Tag Archives: lie in

Sunday 5th July 2026 – WHEN I AWOKE …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Friday 3rd July 2026 – WHEN I AWOKE …

… it was 21:15 and I have never felt so ill in all my life. I just sat here in the chair and couldn’t even move a single muscle. It took me an age before I even began to think … "so what’s new?" – ed …

Eventually, I pushed my chair … "it’s a good job that it’s on wheels" – ed … over to the bed, slid across and went back to sleep almost straight away. No notes, no back-up, no stats, no medication, still fully dressed and with the shutters wide open. It’s not that I didn’t care but I just didn’t have the energy to do any more than roll over into bed.

That was how it remained until about 03:00 when I awoke. I thought that this was going to be another one of those nights where I lie awake for hours, but in fact, I was soon back to sleep. However, when the alarm went off at 06:29, I simply switched it off, switched off the second alarm, reset the alarm for 08:00 and went back to sleep.

The next thing that I remember was the nurse turning up at 08:05. And I was still in bed too. I must have somehow slept through the 08:00 alarm, although that’s really surprising, given the racket that BILLY COTTON makes.

It took me about forty-five minutes to come round to my senses … "what senses?" – ed … and then I headed off to the kitchen to make breakfast.

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

He’s describing the standard design of a portico to many an Egyptian building, and finishes by saying "The outline is, of course, most barbarous and uncouth, as nothing can well be more unpleasing than the sloping walls in such a position,".

However, he then goes on, in the same sentence, no less, to add "the general effect of such a prodigious bulk of masonry living with images must be awfully magnificent."

And here, although he doesn’t realise it, he’s hit the nail fairly and squarely on the head. The design isn’t at all meant to be pretty. It’s meant to be “awfully magnificent” – to overwhelm the visitor, to impress and to menace visiting royalty from other places and to frighten the unwary. It’s what I’ve been saying all along – that architecture comes before, and a long way before, art.

A little further on, still talking about the portico, he says "One of the magnificent engravings in the great French work on Egypt gives a vivid idea of what an Egyptian temple must have been in the days of its glory ; representing the whole architecture and enrichments accurately restored."

So come on, Mr Freeman, you can’t have it both ways.

Back in here, I sent off my shopping order to Leclerc, wrote up the notes for yesterday, which are now on line, and then turned my attention to the dictaphone to find out what had been going on during the night.

I was in London last night, and one of my father’s friends was there. He was driving around on the North Circular Road and ended up somehow on the pedestrian footway and became jammed in an arch underneath the railway bridge and couldn’t move his car. We couldn’t move it either. I was staying with some friends from the university and it wasn’t a very happy evening for some reason and I wasn’t enjoying myself so I decided to go to bed early. Next morning, I had a good lie-in and went into the kitchen. They were all sitting around there and it looked as if they had had a breakfast. They asked me what I’d been doing, and I told them that I’d been writing my university thesis, which was true. It was what I had been doing. No-one offered me a coffee, no-one offered me anything. I asked if I could make myself a coffee, but I couldn’t find the coffee. I had to hunt through the kitchen and eventually found a jar of coffee that was open. No-one offered me any food so in the end, I left. I was walking through the area around King’s Cross and the crowded shopping streets when I thought that someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned round, and in the distance was someone holding up a big, blue envelope with the word “Darren” written on it. I walked on down the street, looking in the butchers, the fishmongers and all this kind of thing until I came towards the end of the road, where I met some people whom I knew. They were watching two people on one of these motor-trike things, the type with two wheels at the back. One of the wheels was smoking and I thought immediately that a wheel bearing had seized on it but they were still continuing to ride it, and we were saying that it’s going to catch fire before they’ve gone too long. However, they carried on and carried on and, in the end, the half-shaft parted from inside the axle. I thought that they had some really big problems now, but they still carried on. I walked on down to the end of the road, turned left and walked on down there a bit. I saw my father’s friend’s car still wedged under the bridge, then I turned left again to head towards the city centre and the railway station home. For some reason, it wasn’t Euston to where I was going but one of the stations that went out to the south of London. I walked down the road a small way and there was a baker’s there. He was busy arguing with a little boy but in the end gave him a stale bun, with which the boy ran off. I looked in the window and they had some of these raisin bread-and-butter puddings so I went in and bought a slice. A little further on down the road was a little British fish and chip shop. I’d seen someone with some chips earlier on, which had made me hungry so I went into this fish and chip shop and ordered a bag of chips. That was where I was waiting when the dream ended.

Regular readers of this rubbish in a previous version will recall that I did stay with some people from the university a couple of times, and the treatment that I had there was pretty much the same as the treatment that I had during the dream.

The walk through the crowded shopping street reminded me much more of the East End of London rather than King’s Cross, although not that I’d likely to be looking in any butcher’s or fishmonger’s window.

The silver Mk III Ford Cortina (because it was a silver Mk III) is interesting and I’ve no idea what was happening there with that, and neither with the trike losing a half-shaft. Mind you, with the Reliant van that I had, I was regularly stripping the splines off halfshafts because of the extra power in the all-alloy OHV engine that I fitted in place of the cast-iron side-valve engine.

And bread puddings? It’s been ages since I made a good old bread pudding, but with home-made bread, I don’t have the stale bread like I used to.

Two of my friends turned up last night. I was living in some strange house but I don’t know exactly where. First of all, one of my friends from the Wirral turned up and we were having a really long chat about the past. He was wearing some kind of strange black suit with white pinstripes but they weren’t lines, they were dots. We were chatting about all kinds of different things when another friend from the Midlands turned up too. The three of us were chatting for a while but for some reason, they didn’t want a drink when I offered them one. The third person, he said that he was on his way to IKEA so the second guy said that it would be a good idea. As it happened, I was planning to go there with my father that afternoon – it was a Sunday. So I rang my father and he sounded as if he had a cold. I asked him what time we were planning to go to IKEA but for some reason, he switched me over to a recorded message, so I hung up and called him back. He started a very long explanation about all kinds of different things, and in the end, I lost patience and asked “is that ‘yes’ or is that ‘no’?”. In the end, he replied “no” so I hung up and said that the three of us would all go together and I’d go to fetch my van. I walked down the street to where I’d parked it, but it wasn’t the van, it was a Mk IV or a Mk V Cortina, I don’t know. It was old and shabby and leaked a bit and misfired on one of the cylinders. However, I started it up and it seemed to run OK so I drove up the street to where the other two were waiting, put my foot on the brakes but the brakes took a while to work. I thought “I’d better sort out these brakes sometime when I can find five minutes to do it”.

Those two guys and their respective wives and offspring are welcome to turn up here any time they like, of course, just as are any of my other friends, but with what remains of my family judiciously avoiding contact with me (except for that lot in Canada), they can please themselves.

The Cortina sounds just like many that have passed through my hands at one time or another, Mk III, Mk IV and Mk V. Shabby, rotten floor, questionable brakes, and misfiring. But nevertheless, in some of the shabbiest of them all, I travelled thousands of miles with nothing going wrong that I couldn’t ever fix by the roadside.

Although I didn’t record this, it was ringing around my head when I finally awoke, so I suppose that I’d better write it down before I forget. I was in Main Road in Shavington last night – twice, in fact. Once with a girl whom I knew and I wish that I could remember who she was, and the second time with a friend of mine from school who now lives out in the wilds on an island off the coast of Scotland. We were walking down there “today” and I was pointing out the sites that I remembered from when I lived in Shavington. There was a site with three modern bungalows built thereupon and I said that I remembered that in the past, it was an old yard where something had been demolished a long time previously. Someone kept a couple of lorries on it but what interested me the most in those days was that there was always the odd derelict car on there being slowly dismantled. Every few weeks there would be a different one and I used to go down there regularly to see what there was. But then, I pointed across the road to a little lane that degenerated into a farm track, with a couple of cottages on the right-hand side. I explained that it was called “Pusey Dale” and I pointed out a green light right at the end. I explained that they were making a natural cemetery there and if all else failed, that was where I wanted to end up. But whoever put me in there must plant a yew tree on top of me so that I’d live on through the roots and branches of the tree.

Strangely enough, there is plenty of truth in that dream. There was a site just like that exactly as I described with a lorry or two and a couple of old cars on it. There really is a place called “Pusey Dale”, just as I described, and someone has indeed applied for planning permission to have a natural cemetery down there. And for me to be buried there under a yew tree would be quite an acceptable way to end, if the dustbin men won’t take me.

While I’d been writing notes and transcribing dreams, I’d had the washing machine going, and now it was finished, so I emptied the machine, ready to hang up the wet clothes, and went for a disgusting drink and the midday medication.

My faithful cleaner turned up next to do her stuff and to hang up the washing. While she was here, we chatted about nothing much, but I need to be more sociable here and there every now and again.

Leclerc eventually turned up, later than anticipated. While I’d been waiting, I’d been tidying out the fridge, making sure that there was a place for everything, so when I had all of the stuff, I spent a happy hour or so putting everything away where it ought to go. The place looks quite tidy now, and that’s not like me at all.

