Tag Archives: liz terry messenger

Tuesday 8th April 2025 – I WAS ON THE PO …

… dium again today in the quiz in the Welsh class. I really don’t know what’s happening to me these days but I seem to be getting to grips much better with my Welsh than I was a year or two ago. Let’s hope that I can keep it up for the rest of the course. We’re so far behind on this one (Unit 11 out of 25) that I reckon that we’ll have another two years to do instead of the one that was programmed for the final course.

Perhaps my improvement was due to the better night that I had last night. I finished my notes, my statistics and my backing-up fairly early and in principle I could have been in bed by 23:00 but I can always find other things to distract me when I’m supposed to be doing something important, and it was almost midnight when I finally made it into bed.

As for the night itself, I remember nothing whatsoever. I must have been dead to the World and slept all the way through until the morning.

When I awoke it was still fairly dark so I was wondering what time it might be. I was giving the idea of looking at the time some serious thought when BILLY COTTON’S RAUCOUS RATTLE rent the heavens asunder. And so it was probably about 06:55 when I opened my eyes.

It was a struggle to my feet but I staggered off into the bathroom to sort myself out and then went into the kitchen for the medication.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. We were in a class last night working on some kind of project. It was something of a mixture between a maths class, a language class and a logic class. We were going through a text, I suppose, and then we were moved into small groups and we had to discuss certain elements of what we’d been doing. One of these pieces was so complicated with these enormous words in it that it took absolutely ages for us to read it. It was very difficult to understand. Trying to make any headway on this project with this piece of work was extremely complicated. I think that everyone was in despair by the end of it. With five minutes to go before the end of the lesson the teacher said that we would concentrate now on doing something else. The first thing that she did was to ask us the answers to a couple of questions that she’d set before we’d been moved into groups. Of course, at that moment I couldn’t find my papers where I’d written the answers. I had a feeling that this particular lesson had been a total disaster today.

We’ve all had disasters like that in the past – missing out on something really important that has completely derailed a whole series of studies and left us stranded halfway back down the course. I’ve still not really recovered from missing all those weeks of my Welsh course in the autumn of 2022 when I spent two months in hospital in Belgium I used to try to make up for everything by going on a Summer School but dialysis has rendered that almost impossible now.

Isabelle the Nurse put her sooty foot in the door this morning. She’s started her week’s activity today. We talked about having some new compression socks, and it appears that her oppo has overlooked to tell her about it so we started the discussion again and she’ll see my doctor’s secretary to ask for a prescription.

After she left I made breakfast and read more of MY NEW BOOK. Our stay at Durham was very brief indeed and after passing by the castles at Eaton Socon and Ewyas Harold, we’ve now arrived at Exeter Castle.

At the moment, he’s setting the scene and I imagine that in a few days we’ll have the guided tour. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I’m disappointed by the fact that although he goes to great lengths to tell us what there is or was, he does not mention why they did it. I’d love to know more about the military principles that went into the design and building of all of this.

Another thing that I find confusing is his method of dating. A couple of weeks ago we mentioned the change of calendar from the Julian to the Gregorian in 1752, the loss of 11 days, and the change of the New Year from 25th March to 1st January. Prior to that, it was the custom to date events by what they called the “regnal year” – such as “in the third year of the reign of Richard III” or “in the fifteenth year of the reign of Elizabeth”. However, after 1752 it became the practice to date events by the actual calendar year, such as 2025 or 1939 or 1900 etc.

Not our author though. He’s insisting on using the regnal year to date almost everything, even though it had been out of fashion for 150 years when he started to write his book, and I’m having to exert myself in order to carry out some rapid mental calculation as I carry on reading.

Back in here I checked over my Welsh homework and sent it off for marking, and then set down to revise and prepare for my lesson later this morning.

By the time that the lesson began I’d prepared almost the entire unit which is good news because the more I do today, the less I have to do next week. But it was just as well that I did because it was quite a short unit and we’ve almost finished it.

We had a quiz about the things that we should have learned last week and, in contrast to how my dream went, I finished on the podium. At one stage I had a run of eight questions correct, and I’ve never done that before in any Welsh class.

And my Welsh joke – it went down really well and if the tutor laughed out loud at it, then it must have been good.

After the disgusting drink break (we actually had the prescribed two today) I had a few things to do and then I began to choose the music for the next radio programme.

The very next one will be very easy because it relates to a concert. I already have all of the music and I wrote the text years ago when Liz and I were running “Radio Anglais” in the Auvergne, so I concentrated on the one after.

This one is another one that will be complicated because there are so many anniversaries that took place on that date. It will take careful selection to sort it out.

My cleaner stuck her head in the apartment too. She’d been to LeClerc and had found some slices of vegan cheese for me, so cheese on toast will be back on the menu for lunch on Sunday.

There should also have been a lengthy chat with my friend in the UK who is handling this ongoing project but he was unavoidably detained elsewhere with another matter so we agreed to continue our chat tomorrow.

Tea tonight was as usual a delicious taco roll with rice and veg followed by orange, ginger and coconut cake with soya dessert. Plenty of stuffing left too so seeing as how things are unfolding here, I might lengthen it and divide it into two so that there will be one for next week

But I’ll worry about that tomorrow because I have bread to make. I forgot that this afternoon so I’ll rustle up a 300-gram loaf in the air fryer and then go to bed.

But before I go, I bet that you are all wondering about the Welsh joke that I told in class.
It’s not easy to say it in English because with Welsh being an ancient language, it follows really ancient grammar rules that were in place long before the Romanisation of modern Western European languages. One of those rules is that where a noun is “feminine”, the first letter of the adjective used to describe it may mutate
So – "Mae dau o blant yn cerdded yn y goedwig"
Two children are walking in the wood
"Mae hogan yn dweud ‘edrych ar yr aderyn fawr yn y goeden’ "
The girl says ‘look at the big bird in the tree’
"Mae hogyn yn dweud ‘Aderyn MAWR – aderyn yn wrywaidd’ "
The boy said ‘Big bird – bird is masculine’ (so the adjective ‘big’ doesn’t mutate)
"Mae hogan yn dweud ‘mae gen ti lygaid rhagorol’ "
The girl says ‘you have really good eyes’

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5th April 2025 – WE HAD ANOTHER …

… much less painful session at the dialysis centre this afternoon. Even better news was that I only had to stay for three and a half hours. That will suit me just fine.

It was however quite tiring, mainly because it was after 01:00 when I finally crawled into bed last night, or this morning. It was another one of those nights where I couldn’t really concentrate on what I was doing.

Writing up my notes and backing up the computer seemed to take forever and I’ve no idea why, other than the fact that neither my heart nor my mind was in it

Quickly asleep again but it wasn’t for long though. It was another turbulent night with me still being away when I heard the water heater switch off at 06:20. I was thinking that I ought to raise myself from the dead and claim another early start but I must have gone back to sleep again because the combined forces of the new and the old alarm did more to awaken the dead than John Peel ever did. I had both alarms set for this morning to make sure that the new one actually worked.

