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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LIVE: Monday 5th October 2026 – I AM REALLY …

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… convinced that the people at dialysis … "or some of them, anyway" – ed … are pulling my leg or taking the mickey. We’ve had yet another showdown about the length of the sessions.

More of this anon however. Let’s start at the very beginning … "♬ a very good place to start ♬" – ed … and go back to last night. By the time that I’d finished everything and crawled into bed, it was just a few minutes past 23:30. So much for my early night;

And it all went worse after that. I awoke a few hours later – don’t ask me what time – and after that, I didn’t go back to sleep at all. I just lay there, tossing and turning, all through the night.

When the alarm went off, I was still awake, but be that as it may, it was another desperate struggle to rise to my feet. And it wasn’t just a lack of motivation either. I had to wait a good few minutes for the room to stop spinning round before I felt able to stand up.

Having unlocked the front door for the nurse, I headed back into the bathroom to organise myself for dialysis. Except that I forgot to have a shave this morning. Whatever will Emilie the Cute Consultant think of me if she sees me this afternoon at dialysis?

Back in here, there was nothing on the dictaphone from last night, so I went to find myself something else to do. But there wasn’t very long in which to do it because the nurse turned up at 08:04 this morning, and that’s early.

While he was sorting out my legs and feet, he was telling me some more stories about Saturday’s fire in the restaurant in the town centre. Most of it, though, is pure gossip and speculation, so I’m not going to repeat it in a public forum.

After he left, I made breakfast (and my new loaf is wonderful) and while I was eating it, I was reading some more of THE REPORT OF THE WOOLHOPE NATURALISTS CLUB 1870.

We’ve finished talking about fungi now and were discussing extremes of weather. And one example caught my eye – the entry for 1816.

"1816. July was unusually boisterous and wet.
Aug. 31. Accompanied by a fall of rain of nearly three inches in two days. A tremendous gale of wind visited Birmingham, Liverpool, and Manchester, and other northern towns. Much damage done to shipping, and many vessels lost at sea. This was the diastrous harvest time previously mentioned."

This corresponds with the volcanic eruption of Mount Tambora in Sumbawa, in Indonesia, in April 1815, the most powerful volcanic eruption in modern times. It led to 1816 being called “The Year Without a Summer” as crops failed and extremes of weather battered the World.

Back in here later, I had this week’s radio programme to review, and when I was satisfied with it, I sent it off to the studio to be fitted into the stream for broadcasting on Friday and Saturday nights at 21:30.

Having done that, the next item that needed my intervention was my Welsh homework. I called up the page, copied and pasted the questions onto the computer, checked that they were appreciated as being quite the careful and faithful copy, and then began to answer them.

When I’d answered them, I checked with my chatbot to see if I was on the right lines, and once he confirmed that everything was as it should be, I sent them off. That’ll give our tutor something to think about.

There was an interruption when the telephone rang. A neighbour called me to ask if he could come to visit me sometime. We agreed on Wednesday morning at 11:00. Then he telephoned me again five minutes later to say that he’d forgotten about an appointment on Wednesday, so could he come another time? As long as I’m here and I’m not in my Welsh class, he can come when he likes.

But what with neighbours coming to visit, the possibility that I’m going to have a friend here for a week and all of that, I seem to be quite popular these days. I’m not sure why, though. Do I owe you any money?

It’s not as busy, though, as it was last year. I shall have to remind a few more people that it’s open house for whenever they want to come to stay.

When the alarm that reminds me that it’s time to prepare for dialysis went off, I wandered into the kitchen for my disgusting drink and midday medication and then began to pack the travelling laptop to take with me. My cleaner turned up too to sort out the anaesthetic for my arm.

After she left, I waited for the taxi, in my usual “slumped over the kitchen table, head resting on my arms” position. And I began to have a lovely dream and remember saying to myself that I really must remember this, but then the doorbell rang and the whole lot evaporated immediately, and that was that.

At first, I was alone in the car, but then we had to pick up a guy at the hospital as well as my regular companion from Sartilly, as a result of which we were a little late arriving.

Not only that, but several people had arrived together just before me, so I had to wait until 14:25 before I was finally connected up.

My plan was to sit quietly and watch a football match but my dialysis machine had other ideas. It was constantly ringing up errors, and that brought the nurses a-running when the alarm went off. I hardly had any peace at all.

Nevertheless, I did manage to watch Airbus UK Broughton v Trefelin, after a fashion. This game was played between two of the newly promoted sides, and what different sides they were too. Trefelin were more “kick and rush” whereas Airbus played some really good, technical football. The final result, 3-0 to Airbus, wasn’t a surprise to anyone.

It seems to me that Airbus have managed to suss out this Premier League, and while they are never going to win the championship, they have what it takes to avoid relegation, but unless Trefelin can find something magical from somewhere, it’s going to be a long, hard season.

In the middle of all of this, we had a confrontation. One of the doctors … "not, unfortunately, Emilie the Cute Consultant" – ed …came to see me. She asked me how things were, and so I launched into my tirade about the last two sessions and how disappointed I was.

Of course, it wasn’t she who had made the decisions – she wasn’t on duty – so she only knew what was in the records.

First of all, I complained that whatever had gone on had gone on without my knowledge, and I thought that that was shameful. That surprised her because, apparently, every patient has the right to know what’s happening about his treatment.

Secondly, on Thursday, I’d made the decision to come home at the right weight by staying for four hours instead of three, and coming home 700 grammes over my weight, as I did last Thursday, was, in my opinion, a waste of forty-five minutes of my time when I have better things to do at home.

She couldn’t really find an answer to that. One thing that she suggested was that there wasn’t enough time even with four hours to take everything out. They are limiting my extraction to 950 millilitres per hour because of my low blood pressure. But leaving my blood pressure aside, which has been low like this for twenty-odd years, what with everything that’s pumped into me during a session, there were three thousand eight hundred millilitres to take out last Thursday, so that was exactly right – and I realised that the end of the World had come upon us when she – a doctor of medicine – had to use a calculator to divide three thousand eight hundred by four.

After much argument and discussion, we agreed that I should be leaving at my recognised dry weight, even if I have to stay there for a week to do it.

And having made such an agreement, the dialysis breathed its last, ten minutes before the end of the session with 200 grammes still to go, so I was unplugged, under-extracted and overweight. It wasn’t my day, was it?

The taxi was waiting for me when the dialysis was over and I was able to head for home quite quickly, especially as I was the only passenger. However, we ended up being stuck behind a service bus between La Havaudière and the roundabout at the ring road just outside Granville, and the bus was crawling along, stopping to drop off and pick up passengers all the way round and we couldn’t go past.

Eventually, we arrived at chez moi where my faithful cleaner was waiting for me. She helped me into the kitchen, and when I was sitting down on a chair, she stuck a disgusting drink into my hands.

After all of my exertions at dialysis today, I didn’t at all feel like cooking anything, so I grabbed some crackers and some of the cheese spread, and an orange for pudding. And when I went to spread the cheese on my crackers, I found that it had gone off. It’s really not my day, is it?

In the end, I started to write up the notes from the day, and I was pushing on quite well but the next thing that I knew was that it was almost 22:00 and I must have fallen asleep in mid-page at some time previously.

At that point, I was in absolutely no state at all to carry on working, so I posted what I had written, added a “To Be Continued” stamp and went to bed. I’ll finish everything off tomorrow.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about things breaking down … "well, one of us has" – ed … two young Russian conscripts walk to the Ukraine front line and surrender to the Ukrainians.
"Our lorry has broken down, we’ve no more fuel, and we’ve been abandoned. " they said.
They are consequently taken prisoner, but one of the Ukrainians is a mechanic. "There’s no-one about" he said. "Let’s go and see if we can salvage it."
The Russian prisoners lead the Ukrainian patrol to the lorry, and the mechanic gives it a good examination.
After half an hour, he announces "the fuel pipe has come off and all the fuel has drained away. There’s a hole in the sump that has drained out all the oil, the cam belt has snapped, one of the tyres is punctured, the starter has fallen out and there’s a leak of water in the radiator."
"A leak in the radiator?" asks one of the Russians. "I can’t remember doing that."

LIVE: Saturday 3rd October 2026 – ANOTHER MYSTERIOUS AFTERNOON …

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… in dialysis today. But I’ll tell you something for nothing, and that is that I’m going to do my best not to fall asleep in dialysis again so that I can keep my eye on what’s going on behind the scenes.

Another thing on which I wish that I could keep an eye on is what’s going on with my sleeping patterns. Anyone who checked my blog between about 22:00 and midnight and then went to check it later will be bound to be confused by what they read.

Round about 21:30, I fell asleep in the chair here, and when I awoke at about 22:00, I just posted on line what I’d written to date and added a “TO BE CONTINUED” sticker to it.

Before I fell into bed, though, I went for a ride on the porcelain horse, and when I came back in here, I found that I was wide awake somehow, so I finished off the blog, overwrote the “TO BE CONTINUED” sticker and posted the completed entry on line.

And then I fell into bed and went straight to sleep.

At some point during the night, I awoke again and was tossing and turning around for what seemed like an eternity, trying to go to sleep, but without any success. But I must have managed it at some point because I was dead to the World when the alarm went off at 06:29.

We had the usual struggle with ourselves to leave the bed, and then I went into the bathroom to sort myself out. While I was there, I had a good scrub up and a shave, in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon at dialysis.

Then I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out what went on during the night.

There had been something in the news about adoptions. There was a family from Preston who had adopted a boy from a Preston children’s home, and a couple of other people who had done the same thing too. There was even someone who had taken an abandoned child from a children’s home with a view to adopting him, and escaping to Vietnam. That had me thinking about whether, as a single man, I could adopt a child too. So I went away from here and had a think about it and then went back to the office to talk to them. It was only later on that I realised that I was living in a one-bedroomed apartment, so if I did adopt a child, then where would it sleep?

