Tag Archives: lie in

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."

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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."

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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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Sunday 22nd March 2026 – I HAVE BEEN …

… a busy boy yet again today. You wouldn’t believe that it’s a Sunday, which is supposed to be a Day of Rest for me.

Not that it was much of a rest last night because it was another really late night again. I’ve no idea what time it was when I finally crawled underneath the covers, but it certainly wasn’t 23:30 I’d seen that come and go some time earlier.

It took longer than usual for me to go off to sleep, which appears to be par for the course these days. And although I have a vague recollection of waking up once or twice during the night, the next thing that I remember was the tail-end of the doorbell as Isabelle the Nurse announced her arrival.

She found me in bed, of course, and as well as sorting out my legs and feet, she also had to take some measurements of them too. That was complicated enough, and as much as I wanted just to go back to sleep, her irrepressible good nature meant that she talked all the way through the procedure.

After she left, try as I might, I couldn’t go back to sleep afterwards and so, about half an hour later, I raised myself from the Dead and went off to the bathroom.

In the kitchen later, I remembered to take some of my medication, and then I made breakfast. Porridge, strong coffee and two of my home-made croissants. And there’s no doubt about it — these croissants are some of the best that I have ever made.

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

Today, we’re discussing the (brief) Venetian recapture of some of the Greek territory from the Ottomans.

But it’s the same story as usual — disputes among the conquerors, disputes among their subjects, disputes between the conquerors and their subjects. Here, you have all of the ingredients that you need to ensure that, once the Ottomans gather up their strength and their resources, they will simply walk back into their former territories.

Back in here, I had the dictaphone notes to transcribe.

I’d been chatting to a taxi driver around Granville, related to a company that had a lot of Mercedes cars and a few odd, indiscriminate ones. At the end of the shift, I was talking to this taxi driver and looking through the window of the garage where you could see all of the vehicles there. He asked if I would go in to see if he’d been given credit for the final job that he had done. That meant going up and touching the taxi plate, pushing it and the last job would appear in the windscreen of the car. I went in, but I couldn’t find his particular car. There were all sorts of cars in there. The dream then moved on to something about the work in the European Union and an article on the chauffeurs. I was really disappointed to see that my name wasn’t mentioned, but it described some of the work that we had to do. It said that only two of the chauffeurs were authorised to take the luggage down to the south of France. This dream carried on, discussing the work, and then there was an article that the chauffeurs had decided to stop issuing certain visas to certain people. The company that controlled the issue of visas agreed with them, so these visas were stopped being issued

The first part of the dream relates to the taxi company that takes me about to my hospital appointments. I’ve been to their premises a few times late at night, and seen through the window their taxis parked up in the barn until next morning. Pressing the taxi plate wouldn’t do anything, though, because they don’t have plates — they have stickers.

As for the second part, we did have the press round the EU on several occasions and on one of them, I was actually filmed. Not that I ever denied anyone a visa though — I don’t understand that. It was however my responsibility to take one of my boss’s subordinates around for visas when someone from that office was required to travel.

There had been a rise in pilgrims from the Latin, the Frank and the Byzantine communities heading towards Jerusalem, and their habit of lying prostrate on the floor and kissing the soil when they arrived was inciting a lot of comments. It was therefore decided that they would stop the ferries that were bringing the pilgrims over by sea and the Byzantines were delighted by this.

This presumably relates to the book that I’m reading right now.

After that, I had a footfest – the highlights of the games in the JD Cymru League yesterday. However, there was nothing interesting or controversial in there.

Afterwards, there was Stranraer once again losing — this time to Clyde 2-1 in a game that they should have won had it not been for them falling asleep for five minutes shortly after the start of the second half.

We then had Greenock Morton recording a surprising away win against Ayr United. The way that Morton have been playing just recently, I wouldn’t have thought that they would win a raffle, even if they were the only entrants.

After a rather late disgusting drink break, I attacked the new computer. Yesterday, I couldn’t seem to make it read the disks in the array, so I concentrated on that for several hours. In the end, I managed to make it function, and now I have most of what I want in the way of disks connected to the computer.

With what time was left, I was uploading my entire suite of programs to the computer, and now, that’s pretty much how I would like it to be.

At about 17:00 I knocked off for cooking. Firstly, I made the dough for my pizza base and then secondly, I made my really thick custard.

While I was baking my pizza, I poured the cooled custard all over the vegan jelly. Now it’s beginning to look like a trifle. I hope that it actually tastes like one too. I shall find out on Tuesday.

The pizza was delicious, though. I experimented by using sliced cheese that I grated rather than the grated cheese. And indeed, it was much nicer. It’s more time-consuming though, but you can’t win everything.

And now I’m off to bed if this appalling cough will let me. It’s really bad tonight. I just hope that they will be impressed by it at dialysis tomorrow.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the disk array … "well, one of us has" – ed … I was speaking to one of my friends about it, and I asked her to send her congratulations to the array now that the computer can read it
"Certainly" she replied. "Hip, hip, array!"

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Sunday 15th March 2026 – I HAVE HAD …

… many requests, most of which are physically impossible, but one of them has been for the recipe for my vegan cheesecake.

