Tag Archives: la havaudière

LIVE: Monday 12th October 2026 – MY COTTAGE PIE …

… is delicious, even if it isn’t made with real cottages. That was an excellent recipe that my chatbot found for me, and if he knows any others as good as this one, I shall pick his brains again.

However, no matter how nice it was, I hope that it makes me sleep better than last night. I ended up in bed much later than I had intended, and although I was asleep quite quickly, it wasn’t for long enough. I awoke quite early on – I’ve no idea of the time because I didn’t look – and after that, despite everything that I tried, I couldn’t go back to sleep again.

When the alarm went off at 06:29, I was still awake, but even so, it still took me a good few minutes to leave the bed and stand up.

The first port of call was at the front door to unlock it ready for when Isabelle the Nurse arrives, and after that, I went into the bathroom to sort myself out and to have a good scrub up. And even a shave too, in case Emilie the Cute Consultant comes to see me at dialysis this afternoon.

Back in here, I checked the dictaphone to see what was on there, but there was nothing much, so I found a few other things to do until Isabelle the Nurse breezed in.

Today, we talked about my cottage pie, or Hachis Parmontier as they say around here, and a few other things too before she parted off on her week’s break, where planning the installation of her Halloween decorations seems to be Priority Number One.

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

The commissioner is talking today about the Bower Oak close to Croft Ambrey. He tells us that "It should be called ”The Lovers’ Oak,” from the romantic scenes that have occurred there. Few trees have left more indelible impressions on young memories."

It beats me how he knows about “the romantic scenes that have occurred there”. Surely he hasn’t been spying on what goes on there in a dirty raincoat and binoculars? Perish the thought, hey?

After I’d finished my breakfast, I came in here to carry on working for a while.

The first task was to review the radio programme that will be broadcast this weekend and make sure that it’s good. And it is, too. There are one or two new groups and musicians featuring in it this week to give it an air of something different.

And that reminds me. If you don’t know how to listen to my programme, it’s broadcast HERE ON FRIDAYS AND SATURDAYS at 21:00 CET (20:00 UK Time and 15:00 in Montréal and Toronto). And if you miss the broadcasts, there are PODCASTS HERE

After the radio, it was the Welsh homework. We had to write an essay about the plans of a new supermarket to be built in a small rural town, write about the background, the arguments for, the arguments against and what we think. And as usual, whenever I have to write an essay, I fall foul of the word count before I’ve really got going. That has been my bane ever since primary school and, let’s be honest, I’m not likely to change now at my age.

This all took me up to midday when it was time to drop everything and head into the kitchen for my disgusting drink and my midday medication, after which I began to prepare for going to dialysis. My faithful cleaner turned up too, to apply the anaesthetic to my arm, not that it does much good really.

After she’d left to go and have her butties before going back out to work, I took the cottage pie out of the oven … "something that our hero had forgotten to do this morning" – ed … covered it with clingfilm and made some space for it in the fridge. It smelt just as nice and delicious as it did while it was cooking.

Yes, tonight I’ll give it a try and see what it’s like, but I’m going to have to work out a way of freezing some of it because there’s far too much to eat in one or two meals. You can’t just slop it into a plastic bag like you can do with a curry or a chilli. Answers on a postcard to …

While I was waiting for the taxi, I adopted the usual position of folding up over the table with my head resting on my arms, but I was rudely interrupted by the doorbell announcing the arrival of the taxi, ten minutes early. And it was “rudely” too. It took me a minute or two to work out where I was and what was going on.

Once I was in the taxi, we had to go to Sartilly for someone else. With the road closed at La Havaudière, we usually go down the road between St. Pair sur Mer and Champeaux, and turn off at Lezeaux Le Carrière to rejoin the main road. However, this driver took me along the coast as far as Carolles and then cut across country to Sartilly. It’s a much nicer road than the Champeaux road, that’s for sure, but it’s a much longer way around, and as a result, I was late for dialysis.