Later on, I went for tea. Vegan sausage, beans and chips. I made the chips as my friend advised – boil in water for five or so minutes and then fry in the air fryer to cook, with olive oil and a bit of thyme. And he’s right – they really do taste much better – much more like proper fish shop chips like in one of the dreams just now.

So now, having finished my notes, I’ll do what else needs to be done and then go to bed ready for dialysis … "I don’t think" – ed … tomorrow afternoon.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about cemeteries … "well, one of us has" – ed … there was the old hoary story about the American who visited a cemetery in the UK and was totally astonished by the size of it.
He buttonholed a passing yokel – a very vocal local yokel, in fact – and asked him "do people die here often then?"
"Oh no" replied the yokel. "Just the once, I think."

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Tuesday 30th June 2026 – IT’S BEEN A …

… strange day today, and it’s felt like another Sunday, although I don’t know why.

Mind you, I got off to a dreadful start. Late yet again going to bed and although I went to sleep quite quickly, it wasn’t for long. Round about 02:00, I awoke and, despite everything that I tried to do, I couldn’t go back to sleep. It was another night where I watched, through the gaps around the shutters, dawn slowly breaking.

When the alarm went off at 06:29, I was flat out asleep. And although I’ve talked in the past about having difficult starts to the day, I promise you that there has been no start more difficult than this morning’s.

It was after about fifteen minutes sitting on the edge of the bed that I realised that I was never going to be able to stand up. I’d fallen asleep, I don’t know how many times, while I was trying. In the end, I decided that this was pointless, set the alarm for 08:00, climbed back into bed and went back to sleep. I can count on the fingers of one hand how many times I’ve done that in the past.

When the alarm went off, I was actually awake but still in bed. Getting up was a little easier and then I went to sort myself out in the bathroom. Of course, the nurse had to come early today, and he caught me in flagrante delicto in the bathroom. He had to wait a few minutes before I was ready.

After he left, I festered and vegetated for a while, and then I plucked up the energy to make breakfast. While I was eating, I was reading some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

And off we go again. Having moaned at length about simple “post and beam” architecture, he carries on with "Such an one, as we shall hereafter see, is the architecture of Greece ; the earliest form of its column was a post driven into the ground or floor ; consequently a base for it to rest on could have no place until the original type was somewhat obliterated. We consequently find that the simplest and purest of the ancient orders is worked without that feature. Similarly in the Chinese architecture, which reproduces a tent just as the Grecian does a hut, (though an apology is due to the shades of Pericles and Pheidias for mentioning the two in one sentence,) the capital is wanting"

So “post and beam” architecture is no good, but a post without a beam is good if it’s Greek and bad if it’s Chinese.

Meanwhile, in respect of the ruins at Yucatán and other places in Central and South America, "The ruins however do not say much for the state of art among the people, whoever they may have been, to whom they owe their origin. They are essentially barbarous, and like all barbarous structures, seek to supply by cumbrous magnificence and superfluous ornament, the want of the higher beauties of grace and proportion. And we cannot fail to remark, even at the onset, that the same system of ornament which everywhere marks this stage of art is found here in great abundance. The ubiquitous chevron, which we have already seen at Mycense, meets us again at Uxmal and Chichen,"

Again, saying that the Aztec and Inca were barbarous is surely going way over the top.

It doesn’t seem to occur to him at all that the essence of “post and beam” architecture isn’t the art but the engineering. How did they move the big stones? How did they manage to raise the beams up to go on top of the posts? How did they do it so accurately? It’s all very well talking about art and decoration, but a huge part of the architecture is the effort that they put in, with the tools and equipment that they had (it’s easy to be artistic when you have the tools to do the work and the time in which to do it) to build it in the first place.

After another long relax, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone.

There was some kind of investigation going on, and Seren was being interviewed. The name “Daniel” cropped up in the interview so the policeman asked her whether it was Daniel Hobbs or Daniel something else. She said that it was Daniel Hobbs so the policeman or whoever it was said that he was probably the better one of the two because the other one was under investigation for wanting to be with one of the teachers. I thought to myself that if it’s now a crime to want to be with one of the teachers, half of the boys who went to the same school as me would have been in prison a long time ago alongside some blow-up effigies of Miss Beddowes and Miss Leitch.

I’ve long since come to the conclusion that I’m not cut out to live in the modern world. I grew up in the days when boys could chat up girls and girls would either laugh, tell you to clear off or give you a fourpenny one around the lughole. The way things are now, I’d have been locked up a long time ago.

However, as for Miss Leitch and Miss Beddowes at school …

I was in Coventry last night, walking around doing some late-night shopping before Christmas. I’d picked up a few things here and there, but one thing that I’d forgotten to do was to empty my shoulder bag from the last time that I went shopping, so there was already some heavy stuff in it. I fought my way through a few shops and then I thought that I’d go to the pub where we usually go as a crowd. In there were loads of people whom I knew. There was one particular girl who seemed as if she were in charge of it but she and I had a really good rapport there so we’d fool around for a bit. I was standing in the doorway talking to someone and she pushed past me so I went and pushed her. She leaned back against my head as she was pushing and I ended up on the floor, so she complained about it, about my nose sticking in her back. Someone pointed out “well, he’s lying on the floor now. He can’t be doing that. Eventually, I stood up and she fainted. Of course, she had everyone around her trying to revive her. It ended up that she had, in fact, had some problems. Of course, having a crowd around her was something that she always liked so I left them to it and went to see my friend, and we had a chat. Then I went back out to do some more shopping. It was all the way down Earle Street in Crewe. I bought some sweets of the kind that I usually like but for some reason, they tasted horrible today. I went back to the pub where we met but I couldn’t remember which was the door. Eventually, I found it and climbed upstairs to the pub. I showed my friend one or two things that I’d bought but she didn’t seem to be all that interested, so I hung around for a while and then headed off home. I was walking back through Coventry and came past the cathedral in the mist. It was a cold, dark night and it was misty, and I was carrying my shoulder bag with everything in it that I had bought. It was just so heavy that I didn’t think that I was even going to make it home. All of a sudden, I was violently sick with all of these sweets that I’d eaten that had tasted horrible.

As I was transcribing this dream, a lot came back to me that I hadn’t written. For example, at 21:00 on a winter evening in December, there were still several refugee children, aged three or four or even younger, begging in the streets. What I showed my friend was a kit or accessory of some kind that plugs into a mobile ‘phone. It needed soldering and had a price tag of £12:99 but I told her that I’d paid a “couple of quid” for it. And the ruined, bombed-out cathedral was at the end of a park, with a small park on the right and a lake on the left. It’s nothing like that at all in real life. And even though it’s a midwinter night, there are hordes of people sitting all over it.

But it was definitely Earle Street in Crewe. I can still see the “Cheese Hall” pub on the corner by the market hall. Heading back up to Market Street, there used to be Tiko’s bakery and café, then the Britannia Building Society and then the Army and Navy Stores. The door upstairs to the pub (that doesn’t exist in real life) was somewhere in between those three and whatever else might have been there.

There were a few things to do, and they took an Age as well, but I was eventually able to start work on the next radio programme.

The arrival of my cleaner interrupted me, though. She organised the bathroom and then chased me under the shower. And one thing that she noticed was that it seemed to be much easier for me to go into the shower and an awful lot easier for me to come out of it. She thinks that I’m improving, although I’m not sure why.

There was a break then for a disgusting drink and the midday medication (hours late) during which we had a chat, and then after she left, I came back in here to find a nice, clean bed waiting for me, complete with my galaxy and asteroid quilt cover and pillow cases that I bought for myself at Christmas.

So now all of the music for the radio programme has been chosen, remixed and re-edited and in some cases reformatted, paired and segued. I’ll write the notes tomorrow if I’m feeling better.

But right now, I’m off to bed. A nice, clean me … "well, clean anyway" – ed … in nice, clean bedclothes in a nice, clean bed. What more could I want, except maybe Jenny Agutter and Kate Bush to share it with me?

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about dreams again … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of my friends asked me "weren’t you worried when that long dream started, in case it turned out to be another one of those nightmares like the other night?"
"To be honest" I replied "I hadn’t been so worried since I was in the Gentleman’s rest-room on Crewe bus station, standing next to Shakin’ Stevens."

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Sunday 28th June 2026 – HOW LONG IS IT …

… since I’ve had a real, old, good and proper nightmare?

I’ve no idea when the previous one was, but I can safely say that the most recent one was last night. And it was too. I awoke, covered in sweat and with a racing heart before I’d even finished dictating it.

Usually, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I don’t publish my nightmares because some might find them distressing, especially if they are eating a meal while reading them, but this one is so bizarre that I can’t not do it. There has never been a dream quite like this before in all the twenty-eight years that I’ve been recording them.

Actually, last night was quite an unusual night. I mentioned the other day that these days, it seems to be more and more difficult for me to make the distinction between when I’m asleep and dreaming and when I’m semi-awake and having these strange hallucinations.

Last night, though, was a classic example of this. I can usually say that “I went to sleep at such-and-such, awoke at such-and-such,” and so on, but not last night, I couldn’t. It was all a kind of weaving mix of this and that and at times, I really didn’t know where I was … "so what’s new?" – ed …

There were definitely times when I could distinguish by the light coming around the edges of the shutters that day was slowly dawning, but that could easily have been a dream, too.