So here goes –

  • 235 grammes of biscuits. I used the really cheap “Speculoos” biscuits which are vegan.
  • 100 grammes of vegan butter.
  • 400 grammes of soya yoghurt. I used my last “soya nature” and two pots of fruit yoghurt.
  • 100 grammes of fruit purée. I had some pear purée on hand.
  • 2 ice cubes of aquafaba (chick pea juice).
  • 30 grammes of cornflour.
  • 10 grammes of sugar.
    1. whizz up the biscuits into a powder.
    2. melt the butter gently and then thoroughly mix it with the biscuits.
    3. line a baking dish and then press the biscuit/butter mix firmly onto the bottom and some little way up the sides.
    4. mix all the rest of the ingredients thoroughly and then pour onto the biscuit base.
    5. bake at 160°C for about 35 or so minutes.
    6. when it’s cool enough, put it in the fridge and leave it to set.

    It really is as easy as that. Let me know if you made it, if you have any suggestions for improving it, and if you enjoyed it.

    As long as you enjoyed it more than I enjoyed last night, because it was another of what you might call a “turbulent night”. I was in bed by 23:30, which was later than I would have liked it to be, of course, and I went to sleep quite quickly, but I was wide awake again at 23:53.

    There was a dream that I wanted to dictate but the batteries had gone flat in the dictaphone. Groping around in my sleep for the spare batteries, I managed to knock everything onto the floor, so in the end I had to wake up, look for them and swap them over.

    But in my dazed and hazy state, I must have put in the wrong batteries because when I went to dictate a dream at 01:03, the batteries went flat in seconds and I had to wake up again. Luckily, I’d put on charge the batteries from earlier and although they weren’t as yet fully-charged, they would do. And then I could go back to sleep.

    Sunday is a Day of Rest and it always starts these days with a lie-in. But a lie-in until … errr … 07:53 is good for neither man nor beast. I was hoping for a much later sleep than that.

    When the nurse turned up, I was awake, but I pretended to be asleep because I wasn’t in the mood for any social chit-chat or recriminations about still being in bed.

    However, after he left, I did manage to go back to sleep, and there I stayed until 09:30, which is much more like it.

    In the kitchen, I made my breakfast. Hot black coffee, porridge and home-made croissants. And there’s no doubt about it— this more expensive flaky pastry is much better than the really cheap stuff. My croissants were superb, just like they ought to be.

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

    We’ve left the outlying Greek islands and we’re now discussing the situation in Thessaloniki under its Latin conquerors, and our author makes a very interesting observation, with which I concur wholeheartedly. He tells us about the fate of many of these Crusader States that, in his opinion "should be a warning to those who believe that nations can be partitioned permanently at congresses of diplomatists."

    You’ve no idea, no idea at all, how many conflicts in this World have been caused by the way that the Western powers divided up Africa and the Middle East by using geographical lines, splitting up ethnic groups and dividing them between two (or more) different countries, or forcing different ethnic groups who have a historical hatred for each other to share the same country. And these conflicts are still going on today.

    Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out what had happened during the night. And I was astonished by the amount of stuff that was on it.

    I was with two girls last night. We were talking about my blog and the artificial intelligence program that I run as well. For some reason, we ended up talking about their boss at work. They were talking about some of his particular personal habits, that he never uses a toilet. He just goes outside and does what he has to do and then covers it with soil when he’s finished, and a few other things like that. I asked them basically why they still had him as their boss. They replied that first of all, he has some connections with a really big record company. Secondly, the big advantage that he has is that he never seems to remember everything or anything, so he’s not very demanding from that point of view.

    This presumably relates to A SCURRILOUS RUMOUR BEING SPREAD AROUND WALES AT THE MOMENT BY A CERTAIN EXTREME FASCIST RIGHT-WING POLITICAL “PARTY” that a school in Wales is allowing children to self-identify as cats and instead of toilets, has provided litter trays for the pupils.

    Not that there’s anything new in kids identifying themselves as cats. I’m sure that untold millions of children have gone through a phase of doing that sort of thing.

    While we were dealing with this case of the teacher who had disappeared with this young girl, we’d been sorting out some clothes that related to the affair because part of the clothing was missing. Maybe we’d have a skirt or something but no blouse, or a blouse and no skirt, something like that, and we were trying to assemble all of the clothing so that we knew what we had and what we could list as missing. However, there was some small girl who was hanging around at the foot of the stage, but she didn’t really need to be there – there was somewhere else for her to go but no-one seemed to take any notice of her, so I decided that I would have to do that if no-one else would. I went to the edge of the stage to jump down, but it was probably two hundred feet down to the ground. Without thinking, I swung myself over the edge and spun round so that I was facing the side of the stage and went to climb down like a kind of monkey or something, but I’d totally miscalculated everything. Everyone gasped as I swung out over the stage and tried my best to slide down by digging my hands and fingernails into the wood as I slid down. I’d just miscalculated completely everything.

    The first part of this dream presumably relates to the song CHILD BRIDE, a song that had been recorded by Bruce Springsteen for his album NEBRASKA but abandoned.

    The part about sorting out the clothes is part of the plot of the Agatha Christie novel SLEEPING MURDER

    As for the rest, it’s the usual panic-stricken nightmare that reoccurs every now and again at some point 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

    Il y a quelque chose qui se passait avec les Beatles … I’m dictating in French, aren’t I … There was something happening concerning the Beatles as well last night. We were keeping some garrisons equipped and furnished with men in certain places, but with regards to one of them, we began to ask ourselves whether it was cost-effective to keep that particular one on or whether we should disestablish it. Someone mentioned that a couple of years ago, a few people had been injured there when the building had caught fire. Someone asked, rather tongue-in-cheek, although I suspect that there was more to it than this, if the Beatles had actually set the fire in the building themselves.