There’s certainly some mileage in this dream. Some “friends of friends” have recently adopted a child from a local children’s home, and that’s what has probably inspired this dream. And then adopted child and Vietnam has a story behind it too, but it’s another story that the World is not yet ready to hear.

As for adopting a child, I’m quite ready, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, to adopting a cat, preferably a female cat. And it’s true that I only have a one-bedroom apartment, so adopting a child would be out of the question, even if I were not ill.

Then I was at work, and it was a Sunday morning and there was plenty of overtime to be done to clear some arrears. I went in and there were quite a few other people in as well. There was a guy sitting next to me, and suddenly, a pile of people’s files turned up on my desk, so I asked him if they were his, and he said that they were, so I put them onto his desk somewhere and began to make myself comfortable. A girl came in extremely late, and everyone cheered her, so she came out with some story about having been locked in somewhere over the weekend, and how would we have liked it? We said that, well, we were certain that we could have rolled up our sleeves, done something and swam to somewhere. I began to look at everything on my desk, and it was a complete and utter shambles, so what I had in mind was to leave quietly on Friday and not go back to the office.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that these dreams of being in work after my retirement date and threatening to walk out without notice used to be a regular occurrence, but they seem to have died off a while back. However, as I said the other day, they are slowly making a comeback.

And the untidiness of mine in the office is nothing new at all. I was always like that, wherever I was and whatever I was doing.

We’d gone skiing somewhere in one of these big resorts. The car that we used was one of these big Transcontinental Vauxhall estates. There were five of us in this car, and the amount of stuff we’d brought with us was astonishing. After we’d packed, for example, I found my old ski boots and all kinds of things like that, so when we arrived in a town near the border to be inspected by the police, we were fully loaded and it took quite a while. I found later that we’d brought all the books with us from home, all that kind of thing. We went skiing, and then we decided to put our chalet up for sale. Someone in the town responded immediately, so we had to do a lot of clearing up and tidying up before we could let him in. When we let him in, he was big and he was active, bouncing around, and we were busy trying to put our ski things away and stack these books somewhere. We ended up stacking them against the wall next to the fireplace. I found a camera that didn’t work because the batteries were flat in it, all kinds of things like that, and getting them into my bag was going to be complicated. Someone came up to my girlfriend and asked me about the car. Before we were leaving, someone else came up to us and asked about the car. My girlfriend didn’t know much about it, so I told him. He said that he was really impressed with the amount of luggage we had in there. He cancelled an order for a new car so that he could buy one of these Transcontinental Vauxhall Estates.

In case you’ve forgotten what a Transcontinental Vauxhall estate looks like, there’s one HERE. It’s the beige one, SPU903M. Strangely enough, of all the cars that I’ve ever owned, I’ve never ever had a Vauxhall. The closest I ever came to one was having a Bedford CA van for a short while.

However, in the past, we never went to any fashionable ski resort, except that I went once with an Italian girl to a ski resort in Italy. Most of the time, we went to the unfashionable ones, although when I was driving coaches and we had no work for a few months after Christmas, I’d go to ski resorts in Eastern Europe such as Romania and Bulgaria. I even took Percy Penguin with me once.

The nurse turned up as usual, and while he was dealing with my legs and feet, he gave me the same warning as my cleaner did yesterday about the festival down in the port and how it was total chaos.

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

Today, we had another little chat about geology, and then we returned to fungi, with a discussion about fairy rings. Maybe the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine would have been interested in joining in the discussion. It’s a shame that the subject wasn’t “fairy boots”, otherwise it would have given me a good opportunity to drag Lee “I’m a prostitute” Pottymouth into the discussion. He’s not put in an appearance in these pages in an age.

When breakfast was finished, I had a few things to do, after which I intended to work on reformating the music that I’d downloaded the other day. However, in the end, I ended up having an on line discussion with someone about music that went on for quite a while, discussing mainly folk-rock songs.

And when the chat finished, I was so fired up that for the first time in a couple of years, I picked up the acoustic guitar and played CAREY by Joni Mitchell and MOONAGE DAYDREAM (I don’t know why) by David Bowie. I was surprised how much I’d forgotten, and also how much it hurt afterwards.

At midday, I went into the kitchen for my disgusting drink and midday medication, and then I began to make myself ready for dialysis. My faithful cleaner turned up too to put the anaesthetic on my arm too.

After she left, I hunched up over the table and let myself relax, with my head resting on my forearms. I was once again just about to drift off into a really nice dream when the doorbell rang. I looked at the time and it was 12:58 – I’d been away with the fairies … "although not in any manner that would excite comment from the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine" – ed … for just over half an hour.

There was no one else to pick up en route so we arrived at dialysis a few minutes early, despite the chaos around the port today. However, it made no difference because there was a queue of people in front of me, and it took until 14:25 to be plugged in.

Once everything was up and running, I had to wait until 15:30 for the football to kick off so I found one or two other things to do while I was waiting. However, I must have crashed out somewhere along the line because I awoke with a start at 15:27, just three minutes before kick-off.

The match that I’d chosen today was the basement clash between Rhydaman and Trefynnon. This was a real six-pointer, as both sides had yet to record a victory, and they needed to start winning soon, as the rest of the table was cutting them adrift.

As you might expect, this was another game played at a hundred miles per hour with both teams going at it hammer and tongs. And its opening was certainly dramatic – Johnny Evans missed a sitter of a free header when surely it must have been easier to score, and then straight from the goal kick, Trefynnon roared up the field and scored to go in front.

Then we had goals disallowed for offside, balls hitting the post or being cleared off the line, until Johnny Evans, in the fortieth minute, scored with a delightful lob from outside the penalty area, right over the head of the Trefynnon goalkeeper.

It went from bad to worse for Trefynnon when in the fifty-sixth minute, Rhydaman scored a second goal to take the lead. From then on, Trefynnon threw everything they had at the Rhydaman defence, but to no avail and Rhydaman took all of the points.

That was a shame because I thought that Trefynnon had the better of the play, but they are deep in it now after that.

And spare a thought for Cambrian United. For the second away match in succession, they conceded nine goals. And they are one of the better promoted teams too.

This was when I noticed something rather bizarre. When I’d begun to watch the football, there were fourteen minutes after the final whistle before the end of the session. However, despite there being over fourteen minutes of stoppage time in this game, there was still half an hour to go, and I wasn’t finished until 17:55.

From 14:25 to 17:55 is three and a half hours, not the three hours that I’m supposed to have, and when I weighed myself later, I was still four hudred grams over my dry weight. Mind you, I did notice that the chief doctor, he who doesn’t like me chatting up the nurses, was on duty again today. He spoke to several people in the ward, but kept well clear of my bed.

When I was outside, I had to wait a few minutes for the taxi but I was once more the only passenger. Nevertheless, it was 19:15 when I finally arrived home.

My cleaner was waiting for me, sitting on her mushroom outside, and she helped me into the house and gave me another disgusting drink.

After she had left, I made myself a small plate of pasta and veg tossed in olive oil, garlic, black pepper and vegan cheese. And delicious it was too, especially as it was followed by a peach yoghurt.

Back in here, I had things to do, and then write up my notes. Now when I’ve checked the stats and backed up the computer, I’ll be off to bed. It’s horrendously late tonight … "or this morning" – ed … but I don’t care. I’m aiming for a lie in tomorrow.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about people sitting on mushrooms and other bizarre things … "well, one of us has" – ed … a man walked into a doctor’s surgery and began to speak to another man sitting there.
"Why are you here?" he asked.
"I have the biggest piles the World has ever seen" he replied.
"Is that why you’re sitting on that giant bean cushion?" he asked.
The man replied "look more closely."

LIVE: Thursday 1st October 2026 – WHAT A TOTAL …

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… disaster this afternoon at dialysis was. Anything that could have possibly gone wrong did so, and in spades too.

Not that it was much better last night. It was almost midnight when I finally made my way into bed, and six hours and thirty minutes isn’t a long time in which to do very much, even if you go to sleep straight away, as I did. I wondered actually whether I would at first, with a streaming head cold and coughing, fit to awaken the dead, but a menthol and eucalyptus sweet cleared everything up long enough for me to drop off.

Not that I was asleep for long. Once more, I awoke at some kind of strange, early hour and couldn’t go back to sleep for ages. Whether I did at all is a debateable point – I was definitely awake when the alarm went off at 06:29.

As usual, it was quite a struggle to raise myself to my feet, unlock the front door and than head to the bathroom. There, I had a good wash and scrub up as well as a shave too, in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone but to my dismay, there was nothing on it. That was rather disappointing.

Instead, there were plenty of other things to keep me busy until the nurse arrived. Today, we were discussing faults and shortcomings in the dialysis system, not that we’ll ever put it right ourselves sitting here.

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

We’ve moved on from fungi and we’re now talking about the fossils of some giant prehistoric prawns, how they caught their prey and all of that. I’m glad that I didn’t live a few million years ago and had to confront one of those.

Back in here, I had a few things to do, and then I looked at my database to see what the programme next week will be all about. And as it happens, it will be a concert. All of the music that I have that belongs here totals one hour, one minute and twenty-nine seconds, and it’s not possible at first glance to cut it down by three minutes to fit in any speech. I had to be rather imaginative and creative, and now I’ve made one minute and forty-seven seconds for a speech, and I can cope with that.

When I’d done all that, there was even time to begin to write out the notes, and my friendly neighbourhood chatbot has even found some nice anecdotes for me to use. There’s no doubt that with enrolling my chatbot as a research assistant, I’m saving hours of time.

When the alarm went off, I headed into the kitchen for my disgusting drink and midday medication, and then began to organise my things for dialysis. My faithful cleaner turned up too to apply my anaesthetic onto my arm and we had a nice chat for a while.

After she left, I slumped over the table in the dining area and let myself disappear into my innermost thoughts, and just as I was beginning to settle into a nice dream, the taxi arrived.