When the alarm went off I was walking with someone through the streets of an industrial town. I’d planned to take her out for a long walk at some point but she wasn’t all that interested in going. Then we had to go to see a shop so we set off along this new footpath that they had created. I thought “this is the way that I was going to take her anyway”. We walked a little way, then there was an even newer bit that went down between the railway lines and up the hill on the far side so we walked down there. We came to an area where this path was not very distinct. I thought that we’d go to the left but it wasn’t so clearly marked. We thus carried straight on and found that there was a left turning. We turned left there, and one of the locals said “you could have gone the other way”. We walked on and came through some bushes where there was a beautiful view across a lake, a really stunning view, so we walked down a slope and came to some gates of a big house. There was a crowd of people outside it. We realised that this was the home of someone famous and there were always people here. We felt somewhat embarrassed about being seen joining the crowd of all these people waiting at this gate.

Wherever this area was, I have no idea. But I can see it quite clearly even now. As for whoever it was who was with me, I’ve no idea. That’s the real disappointment about things like this. All these young ladies accompanying me on my peripatetic wanderings and I can’t remember who it was, if ever I knew them in the first place.

In the bathroom I had a good wash and scrub up, and then handwashed my socks, undies and nightwear. Then into the kitchen for the medication.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night. Some girl had come into our family circle for some reason or other. She was telling us all about her childhood. She had been on a school exchange visit to the same area where I had been in 1970. We were chatting about all kinds of different things and she remembered a lake and a beautiful view across it with a view down a valley past a few villages and a large parking area at the side of the road, all situated at a very sharp bend. I told her that I knew exactly where that was because it’s a road that I take regularly down to the south-west of France. I was sure that I went there too when I was on a school exchange programme, but of course she didn’t believe it and thought that I was pulling her leg. A few months later we all set out on holiday, our family, and we took this girl with us. I thought that it would be interesting to spring a little surprise on her. Instead of going down the A7 to the Mediterranean I went along some of the old roads, through Burgundy and the area where we’d been on this school exchange. I knew exactly how this was going to end. As we came down this road the signs were for a junction to the left going off in the general direction of the Rhône and Switzerland. The old road that we were on carried on round a sharp turn to the right to go round a reservoir. As we came over the brow of the hill and the reservoir was just below us, this girl suddenly let out an enormous exclamation “this is it!”. I replied “I know that it is, exactly where I thought that it was”. We turned to go round the bend and there was a big beaten-earth parking space on the left, so even though we were pushed for time, I drove onto the parking area. We all alighted and this girl went skipping off around, looking at all the things that she remembered, the changing huts, the swimmers and everything. She was absolutely delighted. She began to tell me some more stories about her childhood, one of which involved a diary. She’d written everything down in her diaries but she already had eleven diaries so the one after that, she wasn’t really all that interested in keeping and either her friends lost it or stood on it or something but she no longer had it. That was a shame because she would have loved to have compared notes today with things that she wrote about this lake back when she was a child and had come here before.

And I wish that I knew who she was too.

The site and situation of this lake or reservoir reminds me of the Barrage des Fades near to where Liz and Terry used to live in Sauret-Besserve, although the description was nothing like how the Barrage des Fades looks. But as for my trip on a school exchange, I do have to say that it was the best thing that ever happened to me. It was my first taste of foreign travel, my first taste of a different culture and it opened up, quite literally, a whole new World. I couldn’t wait to go again – and again, and again.

But seeing as we are talking about avoiding the A7 – the “Autoroute du Soleil” that goes down the east bank of the Rhône … "well, one of us is" – ed …, on many occasions I have driven down the old road on the west bank. It’s much more picturesque and less-crowded

The nurse was in a rush today. It’s weekend so he wants to be home as quickly as possible, I suspect. And that suits me fine I went and made breakfast and read some more of MY NEW BOOK

It’s not really a book on architecture – at least, not in the fashion that I was expecting. It’s the kind of book that you would expect to see written by a tour guide, listing the interesting features and describing them in terms that would baffle any layman.

What would be important for me is not the “what” as much as the “why”, why were these castles built in the way that they were and the principles that went into their construction. These designs were not haphazard but quite significant and well-planned and I for one would want to know more about the engineering that went into them

Back in here I carried on with my Woodstock notes. I’m now at not far short of nineteen minutes of notes and I’ve probably written about a third of what I need. There will be some hefty editing quite soon.

My cleaner turned up bang on midday to fit my patches. She’d only just applied them too when the doorbell rang. "He’s early!" we both said together.

However, it was the postie with the first instalment of my recent order. Some new clothes, some baking stuff and, most importantly, the protective pouch for my new ‘phone. I had just finished fitting it to my ‘phone when the taxi arrived.

We were two passengers down to Avranches but there was quite a crowd waiting when we arrived, so I was one of the last to be fitted.

The good news is that the debit at three and a half hours was just about 800ml/hour, just under the limit for a three and a half hour session and that cheered me up. The glycerine count wasn’t much good and they kept on force-feeding me with orange juice.

Apart from that, no-one bothered me at all and I could crack on with updating the travelling laptop, revising my Welsh and looking at a few cookery recipes to see if they gave me any ideas.

It was the boss who brought me home this evening and my faithful cleaner was waiting for me to watch me as I climbed the stairs up to my place. It was really nice being here at 18:30 and knowing that, with a bit of luck on arrival, I could have been back here fifteen minutes earlier.

Tea was baked potato, salad and one of those breaded quorn fillets that I like, followed by orange, ginger and coconut cake with soya dessert.

So for once, I’m early. I’ll do the notes, the stats and the backing up and then dictate my radio notes before going to bed. I really could do with a decent sleep.

But seeing as we have been talking about taxi drivers … "well, one of us has" – ed … the police were called to an accident in Avranches this afternoon after reports of multiple casualties. 59 people had died
They interviewed the driver at the scene and asked him what had happened.
"I was going down the hill in my cab and the brakes failed" he replied. "It was either hit two men or a wedding party, so I chose to hit the two men"
"But how come there are so many casualties?" asked the policeman
"Well, one of the men made a run for it but I got him in the end, just as he reached the wedding party."

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Thursday 27th February 2025 – ANOTHER PAINFUL SESSION …

… in the dialysis centre today. And not just because of the needles either but because the stabbing pain in my foot started up again mid-session.

"Would you like a doliprane?" aske the nurse. Had it not been one of my favourite nurses I would have shown her where to put the doliprane, but I managed to restrain myself. I’m becoming quite good at that.

Not so good at going to bed though. Just as I was about to hit the hay a concert of 10,000 Maniacs that I’d done in the good old “Radio Anglais” days came around on the playlist. So that was me, well-gone for ninety-five minutes. Yes, there are many things more interesting than sleeping.

