Tag Archives: late night

… seen a most extraordinary incident in a football match – the kind that will be played back on these “blooper” videos on social networking channels for years and years to come. And it won’t be any surprise because I had to look at it twice and still find it hard to believe, and so did the commentator and everyone in the crowd too.

But more of that anon. Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.

Last night, by the time that I’d finished everything that needed doing and was about to crawl into bed, it was long after midnight, and I’d been letting it all hang out until 00:30, I suppose. And that kind of time for going to bed is doing me no favours at all.

However, with no alarm clock and being awoken in bed by the nurse, at whatever time he comes on a Sunday, that’s much more positive.

Always assuming that I sleep right the way through, which in these days is highly unlikely, of course. And so it proved last night. It was about 04:30 or so when I awoke, and after that, it was one of those early mornings when I’m drifting in and out of sleep without anything being definitive. I was awake at 06:20, which I know because I looked at the time, and the next thing I remember was the nurse coming into the apartment round about 08:30.

He sorted out my legs and feet while I was still in bed, and then he cleared off until tomorrow. But I couldn’t go back to sleep, so a short time later, I threw off the covers, and when I eventually summoned up the courage and energy to stand up, I headed into the bathroom to sort myself out for the morning.

When I’d finished dressing, I went into the kitchen to make breakfast. It was only 09:15 too, so it wasn’t actually all that late compared to a weekday.

Breakfast was quite good today. There was the usual porridge, juice and cafe, and two more of my home-made croissants filled with apricot jam. Yes, they were really delicious. There was no book today, though. The travelling laptop is still in my bag, as it will be going with me tomorrow to the day hospital before dialysis. The time has come round for the second instalment of this product that stimulates my white blood cells. And if it gives me the same kind of boost as the first one did four weeks ago, it will be pretty good.

And when it’s all over, across the road I go, off to the dialysis centre without a break and, more importantly, without breakfast. And that will hurt the most. That is, unless, once more, the nurse who looks after me goes for lunch, forgetting that she has to put the anaesthetic on my arm. That will hurt much more when I go to dialysis and they come to plug me in.

After breakfast, I came back in here to carry on with yesterday’s notes, and you may well have noticed that they are now on line, almost two thousand four hundred words of them. That meant that I could now transcribe the dictaphone notes to find out where I’d been during the night.

I was round at my niece’s house last night, and it was the usual chaotic place with all of their families and friends there. I was having to leave that evening as I was somewhere near Stranraer. My niece’s husband was talking to me about an oak that he’d been growing since it was an acorn, and now it was ready to be cut down, and he told me that I could have it. He explained that he’d been curing it with mushrooms and everything like that. I kept on asking for him to tell me where it was, but for some reason, he was very reticent. Then they all decided to go to someone’s party up in town, but I was planning to leave that night and I had a lot of things to do. One of the things that I’d promised to do was to take all the scaffolding and piping that was by the front door and put it somewhere, so I’d already put it in my van. My elder sister, she should have been helping me as she promised, but she went to this party too. Now that the van was all ready, apart from the piping that I’d put in it – this tubing that I’d put into it – and I didn’t have the address of this tree and had stuck all these tubes in my van, so in the end, I went down to where this party was and took hold of my sister. I said “are you still going to help me move these things?” She replied “oh yes, I’ll help you tomorrow”. I answered “you know I’m leaving tonight” so she reluctantly came out of the party. I asked my niece’s husband if he had the keys to these two garages that he had across the yard at the bottom under the trees, and he gave them to me. They were two half-keys that you had to fit together in order to open the door. So I picked those up and then went outside. I saw my sister walking around the street, so I drove over to pick her up. She came over extremely reluctantly as if she had no interest whatsoever in giving me a hand to move these tubes and piping in the van, even though they were for her daughter’s husband.

There have been quite a few dreams in the comparatively recent past about being at my niece’s house, all of which have put the house in an unreal situation, somewhere a long way from its actual position in real life, and all of them recounting stories that have absolutely no basis in fact.

But the significance of Stranraer is easy to explain, seeing as I watch Stranraer FC’s matches almost every weekend and sometimes when they are playing in midweek too. We’ve also been going to parties on a regular basis through the night just recently too.

The oak tree is significant too, seeing as I’m reading a chapter on special trees in Herefordshire in my morning book right now, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. However, I bet that the oak in this dream wasn’t ready to be cut down quite yet either. They need a few hundred years to mature first. And the mushrooms relate to that chapter on parasitic mushrooms that we read too.

The scaffolding and tubing is interesting as well. Regular readers of this rubbish in a previous version will recall, I own quite a bit of scaffolding that I bought from that huge painting project in Liverpool City Centre when I was in the UK once, and I also bought some heavy duty tubing from Stoke on Trent to use as wind turbine masts and so on. My van was full of the stuff when I came back from the UK that time.

And, of course, there’s the usual visit of someone from the rest of my family. They always seem to pop up when they aren’t required

This took me up to today’s football – Afan Lido, tenth in the second tier v Penybont, third in the first tier.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen Afan Lido’s ground. They haven’t been in the first tier and televised matches since they were relegated at the end of season 2013/2014, and although it’s a fairly new ground, it was looking rather tired and neglected back in those days. However, it looks as if it’s had a refurbishment and a few good coats of paint and looks much nicer.

As for the match, I don’t think that there was ever a doubt about who was going to win it. Penybont was by far the better team and had, I reckon, about two thirds of the play. At times, Afan Lido were struggling to get out of their own penalty area. However, they held on for a good forty-odd minutes before Penybont scored their first goal, a header by a Penybont defender from a corner.

And then we had a calamity!

The very same defender who had scored the goal, about thirty seconds later intercepted a loose ball down by his own goal line. His keeper was up near the penalty spot, so we all expected a pass to the keeper. Instead, the defender, calmly and nonchalantly, kicked the ball into his own net to give Afan Lido an equaliser, and no-one watching the game could believe what they had just seen.

Whatever Penybont’s manager, Rhys Griffiths, had put in his team’s half-time cuppa, I’d like a drink of that myself because within three minutes into the second half, Penybont had scored two more goals to go 3-1 up. However, Afan Lido woke up quite quickly and managed to keep the Penybont attackers out for the rest of the game, albeit with some desperate defending at times.

Afan Lido had some good moments of their own too, and with a few minutes to go, they won a corner. The ball pinged around inside Penybont’s six yard area for a few seconds, then hit a Lido player and went into the net. I don’t think that he knew anything about it – he was just in the way – but it was a goal for his team and they were now just one goal behind.

As the game came up to the final whistle, the Lido won yet another corner. This led to a game of head tennis, and the same player as just now put the ball in the net. But while he and his team were dancing around to celebrate, the linesman had his flag up for offside.

So Penybont won the game 3-2, meaning that Afan Lido were just so close, but on the balance of play, the result did rather flatter Afan Lido.

There was yet more football after that. The first match was Stranraer away at Spartans. And the Stranraer juggernaut rolls on with yet another win, this time 2-0. Still top of the table, on goal difference from Clyde, and those two have opened up a five-point gap to third place. The next few months will be interesting.

There was another 2-0 scoreline too, this time in the game between Greenock Morton and Queen’s Park. And since having sacked their manager a couple of weeks ago, Morton have become a different team. The players have finally gained some confidence and are looking as if they are enjoying themselves, and they had more shots on target in this match than they had in all of the matches under Ian Murray. They fully deserved their victory this afternoon. Here’s hoping that they can keep it up.

Two other important tasks remained to be done. The first one was to freeze the remains of my shepherd’s pie. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that several days ago I had invited comments from my readers. Most of the suggestions that I received had nothing to do with the shepherd’s pie, and they were physically impossible anyway, but Seàn sent me a couple of ideas, for which I was grateful.

However, in the end, I found some small ice cream containers that Marianne had had. They were 900 mg instead of 1 litre, and the portions of shepherd’s pie were just about the right size to fit in. They are now in the freezer, freezing away.

The final job was my Welsh homework, seeing as I’m not here tomorrow morning. That’s all done now, and I’ll review it on Tuesday morning before I send it off to be marked.

So now my notes are also finished, so I’ll just finish off everything else before I go to bed. Hospital tomorrow morning, and I don’t really want to go. Here’s hoping that the effects of the perfusion make it worthwhile.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about pies … "well, one of us has" – ed … a well-known cook from one of these celebrity TV programmes went to Australia, and while he was there, in front of an invited audience, he made a lemon meringue pie, and all of the audience cheered.
He stood there, scratching his head in bewilderment.
"What’s the matter?" asked the producer.
"Everyone cheered" he replied. "I don’t understand it."
"Why’s that?"
"Because back in the UK, I was told that Australians like to boo meringue."