    This presumably has a connection with the book that I’m reading at the moment. Several of the major fortresses had smaller outliers, but dividing a garrison is never a really good idea. The smaller one can be easily surrounded and overrun, and that would be a waste of manpower, supplies and ammunition. Everyone should be manning just one set of defences in order to concentrate the manpower and firepower.

    Where the Beatles came into all this, I really have no idea.

    We were going off to the university’s annual general meeting, so a large group of us piled into a coach and set off. We went down the autoroute into Paris and eventually came into the centre of the city, then round the périphérique and back out again. Then we all had to leave the coach and walk to the hotel, which was a couple of miles through the open countryside. It must have been midsummer because the hay was really high. We walked down these footpaths by these fields, and someone came across a booth that had all brochures in there, most of which were kiddy-designed. Someone even said that their father had, once many years ago, found one of these leaflets or magazines in there that they had prepared a long time ago when they were small. There was all this talk about the people we were going to meet. Several people mentioned the names of two girls who would be there, whom they were looking forward to meeting. I was feeling a little jealous because I was looking forward to meeting those two as well. There was also talk on the way down about the Americans who were going to be there. They were saying that on no account should we say anything about the war to upset the Americans. My opinion was that if the truth had to be told, it had to be told, and I didn’t care who was upset by it, so I calculated on my stay being a rather short one. There had also been some talk about “benzine” all the way down, and I was going to be drinking “benzine”. That was bewildering. As we walked, I came across a different two girls whom I knew from the university, so I walked with them into the hotel, but they disappeared as soon as we came in. As soon as I walked up to the reception, everyone recognised me – hotel staff etc. The first thing that they did was to pour a drink for me, some kind of fizzy drink with lemon and ice cubes in it. Someone shouted across the room “don’t forget that Mr Hall will have a ‘benzine’ as soon as he arrives”. Someone else replied “well, I’ve already poured it for him”. While we were waiting for everyone else to arrive, I had a chat with the manageress. She was saying that she admired the university and admired the people who were studying at it, such as me, which made me laugh. I replied “well, I admire you and I envy you and this lovely business that you have”. There was something else about an extra night’s accommodation. I seem to think that I’d paid for an extra night’s accommodation, but I wasn’t going to use it. I wondered how the refund would work if I were to leave without actually saying anything about cancelling this extra night.

    The covers for the brochures for the Carnaval de Granville are designed by the local kids in some kind of competition, and the winner’s design will adorn the brochure for that year.

    But I loved the comment that we must not upset the Americans, and so “I calculated on my stay being a rather short one”.

    The “jealousy” part is quite interesting too. After all, there have been a number of times during my various dreams that I have been about to Get The Girl and someone comes along and spikes my guns. It’s no surprise that I’d be affected by people planning on spiking my guns before I’ve come within grasping distance of The Girl.

    And once more, we end up with me dithering about this refund.

    There was a campaign to put a bypass around Montaigut and St Eloy. They had built one around the eastern side but there was a campaign going on for one around the western side to link up with the other at both ends. I hadn’t been there for a while, but I drove down the road and saw that they had built a viaduct over a valley and had tarmacked it, but that was everything so far. I spoke to my architect friend about it, and he said that he had sent some plans to them about ten months ago and they’d built it, but at an old farm somewhere along the line, they had discovered a major water source, so they couldn’t really build it very far. He quoted some official as saying that the situation was much calmer now, there aren’t quite so many cars on the road, people don’t see the utility and they have become more accustomed to death since last time, and so it seems as if they were cancelling the project. I went along to the meeting about this, and they had several tape recordings of discussions between various people. For some reason or other, they had been recorded on string, not tape. They wanted to play these recordings to the people. I was asked if I’d hold the tape recorders while they did it. They gave me one to hold while the guy on the podium had a discussion with the people in the hall and then to play the string. There was definitely sound on it, but it was muffled and we could hardly hear a single word that people were saying, so after a while, he stopped it. At that point, I noticed that everyone had disappeared from that room, and I was there on my own. I didn’t have a clue what to do with this tape machine or anything. But one thing that I’d noticed when I was driving out that way earlier was that the skyline had changed completely. It was much higher away to the south than it used to be, so I wondered what had been going on there that had caused all of that.

    They have in fact built a bypass around the eastern side of Montaigut and St Eloy, and not long before I left the area, they had built a segment around the north-western side of Montaigut, but it hadn’t gone any further than the road to Pionsat.

    This part about everyone disappearing from the hall reminds me of a scene in MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL when they had been consulting an ancient sage, when suddenly, he vanished in the fog.

    “I didn’t have a clue what to do with this tape machine” – I’m sure that regular readers of this rubbish will recall a few suggestions, and I bet that I’ll receive more than one or two of them in the post overnight.

    After all of that, I was quite exhausted, so I had something of a relax by having a footfest.

    There were the highlights of the rest of the games in the JD Cymru League and then I went, with some trepidation, to watch the Stranraer v league leaders East Kilbride game.