We were ten minutes early setting off but we had to go to Sartilly to pick up another passenger at the old people’s home. He wasn’t ready, so we had to wait almost twenty minutes. As a result, I was late arriving at dialysis and had to wait until 14:20 to be plugged in.

Whatever has happened these last few days, I don’t know, but I seem to have set a new personal record of fluid to be deducted today. Even at four hours, there was only just enough time to eliminate it with the machine going full-tilt. I really don’t know what is happening right now, because nothing really has changed in my food or drink input. Even the energy drink that I had yesterday was in place of the late afternoon’s disgusting drink.

As a result, I persuaded them to make the session four hours and I sat back to watch the football.

Today, it was the rest of Cardiff Metropolitan v Caernarfon. I’d left this match with it being, surprisingly, 1-0 to the Met but I didn’t worry too much about it – especially when the Met had a player sent off after thirty-four minutes.

After that, it was an endless procession of balls into the edge of the Met’s penalty area and Caernarfon did everything they could to score.

That was how the second half went at first, but after an hour, a calamity! On one of their rare breaks upfield, the Met were awarded a penalty, from which they scored to make it 2-0.

After that, Caernafon brought on every attacker they could in the place of several defenders and bombarded the Met penalty area, but they couldn’t get the ball in the net until the eighty-sixth minute, when they made it 2-1. When it came up to ninety minutes, there was eight minutes of stoppage time and it was all one-way traffic, with Caernarfon still unable to find an equaliser until in the very last couple of seconds, Zack Clarke found the net to equalise and break the hearts of the Met.

So much for the legendary, unstoppable firepower of Caernarfon that put nine past Cambrian United last weekend.

That was really what I call a frustrating match, just like a game that I saw of TNS a couple of seasons ago, where they needed to score a goal but spent ninety minutes camped around the opposition penalty area with no-one being brave enough to put a cross into the box.

After that, I had a few things to do to take me up to the end of the session, with the blood pressure alarm ringing every thirty minutes, bringing the nurses running.

And this is where the disasters began. Firstly, I overheard the nurse and the doctor, the chief of the building who doesn’t like me. It seems that he’d told the nurse to diminish the extraction. However, he didn’t have the courage to tell me, which I found deplorable, and now I know why the nurse turned the display panel from facing my bed to facing the other way.

They may as well have left the extraction as it was and shortened the time – as if I have nothing better to do than to spend my time hanging around there and leaving with seven hundred grams extra that will mean that I have to stay there an hour later on Saturday.

At least the taxi was waiting for me when I exited the building, but the bad news is that we had to go across town to the clinic to pick someone else up, and one of the roads was under repair, so we had to go all round the Wrekin to get there.

The driver went to search for the passenger, but there was no trace, no matter where and how hard she looked. In a desperate last throw of the dice, we tried the ophthalmic surgery, and that was where we found her.

However, she had a prescription to be filled, so we had to drive around Avranches until we found a chemist’s that was open and then back round the Wrekin and head for home.

After dropping off our passenger, it was 19:40 when I arrived home, and I don’t think that I’ve ever been as late as that.

My cleaner helped me into the apartment and gave me a disgusting drink. I didn’t feel like cooking at that time, so I grabbed one of the bags of lentil crisps that she bought for me yesterday, and delicious they were too, especially when they were followed by a nice, ripe and juicy plum.

So now, having written my notes, I’ll do what else needs to be done and then I’m off to bed.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about fossils … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone told me that there was a college in Somerset that trained up local people to dig for fossils.
"What are they called?" I asked.
"Arrrrh-chaeologists."

LIVE: Tuesday 29th September 2026 – TODAY WAS A …

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… much better day than yesterday – that is, up to a certain point anyway. It’s slowly starting to deteriorate now, so I’ll tell you all in due course how it ended. However, that won’t be tonight because there’s a football match on later this evening and it doesn’t finish until late, so I might end up just posting what I will have written, and you’ll get the rest tomorrow if you’re lucky.

Strangely enough, I was only thinking yesterday during the day that it’s been about a fortnight since you’ve had a “to be continued” when I’ve abandoned the notes due to tiredness and gone to bed, so things must be getting better. Only to have to post a “to be continued” the very same evening, as those of you who log in late at night or early in the morning will have seen.

It wasn’t so early when I went to bed, though. That was because I’d crashed out in the chair here while I was writing, and it wasn’t until later that I awoke. At that point, I went to bed and went straight to sleep, which is a surprise, considering the thunder and lightning that was crashing and flashing about outside.

Not that I was asleep for long. I’ve no idea what time it was when I awoke but it was a very long time before 06:29. I lay there tossing and turning for quite a while, and then I continued my experiment about sleeping. I made a definite effort to go to sleep lying on my side, but when I awoke each time, I was lying on my back. I’m not sure of why that is, but it’s annoying. I shall have to chain myself to the bed in memory of Kirk Anderson and Joyce McKinney, although I shan’t "ski naked down Mount Everest in the nude with a carnation up my nose".

At some point, I did go back to sleep long enough to be awoken by the alarm, and then we had the usual struggle to convince myself to rise up off the edge of the bed and head to the bathroom to sort myself out. Not before having unlocked the front door, though.

Once I’d sorted myself out, I came back in here and carried on with the rest of yesterday’s notes. They are now on line, as many of you might have noticed. What I should have done next was to attack the dictaphone notes to find out where I’d been during the night, but the arrival of the nurse confounded me, and I forgot to do them afterwards. Next morning, they eventually found their way on line.

I was in St Pair last night, staying somewhere. We’d heard somewhere that a new Casino supermarket had opened on the edge of the town centre, so I went off to have a look because it wasn’t far away from where we were staying. When I came back, I told everyone that I was disappointed by it because it was only a small, local kind of superette thing rather than the big supermarket that we had been expecting, and they didn’t have very much choice in there at all. While I’d been away, there had been a hockey match played between Denmark and Wales. I heard the result, and Denmark had won 2-0. I was pleased in a sense because it showed that Wales was still being included in these international tournaments and was not being forgotten.

The first part of the dream means nothing to me really, but there was a huge Casino supermarket (now an Intermarché) on the edge of town and I didn’t much like going there because the place was dirty and it never carried much of what I needed.

As for the second part, Wales have recently (on Sunday, in fact) played football against Denmark, and Denmark beat them 2-0. And as for hockey, that’s something that is featuring quite heavily in something else that’s going on right now and I could tell you plenty of stories about it, but the World isn’t yet ready to hear them.

After his week’s rest, the nurse was quite on form, but he was in a rush with patients waiting down at his office so he couldn’t stay around long to talk. However, he was interested to know what they had pumped into me last Monday, but I told him that I didn’t know. He asked me to find out next time I was there.

His leaving was the cue for me to make my breakfast – the usual porridge, toast, coffee and fruit juice. I know that it sounds monotonous, but it’s really the only food that I enjoy eating these days.

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

We’re now discussing the trees of the Clee and Longmynd Hills. Especially the giant elms and poplars that seem to thrive there. And although I don’t know much about trees from a biological point of view, I do know that a tree with a twenty-two-foot circumference measured five feet from the ground is an enormous tree and well worth its place on the list of giant trees.

Back in here, I had an hour and fifteen minutes of revision for my Welsh class, and now that my course book has turned up, it’s much easier to revise and prepare.

After that, I went to the lesson, all two and a half hours of it. And once more, it passed really well and I was quite pleased with it. But the acid test is yet to come – our tutor has set us some homework to be done by next Monday. Then we’ll see how much has stuck to my teflon brain.

When the lesson had finished, I went into the kitchen and began bagging up my curry from yesterday. There was enough for five portions, and that should keep me out of mischief for a while. My next effort will be an aubergine and kidney bean whatsit – it’s been ages since I’ve made one of those.

My faithful cleaner caught me in flagrante delicto packing up the stuff when she came in to do her thing. She gave me a hand to move things round in the freezer and then chased me under the shower for my weekly wash.

Back in here later, I started choosing the music for another radio programme. And I found that I was still short of some, so I had to start to search around to see what I could find.

Once I’d found everything that I needed, I had to reformat, re-edit and remix it. And then I had to pair the music off. I’ve not segued it as yet, but I’ll do that tomorrow. I ran out of time, mainly because, would you believe, I crashed out for about an hour while … errr … riding the porcelain horse. How embarrassing was that?

What with working late and there being a football match tonight, I didn’t have time for tea, so instead I had some of those small toasted squares with some of the nice spreading cheese that my cleaner found for me in Leclerc a while back. It was followed by a really nice, juicy orange for pudding.

After that, there was the football. Cardiff Metro v Hwlffordd, a match postponed from a few weeks ago when Cardiff Metro’s under-19 team was playing an European Junior Cup match on the Cyncoed pitch, and why the two teams didn’t offer to switch fixtures and play it at Hwlffordd, I really don’t know.

Anyway, the first half was absolutely dreadful. It was easily the worst forty-five minutes I have ever seen, and that’s a disappointment because both sides usually play some attractive football, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed …

The first ten minutes of the second half were in the same vein, but then we had a really dramatic incident. A Hwlffordd player burst into the penalty area with the ball, but an excellent tackle by a Met defender put the ball out of play, with the Hwlffordd attacker falling over the body of the defender. In a decision that remains a mystery to everyone watching, the ref awarded a penalty.

Not surprisingly, the whole crowd and the Met players were incensed, and I don’t blame them either because I was too. After much dispute and debate, the referee went to consult the VAR cameras, and after a lengthy delay, he rightly revoked the penalty award.

What should then have happened was that he should have awarded a corner kick to Hwlffordd. However, he gave a dropped ball to the Cardiff Met keeper, who then kicked it upfield and the Met went on to score a goal from it.

After that, the game livened up somewhat as Hwlffordd tried to score a goal to equalise. However, they couldn’t make their mark on the game and it finished 1-0 to the Met.