Arriving after 14:00 is one thing, but my nurse, the new young girl with the pet rabbit, was already waiting. There was a lot of preparatory work to do at first, but I was up and running by 14:30, and there are times when it’s been later than that when I’ve arrived early.

And bizarrely, the first puncture hurt a little, but the second didn’t hurt at all, and that’s the one that usually causes all the problems.

Once I was up and running, I had a footfest again. I watched the rest of the Hwlffordd v Caernarfon game, spending most of the time wondering what had happened to the technical skills of both teams as they slugged it out in a midfield maul.

However, I do know why Hwlffordd are stuck low down the table even if they have one of the meanest defences in the league. Whereas TNS have scored 44 goals, Caernarfon 37 and even Trefynnon, propping up the table by a mile, have scored 12, Hwlffordd have scored just 8 and that is simply not good enough.

Mind you, they added one goal to the total at the weekend against Caernarfon, but Caernarfon scored two and that was that, although the penalty awarded for the first goal was … errr … rather dubious, even though it was verified on VAR.

Afterwards, we had Penybont v Y Barri down at Bridgend in front of a big four-figure crowd, the sixth biggest of the season. However, I didn’t finish it all, and so you’ll have to wait for Thursday night for a report on that.

But it’s really strange. Five, ten, fifteen and more years ago, the league was struggling to have one four-figure crowd per season. These days, it’s having at least one four-figure crowd per week somewhere – usually at Caernarfon, Colwyn Bay and Penybont – and it’s rumoured that Connah’s Quay Nomads are pushing the boat out to drag in a four-figure crowd for the local derby at Y Fflint shortly.

And Bangor City in the second division have had two crowds of over four figures, and there was a third at Holyhead when Bangor were the visitors. Things are definitely looking up.

My foot fest was interrupted by the arrival of a doctor – not, unfortunately, Emilie the Cute Consultant. He asked me how I was feeling and I replied moyen, or “average”, so he asked me what I meant, so I replied “not good but not bad”. So he asked me “is there anything else I can do for you?” but I replied “no”. That was the depth of his examination.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … he doesn’t seem to be interested in his job, and I often get the impression that he’d much rather be elsewhere.

The snacks have changed at dialysis today too. I no longer have my coffee and orange juice. The coffee is still there, but the only other thing that I can have is a fruit purée. I suppose that I’ll have to make the best of that. Still, it’s all free, so I have no grounds to complain or to moan about it.

When the session was ended, which made a change to arrive at this point and not have the session cut short, the young nurse with the rabbit unplugged me quite quickly, but I had to wait for the taxi driver. But it didn’t matter. It was one of my favourite drivers and she’s taken me to Paris a few times. Travelling with her is “exciting” to say the least, so I know that we wouldn’t take long to be home.

There were two other people from another place nearby who needed collecting, and start as we mean to go on – at the roundabout at the end of the road, she shot round it, cutting up another couple of cars while she was at it, and I was home by 18:40, which makes a nice change.

My faithful cleaner helped me back into the apartment and stuck a disgusting drink into my hand when I sat down. After she left, I helped myself to a small plateful of my cottage pie, made with real cottages, and it really is delicious. There’s no doubt at all about that. I shall definitely make a permanent note of that recipe.

Back in here, I came to write out the notes for today, but before I’d made much progress, I’d fallen asleep. When I awoke, I took myself off the bed after I’d posted on line what I’d written, and I’ll finish the rest tomorrow. What kind of failure am I?

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about word counts for essays … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of a very old limerick that had done the rounds long before I every heard it –
"There was a young man from Japan
Who could never make limericks scan.
He said ‘my old bean
I know just what you mean
But I always try to fit as many words into the last line as I possibly can."

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

… 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."

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Thursday 27th August 2026 – WHAT AN AFTERNOON …

… we’ve had today. We’ve been about three months without any rain to speak of, and this early evening, we had the whole outstanding lot presented to us in about half an hour. I’ve never seen rain quite like it, that’s for sure.