    The wheels had well and truly come off Stranraer’s season after the defeat against Clyde that had ended their long-unbeaten run. But today, they managed to find some of their missing form and they ran out 2-1 winners. And well-deserved too.

    After a rather late disgusting drink break, I went through my e-mails and replied to everyone who needed a reply to some earlier correspondence. So if you are waiting for a reply from me and haven’t had one, send me a reminder because I have probably missed your message.

    For the rest of what little time remained (apart from the ten minutes or so when I fell asleep … errr …. riding the porcelain horse), I occupied myself with a task that I should have started fifteen years ago. It’s going to take an eternity to do, so I hope that I’ll have enough time to finish it. As to what it might be, well, you’ll have to wait and see.

    There was baking to do this afternoon. I didn’t bake a loaf – I simply took a half-loaf from the freezer in the bathroom. But I made myself a lovely pizza.

    And it was lovely too – one of the best that I have made, and there’s another half left over for Monday night when I come home from dialysis.

    But seeing as we have been talking about dialysis … "well, one of us has" – ed … right now, I’m off to bed ready … "I don’t think" – ed … for dialysis tomorrow.

    But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about children identifying as cats … "well, one of us has" – ed … there was such a story doing the rounds not so long ago.
    And when the child came downstairs to the dining room at teatime, it was surprised to find that no place had been set for it at the table.
    "Where’s my tea?" asked the child.
    "If you want some tea" said the father "go outside and catch it yourself. There are plenty of mice in the barn. And when you come in, you’ll find some Munchies in a bowl by the door."

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Sunday 8th March 2026 – THAT WAS …

… much more like a game of football today. And I hope that those of you who watched it via the link that I posted yesterday (the link is still active if you want to watch it later) enjoyed it just as much as I did.

So last night, I went to bed, looking forward to today’s game of football. And as usual, I was later going to bed than intended. It was actually 23:40 when I finally crawled into bed after finishing everything that needed finishing.

As usual, I seemed to go to sleep quite quickly, and when I awoke (without the benefit of an alarm) it was just becoming light outside. I made no effort whatever to find out what time it was, because whatever time it was, I had no intention of leaving the bed. Sunday is a Day of Rest and these days, it begins with a lie-in.

When Isabelle the Nurse put in her appearance, I was fast asleep in bed, and quite rightly so. She massaged my legs and feet with the oil etc while I was lying there immobile, and then she wandered off on her rounds. I went straight back to sleep.

When I finally awoke, it was 10:10 – what a wonderful way to start the day, and I wish that I could do it more often. I went into the kitchen, made my breakfast, forgot my medication and read some more of ESSAYS ON THE LATIN ORIENT by William A Miller.

He’s now winding up the affairs of the Frankish nobles, recounting how, even in danger of annihilation by the Ottomans, they refuse to form a united front to defend their territory. They seem to be content with plotting, counter-plotting, invoking the aid of different factions such as the Genoese, the Neapolitans, the Venetians and even the Ottomans themselves to aid them in their selfish ambitions, not realising that the only winners in this scenario will be those who are giving the aid and, ultimately, the Ottomans.

But breakfast was nice, though. Porridge, hot black coffee and the last of the home-made croissants. I’ll have to make some more on Saturday. And while I’m at it, there’s only enough birthday cake to last until Friday evening. I’ll have to make some more dessert on Saturday too. Anyone have any ideas? Some kind of trifle sounds nice, but I don’t have any vegan jelly. Would agar-agar do the job, do you think? And I could top it with the vegan cream mix that I used for my birthday cake.

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

There were some photographs of some certain people going around that were dated back to the Roman period. Then, they came across a few more. One of them was interesting because it showed some Roman or other with an apple or something on his head as if it were a precursor to a story about William Tell. This became quite a well-known photo. Then they came across a few more which showed a couple of small girls, maybe eight years old or something, and they had that particular guy, who was asleep, and they were busy balancing these apples on top of his head. So they began to realise that the photo with the apple was not exactly a fake but was an involuntary one while this guy was actually asleep.

That would be quite something – photographs dating back to Roman times. Although the technique of using light to create images has been known since at least the fourth century BC, no one succeeded in capturing an image until 1777, and then they didn’t take the idea any further.

The allusion to William Tell is bizarre, though.

There had been some kind of archaeology carried out on a site. They had come across a woman, or a skeleton of a woman, who had been subjected to all kinds of atrocities and so on. A couple of years later, working in a similar place, they came across the same skeleton but much more modern, one that had also been subjected to a lot of atrocities. So we were busy trying to investigate it, so we had a small team. But there wasn’t much to do for entertainment there in the evening so one of the guys and I were talking about boxing. We agreed to have a three-round boxing match between us. This took place in the roadway up near the roundabout near the sports centre in Granville. We put the gloves on etc. and went to compete. It was obvious that this guy was in quite a different class to me and I was floundering around somewhat but he never actually laid a glove on me because my defence was quite good, but I couldn’t attack. At the end of a few rounds, he was rather dismissive about the affair and made one or two rather offensive comments, but I told him that I wasn’t in the least offended because we had to do something to pass the time, but I don’t think that he was all that entusiastic. He didn’t really appreciate anything, but I suppose that he could quite easily have had me on the floor in the first ten seconds if he had really tried. I forgot to mention in this boxing dream that the discussion about it came because we were discussing what to do to pass the time and the question of boxing came up. I said that I had brought it up before, but they hadn’t seemed to be very interested, much as I would have liked to have been involved in it.