LIVE: Thursday 15th October 2026 – TODAY WAS THE …

… first time at this end of the year that I arrived home in the dark after dialysis.

To tell the truth, it wasn’t really dark, but you could see the headlights of our car shining on the road, all of the streetlights were on, and the moon, a very nice, slender crescent, was shining beautifully.

And not only that, but I was running much later than usual, but that’s because, once again, we had yet more excitement at the dialysis centre this afternoon. However, more of that anon.

First, though, we have last night to discuss – or, rather, this morning – because, once again, it was after midnight and I was still letting it all hang out. It was more like 00:30 when I finally crawled into bed.

That’s not so bad in itself, I suppose, especially when you are asleep quite quickly, as I was, but when you awaken at 04:25 and can’t go back to sleep, then it isn’t. I was tossing and turning around all night, and still tossing and turning when the alarm went off at 06:29.

As you might expect, it took me a while to be able to gather up my wits, not that I have many to gather up these days, and stand up ready to move, but once I was up, I went to unlock the door ready for the nurse when he arrives a little later, and then I went to the bathroom to sort myself out ready for dialysis, even to the extent of having a shave in case Emilie the Cute Consultant is on duty this afternoon.

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

I was back working in an office yet again. I was going to be transferred to a different office, so I put in a great, enormous pile of effort to clear all of the outstanding files lying around my desk, and I left it quite tidy. In the new office, I had a room to myself and I was determined that I was going to start from Day One to keep up to date and do everything on the day that it arrived, but there were plenty of distractions in this office – people had these little catapults, and they were sending messages to each other by catapult and so on. I thought that this was going to be a challenging working environment. Someone asked me for a piece of post, so I went back into my room to fetch it. In the meantime, the post had been delivered. There was an enormous amount of files and post and everything all over my desk. I had to sit and think about how I was going to deal with it all. But one thing out of this was that this was in Rotherham, and I can’t remember what I was going to say now.

Apart from the fact that I have no idea what I would be doing in Rotherham, here I am at work yet again. And I’m on the point of leaving – not retiring, but being transferred to a new office. That certainly puts a new twist on things.

However, the “distractions” in the office are nothing new. And as you can see, my best plans about dealing with work on the day that it’s been received and so on appear to count for nothing at all. Things just happen like that so thay they can spite me. I shall have to employ someone to keep my place tidy.

The nurse was early today, which was good news. I wanted to be in advance. The bad news that he brought was that the big data centre place in Africa somewhere where they are experimenting with robots had crashed, so has the internet in a couple of cycle races. I hope that it will be back on for this afternoon.

And I’ve no idea what that sentence above was all about. When I reviewed it in the morning, the only thing that I could suggest was that it was another load of rubbish that I had written when I fell asleep, and later on, I forgot to edit it out, as I usually do with stuff like this.

Anyway, 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.

However, it made for rather disappointing reading, rather like Stanley Holloway’s recital of Marriott Edgar’s famous –

"NO SHIPWRECKS AND NOBODY DROWNDED.
IN FACT, NOTHING TO LAUGH AT AT ALL."

The kitchen was something of a mess after all of the washing up that I’d done over the last couple of days, so I had an exciting ten or fifteen minutes finding a home for everything that was lying about, and then I came in here to start work.

There was the radio programme to deal with. It’s going to be late this week after the chaos of the first couple of days, si I can’t afford to be idle. Some more music needed to be chosen, and that’s all done now. It’s now all been reformatted, re-edited, remixed, paired and segued. I even began to write the notes for it, but the alarm intervened before I’d gone too far.

The alarm is the signal for me to go into the kitchen and begin to prepare for going to dialysis. You might think that it’s rather sad or silly to have an alarm to remind me, but seeing how often I’ve drifted away into sleep sitting in my chair, with no warning at all, it’s something of a necessity.

So I had my midday medication and my disgusting drink and then began to pack away the travelling laptop to take with me. My faithful cleaner came along and sorted out the anaesthetic for my arm as well.

After she left, there were still one or two things to do in the kitchen, and then I assumed my usual position of being slumped over the dining table, head resting on my arms.

And there I was, miles away with the fairies, although not in any manner that would excite comment from the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine, when the doorbell rang, and I awoke with a terrific start.

As I suspected, it was the chauffeur to take me to dialysis. She was a few minutes late today, but as well as that, we had to go to Kairon-Plage to pick up someone else and then to the aqua-gym at St Pair sur Mer to pick up my usual Thursday passenger.

However, my chauffeur today was another candidate to replace my favourite chauffeur when she retires next year. This one drove like the wind and I actually arrived just one minute late. And she was the second driver to take me on the diversion via St Pierre Langers and not the usual way by Lezeaux le Carrière.

Here, we had a disaster. Today, according to the scales, my body contained the most liquid that I have ever had, and that depressed me enormously. I really don’t know what’s going on with my body right now or where all of this liquid is coming from.

The nurse calculated that I had to stay for four hours – four hours at maximum force – so my response was “well, the sooner we start, the sooner we finish”.

It was 14:35 when I was finally up and running and I could settle down and watch the football.

The first game was the rest of Penybont v Y Barri. It was 1-1 when I left it, but as the game progressed, Penybont took control and it finished 3-1. Y Barri had none of their recognised strikers playing in this game, and the players whom they had on the field were unable to break down Penybont’s resolute defence.

In any case, Penybont’s play was technically much better. I really don’t know what has happened to Y Barri since they were top of the league for several weeks at the start of the season.

The following game was Llansawel against Connah’s Quay Nomads. And let’s be honest, no-one can play technical or skilled football on the Old Road pitch.

The game was pretty much a lottery. Llansawel missed a penalty early in the game but managed to score later in the first half. The Nomads came back into the game and scored two goals, but the match finished with Llansawel laying siege to the Nomads’ goal, throwing everything, including the kitchen sink, at it, but with no success.

The doctor interrupted me in mid-game – the new doctor who has only just started there. And we had an interesting conversation –
Our Hero – "I’m surprised that you never came back to ask me how the antibiotics that you prescribed for me a couple of months ago – the ones that I told you that they had tried before and didn’t work – worked to cure my cough."
Doctor – "was it me who prescribed them to you?" – that’s the kind of remark that inspires confidence in a new doctor.
Our Hero – "yes, it was."
Doctor – "so how did they go?"
Our Hero – "just as I told you that they would before you prescribed them. They didn’t work."

And then we had the usual disaster. My nurse today, the same one whom I had last Saturday, the one who does just enough work to get by – came along and said “I’m going to cut short the session today …”
“No you aren’t” I replied. “There’s an order from Doctor X saying that I have to stay until I’m down to my dry weight, even if I have to stay all night”.

This led to an argument that even involved the above doctor, but in the end, my persistence and stubbornness won the day. However, I’m convinced that between them, the doctor and the nurse hatched a cunning plan because when I weighed myself later, I was two hundred grammes above my dry weight, so somewhere along the line, the intensity of the machine had been turned down.

You might wonder why I’m so insistent about this, but the simple answer is that if I leave here “overweight”, the amount of overweight will accumulate, session by session, until the amount is unmanageable and then they’ll have to resort to drastic measures. And I’ve had enough drastic measures at a hospital to last me a lifetime, and plenty more besides, thank you.

So we were hours late when it was all over, but luckily, my taxi was waiting so I could go straight home, and it was 19:40, the latest that I have ever been, when I arrived back here, hence the streetlights and the moon.

My cleaner helped me back into the apartment as she usually does, and when I was sitting comfortably, stuck a disgusting drink into my sweaty little mitt.

There was no posibility of me making tea at this time of evening, so I grabbed some crackers, some of that nice vegan cheese spread and an orange and took them into my room while I checked the computer for messages, etc.

When I was finished, I began to attack the notes for today, but as I said earlier, I fell asleep before I finished them. And for a while too. When I awoke, I was fit for nothing … "nothing new there" – ed … and so I went to bed. I’ll finish my notes off in the morning.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about doctors and prescriptions … "well, one of us has" – ed … it was this new doctor, fresh out of medical school, who had this confrontation with one of the hospital’s patients.
He came in and said "doctor, when I came in here two days ago and you examined me, you wrote out a prescription to say that I had to take one of those pills every day for the rest of my life."
"That’s right" said the doctor. "Is there a problem?"
"I’ll say!" he said. "The chemist has only given me six!"