So with that out of the way, I just have a couple more things to do and then I’m off to bed. There’s plenty of work for tomorrow, so I hope that this good-ish mood continues. I’ll have to add in last night’s dreams tomorrow too, so check back at some point.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about trees … "well, one of us has" – ed … a squirrel was sitting in a tree when it began to shake violently. He looked down and saw an elephant climbing the tree.
"Why are you climbing this tree?" asked the squirrel.
"I fancy eating some apples" replied the elephant.
"But this isn’t an apple tree" said the squirrel.
"I know" replied the elephant "but it’s OK. I brought some with me."

LIVE: Monday 28th September 2026 – IT HAS BEEN …

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… a fairly uneventful day today. So much so that I had to struggle to think of a dramatic way of opening today’s entry, but in the end I couldn’t, so that was that. Instead, I’ll just stroll on in a chronological timeline until I have a marvellous fit of inspiration.

And so to begin, I didn’t have the early night for which I’d been hoping yesterday. Although it was before 22:30 when I went to bed, it wasn’t many minutes before it. And although I was soon asleep, it wasn’t for as long as I had hoped.

At some point, and I’ve no idea when it was, I awoke. And then I tried to go back to sleep, which was not as easy as it might have been. However, I did notice something bizarre. I can sleep quite well when I’m lying on my left side and even better when I’m lying on my right side, so those are the positions for which I try to aim.

However, when I tried that last night, I’d wake up again a short while later to find myself lying on my back, and that’s a position in which I can never go off to sleep. And thinking about it, I’ve been spending far too much time lying on my back instead of on my sides just recently.

At some point, though, I must have gone to sleep because the alarm at 06:29 awoke me from my slumbers.

We had the usual battle of wills about standing up and heading to the bathroom, and I think that it was only the possibility of meeting Emilie the Cute Consultant at dialysis that drove me onwards, having first remembered to unlock the front door. And in the bathroom, I had a good scrub up and a shave, “just in case”.

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

There was someting last night about me having to fill in some kind of form for something. But when I had the copy back, I noticed that quite a lot of the text that I had written had been removed. There was a note in its place saying “text removed by editor as being too long and not to the point”. I then tried to remember what it was that I had written, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t remember what I’d written that had been removed.

Strangely enough, I do have a form that needs completing this week. But the bit about having the text removed reminded me of what I had written last night about Kent. That, I suppose, was also too long and not to the point of whatever it is that I’m supposed to be doing.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up as usual. It’s her last day today before her week’s rest, so I wished her good luck. She replied that she’s probably going to need it because it’s raining outside right now.

After she left, I made breakfast (and my new bread is delicious) and read some more of THE REPORT OF THE WOOLHOPE NATURALISTS CLUB 1870.

Luckily, they finished talking about that gruesome parasite and have moved on to discuss the flora of the Clee Hills and the Longmynd. And in discussing autochthonous plants, he notes "At the Miocene period, or, more strictly, at its dawn, a temperate clime prevailed within the Arctic circle. Poplars, planes, and lime trees grew within twelve degrees of the Pole, and so have beds of the same fossil plants been found in North Greenland, where now an enormous ice cap covers the whole country, leaving only a narrow slip of land free from ice in summer."

When I was in Greenland in 2018 and 2019, I can promise you that it was nothing like as bad as that. I wondered what his opinion back in 1871 was about global warming, but I didn’t have long to wait before I found out.

Just two or three pages further on, we have "Mr. Croll, who attributes the changes of climate marking the different periods of the tertiary epoch to periodical variations in the eccentricity of the earth’s elliptical orbit, tells us that for the last 60,000 years eccentricity has been very small."

Back in here afterwards, I reviewed the radio programme for this coming weekend and sent it off for insertion in the stream, following which I reformatted the music that I need for the programme that I’ll be preparing. When that was all done, I even managed to re-edit a couple of songs that have gone into the folder to await my further instructions.

At 12:00 my faithful cleaner came in and sorted out my anaesthetic, and then I had to wait for the taxi. He was late today, and we already had one person in the car. We had to go to St Pair for a third one and then down all these little country lanes where our driver drove as if the hounds of hell were after him. We ended up being three minutes early at dialysis, despite how late we were running earlier.

Today, I was honoured with being placed in a single room, so I was either going to have a medical examination or the head doctor was going to come and give me … "yet" – ed … another lecture about chatting up the nurses. But it was also the farthest possible bed away from the front door. They really are making me work for a living around there.

And being early, I’d arrived at about the same time as everyone else, so I had to wait for a while before they came to sort me out. Although it was the same nurse as Saturday – one of the newer ones – the connecting up was much less painful and I was up and running by 14:20.

At first, all I wanted to do was to sleep – I don’t know why – but I livened up after I’d had my 15:00 coffee and orange juice, so I began to watch the football.

Today’s match was between two of the newly promoted clubs, Cambian United from Andypandy … "he means Tonypandy" – ed … in the Rhondda Valley and Llandudno.

Both these clubs are doing reasonably well and seem to be managing to keep up with the established mid-table clubs, which is more than can be said for some of the others, so I was expecting it to be a good match.

And I wasn’t disappointed either. Both clubs went at it hammer and tongs right from the kick-off and it ended up being one of the best matches that I’ve seen. Plenty of blood and thunder, plenty of skill, plenty of aggression. What really surprised me, though, was that Cambrian roared into a 4-0 lead after forty-seven minutes, and that was a long, long way from representing the balance of play.

In the second half, Llandudno had a change of tactics and managed to claw three goals back, but ran out of time at the end. Still, I’m not complaining at all about the game.

There was also time to watch the first twenty minutes or so of Cardiff Metropolitan v Caernarfon, and I’ll tell you more about that game when I’ve seen the rest of it.

Although I’d seen Emilie the Cute Consultant on my way in, I was right in thinking that the big white chief would come to see me. However, we just talked about the implant in my arm and the pain that it was generating when I was plugged in. He said that he’d have a chat with the nurses about trying a different method.

However, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s not the way that they do it that’s the problem. It’s because the implant itself is damaged, as I have been told on many occasions by the doctor who gives it the six-monthly examinations.

When my time was up, I was unplugged quite quickly while my taxi driver was waiting at the door to my room. It was another one of my favourites, so we had a really good chat all the way home, like we always do. She told me all about her holiday in Brittany and how hot it was. But luckily, the campsite had a pool, so she, her husband and her two kids spent every day sitting in the pool to keep cool.

Funnily enough, I’d been thinking for several days that I hadn’t seen her for a while, but she had come over to chat with me the other day while she was on ambulance duty, and now she had come to take me home.

We were home quite quickly, and my faithful cleaner helped me into the apartment and stuck a disgusting drink into my sweaty little mitt once I’d sat down.

After she left, I added the vegan cream into my curry and gave it a good stir. Then I made some rice and veg and helped myself to a ladleful of curry. It really was delicious, and there’s plenty left to freeze for later.

Back in here, I began to write up my notes, and I was doing quite well ar first. However, this huge wave of sleep came out of nowhere, and as it passed, it took me with it.

When I awoke, I was totally incapable of carrying on, so I posted on line what I’d written up to then and went to bed. The rest can wait until tomorrow morning.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about parasites … "well, one of us has" – ed … Donald Trump was arrested and placed in a filthy parasite-infested cell.
"That must have been awful," said a news reporter "Trump having to share a cell with parasites in it."
"I know" replied his colleague. "I felt really sorry for those parasites."

LIVE: Sunday 27th September 2026 – NOW THAT’S WHAT …

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… I call a really decent Sunday Day of Rest.

After I’d left the bed and sorted myself out in the bathroom, it was 11:48 according to the clock on the microwave when I went into the kitchen to start making my breakfast. I was probably out of bed at 11:25 or something like that.

Considering that I hadn’t gone to bed until after midnight, when I was letting it all hang out. And before you ask, I’ve no idea how the night went because I can’t remember. I may have woken up two or three times during the night, but I can’t really remember if I did.

One thing is certain, though, and that is that when Isabelle the Nurse opened the bedroom door, I awoke then. She took my medical card and swiped it through her machine so that she could receive payment from the Social Security. Then she sorted out my feet and legs, saying virtually nothing, and she dealt with my lower legs and feet.

What happened next is rather unclear. What was clear was that it was about 11:10 when I clicked on the clock on my telephone, and I thought that at that moment, I’d better not let myself have any more sleep. Time to show a leg.

As usual, it was another long story to try to stand up, but I eventually made it into the bathroom, and then into the kitchen to make my breakfast – porridge, black coffee, toast and grapefruit juice. And, of course, a pile of morning medication.

While I was eating, I started to read some more of THE REPORT OF THE WOOLHOPE NATURALISTS CLUB 1870 but what they were discussing threatened to put me off my breakfast, so I looked for a suitable escape route.

Sure enough, there was a passage that prompted me to go off and do some independent research, and somehow, I found myself, after following several other hints, reading up about the Savoia Marchetti SM79 bomber of the first part of the Second World War. I’m still not sure how I arrived there.

Back in here, the first thing that I did was to listen to the dictaphone to find out what went on during the night.

There should have been something on here, but the moment I reached for the dictaphone, it all evaporated.

This is becoming a far too frequent occurrence, and I shall have to take steps to deal with the matter before it becomes any more frequent.

There was something going on in the background. We were all living in Kent, working for a firm that made rope. We learnt to do them so well that the boss had given us a weekend away in a Volkswagen minibus. We thought that that was extremely nice of him. When we arrived at the cottage, it was in a really remote area. The first thing that we did was to send someone in to inspect it. He said that it was quite nice, so we all went in. We then talked about who was sharing which bedroom with who. We went upstairs to look at the bedrooms. They were very basic but looked very nice, and the bed looked very comfortable.

The story about Kent has plenty of basis in fact. When she began to live with that family in London after her father abandoned her, my mother acquired three “great aunts”, relatives of her adopted parents. They were Dolly, Gertie and Mabel. One of them, Gertie, I think, lived in Birchington, and that was where my mother and her adopted parents were living when the Luftwaffe began to bomb Manston airfield, just across the road, in 1940.