If we go back to Mortimer Wheeler and MAIDEN CASTLE, there’s a report in there about a skeleton that they found which seemed to have been hacked about and cruelly treated round about the time of death.

As for boxing, I would have enjoyed maybe having a go once or twice, but I wouldn’t have been any good at it.

I’d had to go somewhere for some reason and I’d borrowed someone’s old pedal moped. I’d travelled all the way to wherever it was that I’d had to go and went to do what I had to do. Coming out of it, I bumped into the owner of the moped, a huge, big guy, so we went to go back home. He said that he hoped that the moped had been OK. I hoped that it was and went to look for it. But I’d left the keys in it and the ignition turned on, but it started up. He climbed on the front to ride and I sat on the pillion and we set off. Later on, I was driving, and he was talking about changing into his shorts, so I said that it’s probably not a good idea and tried to discourage him. We carried on riding and came to a town centre where there were roadworks. There was a diversion posted, but we reached a point where there was no diversion so I went straight on, but realised that this wasn’t the road. It was an old residential area full of terraced houses, some of which had been demolished. He was talking about a row of terraced houses somewhere that hadn’t been demolished because the Beatles had bought it after they had gone the wrong way down what had been supposed to have been a diversion and seen these houses standing on their own. Eventually, I tried to return to where the main road would be. This involved driving across a piece of wasteland. But there was a big fence at the end of it and a workers’ canteen. When the workers in the canteen saw me coming, they dismantled the canteen so that I could drive this car through and back onto the road. They asked if I would be OK from here. I said that I would have been OK had I seen the diversion sign. They replied that they had taken the diversion sign away thirty seconds ago because the diversion had finished. The guy on the back of this moped was now talking again about changing into his shorts even though he said that I had stopped him. But I hadn’t stopped him – I’d just tried to discourage him

This is a strange dream, right enough, hopping about from moped to car and to moped again. And, incidentally, there wasn’t a pillion seat on such things as an old NSU Quickly, a Phillips Panda or a Raleigh Runabout.

However, the demolition site seems to be a flashback to that dream about a disappeared sports stadium a couple of months ago, and while the Beatles never owned a stock of houses (as far as I know), I do know of one group that did, a most surprising group as well, given their ethos. However, professional secrecy impels me to keep that news to myself.

Having brought everything up-to-date, I watched the highlights of Stranraer’s game against Edinburgh City, bottom of the table. And I wished that I hadn’t because Stranraer were awful and suffered their worst defeat of the season, which is pretty hard to bear after some of their recent positive results.

Next on the list was the Welsh homework, which I almost finished before the football came on.

And while the result was predictable, given the gulf in class between a team in the Premier League and another one in the second tier, Y Rhyl gave Caernarfon a good run for their money and pushed them all the way. The game finished 2-1 to Caernarfon, and it could have been ohh! so different if the referee had awarded the penalty that I would have awarded to Y Rhyl in about the fortieth minute when the Cofis’ ‘keeper, Connor Roberts, hauled Y Rhyl’s Somali international Mohamud Ali to the ground.

But what has annoyed me about all of this is that I didn’t notice a single representative of the FAW at any of the games this weekend. It’s a well-known fact that the FAW is a very Cardiff-centric organisation and rarely wanders outside its home territory, but not being present at a Welsh Cup semi-final is appalling.

In a fit of pique, I wrote to the FAW to ask "Where was Noel Mooney" the CEO of the FAW "this weekend? I didn’t notice him at either of the semi-finals this weekend. Did he slip by unnoticed and unannounced, or did he simply not turn up? What was the matter with him? Was he ill? Or could he simply not find enough native bearers to carry the FAW drinks cabinet north of the Heads of the Valleys and fight off the sheep and druids who are all that occupy that forbidden and unknown (to the FAW) territory?"

As well as that, I added a few bells and whistles, but I don’t expect that I shall receive a reply.

Once the game was over, I went to make my bread and pizza. And I have never had a loaf of bread rise up as much as this one did today. It looks wonderful. The pizza was good too, and there is, as usual, half left over for tomorrow.

But right now, I’m off to bed ready for dialysis … "I don’t think" – ed … tomorrow

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about photography … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of my friends is a professional photographer.
One day, he was walking along a beach when two girls from Crewe came walking by the other way.
As he reached for his camera to take a picture of them, one girl said to the other "keep still! He’s going to focus!"
And the other girl replied "What? Both of us?"

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Sunday 1st March 2026 – DYDD GWYL DEWI …

… hapus iawn, pawb!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Sunday 22nd February 2026 – WHAT A NICE …

… way to start the day today. By the time that I came back in here to start work after breakfast, it was 11:15. That’s about two and a half hours later than usual, and if every Sunday could be like that, it would be wonderful.

Mind you, it wasn’t an early finish last night. By the time that I’d completed everything that needed completing, it was once more just coming up to 23:30, and I would have loved to have been in bed an hour or so earlier. But simply, I don’t know where the time goes these days.

Anyway, once in bed, I was asleep quite quickly. However, it was something of a mobile night. I definitely remember waking up briefly a couple of times, although it wasn’t for long and I can’t really remember all that much about it.