When Isabelle the Nurse turned up, she awoke me when she gave her warning signal on the door and then she came in, in full-chat mode, which was all very nice, but all I wanted to do was sleep.

She took my medical card so that she could do her monthly accounts and then she left.

After that, I couldn’t go back to sleep so I gradually integrated myself back into the light of day and the real world. I was estimating that, when I finally left the bedroom, it might be as late as 09:30. No-one was more surprised than me, however, to see that it was in fact 10:45.

That was the cue to make breakfast – medication with juice, coffee, porridge and home-made croissants. And, of course, to read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

So far, I’ve reached page twenty-five of the real text after wading through all of the preface and introduction. And today’s highlights lnclude "the wonderful Druidical temples of Stonehenge, Avebury, and Carnac". However, he goes on to say "These, however, interesting as they are in an antiquarian point of view, as connected with the history and religion of the earliest inhabitants of Gaul and Britain, are altogether valueless in the regard of an architectural historian. Mere stones piled together without any attention to proportion or to any of the laws of design, and merely adhering by their own weight, can barely challenge the name of a building, and though exhibiting the mechanical construction of the entablature in perfection, have no title to be considered as works of architecture, and therefore cannot claim a distinct consideration in the present volume.".

Leaving aside the fact that architecture has to start somewhere at some time, if he considers that “posts and beams” aren’t “it”, then you would imagine that most of Greek architecture would be ruled out too.

Consequently, he goes on later to say "The three orders of Grecian architecture afford forms of perfection unsurpassed by mere human skill; it was only the yearnings of the heavenward spirit, the inspiration of the Church’s ritual, that could conceive aught more noble ; not purer, not lovelier, but vaster in conception, more majestic in execution, and holier in its end."

I can see me abandoning this book before I go much further. I don’t think that I can stomach five hundred and twenty-six pages of that.

Back in here, there had been some breaking news overnight. Christian Fuchs has resigned as Newport County manager, just a few weeks after saving the club from relegation. Only seven months in charge too. No wonder they are talking about “turmoil” down at Rodney Parade.

Then I turned my attention to the dictaphone to see what had happened during the night.

We were back in the Victorian period here and there was some kind of big stately home with a wealthy family living in it. They were quite violent and outrageous in their behaviour with the locals, provoking people into having fights. I was down there, and I began to have one of those provoking things with me so in the end, I picked up this enormous cleaver, attacked one of them and hacked him to pieces. The other one fled into his room so I went to try to find him. Eventually, I did, and he tried to defend himself with a sword, but it was no use at all. I just hacked him to pieces too. I then just went to sit down in the kitchen to relax before the next morning. There were visitors to the house, and they went into the living room and found the carnage. Everyone screamed and fainted. I gradually managed to leave. I had somewhere to go in the Auvergne and there was someone else with me. We had to go to find out exactly where so we ended up at this bungalow on the moors. A tall, thin girl called “Big Molly” pointed out on the map where we had to go. My friend thought that it might take us about six weeks to get there, so we set out. We noticed her cycling off into the distance and I thought to myself “there’s something not right about this”. I shan’t be surprised if she’s there when we arrive. On the way back up the road, we went past a starving dog and a dead body, which was really skin and bone and clothes that looked as if it had been there for years. So we set out and went to London. We had to travel all the way across London. At one point in the city centre, I was convinced that I saw this Big Molly with a group of other girls, and so did my friend. He began to panic, but I thought that panic was not going to get us anywhere. We just need to keep on going and keep our eyes open. I found him cowering underneath a car in the city centre so I helped him out. We decided that we didn’t have any real choice but to push on, so “push on” it was going to have to be.

As I said just now, I’ve never had a dream quite like this ever before. I tried to analyse how I was feeling when I awoke and I came to the conclusion that it was about twenty-five per cent horror, fifty per cent unease and the rest being a mixture of curiosity and the profoundly different. But I was convinced that this “Big Molly”, even though she was only a teenager, was up to no good and I reckoned that her “no good” was absolutely no good at all. I could understand my friend panicking when we saw her again

But I’m sorry if this dream has upset you, however it really was so extraordinary that I couldn’t let it slip by unnoticed.

I was in Crewe last night, wandering around the streets looking for fittings for a job that I had to do at home. I bumped into a friend of mine from school and he was having a lot of trouble dealing with his telephone and his ordinary ‘phone and how to make them connect to each other. I was trying to give him some advice but he wasn’t really interested in listening. In the end, I mentioned that I had to go to the big DIY place on the north edge of town and we’ll be sure to find what we need there. I set off back down Earle Street into the town centre and was going so fast that I missed my turning and ended up right in the town centre so I had to go out, down Broad Street, back along Badger Avenue, and then up Middlewich Street again. It seemed to take an age. Then I met someone else from school and we were having a look round. He was pointing out certain things in the sale and so was I. I realised then that my shoulder bag that I’d bought with me to carry a load of stuff was completelly full and I couldn’t lift it onto my shoulder, it was so heavy. In the meantime, he was pointing out these enormous hand brushes and asked what they were. I explained that they were for Canada. At the same time, they had these enormous rubber boots, which I said were also for Canada, but they were size “small” for Canada. There was a French family standing nearby bursting out in laughter, and we had a quite long chat before I had to go.

This dream was set on a cold, dark night while the shops were still open so it must have been mid-winter. First of all, though, there isn’t a big DIY place to the north of Crewe (at least, not while I was living there, there wasn’t) and if there were, they wouldn’t be selling Canadian snow-clearing products. And there definitely wouldn’t be a French family in the shop admiring them either.

The drive at whirlwind speed along Earle Street was interesting too. I wonder what was going on there.

After the dreams, there was football, Stranraer v Dundela of the Northern Irish Second Division. Stranraer finished mid-table in the fourth level of the Scottish pyramid last season and so Dundela should be embarrassed by the ease with which they were rolled over. The score finished 4-0 to Stranraer and Dundela were lucky to get nil. Stranraer hardly broke out into a sweat.

For much of the afternoon I was working on another project that has recently started up while I made myself ready to watch Wales’s match v Spain in the UEFA under-nineteen championship this afternoon. That was a waste of time, though, because broadcasting is restricted to the UK unless I pay for an exorbitant match pass from UEFA. Had I known before kick-off, I’d have configured a VPN to cloak my identity, but it’s too late now.

So with no food yet again (and I’m not bothered, in case anyone is wondering), I have a few things to do and then I’m off to bed, ready for dialysis tomorrow (I don’t think). It’s been a quiet day where I’ve not moved around much, but I’ve done a lot of work. And the work is still piling up. I’m never going to be finished at this rate.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the departing manager at Newport County … "well, one of us has" – ed … I was really considering entitling today’s entry "Christian Fuchs off elsewhere", but I decided against it in the end. Journalism ain’t what it used to be.

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Sunday 21st June 2026 – FOR THE FIRST …

… time for a long, long time, I’ve had a day where I can truly say that I have had a real Day of Rest and done no work of any type today.

Round about 23:00 was when everything was completed and I could slide in underneath the covers. And wasn’t I grateful for that? I didn’t take long in going off to sleep and that was that, at least for a couple of hours.

Round about 02:20, I awoke with one of the biggest coughing fits that I have ever had. It was still going on at 02:55 and I forget how many times I had vomited, the fit was so intense. It was certainly many more than four.

Eventually, it must have calmed down because I somehow managed to go off to sleep again. And there I lay until I awoke, “some time later”.

The reason for the awakening was the same that has provoked a wake-up on several occasions just recently, so after a while, I began to raise myself from the Dead. 07:50 it was, so I thought that I’d better hurry before the nurse comes around.

It was 07:59 when I came back to bed. “Plenty of time”, I thought to myself. And there was, too, because I’d actually gone back to sleep by the time he came in, and he awoke me.

After he left, having seen to my legs and feet while I was in bed, I went back to sleep again, and there I stayed until I next awoke – round about 10:35. By 11:00 I was in the kitchen beginning to make my breakfast – porridge and coffee, of course, all followed by homemade croissants.

While I was eating, I was reading some more of EBURACUM OR YORK UNDER THE ROMANS by C Wellbeloved.

We’re still on Roman roads, and I have a feeling that we will be here for a while. He’s struggling over the modern names of various Roman forts, as many people still do today, but we can at least thank our lucky stars that, so far, he’s managed to keep “Richard of Cirencester” well out of the way.

Back in here, I went to have a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. But to my dismay, there was nothing on there at all. I’m always disappointed when I have a night like that, with absolutely nothing going on in the way of excitement.

Instead, I had a prowl through the internet and discovered that we’re back in football again. Many clubs playing in European competition are having a few warm-up games prior to their opening matches in two weeks’ time, and Northern Irish team Larne were playing away at our old favourites, Stranraer FC.

Stranraer usually record their games, and sure enough, THIS GAME WAS TOO with commentary by the legendary pair of Laurence Nelson and Brian Martim, two of the best TV commentators currently broadcasting.