LIVE: Wednesday 14th October 2026 – I HAVE JUST …

… woken up after finding myself asleep on the porcelain horse.

And judging by the time, I’d been asleep for almost an hour too. And had it not been for a phantom doorbell ringing at what I thought was the front door but was probably somewhere in the back of my head, I’d probably still be asleep now.

What was worse was that I didn’t remember anything at all about feeling tired, and so waking up like that took me completely by surprise. I had no idea where I was … "nothing new there" – ed … and for a moment I thought that I was in bed and it was time to get up. And then I didn’t remember hearing the alarm to wake me up, so I wondered what time it was. That’s how much I was disorientated by everything.

So now, I’m going to start to type up my notes, and we’ll see how far we get before I crash out again.

All I can say is that it’s a good job that I’m no longer driving. Imagine the outcome if I’d been behind a steering wheel.

Anyway, retournons à mos moutons as they say around here.

For a start, I’m in a much better humour than I was after my outburst last night, which is good news, even if today has been a disappointment as far as work and everything else goes. It wasn’t helped, what with one thing and another, by going to bed at 00:30 this morning, and even less so by being awake at 02:19 (I checked the time).

Whether I went back to sleep afterwards or not, I really don’t know, but it can’t have been for long and I was definitely awake when the alarm went off at 06:29.

As you might expect, it took even longer for me to find my way to my feet this morning, and it really was a weary me who dragged himself to the front door to unlock it ready for the nurse when he comes. But then I realised that he wasn’t going to come this morning because I had my early morning appointment at the hospital and the taxi will be here before he will.

And so I dragged myself into the bathroom to sort myself out for the day, and then came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

There had been some kind of party and we had been to it with the children from our family and a few of our friends. We managed to have some kind of CD player working for the songs. When it came to pack up, there was an awful mess everywhere. We had so many things out, and all wires, cables and cassettes, CDs and all kinds of stuff that was lying around. I looked at it and I was in despair when I saw how much there was to do, but we made a start anyway. The first thing was to separate people’s belongings from other people’s belongings. We did that, and then there was this huge pile of stuff that was from Stoke-on-Trent somewhere, and we didn’t know where to begin with this. In the end, a couple of the girls brought it out, and I was surprised to see that they had brought almost all of it out. The first thing was to sort through the documents, paperwork, the dominos and things like that, and throw away what we didn’t want and keep what we wanted. We began to do that. This enabled us to separate a lot of the stuff that was all tangled up and knotted up. Having seen what this place was like before we tackled this pile of stuff, I was feeling a little bit more optimistic, although there were still several other piles of stuff to go through as well.

Whatever was going on in that dream, I can’t see any relevance to anything that has happened just recently. The reference to the two girls could be a reference to Alison and Jackie, who helped me move down here last August, and the huge tangle of wires would easily relate to the pile of wires and cables that I have lying around here.

And for some reason, when I recall this dream, an image of that apartment over the shop in Nantwich Road where an old schoolfriend and I lodged for a short while in the mid-seventies springs immediately to view in the back of my mind, but that’s about it.

Round about 08:00 I went to sit in the kitchen while I waited for the taxi, and it turned up bang on time at 08:15. The driver drove me to the hospital, and when we arrived, she went to find a wheelchair for me. I know that I said that I won’t ever go in a wheelchair and that my autonomy is important to me, but the scanners are miles down the corridor and at that time of the morning, the drivers are usually very busy and don’t have the time to wait for me to walk there.

When I arrived at the scan department, I had to wait a few minutes, and then they put me through the machine. It was one of those Austin Powers time tunnel things made by one of my former employers, General Electric, and you have to breathe in, hold your breath and breathe out in accordance with the voice in the machine. And what they did seemed to be exactly the same as they had done a couple of months ago, so I’m not sure why they did it this time.

When it was finished, I had to wait fifteen minutes for the taxi. I suppose that I’ll have the results in due course. It was the same girl who had driven me. Back here, my faithful cleaner was out on her rounds dealing with some of her other elderly and infirm clients, so the driver helped me back to the apartment, which was nice of her.

Back in here, I could at last make my breakfast, albeit about an hour later than usual, and while I was eating, I was reading some more of THE REPORT OF THE WOOLHOPE NATURALISTS CLUB 1870.

Today, our author is talking about the Pulpit Oak at Upton, and he refers to the collection of poems known as “Hesperides”, written by Robert Herrick and published in 1648. He quotes a line from one of Herrick’s … gulp … 1200 or so poems which says –
"—Dearest, bury me
Under that holy oke, or Gospel tree;
Where, though thou see’st not, thou may’st think upon
Me, when thou yeerly go’st Procession."
And reminds us that "But surely such a request could only have been properly asked of some gay young member of that office which has descended from remote antiquity—the parish beadle."

All of the author’s recent writing makes me wonder what on earth is going on in Herefordshire in 1870 and 1871.

No sooner had I finished breakfast when there was a knock on the door. One of my neighbours had come along for a chat. We spent about an hour chatting about nothing specific – just the events in the building and in the locality over the summer. It’s not like me to be sociable, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, but I do have to make an effort, especially as everyone in this building is so friendly.

After he left, it was the turn of my faithful cleaner to stick her head in the door to make sure that I was back safely, so I reassured her.

Round about now, it was the time for my disgusting drink and midday medication, so I sorted that out and then came back in here to start work – at long last.

However, there was football on the internet. Last night, Stranraer had been playing Kilmarnock’s B team in the Scottish League Cup.

The result was 3-3, which meant, when the results of the previous rounds were taken into consideration, Stranraer were eliminated.

My interest was, however, in Kilmarnock’s centre forward, Ieuan Owen. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that last season, he was playing for Y Barri in the Welsh Premier League where he and Ollie Hulbert were tearing the opposition defences to shreds with their lightning pace. I was interested to see how he was getting on at Kilmarnock, and there he was, still producing these devastating runs that outpace just about everyone, and he scored Killie’s first goal last night.

With all of that out of the way, I could now get on with work, but by the end of the afternoon, I hadn’t done anything like as much as I had wanted. I was hoping to have all of the music chosen, reformatted, re-edited, paired and segued by this evening so I could start to write up the notes tomorrow, but to date, there are only about nine out of the ten chosen as yet, and none of them are paired and segued.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … these last few days have just been one big disappointment.

So eventually, the clock came round to 19:00 and I stopped to make tea. Tonight, it was a taco roll filled with the other pack of that spicy tomato and kidney bean sauce stuff that I found in the freezer a week or two back. And it was just as delightful as the other pack was when I tried that. I wish that I could remember what was in it, or maybe it was something that my friend made when he was here just now.

And afterwards, I had some pineapple chunks with some home-made chocolate ice cream that I’d made a few months back and had forgotten about. That was nice too.

Tomorrow, I might try one of the curries that I made a couple of weeks ago. That should be nice too.

What else that seems to be nice is that I’m back eating regularly again, at long last. Still no lunch, though, but a cooked meal at night is as important as my breakfast, even if I can’t find much to tempt me.

But all of that is tomorrow. After tea, that was when I seem to think that I went for a ride on the porcelain horse and fell asleep. But honestly, I really can’t remember. But now, late as it is, I’m off to bed when I’ve finished what needs to be done. It’s dialysis tomorrow, so don’t expect much sense out of me tomorrow night.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about curry … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone walked through the doorway of a building and asked "can I have a chicken tikka masala with rice, please?"
The woman behind the counter replies "but this is a library, sir."
"I’m terribly sorry. Can I have a chicken tikka masala with rice, please?" he whispers.

LIVE: Tuesday 13th October 2026 – I HAVE JUST …

… had one of the worst days of my life.

But I’m not talking medically, because I’m actually feeling quite good right now … "makes a change" – ed … but I mean as far as work goes. I’ve done nothing, finished nothing, accomplished nothing, and all in all I have totally wasted a complete day.

To give you some idea of what I mean, I was still writing up the dictaphone notes (something that I usually do before breakfast) at 21:05 tonight. That’s how far I am behind. I really am going to have to stop being so nice to people in the hope that they stop taking advantage of my good nature.