No hint of anything like this last night. By 23:00, I was in bed, and good and ready for it too, I was. I was asleep quite quickly too, and although I remember maybe just a couple of times that I might have been awake, it wasn’t for long at all.

When the alarm went off at 06:29, I was definitely asleep, and it took me the usual ten minutes or more to drag myself to my feet and head off to the bathroom to sort myself out. I had a good wash and even a good shave in case Emilie the Cute Consultant will be there this afternoon.

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

There had been some kind of national emergency, and we’d turned a few houses into fortified spots, and Gainsborough Road was one of them. So we had lots of people living in there, mostly civilians who came there for protection. Gradually, the place became more and more untidy. You couldn’t find anything, and there was furniture, dust and possessions all over the place. Eventually, the emergency was over and people began to drift away. That meant that we had to begin tidying up and looking for all the things that we had that had been moved. They were turning up in all kinds of strange places, like in the oven and in the fireplace. What I did was to eventually light a fire in the oven, and all the rubbish that we found, we put in there to burn. We were hunting for all kinds of strange things. I was hunting for my red and blue striped t-shirt that I couldn’t find anywhere, and one of the girls, whom I’d told not to be so military, was still pretending that she was in the army, marching up and down and either giving orders or accepting them with an extravagant “yes, sir!”. In the end, my mother told me where she’d seen my tee shirt, but I couldn’t find it there for the moment. However, I did find a vicar from one of these obscure sects giving lessons, that kind of thing, and he was actually announcing to everyone that he was homosexual, and for that reason, he was handing back his appointment to come with us in the bus to see something. In the end, he was one of the people who wanted to go to see the regional office about a different kind of ammunition, so he arranged a coach trip there. Two girls wanted to come on too out of interest … fell asleep here …

This sounds like an interesting dream. And especially the red and blue t-shirt. That was something that I had over fifty years ago and it ended its life when it fell into a drum of 25 litres of cooking oil.

And looking for things that have been moved is another bane to my life, although I can usually manage that all on my own without anyone there to help me, just like falling asleep is in the middle of a dream. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I am actually asleep while I’m dictating, but what happens in these moments is that everything on the dictaphone goes really quiet, and then there’s the sound of my sleeping.

We were somewhere up in the north-east of England and we had to come back to take a friend of ours to the airport. So I had my brother with me, and we set out and drove all the way down whatever the motorway is from Durham down to somewhere like Retford or Newark, where we came off and drove through the north Midlands to Crewe. I was convinced that there was a quicker way than the down which he took us, so I looked at the map when we stopped for fuel. We should have come off the motorway a lot farther north because there was a dead-straight line, the old A1, that went all the way down to Nottingham and saved us probably 30 miles. Anyway, we fuelled up and went to pick up our friend. For some reason, we were quite late leaving her house and driving to the airport, and I did my best to go as fast as I could. We eventually found the airport and we dropped her off, and we were just pulling away when she came out and said that her ‘plane had gone. She was talking about changing her ticket and going on some kind of expedition to various race courses. I went in and asked the receptionist if it would be possible to put her on another ‘plane. She said that there was a ‘plane leaving in half an hour, but the supplement was over three thousand pounds. I looked totally surprised, so the receptionist said “I don’t understand why you are so surprised”. Anyway, we had to abandon that idea of putting her on another flight.

This is everyone’s worst nightmare, isn’t it? Missing a ‘plane at the airport. And having my brother navigating wouldn’t be too far away from there either. Taking the wrong road whilst having a map in his hands would be no problem for him.

The nurse turned up as usual to sort me out. He was worried about me not relaxing. However, I don’t have the time for all that nonsense. I have far too much going on right now.

After he left, I could crack on and make breakfast and not read my book because I’m still following this rather strange trail that I’ve created for myself.