As it happened I didn’t go straight to sleep either. I tossed and turned for quite a while and at one stage thought that I wasn’t going to manage to drop off at all. But when the alarm went off I was definitely asleep, even though it had been a turbulent night.

At that moment I was discussing Tranmere Rovers with a friend of mine. I’d heard that Tranmere had signed a new goalkeeper and I asked him about it. He came out with a name but I couldn’t find it. I wondered whether it might have been someone with a similar name. We had a team-sheet for one of their next game and looked at the changes in the squad over the last week. There must have been about fifty new players signed. “This is surprising”. He asked about one or two. I said that it seems to be that they are going for quantity not quality and that is quite probably the wrong way round. We were chatting about that when the alarm went off.

That’s a familiar story. During the close season almost two years ago, in the run-up to the European matches Connah’s Quay Nomads had enough players to be able to put out two completely different teams each half in a warm-up game against Stranraer. However, as events subsequently proved, quantity is no substitute for quality and if they had signed five really decent players for the budget of ten run-of-the-mill ones, they would have done so much better.

In the bathroom I had a good wash and scrub up, followed by a shave. And then into the kitchen for the medication, remembering not to take the medication that I’m not supposed to take on Dialysis Day.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night. That’s twice during the night that I’ve reached for the dictaphone and the dream has evaporated right out from underneath me. But for the second one I have the image of a very small girl still engraved in my mind but I don’t know what she was doing or where she fitted in to this but she was there impressed on my mind even though the rest of the dream and the one before it have totally disappeared.

That’s becoming a rather far-too-familiar tale of woe these days and I wish that it wasn’t. I put it down to old age myself. It’s really sad how my memory is deteriorating.

Later on, a local farmer in Sandbach had written to the local Country magazine to write about the projects for his farm and what he was planning to do on increasing his investment etc in order to reap greater dividends. He explained that it was necessary to do that to keep ahead of the programme and to keep his agriculture on the move. In actual fact he’d been reading dozens of these farming magazines and decided to make a change in the way he operates his cattle and try something to be done in a different way. This was going to require a lot of investments and he was making a start on doing it right now.

It wasn’t actually Sandbach but Shavington. I can still see the place where it all happened … "your memory’s not that bad then" – ed … and it was by the Sugar Loaf in Crewe Road where I used to catch the bus to go to school. Not that I caught the bus for all that long because once I had built a decent(ish) pushbike I used to cycle to school

Finally I was going somewhere in a car. There was a long queue of traffic going through a tunnel. We were having to wait in this queue, and then a few vehicles in front began to move but the one immediately in front of me didn’t move. I had a look and there were two people beneath it. I wondered what they were doing. Someone behind me klaxoned so I explained to him. Then these two people began to push their car out of the way, apologised and said that their car won’t start. I replied “it’s not any problem” and carried on. A little further on I came across a couple of older motorcyclists. One of them, the woman, was telling me that now that they had retired they had bought a motorcycle to travel about but I watched the man try to climb on but he couldn’t lift his leg high enough to climb up onto the motorbike. He was there for about 10 minutes making an effort.

So after the previous night, there I was last night going for a ride in a car. Without Zero unfortunately. It would be too much, I suppose, to expect her to come along twice in succession but I can live in hope. However that “couldn’t get his leg over” is very reminiscent of the famous moment between “Johnners” and “Aggers” LIVE ON THE BBC.

Isabelle the Nurse breezed in and breezed out again in a flurry, stopping just about long enough to read my health card as tomorrow is her last day in this month and so she’ll be very busy. And then she’s Carnavalling.

After she left I made breakfast and read more of MY BOOK. We’ve been discussing Civil War military emplacements today, not that there are so many still extant. Tomorrow we’ll be starting on the earliest traces of industry and regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we’ve discussed this before. I’m interested to see what is his opinion of the wiping out of the industrial base upon the arrival of the Saxons.

Next stop was back in the bathroom where I went one better than David Crosby, presumably because I’d had the ‘flu for Christmas and I’m paranoid when I look in the mirror and see a police car. However, I didn’t give in an inch to fear and sorted out the sheep-shearer.

Back in here I carried on with my proto-Woodstock programme and wrote a few more notes but it’s not going as quickly as I would like. I shall have to finish it tomorrow regardless otherwise I’ll be doing it for ever and I have other things to do.

My cleaner turned up to fit my anaesthetic patches and then I tidied up the kitchen while I waited for the taxi to arrive.

Today we had another new driver and I had to help her find a way out of here. It’s more complicated than usual today as all of the motor homes arrive ready for Carnaval. She was late arriving but she had her foot down for much of the way. It’s much easier now that yet another radar has gone up in flames. That’s three now in the area.

Last in at the hospital though, so last to be connected up. Despite all of the people milling around in there today, no-one came to disturb me except to bring me the coffee, and that suits me fine. I revised my Welsh and then chopped up a sound-track of a Canadian group who had appeared once at a Hawkfest

Unplugging me was about as painful as plugging me in, and the nurse reckons that I ought to try the anaesthetic cream for once and see what good that does. It has to be worth a try. I can’t go on like this.

One of my favourite drivers came to pick me up to take me home – the Belgian girl with the twins. We had a good chat on the way home but of course, late in means late out. It was a very weary me who struggled up the Twenty-Five Steps.

Tea tonight was steamed veg, vegan sausage and vegan cheese sauce. No pudding though because I’m still not hungry. My appetite has really diminished just now. All of the stuff that I didn’t eat at Christmas and said that I’d eat on my birthday will still be there next year, I reckon. I’m not sure if I will be.

So I’m off to bed now, ready for a work-in tomorrow and I shall keep at it until I’m finished. There’s a football match tomorrow night but I’m going to miss it and watch it at dialysis on Saturday – I may as well make good use of the time.

But seeing as we have been talking about old age and memory … "well, one of us has" – ed … I told my cleaner the other day "two things happen to you when you reach my age"
"What are they?" she asked
"The first one is that you forget absolutely everything"
"What’s the second thing?" she asked.
"I don’t know" I replied. "I’ve forgotten"

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Monday 24th February 2025 – THEY SENT THE …

… minibus for me again today to bring me home.

It is a free service, I’m well-aware of that, but it’s even more complicated and difficult for me than climbing into an ambulance. Next time I see the driver who thinks that he runs the show I’ll have to have a word with him about it and see what they can do.

My faithful cleaner said that seeing as it’s my birthday today, given the amount of money that I help put into the owner’s pocket, they should have sent a Rolls Royce for me.

That’s right people, another year older and deeper in debt. Seeing the start of another year that, back in the summer, I honestly never thought that I would see. I was in all seriousness preparing my funeral.

Thank you all once again for your unwavering support over the last twelve months. It means a great deal to me to receive your messages, those of you who write to me. Why don’t some of you others drop me a line too?

So last night it was another late night going to bed – just about midnight in fact, and I could have done with being in bed a couple of hours earlier, that’s for sure.