Nature seemed to take advantage of my good nature last night. I was in bed round about 22:45, not too much later than my ideal curfew time of 22:30, and I was looking for a really good sleep so that I’d be refreshed for my Welsh class later this morning, but it was not to be … "no surprise there" – ed …

Even though I’d gone to sleep quite quickly, thanks to that little mantra that I used to recite a few years ago, round about 03:50 or something, I awoke, and that was the end of any ideas of sleep that I might have had. I tried my best to go back to sleep but that was impossible.

When the alarm went off, it took a few minutes for me to pull myself up and sit on the edge of the bed, and then about ten minutes for me to rise to my feet. Once I was up and about, I went to unlock the front door, ready for the nurse when he arrives later this morning, and then I went to the bathroom to sort myself out.

Once I was looking and feeling a little more reasonable, I came back in here, where my first job would be to finish off the notes from last night that I had abandoned when sleep overwhelmed me rather dramatically.

Whatever it was that held me up, I really don’t know because I hadn’t made much progress when the nurse arrived. While he was dealing with my legs and my feet, we were chatting about his week off, and he was asking me questions about what I’d been up to, not that any of it really mattered.

After he left, I made my breakfast of porridge, coffee, toast and juice, and the morning medication that I need to take, which is probably enough for a meal on its own. I should have been reading some more of THE REPORT OF THE WOOLHOPE NATURALISTS CLUB 1870 except that I was hopelessly side-tracked.

The party of Woolhope Naturalists are descending from Croft Ambrey camp to Croft Castle, lower down below the camp. I read about the history of the castle, and that started off on an adventure that led me, for some weird twist of fate, as far as the German “Albatros C1”, to which I’ve just arrived. I shall have to try to get back to the book tomorrow.

Back in here after breakfast, I had to prepare for my Welsh lesson and send off this week’s homework. I’d done the homework yesterday so it simply involved checking it over, converting it to a *.pdf and then sending it off.

The revision passed really well today. It was comparatively straightforward without any complications, so I attended the lesson in an air of optimism. And the preparation had done its job because for the questions that we had to do in the middle of the lesson, I got almost all of them right.

There was a stop in midstream for a paned, or “cuppa”, when I had my disgusting drink and midday medication, and by the time the lesson was over later, I was feeling that I’d actually made a useful contribution to the lesson rather than being a passenger.

Then there were the blog notes to finish off and bring that entry to a conclusion, however, I didn’t get far – not that I was expecting to – because my faithful cleaner turned up to do her stuff and to chase me under the shower. And a really nice shower it was too. I really feel like a nice, clean boy now, although where I’m going to find a nice, clean boy at this time of night, I really don’t know.

That led to finishing off … "yet another attempt" – ed … the notes from last night. That, however, was a task that took much longer than it ought to have done, and in the end, when it was finished, I rejoiced somewhat, and as the waves of fatigue were already washing over me, I called for an energy drink instead of another disgusting drink.

Right now, I could turn my attention to the dictaphone notes at last.

There had been some kind of festival taking place, and as the crowds were leaving, my brother and I were cleaning everything up. We had a pile of it and set it on fire. The more things we found, the more we added to the flames, and at one stage it was burning quite well. But there was something happening with my health, and I reached the point where I wasn’t able to really do much more. My brother was teasing me about that kind of thing but I noticed that he had stopped adding things to the fire too, so we had to shovel the fire around to make sure that it burnt everything that was in the fire and didn’t leave anything unburnt or simply charred. But that was another big, difficult thing to do as well for me and I wasn’t quite sure what was happening.

This actually sounds like the very first Glastonbury Festival. At Woodstock, they simply dug a big hole and bulldozed all the waste into the hole, whereas at the first Glastonbury Festival, they did go along and pick it all up to burn. Rumour has it that three or four festival-goers, still asleep in their sleeping bags, were thrown into the fire, but then again, they said that at Woodstock with them being bulldozed into the hole.

But the story about my health giving out has a very sound base to it. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that back in 2015, I was with a friend and we were cutting down a big tree. Or, rather, he was cutting down a big tree and I was removing the wood in a wheelbarrow. When I was halfway through, I began to lose my breath, and later on, it all went completely. I could no longer work and no longer breathe, and I didn’t have the breath to climb the stairs at home. That was when I went to see the local doctor, and that was when they discovered that I was seriously ill and all of this lot began.

The next interruption was from someone who wanted a chat, so I was there until 18:30, thinking as the discussion came to a close that I’d have thirty minutes to finish the dictaphone notes and then I could go for tea.

But that didn’t work out because Rosemary wanted to talk to me. She was having problems doing a scan, and she’d also lost a Word file that she’d just saved. Could I help as it was urgent?

So how long do you think that I spent helping her? Five minutes? Ten minutes? Not a bit of it. I was there on line with her for one hour and fifty minutes, we didn’t find the files and I’m still at a loss as to what she’s doing and where her files are going. We tried everything to find them, even down to creating some more and savng them into a known directory, but when you are trying remotely to help someone four hundred and fifty kilometres away and you can’t see their screen, you’re relying completely on what they are telling you. And what she was telling me made no sense at all.

In the end, I’m glad that her ‘phone rang, otherwise I’d still be there now, I suppose.

But the answer to all of this is simple. I’m going to have to stop being so nice to people and somehow stop them bothering me like this. I can’t do anything, I can’t get anything started, never mind finished. I have so much to do and I’m living on borrowed time. Dialysis is taking up far too much of my time and I need everything that’s left so that I can push on with my own life, but all of this is driving me up the wall.

And that includes the food. For once in my life, I was actually feeling hungry, but look what happened to my mealtime. Instead, there I was at 20:30, when I should have been doing other things, putting half a dozen falafel balls into the air fryer, a diced potato in the microwave and adding them all to the rest of that nice potato salad that I made last week. What a meal that wasn’t.

Once I’d finished eating, there was the rest of the dictaphone notes.

There were three guys who were having a lesson in my apartment with a particular woman teacher. This lesson turned out somehow to be a rather nasty lesson and this woman left in quite a bad temper. Anyway, these three guys decided to set out and go after her. I tried to dissuade them but they just went out anyway. I made sure that the house was tidy and went out a little later on. saw these three boys going back, but they were each somehow sitting at a table and chair with wheels on it. They had a coffee or something, and they were pushing themselves along with their feet to go back to my place, so I avoided them and headed to the corner where my friends were due to meet me. They were all there, even the kids, and even this woman was there and she was most upset. There had been some kind of confrontation. Anyway, we all agreed to go back to my house, and when we arrived, there were these three tables and chair things parked in a car parking space in the street. It was the day of a strike or something, and someone was trying to pay for a parking fee without success, so we told him that there was no parking fee today. Anyway, we went into my apartment and I could hear music coming from one of the bedrooms, so I went, and these three guys were in there. One of them was in my bed and the other two were lounging around on it, so I told them that they would have to go now as I was having company, so they simply packed up, went downstairs and left. Then the people began to come in. One woman was smoking, so I told her that smoking was not allowed in my apartment but she made some kind of gesture and carried on, so I thought that I would deal with her in a minute. Everyone came in, including one actor-type guy. He was being his usual expansive self and he asked “what’s going to happen now?”. I said “you can always help in the kitchen making us some food”. He looked at me and said “no”. Then he went to find this woman and said “do you know what that man said to me? He said that I had to work in the kitchen, so I told him ‘no I’m not'”. She said something like “it’s OK” and then she said to me “well, don’t worry. He never helps anywhere”. I thought “well, if he doesn’t help anywhere, I can’t see him being allowed back to my apartment again”.

Believe it or not, I do actually know a thespian (or who thinks that he’s a thespian, anyway) who thinks like this. “I’m exceptional” and “I’m special”. And, in fact, he won’t be coming around here any time soon (not that he would anyway because he doesn’t live around here). My friend are lovely people, and we all chip in to do the work that’s necessary wherever we are.

It’s the same with the cigarette smoker. I know people like that too, and they won’t be coming to visit me either. There’s this thing called “respect”.

As for the rest of the dream, it doesn’t mean much to me, although the woman teacher could be my old friend Marianne who died in 2013. And I’ve been in an apartment like this before in a dream too, where there were loads of children hanging about. But that’s about it, I suppose.

There was something in that dream about a girl who had a Chrysler V8 sewn onto her jeans. I said that if I wanted to do that, I’d get one off my niece’s husband’s truck. She asked what he had and I replied that it was a big Dodge 5.8 diesel pickup and so we were talking for a while about these big American pick-ups after that.