Having explored the delights of amphibious aeroplanes (and I’ve no idea how I managed to arrive here from Gothic Architecture) I came back in here where there was plenty of work waiting for me to do. However, I rather unfortunately fell asleep while I was doing it and didn’t wake up until about 11:15, meaning that I’d wasted most of the time that I’d had.

And it was another one of those sleeps where I didn’t remember falling asleep at all, not even feeling tired either. In fact, no-one was more surprised than me to find that I’d been asleep.

So having woken up, I spent some time finishing off what I was doing, and then I continued with the radio notes until the alarm went off to remind me that it was midday and I ought to be getting ready for dialysis.

In the kitchen, I sorted out my disgusting drink and the midday medication, and then my cleaner arrived to apply the anaesthetic to my arm and to pack away the laptop into its bag for me to take with me as usual. After she left and I was ready to go, I curled up, leaning forward onto the dining table, and began to relax.

Just as I was slipping away into a nice, deep sleep, the doorbell rang. The taxi was here to take me to dialysis, ten minutes early. We had to stop to pick up Mrs Dinosaur, whose camp, we noticed, is being slowly dismantled, and then we set off for Avranches. And the chaos that is said to begin in La Havaudière in mid-September when they start to improve the road has already started, with a couple of lorries unloading pipes and heaps of gravel, blocking the road as they do so.

Consequently, we weren’t as early as usual arriving at dialysis, and stuck in one of the eight individual rooms on the far side, I had to wait until 14:10 before I was up and running, having had no fewer than three nurses hovering around me. Bizarrely, the second puncture hurt less than the first one. It’s usually the other way round.

Accompanied by the automatic blood pressure tests every half an hour and the consequent wailing of the alarm as the machine announced to the World that my blood pressure was under the acceptable limits and the subsequent dashing of the nurses to my side to find out what was the problem, I settled down to watch Trefelin v Caernarfon from last weekend.

Trefelin are bottom of the table right now with no points and no goals scored, but the way they played, that can only be a temporary situation. They had several chances of their own, and on one occasion, hit the woodwork with the entire Cofi defence beaten.

However, the Cofis were far too good for them, technically and aggressively, and towards the end of the game, the Cofis had gone to a back three, with Chris Marriott coming on to join Jordan Piggott and Ben Nash, and full-backs Ryan Sears and Matty Jones playing up front on the wings.

Nevertheless, a 2-0 victory for Caernarfon was hardly a statement victory for them.

After that game, it was my intention to watch some of the Fflint v LLansawel game but a whole variety of interruptions prevented that. One interruption that I didn’t have, though, is a doctor. The latest course of antibiotics finishes today, so I was expecting (and quite rightly, too) the doctor who prescribed them to come along to see me and find out how things were. However, no such luck. I’ve only seen a doctor twice in the last three or four weeks.

When I was finished, I was unplugged quite quickly, and, even better, the taxi was already waiting and I was the only passenger. But Marcey-les-Grèves was totally paralysed again with traffic, so we turned round and took the long way home.

All through the morning and the early afternoon, the weather had been quite nice, but when we left the dialysis centre, it was raining slightly. It had stopped by the time we reached Marcey-les-Grèves, but on the way to Sartilly the heavens opened and I have never ever seen rain like this. It looked as if all the rain that we hadn’t had since May, we were having all at once.

By the time we were almost at Sartilly, it was raining so heavily that you couldn’t see a thing. Everyone was driving at walking pace, the roads were flooded, and the fields looked like Ieper in November 1917.

The rain eased off, started again, eased off, and by the time we reached Granville, there was blue sky. My cleaner, who was waiting for me, told me that they had had the same rainstorm here in Granville half an hour ago, so it looked as if it was a band of storm clouds moving from north to south.

She helped me into the apartment, and when I was sitting down, stuck a disgusting drink into my hand, in accordance with the prescription.

After she left, I managed to find the energy to come in here and write up my notes. However, I’m not sure how many times I fell asleep while I was doing it. Was it three? Or was it four?