As it was, it was another turbulent night just like a few of the others just recently, and the tempest that began at 04:00 and started to rattle a sign on this building with a noise that awoke me and stopped me going back to sleep was all that I needed.

It goes without saying that when the alarm went off I was already up and about. And I even remembered to shave and to change my clothes too just in case Emilie the Cute Consultant is there today.

After I’d taken the medication I went to have a listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night. I was at dialysis last night lying in my bed watching a couple of the nurses working. One of them was Julie the Cook. She seemed to spend most of her time folding up sheets and putting them away in a cupboard which I’ve no idea why

That’s something else that I could do without. It’s bad enough having to go there during the daytime, never mind during the time when I’m supposed to be relaxing.

There was also something going on where I was discussing the rules of inheritance with someone, leaving money to the first-born which I suppose makes sense if it’s something like a farm but I can’t see what other reason it makes for anything else

This relates to a conversation that I’d had with Rosemary the other day. Inheritance Tax is a hot topic in the UK at the moment but I can’t see why it’s a worry to anyone over here. And then, when you are dead and Inheritance tax is applied to your wealth, you are in no position to worry about it.

Finally I was in Paris with a couple of people and they had been giving me the run-around so we set out to go to Lille or to Leuven or somewhere. When we arrived in the railway station I managed to give them the slip and abandon them. Walking around, I came to the shopping centre which was up 25 flights of stone stairs. There was a large flight of stairs that went up from the street but if you went round the corner into the forecourt of the railway station there was a flight of stairs there which weren’t so many which I hadn’t noticed until today so I set out to work out how easy it was to go up these because there were fewer of them. I did my trick of hauling myself up with my arms. Everyone was watching me and a few people walking up quicker than me were looking at me. I reached the top where there was a convenient handrail for me to pull myself up right outside the door of the flower shop there. I could see the flowers, I could see the shop assistants and everything selling. For some reason or other I was doing something with the coins in my pocket but I don’t know why. But when I’d made it up to the top of the stairs I was really unsteady on my feet and thought for a minute that I’d end up falling backwards all the way down again.

Twenty-five stairs is a familiar number, isn’t it? And having to haul myself up them three times per week at least is something that I won’t ever forget even when (if) I am living downstairs and no longer have to do it.

The nurse was in and out in a flash today. He’s off on his break now for a few days so I suppose that he doesn’t want to hang around. I could make breakfast and continue to read MY BOOK

Today we are discussing contemporary earthworks and he finds a great deal of amusement in some of his colleagues having mis-identified some contemporary slit trench for a Neolithic burial pit. I shall be waiting with bated breath for the omelette sur le visage moment.

Seeing as it’s my birthday today I emulated my namesake the mathematician and did three-fifths of five-eights of … errr … nothing for a couple of hours. I just stirred a few papers round with no great urgency and spoke to several friends on the internet, who had contacted me to wish me well, which was nice of them.

My cleaner, who had popped in earlier for the list of medication, came back with some of the supplies and to fit my anaesthetic patches. Then I had to await the taxi.

Late again leaving, the other passenger in the car was even later so we had to drop him off first, right across town at the Clinic. So I was very late arriving for dialysis.

Not only that but there were six other people who had arrived simultaneously and I was as usual the last. Then we had to run through a handwashing demonstration to waste even more time.

Plugging in was slightly less painful than normal, and then I reviewed my Welsh, although there’s no lesson tomorrow as it’s half-term.

The doctor in charge came to see me. There’s no real indication of anything that might be causing these sweats, so he said.

He did have two items of good news for me and as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, it’s been a long time since I’ve had any.

Firstly, this new dialysis centre in Granville is all systems go and will be open within a year. Secondly, as things stand I would be one of the patients to be transferred there. So that will save me about four hours per week.

While he was there, I tried to negotiate a reduction in hours. My weight seems to be stable right now compared to how it was, so I wondered if instead of reducing the machine’s power they could reduce the hours that I have to spend.

His reply was that it’s not as easy as that but he’ll check the analysis and see what it says.

While I was there I had a video chat with my niece, her husband and one of her daughters in Canada. That was a lovely surprise, one of the many highlights of my day.

When they finally threw me out we had the pantomime with the minibus but I managed to enter it in a slightly more dignified way than the other day. Leaving it is still the same old circus though.

It was a very exhausted me who made it into my apartment and now that I’ve had my stuffed pepper and written my notes I’m off to bed. I’m exhausted. I have all these goodwill messages to answer but that will be tomorrow. I can’t keep my eyes open.

But seeing as we have been talking about my namesake the mathematician … "well, one of us has" – ed … he once told be "I have a completely irrational fear of negative numbers"
"So what do you do?" I asked him. "Is it a serious problem?"
"It’s extremely serious" he said. "So much so that I’ll stop at nothing to avoid them."

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Tuesday 28th January 2025 – EVEN NOW I AM …

… feeling the effects of that marathon session attached to the dialysis machine, and I don’t know how I’ll survive because I have plenty more sessions like that to come. If I’m just having one day off before I go back to Fight The Good Fight, I shall be in a right mess before long.

But that’s something about which I can worry some other time.

Last night after having finished my notes I couldn’t summon up the energy to leave my seat for quite some time. Not that that’s unusual, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, but last night was something different, believe me.

Eventually though I summoned up the energy to go to sort myself out in the bathroom and then I fell into the bed and that was that. I remember nothing whatsoever of what went on during the night.

When the alarm sounded I was miles away with the fairies, but not in any kind of fashion that would draw comment from the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine. I should be so lucky.

It took me an age to haul myself out of my stinking pit and I almost failed to beat the second alarm. Nevertheless I ended up in the bathroom and had a good scrub up ready for the day.

Next stop was the kitchen, where I had my medication. And not forgetting the disgusting mud-like preparation that I have to take on non-dialysis days. It totally beats me – they spend billions and billions of Euros putting rockets into Space and all of that, yet they can’t find the will to make a horrible medication taste nice.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was on my way to pick up a parcel for delivery. At the junction between Bedford Street and Nantwich Road were all these big motorcycles and riders arranged all over the road, all over the street and the pavement. I was on a motorbike too so when I arrived there I stopped and shouted at them all and gave them a lecture about parking in the middle of the road, which they didn’t appreciate. I was lucky that I escaped with my life but I did it all the same. Then I had to go back to Frank Bott Avenue, n°138. I eventually found the house, one of the middle pair of a line of four modern council houses. The whole gardens were in terribly poor state and really needed someone to look after them and deal with everything. I eventually found the door which was around the side (but how could it have been around the side of a house in a row of terraced houses). When I knocked on the door the guy who came out was one of the bosses from work. He was handicapped in some way with the right side of his body. He handed a parcel to me and told me that it was very important to be delivered. He continued to emphasise the importance of it.