Dolly and Gertie lived in a small village called Hamstreet, near Ashford, in the middle of a row of four big old terraced houses.

When we were small kids, we used to spend every summer down there, first at Auntie Gertie’s house until she died, and then with Dolly and Mabel and their two cats, “Pussycat” and “Kattapus”, until finally Mabel died in 1964. Our father would drive us down on the Friday night as soon as school broke up, all the way through Friday night and Saturday, drop us off, have a sleep for a few hours and then go back to Cheshire ready for work on the Monday. Then he’d take the last two weeks of August off, come down and join us and then take us home ready for work and school.

In 2006, I went on a pilgrimage to visit all of the places that I knew in Kent from those days. The house in Birchington was actually up for sale, and that was very much a “get thee behind me, Satan” moment. Still, nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.

After that, there was the football – Stranraer v East Kilbride in the League Cup. This was another end-to-end game that Stranraer eventually won by the odd goal out of seven, confounding the expensive team that East Kilbride have managed to assemble.

After watching another depressing moment as Greenock Morton went down 2-0 to Inverness, I watched the rest of Trefynnon v Llansawel

That was really a very poor match, but Llansawel, even though they were down to ten men after the thirty-fourth minute, played some very nice football, in contrast to Trefynnon’s “kick and rush” tactics. The match ended 1-1, only the third point for Trefynnon, but they were lucky to have that. Even with ten men, Llansawel had the ability to do much better than they did.

Round about this moment, I crashed out, and when I awoke, I was really surprised to find that it was still light. Right at that moment, I didn’t have much of an idea where I was or what time it was, and I expected to find myself in bed in the dark during the night.

That was the key to going to make bread. Another 850-gram sesame seed loaf. And it rose just like it ought to do and baked perfectly now that I have changed the times to eight minutes at 200°C and thirty-two minutes at 180°C. It makes a decent crust, baking it like that.

As well as that, I had the slow cooker out. My friend used my slow cooker while he was here, and he was so impressed that he went out to buy one. Ever since then, he’s been sending me messages about what he’s made and how delicious it was.

Consequently, while I was organising my bread, I began to make a lentil, mushroom and sweetcorn curry, and it’s now working away on “low”, with the hope that it will be ready tomorrow before I go to dialysis. Then I can bag it up for the base of several meals at points in the future, always assuming that my appetite comes back.

Having dealt with the mountains of washing up, I came back in here to write up my notes. And now that they are finished, there are a few more things to do, and then I’ll be going to bed, later than I was hoping, but never mind. I can always sleep at dialysis if they leave me alone and don’t panic when they see me flaked out.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about curry … "well, one of us has" – ed … two guys in Canada were talking about the curries that they had recently eaten.
The first one said "I was invited to a meal with a family of First Nation Canadians. It was a beaver curry."
"That sounds great" said the second one. "What was it like?"
"Just the same as a normal curry, but it was just a little ‘otter."
The second one said "I went to that Indian restaurant at Snowden in Montreal, and I had a pelican curry."
"What was it like?"
"Very nice, but the bill was enormous."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LIVE: Monday 21st September 2026 – YET ANOTHER CHAOTIC …

… day at dialysis – just the same (give or take the odd bit here and there) as last Monday, and I wasn’t really in the mood for it, because I’ve had a chaotic day too.

Last night, it wasn’t too far short of midnight when I finally made my way into bed, and the good news was that I was asleep quite quickly.

However, it wasn’t for long, though. I’ve no idea what time I awoke, but as it was pitch-black outside, I’d say that it wasn’t much after 02:30. And once awake, I lay there tossing and turning and trying to make myself comfortable in bed so that I could go back to sleep, but nothing seemed to work.

At least, that’s what I thought, but round about 06:05 I had another one of those dramatic awakenings that I used to have regularly at one point. There was no point in going back to sleep at that point, with all of my appointments today, so by 06:15 I was in the bathroom organising myself ready for the onslaught. I even had a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant later.

There was actually something on the dictaphone from the night, as I found out on Tuesday morning, so I’ve added it in here.

There was something last night about me being sent to one of these RAF filling station type of places where people go after they have been injured or after they’ve been sick and their position in their regular flight had been filled by someone else. So I’d been sent to this place to meet up with other people similar to form a crew, and then I suddenly realised that I can’t have done that because I wasn’t born until nine years after the war ended so it’s just not possible for me to have been there.

There actually was a place like this at one of the RAF training centres, although it was hardly a “filling station” in the normal usage of the term. Bomber crews were assembled simply amongst themselves towards the end of their training and they usually stuck together throughout their tour of thirty missions. However, if someone were sick or injured, someone else would be co-opted into the crew and when the original member returned to duty, he would find that his place had been taken. Consequently he’d be sent to the “training centre” where he could team up with other people to form a new crew.

However, I’m impressed that within a dream, I can recognise the absurdity of the situation of being in this training centre at least nine years before I was even born.

Back in the kitchen, I put away the washing up from yesterday and made sure that the place looked nice. After that, I finished organising what I needed to take with me and then had a little snooze hunched over the table while I waited for the taxi to arrive.

The car was booked for 08:15, and my doorbell rang at 08:14. Excellent timing, that was. There was just me going in the car this morning. We had patchy fog all the way, not as bad as my chauffeur said it was when she started work at 05:30 this morning.

We arrived at the hospital bang on 09:00, and she pushed me in a wheelchair up to the hôpital de jour. I know that I have said that I won’t go in a wheelchair, but where I was going was miles away from the entrance and, at this time of the morning, the drivers have plenty of other things to do that accompany me, slowly and painfully on foot.

The nursing auxiliary and the nurse fussed around me when I arrived, and wasn’t the latter relieved when I said I had a chemotherapy port? It made her task so much easier and mine too because I could then type with both hands.

By about 09:40 I was up and running with this stuff to stimulate my red blood cells, and I was told that the treatment would last a little over two hours.

The bad news (at first) was that there seemed to be no internet up there, but I had a ferret around and eventually managed to conjure up something, so I watched LLansawel against Trefelin from Friday night. It was a miserable night last Friday, and playing football in a monsoon on a paddy field wasn’t very encouraging. It was something of a lottery out there and I don’t think that the teams could have been too dissatisfied with the end result.

As for the fans, though, it was no real spectacle. It was a long-ball hoof upfield and another long-hoof upfield in reply. I could count on the fingers of my hand the number of passes that found a team mate. I’m sure that in this weather, they would have been better off playing the ball to feet instead of in the air.

After that, I started Connah’s Quay Nomads v Cardiff Metro. I didn’t get to see much of it so I’ll tell you about it later.

During the morning, I had a visit from no less a person than Emilie the Cute Consultant. She came to see how I was doing and, once more, just like two years ago, she sat on the end of my bed while she chatted. The plan that they have worked out is that because they have still not been able to arrange anything with a haematologist, I’ll have to come here every four weeks for this treatment. And right on cue, the nurse came with my next appointment – Monday 19th October at 09:30.

And it really was nice to chat to Emilie the Cute Consultant. It seems that she still loves me.

Round about 11:50, the treatment was finished and the nurse unplugged me. She said that I had to wait for a while to let my head clear and, in any case, the taxi would be here to take me across the road at about 13:30. Waiting wasn’t going to be as bad as I thought, especially as I was brought a meal – stuffed tomatoes, bread, sliced pears and an apple purée. It was better than the coffee earlier, though, which was served in just about the oldest mug I have ever seen.

Round about then, I began to wonder when the nurse was going to come back to apply the anaesthetic on my arm. There was no sign so I asked the nursing auxiliary, who replied that all of the nurses had gone for lunch. So what are the connections going to be like with no anaesthetic, do you think?

The car turned up bang on schedule and took me across the road. I was there at 13:40 but had to wait until 14:30 to be plugged in. Had I known that the wait was going to be so long, I’d have persuaded one of the nurse there to apply my anaesthetic there and then as I arrived.

The connections were nothing like as painful I was expecting. In fact, I’ve had worse than those even when I’ve been covered in anaesthetic, so I didn’t mind too much.

Once I was finally up and running, I was left pretty much alone for the session. The low blood pressure alarm didn’t ring at all – not even once.

However, I was really feeling tired – I’d had a battle to keep away across the road – but here, I did actually fall asleep, only to be shaken awake by a nurse who was afraid that I was busy pushing up the daisies. And another one of the doctors came to see me to find out how I was doing. I’ve no idea what is the reason for this sudden popularity.

The next match to watch was the rest of Connah’s Quay Nomads v Cardiff Metro. Another game played in a monsoon, it was another one of these end-to-end games, but the Nomads’ class showed through in the end and they went on to win 1-0.

The old guy who was rushed to hospital last week was there today, looking much better. However, it was the turn of a woman this time who began to have problems. All the nurses and doctors congregated around her and in the end, my chauffeur was hijacked to rush her over the road to the emergencies.

They had begun to unplug me, but as everyone was finishing at the same time, I was left until almost last. The nurse came to offer her excuses, but I told her that although I don’t mind waiting, I’d be much happier if they left my machine running so that I could take advantage of the extra time.

Eventually, my chauffeur arrived, the young chatty guy. We had someone else to drop off en route so it was a miserable 19:05 when I finally arrived home. My cleaner helped me into the apartment and stuck a disgusting drink into my sweaty little mitt.

After she left, I made a quick tea – just a little potato salad because I wasn’t all that hungry tonight.

So now, having finished my notes, I’m going to try to have an early night for once.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the hôpital de jour … "well, one of us has" – ed … I overheard two of the nurses talking to each other
"I hear that there’s a case of brucellosis just come in" said the one.
"Oh well," said the other. "It’ll make a change from Lucozade."