After the match had finished, I really didn’t do anything at all. No bread-making, no pizza-making, no nothing. Instead, I had a little explore of cyberspace, mainly Hannibal’s campaign in Italy in the early days of Rome, and once again, I’m learning a lot. There are, of course, the stories of the Battle of Lake Trasimene and the Battle of Cannae, but there were several other battles that were equally disastrous for the Romans, such as the Battle of Ticinus and the Battle of Trebia, and more besides.

As well as that, I was engaged in a lengthy online discussion … "or heated argument" – ed … about a child of two separated parents. If the mother of the child is her legal guardian and she lives with her, but the mother has to go into a hospital urgently for a stay that might be for a long time, so that the child goes to live with her father, who is responsible for completing all of the paperwork regarding the new situation? The mother or the father?

There was also the question of whether the social services come into the picture at some point.

And it was all becoming somewhat overheated at some point, although I had no idea why.

At teatime, I went for my food, the other half of this vegan ham, vegan cheese and vegan salad that I made yesterday. And everything that I eat really is tasting of nothing but salt these days.

The sandwich took well over an hour to eat this evening, mainly due to me falling into several of these different cataleptic fits of the type that I used to have just before starting dialysis. I was hoping that they had long gone.

And now, I’m wishing that I had long gone because I want to go to bed, go to sleep and stay there. It’s past my bedtime, way past it already.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about Hannibal’s campaign in Italy … "well, one of us has" – ed …, Someone once asked me "what do you get if you cross the Alps with several elephants?"
"Ahh yes" I said. "Victory at Cannae!"

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Sunday 14th June 2026 – WHAT A DAY …

… that was today. It was easily the worst day of my life so far.

The time was getting on for midnight last night when I finally crawled into bed and threw the quilt over my head. I was soon asleep as well, which was good news. Not so good was the news that at some point, I had to go for a ride on the porcelain horse, but back in bed later, I was soon asleep.

It was at about 08:00 when I awoke, but that’s far too early for a Sunday. I checked the time and then threw the covers back over me.

The next thing that I remember was Isabelle the Nurse pulling the quilt off my feet and legs and then going to work. She was in full chat mode this morning, but I was in no mood for any of that. I just wanted to sleep. 08:30 had no interest for me this morning.

When I finally awoke, it was 10:33, and I decided that this would be the best time for me to leave the bed. Mind you, it was 11:00 when I finally made it into the kitchen. There were the croissants yesterday that needed brushing with milk and then baking.

While they were baking, I was busy making my breakfast – porridge and coffee – and when the croissants were finally baked, I stuck two on my plate and then went to sit down and eat it. While I was eating my breakfast, I was reading some more of EBURACUM OR YORK UNDER THE ROMANS by C Wellbeloved.

He’s moving on now and is beginning to discuss religion in Roman York. Someone has discovered a shrine of Mithreas and so we are having an interesting discussion on Mithraeism at the moment.

That leads to a brief flurry of writing to help clarify a couple of issues.

Now back on my feet, I head for the bedroom and office. It’s only 12:13 and that’s a reasonable time to start work. First task is to transcribe the dictaphone notes to find out where I’d been during the night.

Some young boy had a mini – an old-type mini – and there was something happening with the brakes to it so he hadn’t used it very much. But when I went to live on that estate where he lived, he was chatting to me about this, so I said that I’d help him achieve what he was trying to do. First thing was to strip down the mini, seeing as it was on the outside on the roads … fell asleep here … so we went to have a look at it, and I could see that the brakes had seized on, so I jacked up the offside rear wheel, but first, before I did that, I had to undo the wheelnuts, and they were really tightly on. I had to use all of my force with a box spanner and screwdriver through the hole at the end to undo the wheel nuts and take off the wheel and then take off the hub. The hub was held on by two little grub screws. I found my screwdriver with the metal end, put it in the slot on one of the grub screws and hit it several times with the hammer. That freed it off so then I did exactly the same to the other screw, and that freed off too and came out.

The number of times I’ve done that. When I lived in Gainsborough Road, a young lad asked me to look over his car, a Ford Cortina. I gave it a good looking over and fixed a few things on it, and he drove off.

He came back later, absolutely delighted, saying "it passed, it passed, first attempt too. How much do I owe you?"

"Actually, I don’t like taking money. prefer an exchange of services. What do you do for a living?"

"I’m a landscape gardener" he replied.

After that, I never had a better-looking garden. His car needed a lot of work and maintenance.

After that, I had a lot of work to do, including dozing off regularly and being confused about where I was and what I was doing. And it was becoming worse and worse, but at 16:00, I remembered that I had to go outside for my hundred paces

n°6, residence vauban, 2 place d'armes, granville, haute ville, france
Here is a shot taken from my 100 paces turn-round, depicting the building across the road from where we live. I’ve no idea what it used to be, but today, it’s apartments just like this building is.

When I arrived, there were still two apartments for sale. I contacted the agents, but they never replied, so I came here as a tenant and had to wait almost seven years until my ideal apartment was put up for sale.

When I finally settled in down here, I was really grateful that I’d bough here because access into and out of this apartment is quite easy

Back in here, I began to make the pizza base but I was feeling more and more tired and more and more ill. By the time the pizza base needed its second kneading and its rolling out, I was on a different planet somewhere else in the sky. I unrolled the pizza base and rolled it out and put it on its tray. But that was that, all I was going to do.

So I wrote a terse note on my blog and climbed into bed. It wasn’t even 19:00 but I didn’t care. I was going to bed, and that was all that counted.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about going to dleep … "well, one of us has" – ed … some girl I know said that she always goes to sleep with the lights on.
"What does your boyfriend think?" I asked her
"He says it’s pretty weird, but I don’t know why. It’s just my size, and it makes a great hat!"

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Sunday 31st May 2026 – I HAVE BEEN …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Sunday 26th April 2026 – I AM OBVIOUSLY …

… feeling a little better, because as I begin to write these notes, it’s 20:20 And I haven’t gone to bed yet.

Mind you, after all of the sleep that I had yesterday, it’s hardly a surprise. As I said yesterday, I was totally wasted by about 18:30, and it wasn’t many minutes after that that I was underneath the covers.

It took a few minutes for me to go to sleep, and there I stayed until I don’t know what time, when I awoke. It was still totally dark outside but the electric water heater was on, so it must have been some time between midnight and 05:00, and my money is on earlier rather than later.

So for a few hours, I lay there, coughing my head off, and then I must have gone back to sleep because the next thing that I knew, there was bright sunlight streaming in around the edges of the shutters.

When the nurse arrived, I pretended to be asleep, but once he’d gone, feeling wide awake, I sat on the edge of the bed waiting for the bedroom to come to a halt. And I’ll tell you something for nothing, and that is that it took me seventy-five minutes from first sitting on the edge of the bed to going into the kitchen. That’s what kind of state I was in this morning.

For my medication, I took a mouthful or two of orange juice again and then made breakfast – the last two of my home-made croissants. I shall have to make some more now – after all, they do taste nice with porridge and strong black coffee.

Back in here, I had a few things to do, but believe it or not, I forgot to check the dictaphone. However, I managed to check it he following day and the notes that I added in are below

There had been a release of political prisoners in the Soviet Union and they had been sent to the West. This had immediately caused controversy because one of them was a water polo professional, and she was immediately recruited into the English, whereas many other countries felt that she should have at least undergone a three-year residence qualification. It was part of my job to look into the cases of these people who were brought over to the UK and make a report on them. It meant visiting the places that they visited, doing the things that they were doing. On one occasion, this involved going to a cinema, a really posh cinema, and eventually, we managed to find our seats. But we were so cramped in at the front row by this couple who were quite big, that I had difficulty moving. I was losing a shoe, and it felt as if my arm was being trapped behind this large gentleman’s shoulder. Everything went on for probably an hour. In the end, a hostess came along and took this couple for a meal or something like that, leaving the two of us – it was not Nerina but someone like her. She stood up, so I asked her if she had enjoyed the film. She made a grimace so I stood up to go too. As the two of us came out, there was a look back, and there was an artificial rose on a stand by where my partner had been sitting and it was looking quite nice, so I congratulated her on it. We came back to Gainsborough Road, and it was probably March or something – it was a dark day and it was wet. I was struggling here to put on a sweater. IN fact, I couldn’t manage it so I thought that I would go inside. She was looking at the garden, planning things, so I said to her “isn’t it about time that we started off some lettuce in the conservatory place?” but she didn’t really answer to that.

This is another one of those dreams that doesn’t seem to fit into anywere. However, the only conservatory that I knew was the one down on the farm, and I did start off some of my plants, including the lettuce, in there.