One thing that I do remember, though, is that when Isabelle the Nurse turned up, I was fast asleep with my head under the covers. And while I was submerged at that end, she unsubmerged me at the other end to deal with my feet and legs.

After she left, I curled up again and went back to sleep. However, round about 09:30 I was found sitting on the edge of my bed. Much as I would like to, I can’t spend all day lying in my stinking pit. I have to make a start sometime.

After a visit to the bathroom, I went into the kitchen. First task was to bake the croissants that I’d prepared yesterday. And this new technique seems to have worked. The presentation was so much better today, and they looked like real croissants.

So a couple of those along with my porridge and hot black coffee, and I was well away. It really was a nice breakfast.

While I was eating, I was reading some more of MAIDEN CASTLE EXCAVATIONS AND FIELD SURVEY 1985-6 by Niall Sharples.

Yesterday, I mentioned that this section about pottery was going to be a very long job. And I was right, too. Today, we’ve been discussing the lugs that appeared on different kinds of Neolithic pottery – just the lugs. This book is going to be a very long read.

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

I’d heard a report that in the near future they would be bringing out a new version of the Berlingo. It was going to be a long wheelbase type of thing with more room inside. That became immediately more interesting to me because I would have liked to have had something like that at some point. I thought that if it was long-wheelbase, it would still be suitable for sleeping in if necessary when I was out on the road. I tried to find out more about it but apparently it was not being distributed for quite a while yet and that was disappointing news because I had a feeling that I was going to be needing a new vehicle fairly rapidly and this would probably have been ideal for what I wanted.

Back in the late 1990s, I needed a car in a hurry after the Mercedes went the Way of the West. With nothing better on the horizon, a friend at work sold me an old Volkswagen Passat diesel estate. Only just a few weeks later, Citroën announced the end of the run of C15 diesel vans, and they were selling them off at just €4995 plus VAT. One of those would have been perfect for what I wanted at the time.

There was also something going on about the Epstein affair. People had suddenly realised that the one important person, the former wife of Epstein, had not yet been arrested despite her name appearing in the files on numerous occasions. The official reason given was that although her name appears in the files, there’s no allegation of any wrong-doing and no-one has made a complaint against her. In that case, as far as the police go, there’s nothing to investigate until something is discovered in the files that implicates her in a crime.

With all of the revelations of the Epstein files and the aftermath, I’m just wondering when my name is going to appear in them. Everyone else’s has, for one reason or another, and I’m feeling left out.

As for the subject matter of the dreams, there was something the other day about AFKAP – the Andrew Formerly Known As Prince – and I imagine that that particular dream was in some way related to the revelations in the files.

When I’d finished the dictaphone notes, we had a footfest, with all of the highlights of the matches from the JD Cymru League over the weekend. And the unbeaten run of Connah’s Quay Nomads came to a shuddering halt as they were beaten by Y Barri 1-0.

And things are going from bad to worse for Penybont. With yet another player dismissed from the field, they crashed 3-1 away at Colwyn Bay. For a team that a few months ago was a comfortable second in the league, they’ve only won once since 21st November, and that game was against struggling Llanelli, where they scraped a narrow 1-0 win.

The next game was Stranraer v Spartans in Scotland. And at last, after a run of I don’t know how many draws, they managed to win. Mind you, it took A WONDER GOAL DEEP IN INJURY TIME by Aaron Quigg to break the deadlock.

A little later, after a little relaxation, I spent a couple of hours revising my Welsh ready for Tuesday, and then it was baking time.

No bread today, though – I took half a loaf out of the freezer ready for next week because I was going to bake a cake and didn’t have the time for everything.

For reasons that shall become apparent in early course, I really fancied a strong ginger cake. As well as that, Rosemary had found an obscure recipe that suggested that desiccated coconut and ground almonds were a suitable substitute for sugar when baking.

That sounded absolutely excellent, so I ground a couple of handfuls of almonds and added a cup of desiccated coconut instead of one cup of sugar in my oil cake and used coconut oil instead of the vegetable oil. With enough ginger to sink a ship, I mixed up all of the ingredients and poured the mixture into the baking tray.

After I’d made my pizza base, I started to make the layering cream for the cake. I’d found a good recipe with butter, icing sugar, coconut yoghurt (I mixed soya yoghurt with coconut oil), maple syrup and spices. I whipped it all up and put it in the fridge to stiffen.

But this filling and the consistency of the sauce looked excellent to me, and I was thinking that I could adapt it to almost any kind of filling, especially chocolate. I shall have to make further plans.

While I was assembling the pizza, I had the cake baking and it was done to a turn – maybe a little too much on top and not enough on the bottom – and I wish that I knew how to deal with that because it’s not the first time that it’s happened.

When it was ready, I took it out of the oven and put the pizza in. That was done to a turn fifteen minutes later, and as usual, I ate half of it, with the other half for tomorrow after dialysis.

Once I’d finished and tidied up everything, I cut my cake in half and went to put the layering mix in the middle in order to make a sandwich cake with the two halves. However, it wasn’t cooled enough and it began to melt the layering mix.

Next time that I make a sandwich cake, I shall have to stick it in the fridge for several hours to make sure that it’s properly and thoroughly cold. One thing, though, and that is that I’m certainly learning a lot as I go on, and that’s the whole point of doing it.

