fetch an angle grinder to cut it out. I told him not to do that because if we can’t find a sill and the existing sill had been cut away, we are going to have an awful lot of problems. I could patch it if necessary with some of the sill remaining by welding a few plates over the missing pieces, but if it’s all cut out, it’s going to be extremely complicated to manufacture something. When I explained this to my brother, he picked up the angle grinder again. I had an enormous amount of problems trying to stop him cutting this sill out. I still wasn’t sure that he was going to take any notice, and the moment my back was turned, he’d cut it away, and that would be that as far as this car goes if I can’t find another sill.

Once upon a time I did actually have a Ford Escort estate. It was quite a nice car and I wish that I’d kept it now. But the number of cars that I must have welded up in the past when I had my big oxy-acetylene kit – it must have been phenomenal. I remember once having to weld the floor back into someone’s ancient Cortina but we couldn’t remove the seat to take out the carpet. So I was underneath welding it and every time the carpet caught alight, the guy would tip a bucket of water on the flames – and on me via some of the holes in the floor.

And as usual, my brother is up to his shenanigans – not being able to leave things alone and doing his very best to make the situation even worse than it already is.

It’s Isabelle the Nurse’s turn to be on duty now for a week, so she breezed in as usual just as I was in the middle of doing something. She didn’t hang around long, though. She took my medical card so that she could do her accounts and when she’d seen to my feet and legs, she cleared off.

That was the cue to make breakfast, and with my porridge, toast and coffee I read some more of the aforementioned book.

The British invasion of the Hudson Valley from Canada has come to a shuddering halt and an embarrassing defeat AT SARATOGA, WHERE WE VISITED ALMOST EXACTLY TWELVE YEARS AGO.

It’s a defeat that can be summarised by three factors –

the failure to adequately supply General Burgoyne with the necessary men and stores
the failure of General Howe to push General Clinton and his troops further up the Hudson Valley to take the American defenders in the rear
the overall lack of aggressiveness and haste in the British Army, who, having cornered the Americans on several occasions, was far too slow to press on and finish the task

Although Point Three is probably the most crucial. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall – at least, those of you who were with me twenty years ago at the THE FIRST BATTLE OF BULL RUN – that the Confederates had the Union Army – and Washington DC – at their mercy, but failed to press home the advantage. This lack of the killer instinct seems to be infectious.

After breakfast, I came in here to revise my Welsh, and then I went to class. And how our numbers have grown! There are quite a few new faces, as well as one or two returning former classmates.

For a change, not only did the lesson pass really well, I actually felt confident, and it’s not at all often that I can say that. I reckon that over the summer, despite having done almost no studying, I’ve been listening to a large amount of Welsh football commentary, and I suppose that it’s a case of throwing a lot of whatsit at a wherever and some of it will stick. I was disappointed when the lesson finished.

Nest task was to book my taxi for the Centre de Ré-education tomorrow, and then to send off my order to LeClerc.

It was quite a large order today, and it took an age to unpack and put away correctly. And having done that, that was when I had my little wobble, and had to go to sit down.

It’s quite worrying really, these little fits that I seem to be having. One of these days, I’m not going to awaken from one of them and that will be that. I’ve tried to speak to people about them but no-one seems to be all that interested in discussing it with me. I have the feeling – and I don’t think that I’m too far from the truth – that the treatment that I’m having is more palliative rather than curative, maybe because the overall long-term prognosis is not good at all.

After a while dealing with the radio programme that I really need to finish, I made tea – a taco roll with rice and veg. And I managed to eat it all tonight – just about.

So my physiotherapy begins tomorrow morning. I’ll probably be worn out again after that but if it’s free, why should I worry? I’m not expecting it to do much good but it’s worth giving it a try. What do I have to lose?

Right now, I’m off to sleep in the hope that I can actually recover some of my force and energy. I’m not doing too well right now.

But seeing as we have been talking about force and energy … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of the doctors once prescribed some force and energy pills for me
However, I had to ring him up – "do you remember those pills that you prescribed to give me force and energy?"
"Yes I do" he replied
"Well, I don’t have the force and energy to be able to open the bottle."

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: http://www.erichall.eu

Saturday 4th April 2026 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

Friday 3rd April 2026 – I HAVE HAD …

Tuesday 31st March 2026 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

Sunday 1st March 2026 – DYDD GWYL DEWI …

Saturday 21st February 2026 – IT’S BEEN ANOTHER …

Tuesday 20th January 2026 – AS I HAVE …

Monday 29th December 2025 – I AM FEELING …

Tuesday 9th December 2025 – AS I HAVE …

Saturday 6th December 2025 – MY CHRISTMAS CAKES …

Sunday 30th November 2025 – WHEN I WENT …

Monday 17th November 2025 – WE HAVE HAD …

Tuesday 21st October 2025 – HOW LONG IS IT …

Monday 20th October 2025 – I HAVE LEFT …

Monday 13th October 2025 – CHEMOTHERAPY IS …

Tuesday 30th September 2025 – IT WAS ANOTHER …

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