This is twice within a few days that I’ve been up at the Frank Bott Avenue end of town and I don’t know why because apart from when I was driving taxis, that part of town had absolutely no interest for me. The houses were not modern but were what passed for council houses in Crewe in the late 1960s and I didn’t recognise the boss at all. The road junction between Bedford Street and Nantwich Road is right at the other end of town, and the confrontation between Yours Truly and a group of large bikers, or a large group of bikers, whichever you prefer, that I was willing to undertake even though I recognised it in the dream as being somewhat menacing, was certainly realistic enough. I even recognised the Belisha beacon at the zebra crossing just there.

And that’s strange, isn’t it? I remember nothing whatever about the dream or about dictating it, yet once I began to type, I could see everything in the back of my mind. It’s not the first time that that has happened either.

Isabelle the Nurse drifted in on the tide this morning. It’s her turn until Saturday when she’s off skiing. I took the opportunity to have a moan at her about her oppo, because the situation with him is not, I fear, going to improve. We may as well start as we mean to go on.

After she left, I made breakfast. And my loaf of bread is exquisite. It is easily the best loaf of bread that I have ever made. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that, while we’ve not had any absolute disasters, we’ve not been far off from that with one or two, but this one is one of which I could be proud.

There was MY BOOK to read too. Our hero has calmed down. He’s still ridiculing his contemporaries and even describing the thoughts and calculations of the Emperor Napoleon III as having "rested upon a rotten foundation.". Still, only another 50 pages and then I am in amongst the addendum. That should be interesting.

Back in here I checked over my Welsh homework. Then I formatted it in *.pdf and sent it off, and began to revise for my lesson. While I was doing that I had a listen to the radio programme that I’d prepared for broadcast today and then sent it off. This programme was, by the way, prepared on 4th August last, and I’m much farther ahead of that now. Not that I’m bragging of course.

The Welsh lesson wasn’t as good as a few have been just recently. But there again, the dialysis yesterday took so much out of me that it’s hardly a surprise. I can’t really concentrate on anything right now and this is boding ill for the future. It beats the whole point of going if I’m going to be as lethargic as this in the future.

Once the lesson was over, I didn’t move for quite a while. I think that I’d given up the ghost. Things are definitely not going in my direction right now.

Eventually I began work. And what I’ve done is to review the “births and deaths” list until the end of the year and note everything on the spreadsheet that I keep. I’ve sort-of decided that at the dialysis centre I’ll choose the music for the forthcoming programmes and remix them while I’m there.

That’s what I used to do when I was in Belgium and if I could do this on the crabby computer that I had in those days, no reason why I can’t do it on the portable computer that I have now.

Another thought that’s running through my mind is “why don’t I buy a new laptop?”.1.8mHz processors were state-of-the-art a few years ago but the big desktop machine has a processor of 4.3mHz. So I had a look around to see what I could find that has a 1TB SSD, 32GB of RAM and a superfast processor.

And then I had a look at my bank account and decided “well, maybe not”..

There was a Christmas Cake break this afternoon and that will all be gone by the end of the week if not before. Then I’ll have to think about my birthday cake. I’ve no idea what I’ll do for that but it needs to be something special. Last year’s Black Forest Gateau was quite nice, even if the icing left something to be desired.

Tea tonight was something out of the European Burger Mountain. I’m still not feeling up to cooking something dramatic.

In fact I have a feeling that I’ll be rotating my meals round to different days because making a huge meal for several days on an evening when I’m exhausted from dialysis is not a very good idea. Maybe a stuffed pepper on Sunday, the taco roll when I’m exhausted on a Monday night, a leftover curry on Wednesday and the pizza on Thursday – I’m not sure how that would work if I didn’t have my mushrooms until Friday though so I don’t know.

So burger, pasta and veg followed by the chocolate cake and vegan soya dessert. The chocolate cake will be all gone tomorrow night so maybe after I’ve had my shower and my cleaner has left, I might make another cake.

But what? The last apple cake that I made a while back was quite a success and I could put raisins, coconut, cinnamon and nutmeg. I have plenty of coconut oil so I could replace some of the vegetable cooking oil with the coconut oil and that will make it quite lively.

And that’s another thing. Liz sent me a cookery book for my birthday last year and I’ve only had time to skim it. Why don’t I take it to dialysis and read it there? I bet that there will be lots of ideas in the book over which I can ponder.

But I shall ponder over them tomorrow. Right now I’m off to bed in the hope that one or maybe more of the Fearsome Foursome of Castor, TOTGA, Zero and Moonchild might come to keep me company.

But seeing as we have been talking about new powerful computers … "well, one of us has" – ed … these new computers come these days with Artificial Intelligence where you can ask them whatever you want and they have the answer.
One boy bought a brand new computer and decided to test the Artificial Intelligence so he asked it "where is my father right now?"
The AI on the computer replied "he’s fishing on the Shropshire Union Canal near Marbury"
The boy burst out laughing and said to the computer "What a load of rubbish. My father died three years ago "
"Your father is fishing on the Shropshire Union Canal near Marbury" the computer insisted. "It was your mother’s husband who died three years ago."

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Sunday 5th January 2025 – DID YOU ALL ..

… enjoy my radio programme this weekend? I hope that you all listened to it over the weekend. But if you missed it, shame on you, and you can hear it HERE and even dpwnload it it you like.

But meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment, today is the last day of my two weeks off work. Tomorrow the alarm goes on at 07:00 again and I start work, whenever the dialysis centre and my Welsh course (which restarts on Tuesday) let me.

So to celebrate, I intended to have a late night last night but I gave up the struggle round about midnight and crawled off to bed instead.

It was another hot, sweaty night after the Saturday dialysis session, as I have observed on several occasions. But I must have been asleep at some point because at 06:55 I was awoken by a phantom alarm call.

It was definitely a phantom call because I don’t have an alarm recorded at that time. Nevertheless, it certainly sounded like an alarm and I ended up sitting on the edge of the bed before realising that it was a false alarm, and once I’d realised that it was in fact a false alarm I went back to bed.

It goes without saying though that I couldn’t go back to sleep so at about 07:30 I gave up the struggle and arose from the Dead.

When the alarm went off I was at my desk working. I’d already had a really good wash and been into the kitchen to take my medicine so that I could have a good start to the day.

With time to spend, I had a listen to the dicaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was actually with a girl last night and I don’t know why because it was someone about whom I wouldn’t have thought anything in a million years. We were a couple. There had been something going on that had left everyone very dirty. It was an extremely messy day, something like that. At the end of it, I had to go somewhere so off I went. When I came back she was waiting. We ended up talking about our children although we didn’t have any at that particular moment. The plan was that we’d have two. She asked which one was going to be mine. I replied that it’s inevitable that it’s going to be a daddy’s girl, isn’t it? The assumption then is that she’s going to be a mummy’s boy. For some reason she quite liked the sound of all of that

“I was with a girl last night and I don’t know why”. … "Of course you do. Be your age!" – ed … But even though I might have known her in my dream, I don’t have a clue who she was now that I’m awake – if I really am awake right now. I keep on thinking that one day I’m going to awaken and it’s all, this last few years, been a rather unpleasant dream. But if I were to have had a daughter, my little princess would have been a daddy’s girl alright and been spoiled rotten.