But right now, I’m going to finish everything off and go to bed ready for dialysis tomorrow … "I don’t think" – ed …

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about baking a cake … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of Zero and her mother when Zero was at a young and impressionable age.
They had been baking a cake together and were relaxing in the living room when the timer sounded in the kitchen.
"Be a dear and go and see if the cake is ready" said Zero’s mother.
"How do I do that?" asked Zero.
"Take one of the meat skewers from the cutlery tray, poke it into the cake a few times and see if it comes out clean."
So off trotted Zero into the kitchen.
Ten minutes later, Zero came back in. "Yes, mum, it’s cooked."
"So what took you so long?"
"Well, the skewer came out so clean that I stuck the rest of the dirty cutlery from lunchtime in the cake too."

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Sunday 15th February 2026 – SUNDAY IS A …

… Day of Rest, and so it turned out to be today. Leaving the breakfast table at … errr … 11:30 underlines that fact perfectly.

Add to that a little trip away with the fairies … "although not in any fashion that would incite comment from the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine" – ed … for twenty minutes round about 18:30, and you have all of the makings of a perfect Sunday.

Last night, though, it wasn’t quite so relaxing. What with one thing and another … "and until you make a start, you have no idea just how many other things there are" – ed … including a little crash out while I was writing my notes, it was 23:30 or thereabouts when I finished and finally crawled in underneath the covers ready for my Sunday morning lie-in.

There were a couple of the vaguest memories of waking up at some point, but it was the arrival of the nurse that shook me out of my slumbers. He dealt with my legs and feet and then cleared off. I threw the covers back over me and went back to sleep.

When I staggered into the kitchen, it was 10:18 precisely, according to the time on the microwave. And so followed a leisurely breakfast of porridge, strong black coffee and the last two homemade croissants. Next weekend I’ll have to make some more, and I shall try a revised technique to see if it makes any improvement. I’m determined to crack this croissant thing one way or another.

While I was dining, I was reading some more of MAIDEN CASTLE EXCAVATIONS AND FIELD SURVEY 1985-6 by Niall Sharples

His team has come across a couple of house remains from what he calls “Phase Six” of the occupation. “Phase Six” was classed as the Late Iron Age immediately preceding the Roman Invasion of Britain in AD 43.

He tells us that the earliest house was built in phase 6F, and east of the hearth he discovered … "… a pile of slingstones"

He then says that the second house was built in phase 6G and the silt was covered by slightly more stone, "… including a patch of slingstones."

Periods G and H were amongst the very latest periods of “Phase Six”, immediately before or during the Roman assault on Maiden Castle.

As far as I would say, you wouldn’t need a pile of slingshots at your immediate disposal if you didn’t think that you were likely to need them, so while the presence of slingshots in a heap in a couple of houses doesn’t in itself imply warfare, it does imply that the households were prepared for war at the time that the Romans arrived.

It also should be said that several other houses of the same period or slightly earlier were excavated, but there was no evidence of slingshots in those.

Nevertheless, it seems to me that these adverse comments of “no evidence of warfare at Maiden Castle” are somewhat wide of the mark.

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

My brother and I were in the Auvergne and we began to cycle from the Puy de Dôme. We cycled all the way through the Cher and came to the next Département. The border between the two départements was a huge river, and it was along this bridge that you had to change over from driving on the left to driving on the right. So we cycled over the bridge and there was this town, a small French town called Lutu. We carried on cycling and we noticed in the distance a series of bridges. One was a road bridge, the other was a railway bridge and we assumed that the third was a canal bridge. As we looked, on the railway bridge, which was quite high up, a coal train ran past. My brother held that there was a coal train on this line every five minutes. He then asked why there was such an extensive canal network. I told him that the canal network was the same as the railway network in the past. It was built to move the coal to market. We then came to a part where there was a very steep hill so we had to dismount and push our bikes up this hill. We met a local guy, so we had a chat to him for a while. When we reached the bypass that had gone round the town, we could remount our bikes and pedal off. Then we came into a big city. I knew the name of this city, but I couldn’t think of it. We had to rush to pass a green light, and then my brother pointed to one of my tyres. It had gone down and the rear tyre was flat. We cycled for a while until we came to near where our hotel was, and there was a bicycle shop. We went in to ask the guy if he could change the tyres but he said that he was closed – he’d only come in to collect some things. But he gave us an address, which was 499 some street, and it was also the place where the dialysis took place. We found the street, which was only around the corner, and down at the bottom, we came to 499, but it was a big gate and the street was closed off. We opened it and went through, and it was a huge rough patch of ground like a demolition site but it seems to have all little units around it. We heard someone talking about bikes from one so we went over. He pointed us to a place in the corner. We went over to the corner and a guy in there was preparing to go home, but he agreed reluctantly to change my tyres so he began to take the wheel out of the frame.

It was really the Creuse, not the Cher, where we arrived at the large river marking the border. And the only Lutu that I could trace was a small settlement near a river in Fiji.

But once again, my brother turns up in a dream, but while I cycled for miles and miles as an adolescent, I wouldn’t have done it at all after I had my driving licence. This wasteland is familiar, though, and it reminds me of the football ground that wasn’t there that we visited a couple of months ago.