I was working in the Diplomatic Service and we were staying at a hotel where the Russian Diplomatic Service was also staying. One night, on the way home as I was coming into the hotel, I found a set of keys on the floor, so I picked them up and went to hand them in at the reception desk, but I noticed that they were for the floor above mine, roughly where the Russian embassy was. I thought that in the small hours, I’d creep in to see what was happening. If the door is alarmed, a junior member being sent home in disgrace would be much better than a senior member. I went up and gently opened myself into the room. It was empty, and so was the bathroom suite, but there were plenty of leaflets and information there. I found where the ambassador was partying, which was further down West Street from where our hotel was, so I set out. Because I didn’t have my crutches, I had to go on my hands and knees all the way down West Street. Eventually I was let into the building, but he took a lot of persuading to come away from his party. Eventually, in a room on our own, which contained a shower, I told him of what I had found. He began to talk about it, but it was a very lengthy conversation about nothing in particular, and then he beckoned to me to come outside, and we went for a walk. By now, I was walking properly with no crutches, and he asked me about this parade that was taking place in Crewe about peace. I said that it was all about idealists who wanted to live the way they wanted to live, which, I said, was not a bad idea, but they didn’t think things through far enough. In a lock-up garage where we were looking around, some old lady came in and looked around with us. She apologised for not being dressed as a very good witch, so I told her that there would be plenty of good witches out there in the crowd today. We walked all the way down West Street, had a curry and then walked all the way back looking at these old cars on display and everything, and they were really old and ancient, the types that had hand-made bodies and so on. I felt that the minister was killing time so that there wouldn’t be enough time for anyone senior than me to go along and investigate this room, and this had me puzzled.

What a strange dream this was. There was never in my lifetime a hotel in West Street in Crewe, and even if there had been, the chances that anyone from the British embassy or the Russian Embassy would be staying there would be just about zero.

Going down West Street on my hands and knees would be dangerous too, with all the broken glass about, but apart from that, I really did feel that I was being shunted off into a corner, as if the Minister were intent on keeping me away from the subject.

My first job today, though, was to write out yesterday’s notes, which are now online, following which I attacked some more of my Welsh homework. There’s not much now left to finish tomorrow morning before I need to send it off.

We then had a little footfest.

Firstly, we had Ross County v Greenock Morton, and I do have to say that I have never seen such a shambles. Bottom-of-the-League Ross County made short work of thrashing Morton 4-0, and it was well-deserved too. Morton were totally dreadful.

Following that, we had Stranraer at home to Stirling Albion. This game finished 1-1 but Stranraer should have been down the road and out of sight a long time before the final whistle, given the number of clear-cut chances that they created.

And then, I had a little wobble for a while. Not exactly crashing out, but one of those situations that I have every now and again when I can’t seem to move a muscle. And that was how I stayed for over forty-five minutes before I was able to go into the kitchen for a disgusting drink.

The day was finished off with the second of the two European play-off semis. And in a change from yesterday’s poor game, we had two teams going at it hammer and tongs, playing as if they actually wanted to win it.

Y Barri took the lead early in the game from another one of these “let’s play it out from the back, boys” calamities that we see so often in modern football, and Hwlffordd equalised with about fifteen minutes to go.

So, once more, we had a penalty shoot-out, and as far as Y Barri goes, a well-known phrase involving a stringed musical instrument and the nether regions of a ruminant animal springs to mind. So next week, it’s Penybont at home to Hwlffordd.

But it should have been a totally different story had the referee awarded to Y Barri the two penalties that everyone else in the ground except him and a linesman would have awarded them.

So right now, I’m off to bed, ready to fight the good fight again next week and see where we end up. I need to pull myself round and crack on with something. I can’t continue like this.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about waking up … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of my friends once told me that he had one of those things that used to make a screeching noise when it was time to wake up, and made you a cup of tea.
"So what happened to it?" I asked
"Ohh, nothing much." he replied. "I got divorced so in the end, I just bought a Teasmaid."

0

Sunday 19th April 2026 – WHAT A NICE …

… way to start the day. When I opened the shutters in here and sat down at my desk to start work, it was already … errr … 12:20. Who could ask for a Sunday morning any better than that? As was said once a long time ago in a “Gunsmoke” episode, "Sunday is the one day of the week a man can get up at noon and sit around with his boots off without anybody hollering at him about it."

Mind you, for reasons that I still don’t understand, Saturday was a rather late night and I didn’t finish everything and slide under the bedclothes until 22:30. The football can’t have taken all that long, surely?

But Sunday is a lie-in so I was planning to sleep until Isabelle the Nurse came to sort out my legs at about 08:30 as usual.

At least, that was the plan, and, as we all know, "The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men gang aft agley an’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain for promis’d joy." At some point during the night, I awoke for what seemed to be the usual reason and went off to stroll the parapet. I’ve no idea what time it was, and neither did I care.

Back in bed, I went to sleep again fairly quickly and although I awoke at some point when it was light outside, I shoved my head back down under the quilt and went back to bed.

Isabelle the Nurse awoke me, ringing the doorbell to announce her presence. She sorted out my legs and feet, chatting away about the brocante in the town while I was cowering under the quilt. After she left, I went back to sleep almost straight away.

When I checked the time, sitting on the edge of the bed ready to stand up, it was 10:33, so all in all, it was a very good sleep and a very relaxing morning.

In the kitchen, I just had some of my medication and then made breakfast – porridge, coffee and two of my home-made croissants – and the croissants were, as usual, delicious after ninety seconds at 180°C in the microwave.

While I was eating, I was reading some more of THE CELT, THE ROMAN and THE SAXON by Thomas Wright.

We’re discussing agriculture today, and he tells us that "Mr. Bruce observed … traces of cultivation on the waste lands in Northumberland, and he is probably right in attributing them to the Romans. ‘A little to the south of Borcovicus,’ he says, ‘and stretching westward, the ground has been thrown up in long terraced lines, a mode of cultivation much practised in Italy and the East. Similar terraces, more feebly developed, appear at Bradley. I have seen them very distinctly marked on the banks of the Rede-water, at old Carlisle, and in other places."

These terraces are called “lynchets” and date all the way from the Iron Age and maybe before, to the early medieval period

By now, it was 12:15 after my lazy start to the day, so I headed back in here and switched on the computer after first, of course, opening the shutters.

The first thing that I did was to transcribe the dictaphone notes to find out where I’d been during the night.

I’d come across a brochure about coach tours so I was looking through it. There were lots of coach tours going all around the UK, but it was a shame that every one just picked up in London rather than anywhere else. There were adverts in there for British Rail which said “we aren’t only this and we aren’t only this and we aren’t only this” and someone suggested that they aren’t only anything, in fact. There was someone who had to return to the USA and someone was giving her some kind of instructions about where to go to catch the bus to take her back to her home town. There was a guy there with an elderly woman who was probably his mother, and they were in the queue for having a burger so he asked his mother if she wanted rye. The mother didn’t understand at all what he was walking about and tried to have him explain, but he wasn’t being very patient with her. Then it was my turn to order so I asked for a veggie burger. They asked me what else I wanted on it but the dream faded out there.

As if I’m ever likely to go on a coach trip anywhere as a passenger – except those few times to football matches. Mind you, I did go on a few with Nerina in the past.

The rye bread relates to some bread that Jackie left with me when she left. It’s been ages since I’ve had some good German bread, so I really enjoyed it, thanks, and I’ve been thinking of ordering some more at some point.

One thing though, and that is that I have no idea why British Rail would be allowed to advertise in a coach company’s brochure.

There was also something about being in Virlet. I was down there and I was looking at the barn. There were all kinds of things growing out of the slates on the barn but right at the peak of the roof where the wind turbine is, there was a tree growing out of it so I tried to find a ladder. I eventually found a ladder and I was trying to stand it up but it fell over. I picked it up but it was the wrong way round, upside-down. I needed to clean some electrical contacts so I was looking for something to clean the contacts but I couldn’t find anything. There was probably something in the barn, but I wanted to put this ladder up so that I could climb up onto the roof and pull this tree out. However, I was in my work clothes, so I was really tidy, with tidy shoes, and I was afraid of dirtying them, but I couldn’t think of how I could change into anything or whether I had anything with me.

It’s not like me to bother about making good clothes dirty – I’ve ruined enough of those in the past. And I never really was much good at manoeuvring ladders around, particularly the old, heavy wooden ones. But anyway, there won’t be plants growing in between the slates on the roof because there aren’t any. It’s a sheet roof pressed to resemble slates.

After that, we had a footfest. Firstly, we had the highlights of the rest of the matches in the JD Cymru League. There was nothing of any excitement there today, except a few heart-stopping moments as a couple of clubs tried the “let’s play it out from the back, guys” routine, but unfortunately, it came to nothing as the teams recovered and cleared their lines.

Secondly, we had Greenock Morton at home to Queens Park. And what a match that was. Morton could have had a dozen goals before half-time and another dozen in the second half, but a well-known phrase involving the hindquarters of a ruminant animal and a stringed musical instrument comes to mind. They were so dominant, especially after a Queens Park player had been sent off, that I was expecting an extremely tragic ending for Morton in the last couple of minutes, but both teams left the field with a 0-0 draw, accompanied by the boos and jeers of both sets of supporters.

Finally, we had Stranraer at home to their bogey team, Forfar Athletic, and as you might expect, the Loons went back to Angus with the three points and a 0-1 victory.

After all of that, I vegetated for a while and then did some more of the long project that I mentioned several weeks ago. And now, it’s slowly beginning to take shape, but there’s a long way to go.