After the last time, when I awoke, it was 21:30 or thereabouts, so I simply posted on line what I’d written so far, and I’ll finish it in the morning. On that note, I fell into bed and that was that.

These notes will have to be finished quickly because tomorrow, there might not be a posting until Saturday. There’s football on on Friday night, with Trefelin (no goals and no points) v Rhydaman (three goals and one point), a proper basement relegation clash. With a five-point gap to the next club opening up already, so early in the season, some clubs need to be getting some points on the board quite quickly If this gap isn’t to increase further. A draw isn’t really going to help either of these two teams.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about failures in map reading … "well, one of us has" – ed … I once went for a drive with a girl who, I found out later, didn’t know how to read a map (and it wasn’t Nerina at all. She was quite a good NAVIGATOR, NAVIGATOR, RISE UP AND BE STRONG)
At one point, I asked her where we were. She pointed to somewhere on the map. "We’re here" she announced proudly.
"That blue line?"
"Yes"
"That’s a river, dear."

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Saturday 15th August 2026 – ANOTHER DESPERATE DAY …

… at dialysis. Once more, the measure was set to go off the scale with excess weight that I seem to have gained since Thursday, but apparently, wiser counsels prevailed. Someone had made an error in the counting.

An error in the counting was the last thing that I needed, to be honest. Especially after the night that I had had. I was in bed later than I hoped, and that’s all that I remember from there. I awoke at some ungodly time – I’ve no idea what time because I couldn’t be bothered to look. But it was as the direct result of yet another extreme coughing fit.

At some point, I must have gone to sleep again because when I awoke, at 04:35, I was actually sitting on the edge of the bed as I usually do when I’m about to get up. So what had happened there? Was it yet another phantom alarm call that had gone off?

Not that it mattered because I was soon back to sleep yet again. And the next time that I awoke, it was 06:20 and quite dark.

When the alarm finally went off, at 06:29, I was already sitting on the edge of the bed with my feet on the floor, claiming an early start.

In the bathroom, I had a good wash and scrub-up in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant today at dialysis, and then I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out what had happened during the night.

I was running the taxis again last night. I was sitting at home while the others were out working when the ‘phone rang, so I answered it. It was a guy asking me if we hired out cars by the day. I replied that we did, but only with a driver. He said that that was exactly how he wanted it, and what would be the charge? I wanted to know what kind of car and what work he’d be doing. He told me that it was maybe 350 miles, and an ordinary car like a Sierra would be fine. I told him that I’d have to ring him back, because what I’d do for a trip like that is to actually hire a car myself and go in that. There was a place in Stoke-on-Trent where you could hire second-hand cars. I went back down to the office and asked the girl at the ‘phone if she had put it through to me. She replied that she did. And she was busy trying to prepare another girl ready to go out. She said that she was having to go to some town in the Czech Republic to pick up a woman and bring her back. I said that if I had known that we had this job, I would have hired a car for that too. I went outside to help her prepare the car, and I told her how jealous she was that she was going on this, so she immediately said “do you want to go?”. (I’d missed out a bit here because she didn’t even know where this town was, so I told her that you get to Prague and then you keep on going towards Russia). I’d told her how jealous I was, so she immediately smiled and asked “would you like to do it?”. I thought “why not?”. I prepared one of the older Cortinas for it. I needed the lead for the SatNav and a few other bits and pieces, but no one could find the lead, so I went into my house, and it was on my desk in the office. I kept on having to run back and forth to find different things like the GPS, the telephone holder, all of that kind of thing. I kept on thinking to myself that one day soon, I’ll be able to set off if I’m not careful, because the delay in not finding things and people not being able to find them, and I was having to come back out to the car to look, it was taking forever.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we were in or near the Czech Republic the other day in another dream, the one involving the three white Volvo 144 estates It seems to be starting to become a regular theme with me. I wish that I knew why. It sounds really exciting to me.