LIVE: Saturday 19th September 2026 – I HAD TWO …

… phantom alarms during the night And I know that the first one of them was a phantom alarm because I was awake (at least, I think that I was) when it sounded. But it wasn’t the usual RAUCOUS RATTLE OF BILLY COTTON but more like a series of these wind bells ringing down in the bottom corner of the bedroom where the chest of drawers is.

The second one went off when I was asleep, and that WAS Billy Cotton. It went off at about 04:00 or so because, after I’d been tossing and turning around for quite a while, I saw that the time was 04:38.

So an 04:00 awakening this morning, which, considering that I didn’t go to bed until after 00:30 this morning, hasn’t let me have much sleep at all. It’s a good job that I’m in dialysis this afternoon so, if necessary, I can have a good sleep.

At some point much later on, I tucked myself up in the only position that seems to be able to make me go to sleep. It’s quite uncomfortable, and I usually wake up to find that I’m flat on my back again, but during the latter part of the night last night I didn’t move and was still there when the alarm went off.

This morning, it was more of a struggle than most mornings to rise to my feet, but the lure of Emilie the Cute Consultant was sufficient to attract me into the bathroom for a good wash and scrub up, and even a shave.

Back in here, I found that there was nothing on the dictaphone from last night, but when I had woken up earlier, there were a couple of things going on in my head as if I’d been awoken in the middle of a dream before I’d had time to record it. So, for what they are worth, I’ve written down what little I remember of them.

The first part seemed to relate to someone in this apartment looking for a teatowel. However, I awoke and noticed that they were all in here and I was covered in them, so there was definitely something strange going on.

And the second part took place round about now – towards the end of September (in my head I had the feeling that it was the 22nd of September) – here in France, and I was dressed in my winter jacket, gloves and woolly hat as if it were mid-winter, and other people were dressed for winter too.

There doesn’t seem to be anything at all to connect these two little bits with anything that has gone on in real life just recently. The closest connection that I can make is being up in the High Arctic in mid- to late September when I was certainly in winter clothing – as much of it as I could wear.

There were a few other things to do, and then the nurse arrived to interrupt me. He asked about the Hound of the Baskervilles, so I told him what I knew, and then he began to speak to me in German. My German isn’t as good as it ought to be, but I managed to answer him to a certain degree.

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

We’re still on meteorology, and while I was reading it, I came across this report – "1816 was a very wet, cold season. Wheat out at Christmas, and the head so bad “that it would stick if thrown against a wall.” The season said to be as bad as in 1698."

Strangely enough, that was the only entry for severe weather in 1816, and that surprised me, for in 1815, there was the volcanic eruption of Mount Tambora on the island of Sumbawa, these days part of Indonesia. It is said to be the largest eruption in recorded history and the fallout from the volcanic ash was such that 1816 was said to be “the year without a summer” and “an agricultural disaster” with food shortages, famine and starvation.

Why there aren’t any more entries relating to this period is a total mystery.

Back in here with just two hours to go before I need to make myself ready for dialysis, but I couldn’t think of what to do in that period. It’s not very often that I have a block like that. So on the basis of “if you don’t know what to do, just do something, or anything,” so I wrote chapter ten of my book.

This was going to be the last chapter, but I seem to have let my fingers run away with themselves on the keyboard just recently, so there are at least two chapters still to do, plus the preface and the conclusion. But this has always been a challenge for me – sticking within a word count. You give me a word limit and I’ll go beyond it, sometimes by a country mile too.

When the alarm went off, I took myself off into the kitchen to sort out my midday medication and my disgusting drink. My cleaner duly turned up to sort out my anaesthetic and a couple of other little tasks too, and once she’d left, I had to wait for the taxi.

Not that I was waiting long because it was here at 12:40. We had to go to Champeaux to pick up someone else, and we were at the dialysis centre at 13:30. By 14:10 I was up and running too.

There were no interruptions, apart from the nurses running to deal with the blood pressure alarm every half-hour. Not even a doctor came to see me, so I could watch the football in mostly peace and quiet in my little room.

Yesterday, I mentioned the game between Caernarfon and Cambrian United, so that was my choice. And it was as chaotic as the newsfeed report said it was.

There was Caernarfon’s goalkeeper running the ball out of play, which led to fisticuffs between him and a Cambrian forward that saw both of them sent off. Later on, another Cambrian player was sent off for “denying a goalscoring opportunity”.

Caernarfon’s ten men were far too good for Cambrian’s nine, and it became an embarrassment as the Caernarfon players cut through the Cambrian defence like a hot knife through butter. There were actually nine different goal scorers making up Caernarfon’s total, and if that’s not a record, I don’t know what is.

After it finished, I watched the first half of Hwlffordd v Trefynnon, but once more I ran out of time. I’ll tell you about it when I’ve finished watching it.

When the session was finished, I had to wait a few minutes to be unplugged, and after that, another fifteen minutes for my taxi. But at least, I was the only passenger so I was home by 18:30.

My cleaner was sitting on her mushroom waiting for me, and she helped me into the apartment, sticking a disgusting drink into my sweaty little mitt. After she left, I made some food, just a handful of pasta and vegetables with melted butter.

Back in here, there was yet more football – a Welsh Cup match between Denbigh of the second tier and Trearddur Bay of the third tier. And when you are 1-0 down in the seventy-ninth minute with two players already sent off, as Denbigh were, what would be the betting on a Denbigh win?

It was only then that Denbigh began to play. And how is it possible for Trearddur Bay, with a two-man advantage, to leave a Denbigh player unmarked at the far post? That was one goal back to equalise, and then with two minutes to go, they scored a second.

The game itself was quite agricultural, and even though it’s second tier v third tier, I was expecting far better football than this. But I’ve seen worse on my travels, I suppose.

But I won’t be seeing any more tonight, unless they appear in my dreams, because I’m off to bed. It’s way past my bedtime. But at least (in principle) I can have a lie-in tomorrow.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about agricultural disasters … "well, one of us has" – ed … an aeroplane crashed in a field and the local search and rescue brigade dashed to the scene.
They noticed two things – firstly that there was a farmer nearby wiping his hands, and the second was that the aeroplane was Air Force One.
"Oh my God! What a disaster!" exclaimed the brigade leader. Then he turns to the farmer and asks "where are the survivors?"
"There weren’t any" replies the farmer. "I just finished burying them"
"Even Donald Trump? Surely he must be alive at least!"
"Well, he told me that he was, but you know what a big liar he is."

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

… last day of my summer holidays today.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LIVE: Thursday 17th September 2026 – IT’S ALL EXTREMELY …

… quiet in here tonight. And that’s because I’m on my own. Round about midday, the Hound of the Baskervilles dragged his master off to the car and the last time that I saw them, they were heading due east somewhere, in the general direction of Munich.

It was really lovely having company. After all, I’m not used to it. and as I said to him … "the friend, not the Hound of the Baskervilles" – ed … it’s open house here, and he and his sidekick are welcome to come here any time they want and can stay as long as they like.

Especially if he continues to make the coffee like that.

And I was ready for a mug of coffee this morning. I was in bed at something like a reasonable time, and although the wind was blowing, it didn’t disturb me that much and I was soon asleep.

However, round about 04:00, there was an enormous gust of wind that awoke me dramatically, and I wasn’t the only one to be awakened because my friend told me later that the Hound of the Baskervilles had awoken him round about that time, so something had obviously scared him … "the Hound of the Baskervilles, not the friend" – ed …

Once I was awake, I found it hard to go back to sleep and I tossed and turned for hours. However, at some point, I must have dozed off because the alarm awoke me.

And for once, I failed to beat the second alarm, dismal failure that I am. I just couldn’t unstick myself from the bed and I don’t know why. Consequently, I was quite a while late starting work this morning.

The first task was to listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night.

During World War II the Chinese had decided to co-operate with the Allies against Japan, so they had sent radio signalmen on board many of the Allied ships. Those ships flew a white flag with the letter "G" on it. Someone made some remark about the one on his boat, saying that he was wearing some kind of flowing kimono or something like that in luxurious silk. Of course, we were sitting there thinking that he’s not going to last five minutes like that.

Being on board a ship would be nothing to bother me, although I have no idea where the Chinese man in his blue flowing kimono comes into it all.

Then this dream changed to something else. I was with a colleague from work and we were in Czechoslovakia or somewhere, and I was living there, and it was very similar to that one about Poland or Czechoslovakia the other week. We had to go to see someone, so another one of the workers picked me up and drove me all the way to Prague for this meeting. It turned out in effect that there was only going to be two of us, a young person from the other side. We had this meeting in what used to be a railway station, and we were chatting really about not very much at all. Just as the meeting was ending, this guy said that he’d forgotten to give him something. He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a hammerhead. He said that that had fallen off someone’s Land Rover the other day. I mentioned a name and asked “it’s not him, is it, because he’s only just bought a new one?” but it wasn’t. Anyway, what happened next? So we made ready to go, and I suddenly remembered that someone had given me an axe head to sharpen, so I was busy sharpening the blade on the axe. The person with me was rather frightened in case I hurt myself, so he held my elbow. That led to an argument because you can’t sharpen anything if someone is holding your arm.

We’ve been spending a lot of time in Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic just recently. Wishful thinking on my part, obviously. But the name that I mentioned was someone related in part to where I used to work.

Sharpening the axe head is also an interesting situation to contemplate, with someone trying to stop me carrying out my plans, which seem to have been infiltrated. It’s a nuisance, isn’t it?

The nurse came along for his final German lesson, a final big hug of the Hound of the Baskervilles and to sort out my feet and legs. And then another Welsh lesson, big hug, etc., before parting.

The Hound of the Baskervilles dragged his master off on yet another walkie, and I made breakfast and read some more of THE REPORT OF THE WOOLHOPE NATURALISTS CLUB 1870.