My niece’s husband in Canada does have a V8 diesel, but it’s in a Chevrolet lorry, the one that I drove down to New Hampshire in the USA to drop off that racing engine that had shot a con-rod through the side during a tractor-pulling event. And I don’t recall it having a badge like the one on this girl’s jeans, but what does that matter.

Anyway, now that I’m starting to calm down and cool down after my outburst just now, and my notes are finished, I’ll finish off whatever needs fnishing and then go to bed. I have a hospital appointment in the morning and I have never felt less like going to it, but I supose that I must, although I’m not sure why.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about thespians … "well, one of us has" – ed … I’m reminded of the famous pathologist Dr Keith Simpson, performing an autopsy in front of a class of university students.
"In real life," he said "this man was an actor …"
And someone shouted up from the back of the class "well, if he’s acting now, he’s bloody good!"

LIVE: 30th September 2026 – I HAVE BEEN …

… feeling much more like it today, even if I have crashed out a few times.

But then again, that’s not surprising … "the crashing out, not the feeling much more like it" – ed … because when I finally crawled into bed after finishing my notes, etc., it was after 00:30. And considering that the alarm goes off at 06:29, there’s not much time for sleep.

So I was in bed at 00:30 but it took me quite a while to go off to sleep, which is a change. And then at some ungodly hour, I awoke and couldn’t go back to sleep. I was slipping in and out of this strange kind of situation where I wasn’t really awake and I wasn’t really asleep either.

That gave me an opportunity to continue with my experiments, and sure enough, on most occasions where I dozed off lying on my side, I “awoke” to find myself lying on my back again. All except the final time when I went to sleep on my side and when the alarm sounded, I was still on my side. All that I can say is that I can’t have been asleep for very long at that point.

It took longer than usual this morning to stand up and leave the bedroom, but once I was up and about, I went to unlock the front door and then head into the bathroom to sort myself out.

Back in here, the first thing that I did was to transcribe the dictaphone notes for yesterday and then today. Yesterday’s notes have been amended and went on line quite quickly, and here are today’s.

I’d been to school, and I’d walked home afterwards. Then the following morning, I went to school again. As I entered the class, there was a huge commotion going on, in that one of the boys was refusing for some reason to do anything that the teacher was saying. In the end, the teacher told him to go and stand outside but he wouldn’t. It took two or three people to put him outside the door. I recognised the teacher – it was one of the guys from FC Pionsat St Hilaire, so I said to him that if this had happened on the football field, it would be a five-match ban. Eventually, the boy was allowed to return to class but he was still being obnoxious. Someone had managed to get hold of his watch and they looked at his appointments. They were all kinds of appointments with silly ideas, silly names and everything. Then we learnt of two girls in Year 6 who were taking a year off school to go to California. We all wondered why they had gone to California and what they were going to do, but they were going to go to school while they were there, so they weren’t going to miss very much in the way of education. It was in all the headlines of the national press, but in the local press, it was a little column stuck on page four. Then I had to look up, and I saw my crutches against the wall. I didn’t put them there, so then I thought that I must have gone home without them and come back this morning without them. I tried to walk a little, and I seemed to be walking normally. I don’t know what happened there, but I remember thinking that this is going to give them a huge surprise at dialysis the next time that I go, when I can simply walk to my bed without any help or assistance at all.

The story of the local newspaper’s reaction to these two girls as compared with the reaction of the national press reminds me of the famous Yokohama earthquake in 1923, when the city was almost completely destroyed and as many as 140,000 people died. The headlines in a local paper in the Midwest USA were "Mr and Mrs (whatever) safe".

The rest of the dream doesn’t mean much to me, but the idea of throwing away my crutches and walking has been the subject of quite a few dreams in the recent past. They stopped at one point, but now, they seem to be back.

The nurse turned up as usual to sort me out, and he didn’t have much to say today. He took my health card and passed it through his little machine so that he could be paid for the month of September. It took him ages to establish a connection, but eventually, he managed it.

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

Today, we are discussing funguses, or ‘funghi’, found on the Longmynd and Clee hills. However, I was sidetracked as usual and ended up on Lord Howe Island with the other 400-odd inhabitants.

It’s a typical South Sea Island in between Australia and New Zealand with lots of endemic, unique fauna and flora that have been studied by scientists ever since the island was discovered.

The island will change dramatically in the coming years as modern ways of doing things and modern technology will overwhelm the nineteenth-century skills of the current generation of islanders.

Back in here, I finished off a few things that needed doing, and then I began to segue the pairs of songs in the radio programme that I’m preparing. They went together really well and on one or two of them, you can’t tell where the join is.

That took me up to lunchtime and my disgusting drink break with my midday medication.

Once that was out of the way, I began to write the notes for the music that I’d been preparing. I’d hoped to write about half of them, because some of the musicians are making their debut and that always takes much longer. But in fact, I managed to write all of them, don’t ask me how. I seemed to have worked really hard today.

And that was despite falling asleep a couple of times along the way. Even a can of one of these energy drinks seemed to have no effect. However, I began to liven up a little as the afternoon rolled on.

My cleaner turned up at one point. She’d been to Leclerc for some ink for her printer and I’d asked her if she could find some onions and if they had any British baked beans.

She’d brought the onions, but as far as she could see, baked beans … "or, at least, British ones" – ed … are definitely not on the menu in Leclerc. But she also found some vegan lentil crisps with much reduced salt and sugar content. She bought two packs of different varieties for me to try to see whether I want some more. We shall see.

There was tea tonight too – I’m definitely feeling better. It was potatoes mashed with spinach and fried in butter, and vegetables (peas, carrots and beans), falafel, onions, garlic and mushrooms. It was totally delicious, especially when it was followed by one of those posh soya yoghurts with fruit at the bottom.

So now, when I’ve finished a few more things, I’ll be off to bed. Later than usual, I suppose, but I’ll just have to make the best of it. I can always sleep at dialysis if they let me.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about mushrooms … "well, one of us has" – ed … in 1938 in Moscow, there was a party given by a general. He invited many other generals and in total, there were seventeen generals there.
They all had lunch too, but in the early afternoon, they were all found dead.
A Russian doctor performed autopsies on a couple of selected corpses, and he could see that they had died of mushroom poisoning, so he blamed the mushroom soup that had been the starter.
After all of the bodies had been taken away, the doctor came to report to Stalin. He said "After I’d performed the autopsies on a couple of the corpses and came to my conclusions, I watched the corpses being taken away, and I noticed that two of them had bullet wounds in the skull."
"That’s probably right" said Stalin
"Why was that?" asked the doctor.
Stalin replied "I’d heard that two of them didn’t want the soup."

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

… 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: Sunday 20th September 2026 – IN THE PAST …

… I have received many requests. Most of them are physically impossible – not even I can do that – but others are quite within my grasp and so I try my best to fulfil them.

Consequently, one request that I have received quite recently and with which I have replied is to make an Amazon link that works in Germany and Austria. Well, I already have links to AMAZON USA, AMAZON UK and AMAZON CANADA to satisfy my various readers, so why not create one for my German-speaking readers?

And so, with effect from this morning, AMAZON GERMANY has hit the streets.

It’s still the same old rhetoric, as in

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 them to make a purchase.

only now with the AMAZON GERMANY link included. I hope that it works, so if someone would care to try it, I would be grateful.

But anyway, leaving all of that aside for the moment, last night was another horribly late night – it was after 00:30 when I finally made it into bed but I wasn’t worried because I was hoping for a decent sleep and a good lie-in … "poor naive fool" – ed …

Whatever time it was that I awoke, I’ve no idea, but everything was pitch-black, so it must have been after 02:30 when the car park lights switched off. And from then on, I couldn’t make myself comfortable and I couldn’t go back to sleep. I was tossing and turning for hours, thinking “what a waste of a good night this is.”

But eventually I must have gone back to sleep because the nurse awoke me to sort out my legs and feet. At least that proves that the key to the apartment door works, which is good news, I suppose.

After he left, I curled up back under the quilt to try to go back to sleep, but I received a message from a friend. It looks like I might be having another visit soon. So there I was, under the quilt, having a text conversation on the ‘phone for about half an hour.

However, the forces of nature drove me from my bed and I thought that seeing as I’m up, I may as well stay up, so I made my breakfast.