There was a pause as well during the afternoon when I went to make a loaf of bread. That’s now cooked and cooling down in the kitchen, and I’m going to be off to bed in a minute or two, without any tea again.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about lying in bed … "well, one of us has" – ed … Nerina and I went camping once, and I awoke in the middle of the night. The view was so magnificent that I awoke and pointed upwards.
"Look at all of that!" I exclaimed. "I don’t think that I’ve ever seen so many stars before in my life! And there’s a shooting star over there if you look that way!"
"Do you know what that means?" she asked.
"Not at all" I replied.
"It means that some swine has stolen our tent, you berk!"

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Sunday 12th April 2026 – SO FAR, I HAVE …

… managed to avoid falling asleep today.

However, that’s not such a big deal today, because when you don’t wake up until about 09:00 and you don’t leave the bed until about 09:40, there isn’t much time to fall asleep afterwards.

In fact, you might say that I spent twelve hours in bed last night and, believe me, I enjoyed every minute of it. I didn’t actually, to my shame, rush through everything last night – it was something more like a leisurely stroll – and by the time that I’d finished the notes, the stats and the back-up, and then gone to sort myself out in the bathroom, it was just coming up to 21:30.

How long I spent in the bathroom, I didn’t record, but it wasn’t all that long and I was soon in bed, tucked up under the quilt.

And there I stayed until … errr … 03:55, when I had to go walking the parapet, and then back in bed, I slept until 07:05. However, I managed to go back to sleep quite quickly, and there I lay until the nurse awoke me. And that first sleep was not far short of six and a half hours, and it’s the best sleep that I’ve had for ages.

The nurse was having another good moan at me this morning. He was complaining that I hadn’t pulled the curtains. Well, much as I love the dark, seriously, I love the light too so I’m happy in the morning with the sunlight creeping around the edges of the shutters in here. He thinks that I ought to be in a perfect state of darkness in here while I’m asleep.

Once he left, I tried to go back to sleep but without success. And Alison made up my mind for me when she sent me a text message. Trying to reply when you have your head and your ‘phone down under the quilt is not easy, believe me, and when you drop the ‘phone on the floor and the message turns into a load of gibberish that sends itself, it’s even less easy than that.

With all of that going on, I decided to leave the bed, although it took me a good twenty minutes to find the enthusiasm and the energy to stand up. But once I was up, I headed off into the bathroom to sort myself out.

Back in the kitchen afterwards, where I forgot to take my medication, I baked my croissants, and they turned out really well. I was so impressed, especially as I was using some of the cheap pastry rolls.

So, with two of my croissants, some porridge and some hot black coffee, I sat down to read some more of THE CELT, THE ROMAN and THE SAXON by Thomas Wright.

And here we go again. In a footnote on page 115, he launches another attack on one of his predecessors, Thomas Stukeley, saying "The antiquary Stukeley published a “Medallic History of Carausius”, which, although it displays too much of that writer’s hasty speculations and conclusions, shows us with how much advantage the coins might be made to illustrate the history."

Whilst he’s not wrong about the coins illustrating the history, as we have seen before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the phrase “the writer’s hasty speculations and conclusions” reminds me of a well-known phrase involving a pot and a kettle.

After breakfast, I came back in here to transcribe the dictaphone notes.

There was some kind of civic centre opened in a local town. It had a huge ballroom-type of place, meeting room or whatever and there was a small annexe that had a licence for fifty people. Someone had applied to hire the smaller room for a birthday party and had sent in a list of fifty people who would be attending. However, the local council was dithering about this because they were thinking that whilst a couple of people on this list might not turn up, a couple of other people might turn up unannounced and take the attendance to over fifty, in which case there would be all kinds of legal issues, so they were still dithering about this for ages.

We were actually talking yesterday about people turning up uninvited to funerals and weddings. It’s strange how these things come round so quickly. And, of course, fire regulations, particularly in the UK, are such that there is a genuine fear of being found over the limit for the room. And when you see the size of the fines, no wonder people are rather nervous

I was staying with Bob Dylan last night. We were at his house, which was overlooking one of the lakes in either Vermont or New Hampshire. It was a very steep climb up to the front door and the garden was filled with flowers. We were sitting on a kind of terrace, and the way to go back to the front door was to go down, across and back up again, but he went inching his way along the edge of one of the flower beds, which looked extremely dangerous to me. He came back with a plate of cold baked beans. I asked him about why he preferred them cold instead of hot, but he didn’t really answer. Then, he said a little later that we had to go into town for something so I went into the house to put on my shoes. However, every couple of minutes, there was some kind of interruption, and there were lots of things that I had to do. Each time that I tried to put on my shoes, there was something else, but in the end, I managed to put on my shoes. Then, the story skipped and it was about a musician in a group who also played for Y Bala. He had mysteriously disappeared and no-one knew where he was. The police report said something that he had been living in a two-bedroomed terrace but he had seen something that had dragged him out, and no-one knew what that something was. He’d gone to follow it but hadn’t returned. Later on, back at Bob Dylan’s house, he was having an evening with his friends. There were three of his friends there and the father of this missing musician, footballer or whatever. They were all eating mashed potato and baked beans that were cold.

Actually, this looked much more like one of the lakes in northeast Maine to me, a region that we have visited ON NUMEROUS OCCASIONS.

But the cold baked beans are interesting, especially if they are American ones, packed full of sugar and additives. They must be disgusting. Even the “British recipe” baked beans don’t taste the same as they do back in the UK. I can’t recall whether a musician ever played for Y Bala, but Ywain Gwynedd had a long and successful career in the old Cymru Alliance League, mainly for Porthmadog FC.

With all of these interruptions while I was trying to put on my shoes, I’m surprised that a member of my family didn’t turn up. The odds would have been nailed on that they would have been involved somehow with all of that.

After that, I had a few things to do and then I recommenced the editing of the radio notes from where I had fallen asleep yesterday.

Not that I advanced very far because the girls arrived to say goodbye. We had a little chat and then an exchange of presents before they pushed off to catch their train for a girly evening in Paris. It was really nice of them to come to see me, and I appreciated it very much. I hope that they come again soon, and stay for longer.

Once they had left, I carried on with the editing, and the programme is now finished. It’s not very good at all, but given the circumstances that surrounded this concert, it’s lucky that there is a tape recording at all. Its value is in its rarity – it’s probably never been broadcast on the radio previously.

By now, it was time for the football. I’d already seen Stranraer beat Spartans 2-1 away from home and Greenock Morton lose away at Kirkaldy against Raith Rovers earlier this afternoon, but now it was the Welsh Cup Final between Caernarfon and Y Fflint. And for seventy minutes, we had one of the most exciting games that I have seen recently.

It’s a pity, though, that Y Fflint didn’t wake up until the twentieth minute, because the match was all over by then. Caernarfon had roared into a 3-0 lead while Y Fflint were still sleeping.

But as I implied just now, after that Y Fflint made a game of it and had several chances to score, but it was all too late and the score remained the same until the final whistle.

There were a few things to do after that, and then it was time for tea. Just chocolate cake and home-made ice cream again. That will do me for this evening, and now, when I’ve finished everything, I’m going for an early night.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about walking the parapet … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone once asked me "you know how we say ‘spend a penny’ to say that we are going to the bathroom"
"Yes?" I replied.
"So what do you say in Europe?"
"Simple" I replied. "We say that we are going to euronate."

0

Monday 6th March 2026 – I HOPE THAT …

…you all had a very happy Easter and that the Easter Bunny was very generous to you. As for me, I’ve finished all my hot cross buns, regrettably, but I still have plenty of chocolate cake and the new batch of homemade chocolate ice cream to go at.

In fact, the chocolate cake and the last helping of the first batch of home-made ice cream were delicious. And once more, that’s all that I’m having for tea because, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … sleep for me is much more important right now than food. And you know that I’m ill if I’m thinking like that. It’s not like me to turn my back on a good meal.

And sleep I need too, after last night. I was back in here at about 20:30 yesterday evening after clearing up and doing the washing-up, and then I sat down to write my notes.

By the time that I’d finished, done everything else that needed doing and sorted myself out, I was in bed just a minute or two after 22:00, looking for the good night’s sleep and lie-in that I had promised myself.

However, regular readers of this rubbish will recall what happens at times like this. Just like the other night, I had to go to stroll the parapet, and not once but twice. The first time was at 01:20, which seems to be a popular time for me to awaken, and the second time was, would you believe, 06:29 exactly.

The first time, I managed to go back to sleep but the second time, no such luck. I needn’t have bothered trying for a lie-in at all. Nevertheless, I stayed there in bed until the alarm went off at 07:30.

The alarm going off is one thing – leaving the bed is quite something else. And by the time I’d been into the bathroom for a good wash and shave, there wasn’t much time for anything else as Isabelle the Nurse arrived.

She chatted on about nothing in particular, happy because, presumably, she’s off on her week’s break this evening, and after she left, I could make breakfast.

There went my last two delicious hot cross buns this morning, just as did HISTORIA BRITTONUM by Nennius. It didn’t take long to read, and I can’t say that I’m sorry either. I didn’t enjoy it at all. However, the genealogy tables in there were fantastic works of fiction. It seems that every person in Europe is a descendant of Woden, according to Nennius.