But it’s been ages since we’ve had any dreams involving my indecision. They used to be regular, recurring themes at one time, but they seem to have disappeared, except for tonight.

Stoke on Trent was also a long-running theme at one time, but all of that had long gone too. But the taxis, they are always here with whatever weird kind of job they bring.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up today – her last day for three weeks, so no wonder she’s as pleased as punch. I wished her a really good break and holiday in Corsica.

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

He’s been behaving himself again today, which is just as well. But it’s really boring for me when there’s nothing about his book to criticise.

Back in here afterwards, I had my notes from yesterday to type up. That took me longer than I was anticipating because of these attacks of tiredness that I’m having. But once they were finished and on line and everything else that I needed to do this morning had been done, I closed my eyes for a while.

It was 11:40 when I awoke, and that left me with twenty minutes to start a new project, and then I went into the living room to organise myself for dialysis.

As well as that, there was my disgusting drink and my midday medication to sort out too. My cleaner turned up as usual to sort out the anaesthetic on my arm, and once she had gone, I had to wait for the ambulance.

Mind you, I didn’t have to wait for too long. As my cleaner was walking out to the street, the taxi pulled up, fifteen minutes early, so she showed him where to go. He hadn’t been to pick me up for a while, and he was still thinking that I lived upstairs.

He was early because there was Madame Dinosaur to pick up, so I showed him how to get there. It’s complicated if you don’t know, and if you follow your satnav, you’ll certainly end up miles off your route.

Once Madame Dinosaur was safely on board, we set off in the queues of traffic to Avranches. And as we passed through the village of La Havaudière, at the bottom of the steep dip, the car full of tourists in front of us was “flashed” by the secret radar. The radar there must be bringing in a fortune.

We were early arriving in Avranches, which suits me fine because the quicker I start, the quicker I finish and the quicker I come home – that is, if I arrive at 01:30 and they begin the process of connecting me up BEFORE blasted 14:20.

There was football on the internet for me to watch this afternoon thanks to the FAW negotiating with BBC Wales Sport. This week’s Saturday afternoon match was Y Barri v Cardiff Metro, so I settled down in my hospital bed and made myself comfortable while I watched it.

This was an excellent match played with plenty of skill, and I quite enjoyed it. Y Barri were clearly on top, but we had to wait until the eightieth minute for the only goal of the game. And then, it almost didn’t happen.

Y Barri were awarded a penalty which Jack Shaw took. Former Port Vale keeper Aaron Davies saved it but couldn’t hang on. Shaw picked up the loose ball and hammered it towards the net. Again, the keeper got a hand to it but couldn’t hang on, and Daniel Smith, following up, finally headed it home.

After it had finished, I watched some more of the Cambrian United v Flint game from last week’s matches until it was time to unplug me from my machine. My driver was waiting for me when I went outside, and we would have been home quite early had it not been for all of the holidaymakers on the road.

One thing about dialysis, though, is this – can anyone remember the last time a doctor came to see me? I can’t. It must be a good three weeks and more since a doctor has examined me.

My faithful cleaner was waiting for me when I returned. She helped me into the apartment, sat me in a chair and bunged a disgusting drink into my hands.

After she left, there was football on the internet yet again, this time Sgorio’s broadcast of the Caernarfon v Colwyn Bay game.

Compared to the earlier game, this one was nothing but a slogging midfield brawl with very few moments of real skill. Caernarfon ended up as winners 3-0, but that was practically by default as Colwyn Bay offered nothing up front. Louid Robles had an excellent header and Matty Hill had a powerful shot at goal, but that’s all that I remember.

Yesterday, regular readers of this rubbish will recall the goal that Rhydaman almost scored when time seemed to stand still for a few moments. This evening, it happened again. The entire Colwyn Bay defence and most of Caernarfon’s attack stood frozen in time as Danny Gosset walked through them and drove a good shot into the net, putting his team 1-0 up.