No book today though, people. The travelling laptop is still in the backpack so that I can have an early start tomorrow. I’m not looking forward to this hôpital de jour, that’s for sure. And then straight over afterwards to dialysis. I’ll be out all day so I must remember to review the next radio programme on Tuesday afternoon after my Welsh lesson.

And talking of my Welsh lesson, I must remember not to sing in it while I’m working. I don’t want to make a fool of myself again.

After breakfast, I came back in here. There were several things that needed doing, and it is only now that I have realised that I’ve forgotten to transcribe the dictaphone notes. It took me until Tuesday morning to actually find the time to transcribe them, so here we go –

There had been some kind of evening get-together somewhere in someone’s house. I wasn’t really able to make it on the first night but I was there for the second one. It wasn’t really something that interested me too much but some of my friends were there. So we bided time and that was that. A few weeks later, I bumped into one of my friends who told me that he’d picked up a certain illness or disease down there on the first night. I asked him who else was involved and he replied that it was the woman who was actually the host of it. I asked him what on earth he’s told his wife. He replied that his wife had had a couple of strokes and so on so it’s not an issue with her. We set out again and we were in London again, walking down this road which was a big, wide dual carriageway type of road out of the centre of London. As we were walking, we were looking at the thousands of people queueing up at the bus stops and thinking about how on earth are they all going to get home? There were queues that stretched for whole city blocks and eventually we arrived at that house again where we’d had this party. My friend told me not to say anything because he was quite interested in dealing with things in a different way.

There is more of an element of truth in this that anyone might realise at the time, although it’s split into two parts. One part goes back all the way fifty-odd years, whereas the other part is of a much more recent date.

Next on Sunday was the football – Elgin City v Stranraer. And for once, all of the luck and the rub of the green went Stranraer’s way and they beat Elgin City 5-1, which was a wonderful achievement.

When I first picked them up four or five years ago, I dunno, they were propping up the table and had to win a vital relegation match in order to stay in the professional pyramid. Today, they are second in the table. Let’s hope that they can keep it up.

There was no other football that was worth watching today, but it reminded me of the Airbus UK Broughton v Y Fflint that we watched the other day. Airbus don’t attract big crowds to their games – everyone preferring to go down the road to watch Chester – and they’ll never have a four-figure crowd there unless something dramatic happens, but last night, there was a group of about four young girls, probably about eight, nine or ten years old, chanting “Let’s Go Airbus, Clap Clap”, and they were making far more noise chanting than the rest of the crowd combined. I wasn’t sure whether to applaud the kids or pour scorn on everyone else.

This afternoon, there were some photos on my computer that needed to be sent by ‘phone to someone, so I set to work. However, access to my ‘phone was for some reason forbidden. The ‘phone kept on coming up with “this device is unavailable”.

As a consequence, I set to work to try to resolve it, but nothing that I seemed to try seemed to work. As a result, I engaged the services of a local chatbot and after more than five hours, we were still getting nowhere. In the end, the chatbot found a program that worked remotely via the wi-fi connection and I managed to do what needed to be done. However, I was far too tired to send the photos off afterwards.

In between all of that, I was baking. And now I have a lovely sesame-seed loaf that looks delicious and I hope that it tastes as good as it looks. I shall find out on Tuesday – not tomorrow because I’m leaving here far too early for breakfast and in any case, I work on the principle of “what doesn’t go in won’t want to come out.” While I was baking, though, I had a handful of almonds and a couple of those toasty biscuit things.

So now, later than intended … "as usual" – ed … I’m going to bed, and with a bit of luck, I might even sleep. Who knows?

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about football … "well, one of us has" – ed … there was a court cse about an orphan boy and who should have custody of him.
The judge suggested his grandparents, but he cried and said "but every night, before I go to bed, my aunt beats me."
So the judge suggested his aunt, but the boy cried again and said "and she’s even worse. She beats me when I get up as well as when I go to bed."
So after much deliberation, the judge sent him to live with the English international football team, and that was to the boy’s satisfaction.

LIVE: Wednesday 16th September 2026 – THINGS HAVE BEEN …

… a little better today that yesterday, which was in itself an improvement from Monday. However, before I start getting up my hopes, I have dialysis tomorrow, and so I’m expecting to be down at Ground Zero again on Friday morning.

But carpe diem, hey! Let’s just talk about today, shall we?

And “today” is probably right because it was after midnight this morning – 00:15 to be exact – when I finally crawled into bed after such a hectic day yesterday. And despite the howling gale that was going on outside … "and is still going on right now even as we speak" – ed … I managed to go to sleep fairly quickly.

Once more, though, there was the dramatic awakening at about 02:00, just like yesterday and with no good reason either. I was tossing and turning for what seemed like hours, and I noticed that I was still awake at 02:53, but I must have gone to sleep at some point thereafter because at 06:29, the alarm awoke me from a very deep sleep.

Surprisingly, I was able quite easily to be sitting on the side of the bed. But changing from that position to being upright and moving about is not so easy. It took a good ten minutes, maybe even more, before I was sitting on my chair at the computer.

The first job was to spell-check the notes from yesterday and put them on line. And then there was a pile of little things that need doing, so I made a good start on them. But eventually, I heard the sound of distant coffee mugs being rattled, so I stopped what I was doing and went off to investigate.

Sure enough, coffee was on its way, so I nipped off for a quick ride on the porcelain horse and then into the bathroom to sort myself out. And I was finished and back in the kitchen just as the coffee finished percolating. How good was that timing?

While we were drinking our coffee, we were chatting about the overnight news and things like that, but we noticed that all of a sudden, the Hound of the Baskervilles stood bolt-upright, his ears erect and his tail wagging. And then he made for the door.

About thirty seconds later, the doorbell rang and in walked the nurse. The Hound of the Baskervilles darted towards him and insisted on having a good stroke and hug before he would let him in.

Eventually, the nurse could turn his attention to me, and he dealt with my legs and feet. However, on leaving, he was once again cornered by the Hound of the Baskervilles, who insisted on yet another good stroke.

After the nurse had left, the Hound of the Baskervilles dragged his master off for walkies. I made breakfast and read some more of THE REPORT OF THE WOOLHOPE NATURALISTS CLUB 1870.

Today, they were discussing the village of Kilpeck, the castle of which was the administrative centre of “Archenfield”, the part of the Welsh kingdom of Ergyng that was annexed by the Mercians towards the end of the Ninth Century.

Naturally, that led me off down another dead end, so I didn’t progress very far with the book. Never mind, though. There’s always tomorrow.

Back in here, I finished off what I’d been doing before coffee and then continued my summer holidays. After all, my visitors leave me tomorrow, so I’m back at work on Friday.

Perhaps the most important task was to proof-read the seven chapters of my book so far. I found several mistakes and made a few alterations here and there to clear up a few bits of confusion.

Having done that and had my disgusting drink and midday medication this afternoon, I programmed another artificial intelligence chatbot to be a proofreader and also to check for continuity (I don’t want my characters leaving home in red clothes and turning up two minutes later in green ones) and for chronological errors (none of my characters would be using a mobile telephone in 1987, for example).

Having done that, I ran my book through the chatbot, chapter at a time, and he pulled up a few errors that I had missed, as well as a couple of continuity errors. He also asked me if I would like a few suggestions as to how I should continue (I hadn’t asked him to do that, by the way), but I declined.

Having said that, though, when I’ve finished how I want this book to be, I’ll go back and ask him to make some suggestions, just to see, out of curiosity, where he would have taken this story from this point onwards.

At some point, though, I must have fallen asleep because I awoke rather suddenly at about 16:20. I’ve no idea when I fell asleep, and I certainly felt no indication whatsoever beforehand that I was about to drop off.

So I carried on until all of the proofreading was done and then I went back to check it over again, just to make sure.

By now, I could smell food coming from the kitchen. Tea was about to be served. My friend had made fried potato slices with onion and ratatouille. That was really nice, especially when followed by tinned apricots and vegan ice cream from Noz.

So back in here, I’ll finish off my notes, do the stats and the backup, etc., and then go to bed. And if the wind drops, I might even be able to go to sleep tonight.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about proof readers and artificial intelligence … "well, one of us has" – ed … I asked one chatbot once to come up with a witty advertisement for a firm offering specialised services to authors, etc.
The advert it came up with was "(xxx) and co., specialised services to authors. We do poofreading, speling and tpying."

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."

LIVE: Friday 11th September 2026 – GUESS WHO …

… has forgotten to bring home from dialysis the charging cable for his laptop? That has knackered a good part of my day, that has, and no mistake.