And everyone very dirty? It sounds just like real life used to be, and I’m not talking about mud either. It just seems that a lot of smut has been wiped out of everyone’s mind these days compared to the good times that we had in the 60s and 70s

Did I dictate the dream about the children who used to go swimming with the whales in a swimming pool? … "no you didn’t" – ed … They launched some kind of fund-raising activity to raise funds and support the whales. It proved to be extremely successful so someone else organised a fund-raising activity. His aim was to provide food for the whales, to put something in their mouths, with the implication that they’d been doing this with these kids previously. For some reason that didn’t seem to be quite so popular as the previous one

That must relate to some news that we heard on the radio in the car about a big Marine holiday park closing down, and thousands of animals there are in danger. It’s all very well having these places closed down and I’m all in favour, but what becomes of the animals there? They can’t usually be released into the wild as they have no idea of how to fend for themselves.

And then finally Liz and I were back in the good old days of running “Radio Anglais”. It suddenly occurred to me one day that we hadn’t prepared a magazine for Radio Anglais for years. That was something that we used to do every couple of weeks religiously, to have something prepared and something organised. I wondered why it had suddenly fallen off the radar somehow. I had to have a sit and think about this – about how I was going to revitalise it and how I was going to restore it. We used to receive contributions from all of the other people working on the radio. What had happened that had stopped it? Should we go back and maybe restart it? Or is it a case of letting sleeping dogs lie? I remember being extremely perplexed and bewildered about this.

This dream was actually so real that I still can’t make up my mind even now that I’m awake whether it was ever something that we really did. It was actually quite disturbing that I found myself in such a state. It’s a long time since I’ve had such a vivid, realistic dream.

Isabelle the Nurse had a few more minutes to spare today and wasn’t in such a rush as usual. I suppose that with it being a Sunday the Laboratory is closed so there ae no blood tests. She spent her last week off working on her Carnaval float. It’ll be Carnaval Weekend sometime soon. She’s not telling me anything about the design of her float – it needs to be a big surprise for everyone.

After she left, I made my breakfast and carried on reading MY BOOK Caesar is now back in Gaul suppressing rebellions and fading from our picture as other Roman Emperors discuss the problem of what to do with the Britons. The story is that now that Caesar has regulated things with them, they can import and export to Gaul and the port taxes for unloading and loading far exceed any tribute that might be demanded, so it’s best to leave things be for a while.

Our author has made several references to Strabo’s “Geographia”. Strabo was a Roman scholar who travelled extensively and over a period of about 30 years from 7BC to AD24 wrote a whole series of books about the places that he visited and also the places about which he had extracted information from other traveller. It goes without saying that a copy of all 17 of his books IS AVAILABLE ON-LINE so I downloaded them for future reference. The list of books to read is growing enormously right now.

After breakfast I made some bread – a loaf for the week to come and a bread roll for this lunchtime because there is plenty of soup in the fridge and it needs using.

So at lunchtime I had a bowl of leftover butternut squash and potato soup with a fresh bread roll straight out of the air fryer. Lunch doesn’t get much better than this. There are some leeks that need using so I imagine that I’ll be having soup next weekend too.

Once lunch was out of the way I had a relaxing afternoon, not doing very much at all. In fact, I was trying to design a 3D head from a couple of photograph. The head itself didn’t take too long but I still can’t produce an accurate nose and the more I try, the worse it becomes. I’ve already restarted three times because I’ve got myself into such a mess

At one point I switched it all off and went for a slice of Christmas Cake to raise my morale so that I could start again.

Tea tonight was a vegan pizza, and another good job that was. At lunchtime I’d taken the last helping of dough out of the freezer and once it had defrosted I gave it a good kneading and then rolled it out onto the pizza tray. This evening I almost forgot the olives on the pizza but luckily I remembered them on time

There’s no doubt though – I’m going to have to do something about my oven. This table-top oven is really not up to the job. When I finally do move downstairs I’ll certainly be having an enlarged kitchen complete with built-in oven and built-in microwave.

Right now though, I’m off to bed ready to Fight The Good Fight tomorrow.

But that story about the Marine Park reminds me of the two rather large girls talking and having a drink in a bar in Bar Harbor, Maine. A local comes over to them and says "what a beautiful accent you have. I’ve not heard that before."
"Thank you" replied the girls
"Tell me" he continued. "are you two ladies from Ireland?"
"It’s ‘Wales’ actually" said one of them
"I’m terribly sorry" replied the man. "Are you two whales from Ireland then?"

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Thursday 19th December 2027 – I CAME BACK …

… from Dialysis in an ambulance this evening!

But don’t worry. There’s no reason to be upset or concerned. With these new Social Security arrangements, I was having to wait half an hour for the other patient from Granville to finish his dialysis session and then we could come home together in the same taxi.

However there was an ambulance that had come to drop off someone at the hospital across the road and was going back empty, so would I like to thumb a lift?

If it means coming home half an hour earlier than I otherwise would, then it’s no problem to me and I clambered aboard.

Still a big problem though going to bed early. Once more, it was round about 23:30 by the time that I’d finished my notes and done everything that I needed to do. And that included taking the Christmas cake out of the oven, wrapping it in baking paper and tinfoil and putting it in the fridge.

Marzipanning and icing over the weekend, I reckon. And then we’ll see where we are. I need to make some mince pies too one way or another. I have several jars of mincemeat thanks to Liz who brought some over when she came here last year but I need to keep an eye out on when anyone else is coming over because at some point I’ll run out of stock and I can’t find the ingredients to make my own.

So there I was, in bed late again last night, and I fell asleep quite quickly. I remember nothing, nothing at all, until the alarm went off at 07:00.

It was even more of a struggle than usual to haul myself out of my stinking pit but I wandered off eventually to the bathroom where I did some washing and had a good clean-up and shave ready for this afternoon.

In the kitchen I prepared a drink to wash down my medication, remembering not to take the medication that I’m not supposed to take on Dialysis Day, and then came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out what I’d been doing during the night.

I was in hospital, but I’d been recruited for the Secret Service and was supposed to wander around and make little enquiries, find out who was doing what and what information there might be that was being leaked to a foreign power. In the end I spent a lot of time there. But my room-mate was extremely difficult and seemed to think that I needed organising, taking in charge. Everything that I did in my personal life, he was there making comments and observations. For example, when it came to my slippers, he told me not to wear my slippers any more. I asked why and he told me that they were rather large, I might slip and trip over. I ought to find some slip-on slippers my own size. That’s OK, but I have trouble putting them on and taking them off. I can manage with the ones that I have, whether I’m wearing socks or whether I’m wearing these bandages that I used to have. I had to try to explain to him without going into any great detail exactly why I was doing the kind of things that I was

And there’s more truth in that dream than I would ever care to admit.