Today’s subject is columnar ice, and that set me off on the trail of William Scoresby. He was one of the earliest of the “ice-masters” who worked the whaling ships in the Davis Strait and places like that in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. He gave a great deal of advice to the Admiralty about his experiences in the Hugh Arctic, especially concerning the ill-fated Franklin Expedition, but it was usually always rejected because he was a “civilian” and “the Admiralty knew best”, even if no Royal Navy sailors had ever set foot in the places where Scoresby had been.

His book, “Journal of a Voyage to the Northern Whale Fishery”, IS AVAILABLE ON LINE and as of this morning, is available in my own little digital book collection to read at a later date. I can see that I shall have to take my laptop with me when I go, in order to read all these books at my leisure. I hope that they have charging points down below where I’m going. Would I need an international adapter?

Back in here, there were a few things that needed finishing off, and then I started to make a couple of plans for things that I need to do over the weekend. However, proceedings were brought to an abrupt halt by the alarm reminding me that I need to prepare for dialysis. When you think about it, it’s bizarre that I have to set an alarm to remind me, but it’s not a case of “I might forget”. It’s just that with having this tendency to fall asleep at strange times and in strange places, I don’t want to be asleep when the taxi comes for me.

In the kitchen, I had my disgusting drink and midday medication, and my cleaner came to put the anaesthetic on my arm. However, as you might expect, she spent more time saying goodbye to the Hound of the Baskervilles, who was on the point of leaving.

After everyone had left, I waited for the taxi – not that I had to wait long because it was here at 12:42. There was already one passenger aboard, and we had to stop at the Aqua-gym at St Pair to pick up our usual Thursday passenger. Consequently, we arrived at dialysis early, not that it did me much good because so did everyone else, and I had to wait until 14:20 before I was up and running.

Once I was finally on my way, I could watch the football. Today, it was Trefelin, near the bottom of the table, against Penybont, third from top. And it was not, as you might expect, another “men against boys” encounter, but Trefelin pushed Penybont all the way and the latter had to work really hard for their 1-0 victory. Trefelin’s defence was excellent, except for that one lapse of concentration that cost them dear.

After that, we had the first half of Llandudno v Caernarfon. Llandudno, another newly promoted side, has adapted well to the level of skill required in the Premier League, and when I ran out of time watching the game, they were down 1-0 but by no means out of the contest and had, in fact, looked the better side.

There had been a few interruptions during my session. For once, the blood pressure alarm sounded only once or twice, but the most important was the doctor, telling me that she’d arranged this Hôpital de Jour thing and I should be expecting to hear from the hospital quite soon about it. And as she was walking away, my telephone rang. It was the hospital telling me that I had to be there on Monday morning at 09:00.

Blimey! Things are moving fast!

Half an hour later, the nurse came to give me the details of the appointment and said that she’d arranged the taxi to pick me up and the one to take me to dialysis afterwards. What a day that will be!

The nurse who was on duty was the one who is … errr … more relaxed about her working methods and, for some reason that I have yet to understand, switched off my machine a good five minutes before the end of the session, despite my protests. Every gram or millilitre that they can squeeze out of me is important.

Not only that, but she didn’t come back to unplug me for ten minutes so she may as well have left it running.

My taxi driver, the same one who brought me, was waiting for me, but we had to go across to the hospital to pick up someone else going to Granville so it was about 18:30 when I arrived home. My faithful cleaner was waiting for me and helped me into my apartment, where she stuck a disgusting drink into my sweaty little mitt.

After she left, I began to think about eating but I couldn’t face cooking anything tonight, so I had some crackers with cheese spread, followed by one of my nice, juicy plums. And it was so juicy that I’d better eat the rest quite quickly.

Once I’d dined, I began to write out my notes, but as usual, the dialysis had been a little too much and I couldn’t stay awake. I ended up posting on-line as far as I’d reached and went to bed. The rest can wait.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the High Arctic… "well, one of us has" – ed … there was a radio programme in Canada once discussing global warming, the retreat of the ice and the migration northwards of the species who live on it.
However, the programme was more concerned with the polar bears who were migrating south into human-inhabited zones hunting for food.
Part of the discussion concerned the odd handful of polar bears who migrated south, and then back north again, then back south etc., as if they couldn’t make up their minds.
"There’s no particular worry about those" said a panellist.
"Why not?" asked the presenter.
"They are what we call the ‘bi-polar bears’"

LIVE: Tuesday 15th September 2026 – THAT WAS A …

… much better day today than yesterday was, although it does have to be said that it could hardly be any worse. For a start, I actually managed to go to sleep, which is more than I did the previous night.

Having gone to bed at about 21;00, after having been asleep on my chair for at least an hour, I was asleep quite quickly. And I didn’t need much rocking either. And there I lay, fast asleep, until something rather dramatic awoke me. It was one of these occasions where something makes me suddenly sit bolt-upright, but unlike most of the other times, it wasn’t a subconscious feeling but a real something.

After that, I just couldn’t go back to sleep. After a while I checked the time, and it was 02:48 so the noise or whatever must have been about 02:00, I reckon. But despite all that, I carried on trying to go to sleep, but it was of no use really. For all the good that it did me, I needn’t have bothered to try.

When I noticed that the time was 05:51, I decided that I may as well make an early start out of it all, so I stood up and began to dress. At east, I “tried to stand up” but for some reason my legs wouldn’t work to that much effect, and it took me about three or four goes before I was finally upright. And then, round about 06:00, I was sitting at the computer.

The first job, of course, was to deal with the notes from last night. I thought that it wouldn’t take long to finish them, but I was surprised at how much there was to write. I ended up with almost two thousand three hundred words – that’s about sixty per cent more than the average. Consequently, I was only just putting the finishing touches to them when I began to wake up and smell the coffee.

That brought the proceedings to a rapid conclusion, and I went into the kitchen to try to be sociable.

Hot, strong coffee first thing in the morning is delicious, especially the way that my friend makes it, so I quite enjoyed drinking it while we chatted.

Our leisurely morning was interrupted by the arrival of the nurse. The Hound of the Baskervilles didn’t bark at all – he just rolled onto his back ready for a tickle-tummy, and the nurse duly obliged.

He then attended to me … "the nurse, not the Hound of the Baskervilles" – ed …, and while he was sorting out my legs and feet, we had an interesting chat. But don’t ask me what it was about because I can’t remember now. It’s one of those things that I’ll probably remember about one tenth of a second after I’ve pressed “send” later on.

After saying goodbye to the Hound of the Baskervilles, the nurse cleared off, and the aforementioned … "the Hound of the Baskervilles, not the nurse" – ed …, dragged his master outside for another round of walkies. I stayed behind, of course, and made my breakfast, and while I was eating, I was reading some more of THE REPORT OF THE WOOLHOPE NATURALISTS CLUB 1870.

At the moment, everyone is agreeing with everyone else, there’s no dissent, no disagreement, and the World in rural Herefordshire is at peace. They are all admiring the beautiful view, and I am admiring the beautiful prose, such as "the magnificent vertical wall of the celebrated Coldwell rocks, so splendidly wooded, and through which we have wended our way hither"

Back in here later, I revised for my Welsh and then went to the lesson. We have loads of new students in our class, and a new teacher too. But unfortunately she swallows her words so we can’t make out half the time what she’s saying, and she’s nothing like as well organised as our previous one. I also remain unconvinced that she actually knows her subject as well as she ought to.

We shall see.

When the lesson ended, I had a few things to do and also to sort out my clean clothes for a shower, because my cleaner comes today and she usually chases me thereunder. So when she turned up, she gave the Hound of the Baskervilles his usual big stroke, and then I decided on a change of plan.

The temperature was slowly falling, the weather was slowly deteriorating and the wind was slowly rising. So what I thought that we’d do is that the three of us (and the Hound of the Baskervilles as bodyguard) go to do a little job outside that I’ve been trying to do for an absolute age.

So they walked off and I staggered off outside to see what we could do. We attacked this job, and surprisingly, it was completely finished in about fifteen minutes. The most difficult and longest part of the job was my walking back to the apartment afterwards, because the wind was definitely rising now. And today was the first day since spring that I’d work a jacket outside.

Winter is acumen in. Lhude sing Rudolph.

Back in here, the first thing that I noticed was that we could hardly move around, there was that much stuff in here. But once a couple of things had gone up into my loft space, it made it slightly … "only slightly" – ed … better.

My cleaner organised the bathroom for me, and then she chased me under the shower, so we have a nice, clean boy … "well, clean, anyway" – ed … this evening. And once I’d come out of the bathroom, my cleaner stopped playing with the Hound of the Baskervilles, sorted out the bathroom and went back upstairs to her place, leaving the rest of us alone.

Once I was organised, I came back in here to do some work. However, I didn’t get very far because Rosemary rang for a chat. Only a very short one today – one hour, nineteen minutes and fifty-two seconds.

But one of the things that we discussed was diuretics, of course, and Rosemary suggested that many fruits and vegetables have diuretic properties. That set me off on another trail, and by the end of our chat, I had a pile of recipes and daily food programmes organised by my friendly neighbourhood chatbot, and there was a cheap good-make juicing machine in my shopping basket ready for purchase tomorrow. The idea of drinking more is something that I need to do, so drinking something that actually has a positive effect on my fluid retention has to be a good way forward.

While all of this was going on, my friend was making tea, and we ended up with sausage, chips and beans. And I know that that’s what Friday’s meal usually is, but the Hound of the Baskervilles is going home on Thursday, taking my friend with him, and so he wants to try the sausages once more before he goes.

The pudding of tinned apricots and my vegan ice cream from Noz was exceptionally good. The ice cream is lovely and I wish now that I’d bought some more the other day.

Later on in here, there was yet more football – another basement clash between two newly-promoted sides, Trefelin and Cambrian United.

It was a strange game too. Plenty of skill on offer and yet plenty of midfield slogging too. But the differences between the two sides were evident. Cambian’s defence was magnificent and never looked like being beaten. They were always thinking one step ahead of the ball and not one step behind, as were their opponents, and there was a difference in physical presence. I had to laugh at one point when a Cambrian central defender and a Trefelin attacker leapt for a ball in the air. The Cambrian defender simply stuck out two hands and pushed the attacker out of the way to have a clear header.