There I was today, ready to plug my computer in so that I could read a book at breakfast, and there was my cable lead – Gone! And never called me “mother”. What kind of fool did I feel? What with phantom alarms, thinking that a ‘phone alert’ was a doorbell, and now, forgetting my charging cable, things are not going very well for me at the moment, are they?

Just like last night too. I ended up going to bed much later than I would have liked, and then I awoke at all of 03:42 (because I checked). Nevertheless, the period between then and the alarm at 06:29 seemed to pass so rapidly that I must have fallen asleep again.

For a change, I was quick out of bed and sitting on the edge, dressing myself. That’s not likely to happen too often, is it? And then, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … sitting on the edge of the bed is one thing, actually standing up and moving is something else completely.

Eventually, though, I was sitting on my chair at my desk with the big computer running. Firstly, there was nothing on the dictaphone so I could leave that alone for the moment, and instead, I caught up with a few other important and outstanding things.

Round about 07:30, I could hear movement next door and began to smell the beautiful smell of coffee. That was the cue to move into the dining area where my friend was making coffee. I poured out a couple of mugs, and while we were drinking, we were chatting about the news and about the stupidity and the gullibility of those people on the other side of the pond.

Look at it this way – there are (say) 400 million people in the USA, of which roughly 21% are under 18, meaning that 79%, or roughly 316 million, are eligible for this enormous Trump bribe that he’s offering to the electorate (“after the midterms”, just like all of his other promises).

That works out at $1,580,000,000,000, or a whopping 1.58 trillion dollars, if my maths is correct. Now which economy can support giving away that much money? Yet people are falling for it, hook, line and sinker. They must be out of their minds.

Isabelle the nurse breezed into the apartment as usual. The Hound of the Baskervilles didn’t bark or even disturb himself. However, his tail began to wag and he lifted up one of his front legs so that she could reach his tummy to give it a tickle – all without saying a word.

She sorted out my legs and feet and then gave the Hound of the Baskervilles another tickle-tummy before leaving.

Once she’d gone, the Hound of the Baskervilles dragged his master off on walkies and I made my breakfast. And on going to read some more of my book, this is when I made that terrible discovery. So I had to eat my porridge and toast and drink my orange juice without reading, and I’m not used to that.

Once I’d finished, I came back in here where I crashed out at my chair – and for quite a while too. I was definitely in no mood to do anything. That’s how I’ve been feeling since I awoke this morning.

An hour or so later, I began to wake up and I began to write another chapter of my little story, taking a break at some point for a disgusting drink and the midday medication.

This afternoon, my faithful cleaner came round to do her stuff, so we set her a task to prove that she was worthy, as they said in MONTY PYTHON.

We decided that we’d leave her in charge of the Hound of the Baskervilles and we’d go to Noz.

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

Noz is the cheap shop in town where they sell all kinds of damaged goods, fire-damaged stock, short-dated stock and bankruptcy stock. I used to like going in there every weekend because there would always be something on offer that would improve my lifestyle or, in the food range, improve my diet for a short time.

The shop today, though, was nothing like how it used to be. I hardly found anything at all, except some almond milk for when I start making ice cream again and some vegan sugar-free ice cream. That looks as if it’s going to be really good, and I can’t wait to try it. And it was nice to be out and about in the open air for a change instead of being cooped up in here. I just wish that I could be out and about more often. And if I could, I’d be piling up with vegan ice cream from Noz.

On the way back, my friend went to Leclerc for some fuel, and we could see first-hand the mess that they are making of the car park as they try to install an overhead car park over the existing open-air parking. Apparently, it’s all to do with putting a new gallery of shops in underneath once the overhead bit is done, and I wish them luck with that.

Back here, I was totally exhausted after walking around the shops and had to sit down for a while, but it was very cute to see the Hound of the Baskervilles soar right across the car park to meet his master when his Auntie Cleaner let him out of the building. When I was married and we had four cats, they used to treat my departure and arrival with absolute indifference.

Later on, we had a little visit from a couple of gentlemen from Tunisia about a project that I have on the back burner, but after a while, I was persuaded that this project ain’t ever going to work, so I shall have to think of a “Plan B”. It seems that I’m right up to my ears in plans that aren’t working out right now. It’s all due to being ill, of course, but had I not been ill, I wouldn’t be living here, so it wouldn’t have been a problem anyway.

For tea, my friend made himself a burger and chips. I had nothing because firstly, I wasn’t hungry, and secondly, I had other fish to fry.

Like the football, for example. Another basement clash tonight, this time between Cambrian United and Trefynnon.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that Trefynnon are having a woeful start to the season. seven games played, one goal scored and just one point out of twenty-one. The team from the Rhondda are doing somewhat better with two wins and three draws from their seven.

Games like these are games that Trefynnon has to win if they are to haul themselves off the bottom, but gap in quality between these two teams, despite them being at the lower end of the table, is clearly evident.

Having said that, however, Trefynnon were in there fighting, and they didn’t give up. At 2-0 down, they continued to surge upfield whenever they had the chance, and eventually they pulled one back, but it was too little, too late.

Having seen the effort that some of their players put into the game, surely their luck must break through soon because, even though they are so far off the pace, they deserve something for their efforts.

When the match finished, I had a few things to do, and while doing them, I learnt something interesting.

In the past, the league was lucky if it had one four-figure crowd per season. I can realise seasons when there were none at all. So far this season, after eight rounds, we’ve had ten in the Premier League already and even a couple in the feeder leagues and in the cup. And with good reason too, because the quality of the football is far better than it ever was.

So right now, I’m off to bed. It’s gone 01:00 right now and I have to be up at 06:29 in the morning.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about Those guys from Tunisia … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of them said that when the Germans arrived in the country looking for Aryan ladies, his grandfather hid one in his cellar to keep her safe.
"That was nice of him" I said.
"But he didn’t do it for nothing, you know." he said, with a wink
"So why are you telling me?"
"Because I need your advice as to whether to persuade him to tell her that the Germans have gone."

Live: Saturday 5th 5eptember 2026 – I AM ABSOLUTELY …

… exhausted again, so much so that I’m freezing, just like the other day. And just like the other day, unless something dramatic happens, I shall be in bed long before I’ve finished these notes.

Last night was tiring enough. Not going to bed until 01:00 and waking up in the middle of the night, and then leaving the bed at 06:29 has done for me good and proper.

It was 01:00 when I finally crawled into bed after my marathon session with the chatbot about this captcha installation. I certainly wasn’t going to start a new, complicated procedure at that kind of night.

And once in bed and asleep, I stayed asleep, and for about a whole two or so hours too. And once I was awake, at something like three o’clock in the morning, there I stayed, wide awake, until the alarm went off.

As usual, it wasn’t very easy for me to haul myself out of bed, but with yesterday’s notes to finish off, if ever there was a good time to do it, it was right now, so I set to work.

In fact, I wasn’t very far off finishing when I heard the rattle of coffee mugs from the kitchen, so I sprung to my feet … "well, sort-of" – ed … and went into the bathroom for a good scrub up and shave, in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant today at dialysis.

Next stop was the kitchen for a mug of coffee and a chat, and we were still there chatting when the nurse arrived. The Hound of the Baskervilles was really pleased to see him, wagging his tail at thirteen to the dozen, and I think that he had more care and attention that I did. The nurse also had his daily German lesson, and finally, he sorted out my legs and feet.

After he had left, the Hound of the Baskervilles dragged his master off for walkies and I made my breakfast – porridge, toast and juice. The juice was actually the leftover fruit juice from the tin of apricots, and I’ll tell you something for nothing – and that is that my calcium lozenges don’t dissolve in it.

And, would you believe, I crashed out while eating it.

Another thing is that I’ve finally finished reading A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman, and I can’t say that I’m sorry. It was a really difficult read, especially when trying to dismantle Freeeman’s partisan viewpoints and comments.

And at the beginning of the book, he mentioned that he wasn’t going to use illustrations to illuminate the discussions in his book. Why not? It would have made things so much clearer and saved me so many hours of research.

So, I wonder what the next book will be.

Back in the office, I finished off the notes for yesterday, and there were a few other things to sort out too, but eventually, the Hound of the Baskervilles dragged his master back home after having had a good exploration of the town and the port, and so, feeling more sociable than usual, I went to join them.