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

There was something going on in a recording studio about writing and recording songs relating to certain incidents, such as some old woman who was bedridden and who only used to eat bread, etc. On several occasions, there was a choice of perhaps two or three subjects where people in the studio had to write a song on one of them, but it was all very confusing, all of this. I was asked to write a song on one particular subject, but it was one of those subjects that I couldn’t face so I decided not to

Just recently, I seem to have been spending a lot of time in a recording studio. It’s probably due to all of these radio programmes.

And seeing as we have been talking about radio programmes … "well, one of us has" – ed … after I’d finished the things that I usually have to do in the morning, I reviewed this weekend’s radio programme and sent it off for inclusion in the stream.

With that out of the way, I attacked the next radio programme on the list … "see what he means" – ed … It’s going to be another concert, and once again, the soundtrack is going to be complicated to prepare. I’ve done a “first pass” already but it’s going to be amended on several occasions, I reckon, before it’s ready to go.

My faithful cleaner turned up as usual to apply my anaesthetic, and then I had to await the taxi. I didn’t have to wait long because he was early and caught me unawares while I was … errr … otherwise engaged. However, it was the young, chatty guy and we had a nice, pleasant drive down to Sartilly to pick up someone else on our way to Avranches.

Having set out early, we arrived early at dialysis, but that counts for nothing if you arrive at the same time as four others just ahead of you with only two nurses on duty. Consequently, I was no earlier being attended to.

And having read about the times that I have … errr … been for a gipsy’s just recently, just as towards the end of last week when we had all of that rumpus at dialysis about my weight, I’m convinced that the scales were wrong that Thursday. Today, I clocked in at UNDER my dry weight.

Nevertheless, I made them take out 500 grammes so that I can be ahead next time. But I’ll keep on going as I am, with just breakfast and chocolate cake for now, until I’m sure that it’s all properly under control and I’m not as tired as I currently am.

With everyone arriving all at once, everyone needed unplugging at the same time. And being last in, I was last out, after something of a wait, so I was no earlier arriving home.

My cleaner helped me in, and after she left, I had my chocolate and ice cream and then did the washing up. And now that I’ve finished my notes, there are just a few things to do and then I’m hoping for a better night than last night.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my … errr … problems during the night … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of the two old men in the urology clinic.
The first man asks the second "why are you here?"
"I have this terrible problem" he replied. "I don’t seem to be able to manage to … errr … go to the bathroom these days."
"I don’t have that problem" replied the other. "Every morning at 07:00, as regular as clockwork, every day, I have no trouble at all."
"So why are you here then?"
"I don’t wake up until 07:30."

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Sunday 5th April 2026 – YET ANOTHER NIGHT …

… when I’m going to bed without any tea, except, of course, a slice of my home-made chocolate cake and a helping of home-made ice cream

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I’m valuing my sleep much more than I’m valuing my food right now, and that’s not like me at all, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

You wouldn’t think that I’d had a decent lie-in last night. As usual, things rather dragged and it ended up being just after 22:00 when I went to bed. Never mind though, at least I could have a decent sleep.

That’s what I thought, anyway, but as you might expect, it didn’t work out like that. I awoke on a couple of occasions and once, round about 05:30, I thought that I would never go to go back to sleep.

However, I must have done at some point because, when the doorbell rang, I was so far out of it that I thought “who the heck is this waking me up at this time?” and I was half out of bed before I realised that it was Isabelle the Nurse. I had to dive quickly back under the covers and pretend to be asleep for when she came in here.

She was her usual chatty self, which is something that I don’t really need, early on a Sunday morning. But after she left, I could turn over and go back to sleep.

Eventually, I awoke and once I’d managed to stand up, which was not easy, I headed off into the bathroom to sort myself out. It was a respectable 09:40 when I arrived in the kitchen. No medication this morning except the urgent stuff. I simply made breakfast, including more of my delicious hot cross buns.

We started a new book today too. It’s HISTORIA BRITTONUM, written by Nennius in the tenth century. It’s a book with probably the most obsequious introduction that I have ever read, and it’s also one of the most inaccurate, although it’s one of the first to mention Arthur, even if it doesn’t describe him as a king.

The translation dates from 1838 and it contains one of the most glorious mistranslations that I have ever seen. How it passed the proof-readers, I really don’t know. Our translator tells us that "St. Germanus, after his death, returned into his own country". That would have been interesting to witness.

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

When I awoke, round about 00:44, I was busy working on planning a radio programme about some kind of index. It was importing likely songs into it but at the moment that I awoke, I was puzzling over what name to give to the file. That was the point that I reached when I awoke.

Usually, I can think of a really good name for my files, but most often, it’s about ten minutes after I’ve already named them and backed them up. But this actually relates to a discussion I was having on Friday with one of my regular readers, who was talking about my database. Actually, I keep an index in a series of text files and in an Open Office spreadsheet under the rather prosaic name of “Playlist”.

There was also some more about something from the other night. They had managed to identify the cowling of that ice cream lorry and had prepared one in plastic and sent it to him to fit himself. In the meantime, they were still making enquiries about that project that was discussed the other day but they hadn’t as yet made very much progress.

Now, I wonder to which dream this relates. I can see the cowling now – it’s off a Leyland FG-550 and it’s green – but this dream and the one to which it refers still don’t ring any bells with me now that I’m awake.

I was down in Virlet last night with Nerina. We were sorting out a few things down there with someone else. Then this other person left and we decided to leave too. Nerina climbed into her car, which was a blue Ford Classic … "it was actually a Ford Corsair" – ed …, and I locked up the house. As I approached Nerina’s car, she let out the clutch and moved off about fifty yards, so I walked along towards the car, and she did this on several occasions. I thought “what on earth is the matter with her?”. So we carried on like this, but then the next-door neighbour arrived in a kind of horse box. Just as I was about to go out of sight round a corner, a little boy shouted after me “mister, mister”. I turned round and he said that their house was on fire, so I immediately ran down there and asked them if they had a hose, which they hadn’t, so I went into the barn. They followed me in, and they were amazed by the three cars that were in there that dated to the 1930s and early 1940s. I was rummaging around looking for the hose, and I found it and plugged it into the tap, but it was very short. I thought that I had much more hose than this, so I had a search around and I found another length. It still wasn’t very long so I began to look around outside. Nerina was there by this time, and she pointed out a hose that was lying on the ground underneath some wood. I went to fetch it, but it was the wrong connection. In the meantime, no fire brigade had turned up, no ambulance, no police or anything, so I asked them if they had ‘phoned the fire brigade. They replied “you have a decent-looking pushbike there. Why don’t you ride into the village and tell the mayor?”. Although the pushbike might be decent, which it probably wasn’t, I was in no healthy state to get on a bike and cycle up and down a few mountains, so I carried on looking for this hose.

This wasn’t the Virlet that I know. In fact, I’ve no idea where it might be. And I can imagine Nerina driving off as I approached the car. In fact, I did that one with Laurence but she didn’t notice and climbed into the car that had pulled up behind.

The garage with the old cars is the same one that appeared in a dream several weeks ago, but down in the Auvergne, there would be no problem about hosepipes as I have miles of the stuff.

When I’d finished, there was a footfest. Firstly, Stranraer fighting to a 1-1 draw with Dumbarton, followed by Greenock Morton throwing away a one-goal lead to go down 3-1 away to Dunfermline Athletic.

After that, I attacked the radio notes for the next programme. And by the time that I’d finished, I’d prepared and assembled the two halves of the programme, chosen the joining track and written the notes for it.

That’s three radio programmes that I’ve assembled this weekend. That’s some good going, and I wish that I could do it every weekend.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall exactly what happened after this. And for over an hour too. And when I finally did return to the Land of the Living, I couldn’t move for a good fifteen minutes. As I said earlier, it’s hard to believe that I had a lie-in this morning.

In the kitchen, I made a loaf of bread. Not a pizza, because as I said a little earlier, I’m valuing my sleep more than I’m valuing my food right now. And the loaf is cooked to perfection. I hope that it will taste as nice as it looks.

While it was baking, I washed up everything and then had my chocolate cake with home-made ice cream. The pudding was delicious as usual.

So right now, I’m going to sort myself out and go to bed. And as well as that, seeing as it’s a Bank Holiday tomorrow, I’m going to set the alarm to 07:30 and have an extra hour in bed.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about house fires … "well, one of us has" – ed … there were two men sitting on a pier in the Bahamas quietly fishing.
Neither of them actually looked like the flashy type so the first one asked the second "How come you managed to come here?"
"I had a house fire and I lost absolutely everything" he replied. "But the insurance company was very generous and paid me for everything."
"It’s pretty much the same story for me" replied the first man "except that it was a flood that wiped me out."
"Blimmin’ ‘eck!" said the second man. "However did you manage to start a flood?"

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Friday 3rd April 2026 – I HAVE HAD …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Sunday 29th March 2026 – THERE IS SOMETHING …

… extremely democratic about sitting down to your breakfast at 11:55. Even though an hour of that was “lost” due to the change to Summer Time, it was still quite impressive, and it shows you just how tired I have been.

What made it even more impressive was that when I was just about to climb into bed, it was 22:28 – two minutes before my ideal curfew time. That’s the advantage of going to bed without any tea – being able to write my notes and do the usual housekeeping without any pressure at all.

