… this has been, especially after the “what a night!” I had last night.
As I said yesterday … "actually this morning, but more of that ‘anon’" – ed … I came back in here some time after 23:00 and crawled into bed under the covers, the latest I have been for some time.
As usual, it took quite a while for me to go off to sleep, and there I stayed, flat out, until all of … errr … 05:00 or so.
Seeing that there was an hour and a half or so to go before the alarm sounded, I tried my best to go back to sleep, but I failed miserably. By 06:15, I’d given up completely so I raised myself from the bed, went over to the computer and began to type the notes from yesterday that I had omitted to do.
When it came round to finishing, I heard movement from the living room, so it seemed that my friend and the Hound of the Baskervilles were now showing signs of awakening, so I went in there, and we had a lovely early-morning mug of hot, strong coffee. I sorted out my medication to take with the coffee, but would you believe that despite having sorted it all out, I still managed somehow to forget to take half of it. I ended up taking it at about 11:00.
Isabelle the Nurse turned up as usual, and she spent more time playing with the Hound of the Baskervilles than she did taking care of me. But never mind – they both seemed to enjoy it. The Hound of the Baskervilles has a very long memory for people.
After she left, we made breakfast, with yet more hot, strong coffee, and instead of reading Charles Roach Smith’s THE ANTIQUITIES OF RICHBOROUGH, RECULVER, AND LYMNE, IN KENT, we carried on chatting from where we left off last night – my friend and I, I mean, not The Hound of the Baskervilles and me.
Later on, they went for walkies and I came in here to listen to the dictaphone to see if I’d been anywhere during the night, and to my surprise, I had.
It’s impressive that I can remember in a dream that a radio programme went together perfectly and there is no indication of what the song may have been. However, I do know that for most of the evening and night, I had the Little River Band song I’LL BE HOME ON A MONDAY going round and round in my head but that will be going through a good few weeks before whatever is … "or isn’t" – ed … included in the programme that I’ve just finished.
After that, I had my Welsh homework to finish. It’s the homework for the taster lesson for Uwch III next year and blimmin’ ‘eck, it wasn’t ‘arf difficult and time-consuming. I’m determined to go ahead with the course but I can see that for the next two years, I’m really going to have my work cut out. I can’t blame one or two of the others who have decided to go back and do Uwch II again.
By now, walkies were over and everyone was back here, so we carried on chatting. That went on until it was time for walkies part II, so I came back in here and carried on with some more stuff until they came back.
Later on, my cleaner came down to say “hello” to the Hound of the Baskervilles and have a little play with him, to such an extent that she almost missed her bus outside. And then my friend went for a walk into town, leaving the Hound of the Baskervilles to look after me.
While he was gone, a neighbour came round to see me, and he made an … errr … extraordinary proposition to me. There might be more of this anon, in which case I shall enlarge upon my comments. But it really did take me by surprise.
Some time later, my cleaner and my friend came back. Apparently they had met each other on the bus back from town. So we had another round of fun and games with the Hound of the Baskervilles before she went back upstairs to her apartment.
Teatime came around sooner than you might have thought, and so I made chips in the air fryer with burgers on baps. I managed to eat a burger and a handful of chips, but that was about all. I couldn’t manage another piece of anything, no matter how small.
Our chat had been continuing all this time, even as I did the washing up, but round about 22:00 we decided that it was bedtime so I came in here to write up my notes and then go to bed once I’ve done everything else that I need to do. It’s late right now, but tomorrow is Sunday, my lying-in day. However, I did explain to my friend that the aroma of a hot, strong coffee placed on the bedside table behind the head of my bed will usually wake me up just long enough to drink it.
But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about extraordinary propositions … "well, one of us has" – ed … I explained to my friend, when he came back, that it reminds me of the Crewe mafia.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"Well, if you have the Italian mafia who make you an offer you can’t refuse, in Crewe they have the Crewe mafia who make you an offer you can’t understand."