After that, I made a start on my notes, but the heat, the punishing session at dialysis and the bad night yesterday had taken their toll. Round about 21:30, I called it a night and collapsed into bed, having posted on line what I’d written to date. I’ll finish the rest off tomorrow.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about time standing still … "well, one of us has" – ed … I remember a conversation that I overheard in the USA a few years ago.
"I don’t understand these time zones" said one man. "I’ve just come from Europe and today, it’s today there, but in Australia it’s tomorrow."
"You should worry" said the other. "Over here in the USA it’s still round about 1750"

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Monday 27th July 2026 – THERE HAS BEEN …

… a big wildfire this afternoon near La Havaudière, between Granville and Avranches. All of the traffic is being diverted and it’s absolute chaos down there right now.

However, for a change, it wasn’t absolute chaos in here. I ended up in bed round about 23:00 and settled down for a good sleep. At some point, though, I awoke. I’ve no idea what time, as I couldn’t be bothered to look. However, there were high winds outside and it sounded as if it might be raining. Not that I cared very much. I just crawled back under the quilt and went back to sleep.

The next time that I awoke, it was light in here so, intrigued, I had a look at the time. 06:15, so I switched off the alarm and slowly staggered to my feet. Yet another early start recorded.

When I eventually made my way into the bathroom, I had the usual good scrub-up, and I remembered to have a shave too, in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon.

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

I was with someone in my house, a girl, and I can’t remember who she was, but she told me that she was having a visitor round later that afternoon. Anyway, before I had the chance to leave, a large Afro-Caribbean-type of man, who came in and simply started to chat. I had a chat with him for a few minutes before I left. Then, just as I was about to go, he said “there’s someone coming up the drive. I think that it’s someone called Lucy”. The girl said “oh yes, that will be the Simpsons.” The door opened and a couple with a little girl came in. It was the little girl’s birthday today so they came into the house and came into the living room. The couple sat down but the little girl went straight over to STRAWBERRY MOOSE and began to tell him about her birthday. Then, her mother gave her a present which said it was from Strawberry Moose. Then everyone, including this man, sat down and had a little game, and that man began to look at the girl’s hair and began to rearrange it a little.

What a strange dream this is. It bears no resemblence to anything that has happened to me in my waking hours. It’s a total mystery to me.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up today as usual and chatted away about nothing as she fixed my legs and feet. Then, after she had cleared off, I could make breakfast and read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

And he’s off on his high horse again. When talking about the Mosque of Amr ibn al-As, he tells us that "in the minor ornaments we cannot fail to remark the constant tendency to anticipate isolated Gothic features" What he means to say here is “Gothic architecture copied many features of Arabian architecture.”

When discussing the Palace of the Alhambra, he tells us that "No amount of mere enrichment can atone for the violation of the great law which requires every weight to have, in appearance as well as reality, an adequate sustaining mass. Nowhere is this rule less regarded than in the palace of the Moorish Kings of Granada. A slender column supports a capital of far too great projection, this again supports an overlapping stilt or fragment of entablature, and as if this were not enough to destroy all notions of mechanical support, the arch itself in many cases does not spring immediately even from this entablature, but from corbels overlapping again ; i t is thus cut off from all decorative connection with the column below, and appears suspended in the air without any sustaining power at all. Nor is the effect at all improved when, as is sometimes the case, this stilt or entablature is supported by coupled columns ; as their separation, by dividing the apparent support, even adds to the idea of insecurity."
As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … a real architect, being faced with the inconsistencies that Freeman noted, would have immediately gone to investigate the style and found out just why the building hadn’t collapsed.

Freeman’s attitude took me so by surprise that I knocked over my juice glass and the grape juice within it in surprise.

There were also all of the scores from the Welsh football matches over the weekend. Remember the other day when I told you that 53-year-old legend Marc Lloyd Williams had signed for Llanberis? He scored one of their goals in the 8-0 rout of Amlwch Town in the Welsh Cup over the weekend.