Maybe I should try it more often. An early night, plus a session of losing weight for dialysis can’t be bad.

Mind you, the night wasn’t as good as it might have been. I awoke on a couple of occasions and even had to leave the bed at one point to … errr … siphon the python, which is very unusual.

Once more, it was the tail-end of the nurse’s buzzing that awoke me, but I still pretended to be asleep when he came in here. He sorted out my legs and feet without saying too much, and after he left, I went straight back to sleep.

At some point though, I awoke. I’ve no idea what time it was but it took me a good while to bring myself to sit on the edge of the bed, and just as long again before I rose to my feet to stagger off into the bathroom.

It was 11:35 when I made it into the kitchen and by the time that my breakfast was ready and I could sit down to eat it, it was 11:55. Hot black coffee, porridge, and the last of this batch of croissants. Next weekend, I shall, of course, be attacking the somewhat overdone hot cross buns. Overdone they might be, but I bet that they’ll taste just as nice, toasted and with loads of vegan butter.

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

We’ve finished the pages on the émigré nobles expelled from their lands to Rome where they were living on a papal allowance of, in some cases, as little as 40 ducats per month, the equivalent of about £1,100 today. That, of course, is hardly enough to keep an exiled nobleman or king in the luxury to which he would like to be accustomed.

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

There was something about a whole new raft of legislation in one of these ancient cities that may well have been Rome. One of the things concerned sending a maid out with the washing. Another thing concerned the heating in these apartments that they used to have, but I can’t really remember any more that this because I awoke at this point.

Collapsed apartment blocks caused by jerry-building and raging fires due to out-of-control wood stoves were a common occurrence in Ancient Rome. In fact, Leonardo III Tocco, Duke of Cephalonia and Despot of Epirus, one of our exiled leaders living in Rome on the Pope’s charity, was killed when his house collapsed on top of him.

I’d enrolled in an online course for something or other and it was time for some kind of class, so I turned up. I was sitting there when someone came in with someone else. She presented him to me and said to him that I was another student from Asia who was doing this course. We had a little chat about how things were, etc. He asked me if I ever had any regrets about leaving the UK. I replied “none at all”. He asked “do you find a lot of people surprised when you tell them where you live?”. I replied that I didn’t talk to a lot of people these days. His next question was “did you ever regret the days a long time ago when people who went to live abroad were envied rather than criticised?”. I replied “I don’t really regret anything but I haven’t really encountered that kind of feeling. However, if it exists, I think that it’s down to pure jealousy rather than anything else. I think that a lot of people would up sticks and move to the continent if they could, on their account”.

Not that I’ve ever lived, or even been to Asia, but no matter where I am, I have no regrets whatever about leaving the UK. And it’s strange, but the majority of my closest friends are also British people who have moved to mainland Europe. Birds of a feather flock together, so they say.

After the dictaphone notes and a few other things that needed doing, we had a footfest – the highlights of the matches in the JD Cymru Premier League from yesterday. And one of the most surprising results was that Llanelli, hopelessly adrift at the foot of the table, beat Welsh Cup finalists Y Fflint 2-1 away at Y Fflint’s ground. I’m not sure how that happened but it’s certainly thrown the relegation battle between Y Bala and Y Fflint wide open again.

Following that, there were two matches of Stranraer’s to watch. The first was Tuesday night’s 3-1 home win over Clyde and the second was a disappointing 1-0 defeat away at Annan. But I do have to say that I’m sure that the referee was refereeing a different game to the one that the crowd, the match commentators and I were watching.

There wasn’t much time after that, but nevertheless I managed to edit another lot of radio notes and prepare the two halves of the programme. The joining track has been selected and the notes written for it too, ready for dictation at some point in the future.

When it was baking time, I went into the kitchen to bake a chocolate oil-cake, with coconut oil. And with real chocolate chips from a whizzed-up bar of cooking chocolate and with ground almonds and ground Brazil nuts.

And at some point during the week, it will have a coating of melted cooking chocolate bar. Sickly as anything, but that’s my Easter treat along with my hot cross buns.

After that, I made the base for tonight’s pizza. And another really delicious one, with half left over for tomorrow, as usual.

Right now, though, I’m off to bed, ready for dialysis tomorrow … "I don’t think" – ed … and all of the doctors in their little room, crossing their fingers in the hope that this “serious risk of suicide” comes to pass.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my hot cross buns … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of my friends asked me if I would enjoy them, despite their being over-baked.
"Not a problem" I replied. "It reminds me of my mother when we were kids."
"How do you mean?"
"She used to treat us all like Gods."
"In what way?"
"Every time we came home from school, she presented us with a burnt offering."

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Friday 27th March 2026 – AND SO, AFTER …

… last night’s theatrics, I managed to survive into today.

Not without problems, though. I am still having these severe coughing fits, my nose is running and I’m freezing, freezing cold. In fact, although for the past few days I’ve just been running the heating at night, it went back on on Thursday for twenty-four hours per day. And yet I’m still perishing.

So after I’d finished the notes for yesterday, I managed to find the time to dictate a few radio notes, making a horrible mess of them, and I reckoned that that was nature’s way of telling me to go to bed.

But not before I’d switched off the alarms and set one for 07:30. A lie-in will do me a little good, I hope.

However, there was just one problem. The alarm that I’d set didn’t have a sound. Consequently, it was the vibration and the buzzing that awoke me, rather later than it might have been. I was dead to the World at that moment.

As usual, it took a while to haul myself out of bed, and as I was already dressed (yes, I’d gone to bed again fully dressed) I sat at the desk and listened to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And again, it was somewhat disappointing.

I was in dialysis last night. There was some discussion amongst the staff about cases of food poisoning going around. I listened quite carefully because when someone began to mention a couple of the symptoms, I realised that that was actually how I was feeling and how I was suffering. However, the only thing that I have to eat or drink there is the orange juice and coffee so I don’t know where this thing about food poisoning might have come from at dialysis.

That was rather prescient, I suppose, because the idea of food poisoning had gone through my mind at some point during the afternoon on Thursday.

When the alarm went off, there was something going on about weddings. We’d been planning some kind of wedding for something or other and a couple of people had said that this is going to be the kind of wedding that we’ll never forget. But I didn’t manage to go very far down into this dream at all because the alarm went off and awoke me.

What a shame that the alarm awoke me just as this dream was starting up. I would have loved to have known how it would have developed.

The nurse turned up as usual to sort out my legs and feet. He didn’t have much to say today, especially after I’d told him that I’d gone to bed at 20:00. I suppose that he was pondering on how to deal with the situation in his capacity as a nurse, but he simply dealt with my legs and feet and left.

Once he’d gone, I could deal with breakfast — the first meal that I’d had in twenty-four hours — and read some more of ESSAYS ON THE LATIN ORIENT by William A Miller.

We’ve finally finished the sorry tale of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where, like just everywhere else in the Balkans, the citizens handed their country over to the Ottomans on a plate. We’re now turning our attention to Rome, which seems to be where all of the exiled Kings and Princes ended up, living at the mercy of the Pope.

The list of royal personages who found refuge there is impressively long, that’s for sure, and it includes the names of some of the most powerful in the medieval Balkans.

Back in here, I had plenty of things to do now that my week’s work is finished. The most important was to pay my property taxes for my place in Canada, and now that’s done. There was also the food order for Leclerc to review and send off. And as you might expect, there were several items unavailable.

However, they did have a butternut squash, so my roasted butternut squash soup for Easter Saturday looks like it might be on.

Another thing that I’ve been doing is to back up the files. Now that I have an 8 TB disc drive in the new office computer, I’ve been merging all of the files that were on different hard drives, and they are all now on this large one. I’ve merged in the working files too, and the next plan is to format the two external drives, split the contents of the large back-up drive into two and copy them onto the two external drives, half each, as an extra insurance back-up.

My cleaner turned up as usual to do her stuff. I explained that I wasn’t well, so she sensibly left me to it and left at the end of her session.

Not that I had much rest because fifteen minutes after she had gone, Leclerc turned up with the shopping. So I had all of that to put away (and it’s still not all away) and one kg of carrots to dice, blanch and freeze. And to save the water for the base of the butternut squash soup.

Back in here, I drifted off on my travels for a short while and then had a look at some of the notes that I’d dictated just now. Two of them were the notes for joining tracks so I edited them both and assembled the programmes. That’s me now well ahead for self-sufficiency.

Tea tonight was the curry that I was going to eat last night, a korma from out of the freezer, with rice and veg followed by vegan trifle. And I noticed that the agar-agar jelly seems to be breaking up. It’s probably not meant to be kept as long as this, so I shall have to make a smaller one next time. I hope that this one survives a little longer and doesn’t end up completely in the waste bin. That would be a tragedy.

It will also be a tragedy if I don’t get a move on and go to bed while I still can. I need a good night’s sleep and this looks like the best chance of having one.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about weddings … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone once asked "why does the bride always wear white at her wedding?"
"It’s to symbolise purity and chastity" I replied
"Of course it isn’t" retorted someone else. "If you look around, you’ll find that all kitchen appliances come in white these days."

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