At midday when my alarm went off, I started to prepare myself for dialysis, and the Hound of the Baskervilles’s Auntie Cleaner came down to apply the anaesthetic on my arm. However, she spent most of her time with His Nibs and I barely had a look-in. He has far more success than I am having right now.

He also had a big fuss from the taxi driver who came to pick me up, and then we went off into the wilds of Champeaux to pick up another passenger. He told us that it was the Sartilly Festival today and the place was gridlocked, so we carried on in the wilderness, down roads on which I have never travelled before, until we reached the main road.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … since I’ve been travelling with this taxi company, I’ve been seeing parts of Normandy that I never knew existed.

We were a little early arriving at dialysis, and to my surprise, I found that I had a single room and that the nurse, one of the new ones, was waiting for me on my arrival. I’ve had much worse connections than the one that she gave me, and I was up and running at 14:05.

First job was to watch the live football match that had kicked off half an hour ago (it’s a good job that the stream has a “start from beginning” function) – Penybont v Colwyn Bay.

Penybont have assembled a squad capable of taking on TNS, the eternal champions, but their start to the season is stuttering. It wasn’t helped by two of their leading stars having to be substituted in this match before twenty minutes had been played.

Colwyn Bay have so far failed to live up to their efforts last season, so this was going to be an unpredictable match. However, skill will out, and Penybont won 1-0 in the end.

Mind you, I missed a few minutes off it because, once again, I somehow managed to crash out while watching it

There was time afterwards to watch the first half of Llansawel v Airbus UK Broughton, and I’ll tell you more about this game later when I’ve finished it.

It’s nice being in a single room like this. It means in principle that there are far fewer interruptions. However, in my case, with the blood pressure alarm going off every thirty minutes, that’s not necessarily the case as the nurses come rushing to my rescue like the Seventh Cavalry.

One interruption that I didn’t have was that of a doctor. There was one on the premises today but he pointedly passed me by. It looks as if I’m in the doghouse with the Hound of the Baskervilles.

The nurse was already ready and waiting for me when my time was up so I was unplugged quite quickly. Even better, the taxi driver was waiting for me, and I was the only passenger, so we were home just after 18:00. It goes without saying that the Hound of the Baskervilles had yet another fuss made of him – by the driver and by his Auntie Cleaner who had come to escort me onto the premises.

My friend had cooked a lovely chilli sin carne and we followed that with one of the really nice soya desserts that Leclerc is pushing right now. That was a lovely tea, right enough.

After the washing up, it was 20:10 when I came in here to start my notes, but by 20:30, I was in bed, fully clothed and fast asleep. I can write my notes again.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about washing and making myself look pretty … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of years ago when I lived in Brussels.
One of my friends bumped into me in the street. "Eric – we thought that you were dead."
"Ohh no" I replied. "I just smell like it."

LIVE: Wednesday 3rd September 2026 – ISN’T IT LOVELY …

… to be sitting at your desk early in the morning working and, rather miraculously, a mug of hot black coffee mysteriously appears at your elbow?

Believe it or not, that was probably the nicest part of the day if you ask me, because the rest of it wasn’t quite so good.

Take last night as an example. I was working away so intently that I hadn’t noticed how late it was. I knew that it was knocking on but 01:43 was not what I expected to see when I glanced at the clock. It was round about 02:00 when I finally crawled into bed. The surprising thing, though, was that I wasn’t tired at all. I could have carried on for ever.

Once I was in bed, I was staying in bed. I didn’t wake up at all until the alarm went off at 06:29 this morning. And it goes without saying that I could have stayed in bed then. Instead, it took a herculean effort to raise myself from the Dead.

No sign of life at all coming from the living room. I think that the Hound of the Baskervilles and his master were both fast asleep. Instead, I went through the coding that my chatbot and I had written last night. When I found what I thought might be an error, I woke up the chatbot and we carried on making amendments.

It wasn’t until 09:17 that we were finally satisfied. Mind you, that included a stoppage for the nurse when he came, and also to drink a lovely mug of coffee.

And the Hound of the Baskervilles was wonderful too. He usually barks at strangers, but when the nurse came, he didn’t make a noise but wagged his tail. It’s been over three months since he was last here, but he still remembers at what time the nurses arrive and who they are.

But going back to our coding issues, we could—and should—have finished a long time earlier. However, during one of the exercises that we did to find the fault, the chatbot had told me to switch off a plugin while we tried something. And, of course, he never told me to switch it back on, so I hadn’t, and all the checks after that were therefore useless.

After I’d finished, I checked the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. However, there were no dreams recorded. But what do you expect when you go to bed at 02:00 and wake up at 06:29? There isn’t enough time to go anywhere interesting at all, let alone chat with anyone when you get there.

Instead, I went into the bathroom to sort myself out and then went for a very late breakfast. It was 10:27 when I started to make my porridge and toast, and all of 11:27 when I’d finished. Where did the morning go?

After a quick dash for a ride on the porcelain horse, I came back in here to finish off a few times, and it was then time to sort myself out for dialysis. My faithful cleaner was quite late today, and poor Pablo was already pining. It’s quite amazing that he knows what time she usually comes here, even after all that time away.

When she finished and had given Pablo a really good cuddle and stroke, my friend and I sat around, waiting for the taxi to come. And when it turned up, only five minutes early today now that there is no Mrs. Dinosaur to pick up, I found that we already had one passenger aboard and there was someone else to pick up at the aquagym at St. Pair.

We were all having such a good chat that our driver missed her turn, and I had to remind her that we had a third passenger to pick up. It wasn’t long though until everyone was in the car and we could set off.

At Avranches, I was first out of the taxi at about 13:50, but my luck wasn’t as good as usual, and it was 14:20 when I was finally plugged in. We had quite an argument about my dry weight, and in the end, they connected up the machine to measure it. And rather than going up a little, as I expected, it was continuing on its downward spiral. This is going to be interesting.

Apart from the alarm on the blood pressure machine going off every half-hour and bringing the nurses running for no good reason, everyone left me alone so that I can watch the football from the weekend.

The first match was the rest of Hwlffordd v Cambrian United. It eventually finished 2-1 to Hwlffordd, giving them their first goals and first points of the season. It’s not that Cambrian United weren’t every bit as good, it’s just that, as a newly promoted team, they weren’t as experienced and streetwise as their opponents.

The next match was between two newly promoted teams, Airbus UK Broughton and Trefynnon. Trefynnon are having a wretched time of it – at the bottom of the table and with a goal difference through which you could drive a bus. And things weren’t any better for them on Friday as they crashed 6-2.

Again, it’s not as if they were that much worse than their opponents. It’s the first time that they have been in the Premier League for nearly 30 years, whereas Airbus were up here a couple of years ago and finished with the unenviable record of the lowest points total in the league’s history. They have learnt an awful lot since.

The match wasn’t quite finished when they came to unplug me at the end of the session. And under the guiding arms of one of the nursing auxiliaries, I was ushered outside to wait for my taxi.

On the way out, I bumped into Emilie the Cute Consultant. Apparently, she was on her way to see me. She doesn’t have the results of the blood test, so the next steps are as yet unclear. I told her that I would consider anything as long as it wasn’t stuffing a camera up my nose and down my throat. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I had one of those a couple of months ago, and never again!

It was only a five-minute wait, and there was someone else in the car when it turned up, so we had to come home via Longueville to drop her off. Nevertheless, I was still back home by some reasonable time.

My faithful cleaner helped me into the apartment and stuck a disgusting drink into my sweaty mitt, and then she went off to make a fuss of the Hound of the Baskervilles. I’ll tell you – he has more luck with the ladies than I do.

After she left, my friend stuck a bowl of food in my sweaty little mitt – baked sliced potato, onion, and leftovers from last night. It would have made a really good base for a “bubble and squeak”, but nevertheless, it really was nice as it was.

When I’d finished, I washed up and then came back in here to write up my notes. However, all of the energy that I had last night has well and truly gone. “I’m not staying up until 02:00 tonight!” I told my friend, so I posted what I’d done so far and then crawled into bed. I can finish everything off tomorrow.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the Hound of the Baskervilles … "well, one of us has" – ed … he’s actually a fully trained rescue and sniffer dog – honestly.
One day, he’s out on patrol with a police officer, and the dog suddenly becomes excited and rushes towards a pedestrian.
The police officer grabs the pedestrian and says "I’m going to have to search you. This dog tells me that you’re carrying drugs."
"Carrying drugs?" queries the pedestrian. "And you’re the one going around talking to dogs"

EPIC HALL

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