There was some kind of music school or music shop somewhere and I was making enquiries. It seemed that it was something to do with Castor and Pollux, so naturally, I went along there. It was a modern guitar and music shop so I had a wander around as best as I could on my crutches and had a play on one of the six-string guitars. When I came to put it back, first of all, I tried to stagger in the wrong direction, then I ended up staggering in the correct direction to put it back. It was all very complicated because I had my crutches, but, of course, carrying a guitar, I was in a great deal of difficulty on crutches. I heard them talking in the shop that they used to use Marshall amps and speakers but after the death of Jim Marshall they carried on for a short while, but now, they use something called Vose that are light brown in colour. We were listening to some music through the speakers that they had. Someone had ordered a pair but only one had come and he was disappointed, complaining at the shop counter. I went through into the back where there were the basses but I couldn’t play a bass because it was too heavy for me. I heard some kind of laughter coming from the front room and one of the guys running the shop came into the back. He said that there had been a competition for people to vote for the guy with the best bassist in the area. I had a look, and my name was on there once. He said that it was a guy called “Ace” who had won. He should be coming in a little later. He still had the Rickenbacker that he had in the very beginning years ago. I asked if he was still playing these days and he said that he was and that was why he couldn’t come in tonight to receive the reward. I asked about this reward, and it was one of these “write in” answers and thousands of people had written in for this “Ace”. I asked “who on Earth has done that?” and he replied “those lunatics in Italy. They are the ones who have done this”.

Castor would be the kind of person to have a music shop, bearing in mind her interest in guitars and music.

But apart from that, my guitars are too heavy for me to hold and play these days. And “Vose” speakers. I’m not by any chance thinking of “Bose”, am I?

Strangely, back in the early/mid 70s in Crewe, there was a bassist called “Ace” and I know his real name too. And he did actually own a Rickenbacker 4001 bass, to the envy of all of us back in those days. A beautiful guitar.

This voting thing seems to be rather strange but it’s true to say that there was a “Merseybeat” poll back in the early 60s for the best Liverpool group, and the magazine never ever sold out so quickly. All of the groups bought as many copies as they could and, of course, voted for themselves.

Did I dictate the dream that I was on holiday down in Kent and I walked with my crutches down to the beach? … "no, you didn’t" – ed … I could see in the distance the coast of France and down towards Dover. I could see the ferries crossing over and also the odd hovercraft or two. Then it was time for me to leave so I managed to stand up but I couldn’t reach my crutches which had blown over. I went to try to grab them but there was a young lad there watching me. He said “are you going to haul your crutches then?”. I replied “I have to try to resolve this myself”. He answered “yes, it’s good for you if you do”. Eventually, I managed to reach my crutches and I hobbled off to the hotel. There was a long queue waiting for lunch but suddenly everyone surged forward as if they had opened the doors to the dining room. I went in, and I had a lot of trouble trying to find vegan food because there were no labels on anything and I didn’t know what it was. It was mostly a salad buffet where people helped themselves. At some point, some girl, while my back was turned, dropped two pieces of meat onto my plate so I made her move them. She couldn’t understand why I’d made such a fuss. I told her that since she’s been at this school for three years, she should know by now that I’m a vegan. She said that she hadn’t realised, and actually, she was a vegan too. Trying to find some food at this buffet was really difficult. In the end, there was some blue grated vegetable that looked like grated carrots or something like that. I was still trying to debate whether there was anything else that I could eat when I awoke. But one thing was bothering me and that was “how was I going to manage to carry my plates when I need both hands to work my crutches?”.

There are several places along the East Kent coast where you have a similar view.

It’s also correct that I need to struggle on as best as I can because it will help preserve my autonomy for as long as possible. However, serving myself at a buffet when I’m on crutches is something that has come up on a couple of occasions.

After this, we had another footfest. The highlights of the remaining games in the JD Cymru League had been posted online so I sat and watched them for a while. That included the Battle of Essity Stadium where Y Fflint and Llansawel went for the best of three falls, three submissions or a knock-out after the final whistle.

No Stranraer game, though. The pitch at Dumbarton was frozen so the game was called off. And that reminds me of back in the mid 70s and my potential one-and-only appearance for Nantwich Town Reserves when they were desperately short of players, and so I turned up at the ground to find that the pitch was frozen and the game was called off.

After a disgusting drink break, I finished off editing the notes that I had started yesterday for a radio programme, and now, the two halves are all assembled. The joining track has been chosen and the notes written ready for dictating at the next early start.

By now, it was time for baking. We had a pizza base and also a loaf of bread, this week with ground Brazil nuts instead of sunflower seeds. I’m told that Brazil nuts are an excellent source of selenium which reduces the likelihood of infection and heart disease. They also help bone formation.

The pizza was delicious and the bread looks excellent too. I hope that it tastes as good as it looks. But I wish that there was something that would reduce the likelihood of this stabbing pain in my foot that seems to be worsening. But having already fallen asleep a few times this evening (once while I was making my tea!) I shall go to bed and worry about it then.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about voting … "well, one of us has" – ed … I was telling one of my friends that the High Court has thrown out a demand for there to be an intelligence test for potential voters to pass coming into force before the next election.
"Why is that?" she asked.
"Apparently the judges didn’t think that it was fair to slash the Reform Party membership like that so early in the campaign."

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