That just about summed up Trefelin’s day, but the final scoreline of 4-0 to Cambrian was something very much of an exaggeration.

But what I’m not going to exaggerate is my need to go to bed, so I’m clearing off. Another day of rest tomorrow and then we go again. That is, if I can get some sleep with this wind that is now howling around outside like the devil.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the Report of the Woolhope Naturalists Club … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone asked me whether it would be a suitable thing to read to a group of prisoners in gaol.
"Well, it would have its prose and cons, wouldn’t it?" I replied.

LIVE: Monday 14th September 2026 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

… the dictaphone this morning.

Mind you, that’s not really any surprise, because if you don’t go to sleep, you can’t dream, can you?

Yes, last night was a proper nuit blanche, and it was a shame because, eschewing all luxuries, including food, I’d finished my notes at some kind of respectable time and was in bed fairly early, looking forward to a good night’s sleep.

Instead, I tourné en ronde – “tossed and turned” in my bed for hour after hour, at times in total despair, because I know what “no sleep last night” means for this afternoon at dialysis when I want to watch a football match, or tonight when I come home, or tomorrow morning when my new Welsh class begins – so if there are no notes for tonight when you log in to look, you’ll know why.

However, the time was not totally wasted. I began to plot the next few chapters of my book, and before I’d finished, I’d not only finished this book in my head but written the following two too. So no time is ever wasted.

As well as that, I’m going to claim an “early start” because when the alarm should have gone off at 06:29 (but it didn’t because I’d switched it off), I’d been at my desk working for a good fifteen minutes. It’s a shame that I’m still wheezing and coughing because I would otherwise have got up much earlier and dictated a pile of radio notes. If I’m going to be going to hospital for any length of time, I’ll need to be as up-to-date as possible because dictating in a hospital bed is totally impossible.

Eventually, I heard signs of life in the kitchen as if coffee was being made so I went in to join everyone and had a hot, strong coffee put into my sweaty little mitt. My friend and I chatted for a while, and eventually, Isabelle the Nurse turned up. the Hound of the Baskervilles hardly moved a muscle, but he wagged his tail and let Isabelle stroke him before she attended to me.

Then, before leaving, she made another fuss of him because she’s off tonight on her week off and she won’t see him for a few months.

Once she’d left, the Hound of the Baskervilles had his breakfast and dragged his master off for walkies. I had a good wash and scrub up, and also a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon at dialysis. Then I went to make my breakfast.

While I was eating, I was reading some more of THE REPORT OF THE WOOLHOPE NATURALISTS CLUB 1870. Yet again, the Club is managing to steer clear of controversy. Their criticism of another member’s viewpoint is usually expressed in a very good-natured way that doesn’t really cause offence. If I come across a good example, I’ll post it on here for you to see.

When I came back in here, I had the next radio programme to review before I sent it off to be added into the stream for the weekend. I can’t remember what I did after that, but there was still some time to watch a bit of the Colwyn Bay v Connah’s Quay Nomads match from Saturday in the JD Cymru League, played before yet another four-figure crowd, mostly from Colwyn Bay because the Nomads don’t even have their own ground (they share with Y Fflint), never mind any support.

It’s a fact that the crowds that watch two of Wales’s leading clubs (TNS and Connah’s Quay Nomads) have an appallingly low level of attendance at home, whereas even Trefynnon, hopelessly adrift at the foot of the table, have managed a gate of four figures this season.

My friend nipped out for his lunch at the local canteen while I looked after His Nibs. He whined for his master, but he soon stopped when his Auntie Cleaner came to fix my anaesthetic. She made a real fuss of him, which he enjoyed immensely.

When his master returned from dinner, my cleaner sorted my out arm and helped me pack. It was a beautiful afternoon too, so after she left, we all went outside to wait, the Hound of the Baskervilles hiding in the shade under a bush. He didn’t even want to lie in his favourite bus shelter in case any of his girlfriends from the local high school across the car park came past.

So we waited. And waited. And waited. Yes, people, this is when the whole day went off the rails.

Having been used this last few weeks when Mrs Dinosaur was here to be picked up twenty minutes early, today was the day when we all caught up and the taxi was half an hour late. The church clock in the walled town was striking 13:30 when she hove into view. It’s not anything that I ever complain about, though. Being terminally ill, I have a service that drives me to my medical appointments … "of which there are thousands" – ed … anywhere in the country and it’s free. I wouldn’t have service like this in any other country in the World.

So we shot off as if the Fear of God was upon us for … ohhh … all of a mile and a half before we came up behind a tractor with a full load of straw on it travelling at 25 kph if it was lucky.

We followed it for a couple of miles, and all the time, I was thinking “why is she going this way?”.

The tractor turned off eventually, and so my driver put her foot down, to run almost immediately to a road barricade.

"Ohh God, yes! They’ve closed the main road for roadworks!" she exclaimed. Well, I know they have, and it will be closed until at least the 31st of December too, which was why I was puzzled.

We ourselves had to take a quick diversion and in the end drove down the road to Champeaux and cut across to the main Avranches road a little further down. Despite all of the setbacks along the way, this was pretty good going. And as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … since I’ve been travelling with this company, I’m seeing parts of Normandy that I never knew existed.

It was 14:08 when we pulled up at the dialysis clinic – the old non-air-conditioned one – in this stifling heat. All of the nursing auxiliaries had gone off to lunch, so I had to stagger halfway around the building before I found the bed list. I was in bed n°12 today, the farthest single room in the farthest ward away from the front door. They couldn’t make me walk any farther if they tried.

After having to sort myself out on my own as best as I could, the nurses eventually came to plug me in, and it was 14:40 by the time that I was up and running. There wasn’t much to extract today, so I persuaded the nurse to wind it up by 300 grammes to give me a head start on Thursday.

And now, finally, I could now sit back and enjoy a couple of football matches.

At least, so I thought. First of all, the nurses came to do a check on my implant to make sure that it was functioning properly. But this was the day when the machine decided not to function properly, and I had three or four nurses around my bed trying to fix it – not that I was complaining, though.

When it was finally up and running, the test took about fifteen minutes, so there was a good half an hour of my day gone, just like that!

Then the doctor (not Emilie the Cute Consultant, unfortunately) came to see me. They were going to try something at the hôpital de jour – the “day clinic” – a series of drips, to see if it might work. Well, I’m game for trying almost anything, but I know how this will end, because I’ve been through this before, four or five years ago. It didn’t work then, so I bet it won’t work now, but if they think that it might, who am I to argue?

But I’m glad I saw the doctor because when Emilie the Cute Consultant told me on Saturday that my immune system had broken down, it rang a very vague bell in the back of my mind, so over the last day or two I’d been searching through my papers.

And sure enough, there it was. A vaccination card given to me in January 2016 when I’d had my spleen taken out. I remembered them saying that I’d require three vaccinations every five years for the rest of my life, and there were the 2016 injection stamps and the 2021 injection stamps, but nothing for 2026. It looks as if I had forgotten to have the injections in January.

She took the card, looked at it and said that she’d write a prescription, and when I have the injections, bring them down to dialysis and they would do them.

Once she left, I could watch the football, and the first game was Rhydaman v Cearnarfon. It was, unfortunately, men against boys, this match. Rhydaman never ever looked like doing anything at all, and I don’t believe that they put one single sooty foot inside Caernarfon’s penalty area during the entire match.

Some of their players played with guts and spirit, but you need much more than that in a match like this, and a 0-5 result in favour of the Cofis was not an exaggeration.

The next game was the rest of Colwyn Bay v Connah’s Quay Nomads. This turned out to be another candidate for one of the best football matches that I had ever seen and was another credit to the league. Both teams, intent on victory, went at each other right from the start.

They were still at it right at the end too, and the fans certainly had their money’s worth as the Seagulls clawed their way back from 1-0 down to beat the Nomads 2-1, with Jordan Davies scoring one of the best goals that I’d seen for a while too.

There was even time for part of a third match too – Trefelin v Penybont – but I ran out of time and began to pack away my things when the five-minute warning went off on my machine.

At that point, all hell let loose in the main room. One of the elderly patients had fallen into a coma, and all of the nurses in the building, and the doctor, crowded around to try to revive him.

What annoyed me about this, and I don’t want anyone to think that I am heartless at all, was that one of the nurses ran round and switched off everyone’s machines. I’d have been happy for mine to have gone on for another hour and given me an even better start for Thursday.

And it was indeed another hour, and more besides, until they were able to revive this guy and have him transferred across the road to hospital. And then they could sort the rest of us out.

It was my luck, wasn’t it, to have the nurse who goes around apologising for everything, rather like the maid in A ROCKET FULL OF PYE and it becomes overwhelming after five minutes.

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

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

Eventually they let me out to find that my poor chauffeur and another passenger had been sitting there for over an hour waiting for me. And it was still scorching hot out there too. I finally made it home for 19:25, and my comité d’acceuil – my welcoming committee – had long since, as Longfellow expressed it, "folded their tents, like the Arabs, and as silently steal away.". The taxi driver had to help me into the apartment.

My friend had been cooking, and I had a lovely mashed potato and broccoli bake, followed by fruit cocktail and the last of this batch of sorbet. That means that next time, I can attack my vegan ice cream from Noz with gusto, or with anyone else who happens to be around.

When I’d done the washing up, I came back in here to write up my notes, but I managed to do about a dozen or so lines until I fell asleep. When I awoke a little later, I just crawled into bed and that was that. My notes can wait until tomorrow.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about four-figure crowds at Welsh football … "well, one of us has" – ed … I remember speaking to the FAW’s competitions secretary about the first four-figure crowd – at Cwmbran Town v Inter-Cardiff.

"What was it, exactly?" I asked him.
"Three men and one sheep" he replied.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: JD Cymru premier league

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