Isabelle the nurse was in a rush once more today. It can’t be easy for her having to do all of the blood tests and injections for her little circuit of patients, bearing in mind that she has a partner who, for reasons known only to himself, fails to produce “the touch” that makes it all look so easy and makes it feel so painless for the patients.

It seems to me that she’s ready for her seven days off after just the first day of being back on duty.

After she left, I made my breakfast and had a look at my archaeology reports on this abandoned Gallo-Roman farm. They’ve now uncovered several buildings that belong to the period in France called Antiquité Tardive – “Late Antiquity”.

That’s roughly corresponding to what the British call “The Dark Ages” , the period following the collapse of the Roman Empire in England, and the absence of any written record of contemporary events, until the renaissance of English culture under Alfred the Great and the monks of Jarrow.

In France though, there was no such period. Orderly, civilised life went on for the most part and the religious institutions and the court of the Merovingian Kings as well as several writers such as Gregory of Tours kept contemporary records, although it’s fair to say that there’s nothing like as much as I would like there to be.

Anyway, they are cracking on with this excavation, discovering building after building, trench after trench and road after road, not to mention the countless post holes that they have found in the ground.

Back in here I had a few things to do and once more I was overwhelmed by the arrival of my faithful cleaner who came to fit my anaesthetic patches.

It didn’t take long to do that and then I had to loiter around for the arrival of the taxi. It was a chatty driver who picked me up and then we went round to pick up the other passenger who we take, and then rolled off to Avranches.

Once more I was last to be plugged in and once more, one of the pins went in painlessly and the other one hurt like Hades.

It was one of those days where there was a constant stream of visitors. The nurses were checking up on all kinds of things today, and even the dietician came to see me.

With being a vegan I have a low protein count and this dialysis is making things worse so she has now prescribed a food supplement for me. That’s one more medication to add to the list.

She needed to have the prescription signed and so went in search of the doctor. It was Emilie the Cute Consultant on duty today who signed the prescription.

And I remembered that she was going to come to watch the nurses connect me up and use the echograph to see what the problem might be. In fact, the nurses had done all of the preparation, however she never showed up.

"Maybe she’s forgotten you" said a nurse. And that’s put the tin hat on it, hasn’t it? How could anyone forget me? Especially Emilie the Cute Consultant?

Still, my LeClerc order is complete, ready to be sent off tomorrow morning. I did manage to find some time in my busy schedule to do something.

As I aid earlier, I came home in an ambulance tonight. There’s a kind of rumble-seat in the rear of the ambulance and I came home sitting in that. It wasn’t easy though to climb in. First I had to sit on the floor of the vehicle and than haul myself up with my arms and fall into the seat.

That can only mean one thing – my upper body strength must be quite impressive these days.

Back here, I climbed up the first flight of stairs with less difficulty than previously but had to come up in the lift from the half-landing to the next half-landing and walk halfway down again because the handrail outside here still hasn’t been fixed.

Tea tonight was more steamed vegetables with vegan sausage and vegan cheese sauce followed by ginger cake and soya dessert. Lovely as usual.

So now that I’ve finished I’ll think about going to bed ready for a day radioing tomorrow.

What I was wondering about this dietary supplement is whether or not this might be the same supplement that they have tried to give me when I was here in the Summer.
"You have a very low protein count" said the dietician. "It’s probably because you’re a vegan and your diet doesn’t allow you to eat many things high in protein. Take this supplement."
So having accepted the bottle, "excuse me" I said. "You just told me that as I’m a vegan and my diet prevents me from taking many foods, I need a food supplement"
"That’s right" said the dietician, smiling
"So if you know that I’m a vegan and don’t eat many things" I said "what are you doing giving me a food supplement that is milk-based?"

0

Tuesday 26th November 2024 – HOW LONG IS IT …

… since I’ve had a day where I’ve not done very much more than relax?

And before anyone says anything, I know that I shouldn’t because I have far too much work to do and not very much time to do it, but I had a nice, relaxing day all the same.

Last night, though, it was another late night. Not as late as some have been but still after 23:00. And once in bed I slept the Sleep of the Dead and remember almost nothing of whatever might (or might not) have happened during the night.

When the alarm went off I staggered into the bathroom as usual and had a good wash, then came back in here to listen to the dictaphpne to find out where I’d been during the night. There was something about FX4 taxis in London, whether I was thinking of buying one or going to work as a taxi driver but suddenly I was sent out on a mission to Brazil. While I was there my guide or whatever, she took me to several taxi proprietors in Brazil and I even had a ride in a new FX4 – a drive. I didn’t like it at all. I made a few enquiries about other things while I was there, the result of which was that by the time I came back to the UK I’d had a complete change of mind. My boss called me in and asked me what I thought of Brazil so I told him. Then I asked about the taxis so I told him that I’d given it some thought and now I’d decided that I was against it. He explained that that was why he’d sent me to Brazil, that I’d have some experience about making a decision when I would come back. He asked me quite pointedly “you didn’t actually drive any of them while you were there, did you?”. I replied “yes, I drove one or two”. That really took him by surprise and upset him for some reason.

What an FX4 would be doing in Brazil I really have no idea. There used to be thousands of them in London (and there probably still are quite a few) and any time-expired ones would be scattered to the four winds. I’ve seen them in France, Germany, the USA and Canada but Brazil would be most unlikely. I almost had one once, and not as a taxi. But when I was looking for a vehicle to come to Belgium when I was leaving the UK I went to see an FX4 that was for sale by a bus company in Stoke on Trent. And being a diesel, I would have had it too, had it not been sold before I could liquidate the cash. It would have been a useful tool to have had.

I was then working for the “despatching” for the railway. It was quite early in the morning and we had two trains going out at 05:22, little side-tank steam locomotives taking one or two carriages out, one going via Barrow-in-Furness and the other going direct to the destination. I went down at about 04:00, found the drivers and told the one that his trip had been cancelled and the second that he was to take his train around the other route. I don’t know why I did that but that was what I did. They had something of a moan but I explained that that was what was going to happen. I went back up to my office. Later on I suddenly realised what I’d done. I looked at the time and it was 05:18 and the trains were due to leave at 05:22. I dashed downstairs and outside onto the platform to find that the one had already gone and the other one had reversed off the platform and was heading back to the locomotive depot. I went slowly back upstairs thinking “I’m going to be in some serious trouble about this”. When I walked in to the office the boss said “I want a word with you”. I thought “here we go”. He said “I think that you ought to open your curtains, you know”. I replied “I’ve already opened them once”. He replied “then you need to open them again”. I opened the curtains and found that the ones outside had been closed too. I said to the people sitting at the table by the window to mind their heads. “I could have a nap hand of heads here if you aren’t careful”. I opened the window and opened the curtains.

Even now I can still see the locomotives. Little side-tank 0-4-2 outside cylinder things, both of them. But this is another dream that I don’t understand because, once again, it bears no relevance whatever to anything that I’m doing or have done.