Then I came back in here to carry on work. There were several things that needed doing, and then I attacked the notes for the radio programme on which I’d been working.

In a mad fit of enthusiasm that I wish that I could recapture for use every day, I finished them all off and they are now ready for dictation, along with about a hundred others. I really must buckle down somehow and clear this massive backlog. But now that my cough is back … "and in spades, too" – ed … that’s not likely to happen for a while.

At midday, I went into the living room to sort out my disgusting drink and midday medication and to prepare myself for dialysis. My cleaner turned up a couple of minutes later to apply my anaesthetic and to make sure that I was ready to go.

To my great surprise, the taxi turned up for me at 12:40, twenty minutes early. I wish that it would do that every day. There was our usual “other passenger” to pick up at the Old People’s Home in Sartilly but even so, we still pulled up at the dialysis centre at 13:25.

Just like Saturday, I was put into a room with two other people, and there was just one nurse to deal with all of us. Even so, I didn’t have to wait very long and I was up and running by 13:55. How I wish that they could do that every time too. And there was a fair amount to take out today. The machine wasn’t working flat out, for a change, but it was near enough.

Apart from the odd low blood pressure warning which, as usual, brought the nurse running, no-one else came to bother me. If there was a doctor on duty, he or she kept his or her distance. There was the occasional glance of the doctor who thinks that he’s in charge and that he runs the show. He kept his distance too. That meant that I could crack on with work, which is always good news as far as I am concerned.

Even better news was that when I was ready to be unplugged after my session, the nurse was ready and waiting to unplug me. When she had finished with me, I weighed myself and found to my delight that the four-hour session on Saturday had done its trick and even though this was just the usual three-hour session, I was finally down to my recognised dry weigh.

At 17:20, I was ready to leave and as the driver was already waiting, with someone else to drop off in Granville, it was looking as if a 18:00 return was on the cards. However, things all went downhill from there.

At the roundabout on the Avranches side of the village of La Havaudière, the road to Granville was closed, with a couple of policemen directing the traffic down a couple of the small country lanes. In the distance, we could see fire engines and police cars.

The narrow roads were total chaos, with long lines of traffic coming both ways. We had to fight our way along as best as we could, and it wasn’t easy. A lorry coming in the opposite direction would block up the lanes for ages while the drivers of oncoming cars sorted themselves out.

To get back onto the Granville road at Le Croissant, where the road was open again, that was chaos too. A huge line of vehicles was blocked by others on the roundabout coming from Granville and going round and round and round while they were trying to make up their minds which way to go.

By the time that we’d rejoined the road, dropped off this guy and dropped me off, it was 18:20, and that was disappointing.

My faithful cleaner helped me inside the premises and once she had me settled in a chair and armed me with another disgusting drink, she went about her business and I made tea.

Tonight, I had a rice salad with plenty of vegan cheese. It should have been “plenty of vegan ham” but I hadn’t checked the packet for four weeks, and when I looked this evening, I could see that it needed a shave before anything else so it went into the bin.

There were slices of my new fruit bread for pudding, and it really was nice – definitely a success, this, with dates, raisins and cranberries.

Back in here, I checked to see what had been going on down the road, and it turned out that a forty-acre field by the roadside near La Havaudière had caught fire and was busy burning away. We’ve had a few of those now, and perhaps a really good dose of rain is called for before the whole country burns up.

Next task was to write my notes for the day but the effects of dialysis proved to be too much and I was overwhelmed by a great wave of fatigue. I posted what I had written so far and then went to bed. I’ll deal with the rest tomorrow.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the fire brigade … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of the two girls from Crewe who had locked themselves out of their house while they were clubbing.
Luckily, they had left a bedroom window open so they borrowed a neighbour’s ladder to climb up.
As they were halfway up, one of the girls remarked "ohh, doesn’t it make you feel like a fireman!"
The other one replied "don’t be silly. Where are we going to find a fireman at this time of night?"

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