However, when the alarm sounded and I awoke, I still had the affair of these two trains going round and round in my head. I don’t know what I hoped that I was going to do about it at this time of morning but anyway …

The nurse came early today. We had a chat about dialysis and he tells me that there’s no alternative to dialysis and the conversation went something like that between Sam and Frodo near the end of Lord of the Rings

"Have you thought of an ending?"

Yes, several, and all are dark and unpleasant."

After he left I made breakfast and carried on reading MY BOOK

Our hero, apart from giving us all kinds of travel information that would have been useful at the time, as well as a geological lesson on the soils of North America, is continuing to enthral us with his three favourite subjects.

He’s had another uncomfortable encounter with some Americans and so tells us that "civility, as I before faid, is not to be purchafed at any expence in America, neverthelefs the people will pocket your money with the utmoit readinefs, though without thanking you for it. Of all beings on the earth, Americans are the moil interefted and covetous."

That took place at a tavern where "at the American taverns, as I before mentioned, all forts of people, juft as they happen to arrive, are crammed together into the one room, where they muft reconcile themfelves to each other the befl way thsy can."

However, he reserves his most powerful vitriol for the slavery that he sees everywhere. "I am told, that it is no uncommon thing there, to fee gangs of negroes ftaked at a horfe race, and to fee thefe unfortunate beings bandied about from one let of drunken gamblers to another for days together. How much to be deprecated are the laws which fuller fuch abufes to exift ! yet thefe are the laws enacted by people who boaft of their love of liberty and independence, and who prefume to fay, that it is in the breads of Americans alone that the bleffings of freedom are held in jusl estimation…… It is immaterial under what form flavery prefents itfelf, whenever it appears there is ample caufe for humanity to weep at the fight, and to lament that men can be found fo forgetful of their own iituations, as to live regardlefs of the feelings of their fellow creatures."

Back in here I revised my Welsh and then went for the lesson. Once more, it all seemed to pass quite well. Maybe this dialysis is working on clearing my head a little and shifting the fog. I wonder what I have to do to clear whatever it is that’s blocking my memory from working.

After lunch Liz and I had a very long chat on the internet. And it’s been ages since we talked so we had a lot to discuss. It wasn’t quite a Rosemaryesque conversation but it was near enough.

Afterwards I had a few things to do and ended up being so engrossed that I missed my hot chocolate. That’ll teach me.

Tea tonight was a taco roll with the last of the refried beans. I’ll have to find a recipe to make them because they really were nice. It should be quite interesting, as long as they don’t use exclusively some obscure kind of bean that’s not available so easily over here.

My cleaner stuck her head in too. She’d been to LeClerc and had bought me some more cheese for future pizze. And also some coconut oil – four jars of it. She was going to buy just two for me but saw that they only had four in stock so she bought the lot “just in case”.

Now I’ll be cooking in coconut oil for the next heaven-knows how long.

So now, much later than usual, I’m off to bed. Tomorrow is another day. And there will be more of Isaac Weld’s book to read.

But his account of his visit reminds me of another Irishman who visited the USA but in modern times. He too had a run-in with an unfriendly American in the Tavern From Hell.
He mentioned that he was from Ireland and the American replied "Yes I know it. I know it well. My great great grand-daddy comes from there so I’m Irish" to which our Irishman snorted.
"But your Irish country is so sad" continued the American "everything is so small"
"What do you mean?" asked the Irishman
"Take your farms" said the American. "Why, back in Texas, I can get in my car and it takes two days to drive from one side of my land to the other"
"I sympathise with you" said the Irishman. "I know just how you feel"
"You do?" exclaimed the American, incredulously
"Oh yes" replied the Irishman. "I used to have a car like that myself"

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Sunday 20th October 2024 – RIGHT NOW I AM IN …

… absolute agony.

Since 17:00 this late afternoon I’ve been on my feet and my knees are giving me complete misery. I wish that I’d never been born, feeling like this.

Not only that, I woke up this morning … "♫dih dah did dah DAAH♫" – ed … with aches in just about every region of my body, and they are still there now. I’m in a bad way and if I’d been a horse I would have been shot long ago.

And there I was, thinking that it was going to be a good day today.

After all, although I missed my 23:00 deadline, it wasn’t by much and in any case, today I have a lie-in until 08:00 seeing as it’s Sunday.

It didn’t take long to dictate the radio notes that I’d written. There wasn’t much of them this weekend and that makes a change. But I was soon in bed and after all of my exertions during the day I didn’t need much rocking

There I lay, in perfect repose, with nothing whatever that disturbed me until all of … errr … 07:15. And when the alarm went off at 08:00 I was already in the bathroom scrubbing up. I’d given up the idea of going back to sleep a long time before that.

The nurse came round of course. "Ohh what a lovely loaf!" he said. "Have you been baking?"

It’s that kind of comment that is really getting on my nerves, especially as the loaf is a long way from “lovely”. One of these days he’s going to receive THE AUSTIN POWERS TREATMENT.

After he left I made breakfast and read my book for a while. The naturalists are discussing climate change – one of the very first, in fact the earliest, reference that I have seen of it in a layman’s work. They note that the theory is in its early days and how it’s subject to ridicule.

The ridicule is something that you could have understood in 1867 but it’s totally beyond my comprehension how anyone today could ever doubt the issue in the face of the overwhelming evidence that exists.

They are also theorising on “erratic boulders”.

An erratic boulder is a rock of a completely different geological structure to those around it, and you find them stuck in the middle of fields and other places completely out of place and out of character.

Their geology back in 1867 was in its infancy so they are theorising, and coming surprisingly close to the truth. The fact is that they are picked up by an advancing glacier and transported in the ice. When the glacier melts, the boulder drops out and is deposited. We saw dozens and dozens out in the Arctic

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a few years ago when we talked about the Titanic disaster, there was the American senator who asked “what is an iceberg composed of?”, and was largely ridiculed for his question.

The fact of the matter though is that he wanted it put on record that there are sometimes boulders in an iceberg when a glacier carrying an erratic boulder has calved off an iceberg with an erratic boulder embedded in it, a boulder that might have sprung the side of the ship.

After breakfast I came in here and began to transcribe the dictaphone notes. Our Year at school had gone off on a field trip somewhere. I was wandering around, feeling not too well, feeling a little down in the dumps as usual when I bumped into a couple of my friends. We arranged to meet later for lunch but I wasn’t sure whether I was going to be still here by lunchtime so it was all very doubtful. One of them, I had a letter to give to him but I didn’t have it on me at that particular moment – I’d have to go back to fetch it. Wandering round a little later on I bumped into some more friends of that particular guy. We began to chat. They weren’t all that welcoming, as if there was something wrong between them and me which there probably was. In the end I happened to mention “are you seeing the other student for lunch?”. One of them said that yes, he was, and the rest of them were too. “Good” I replied. “In that case I have a letter to give him. Could I give it to you?”. This boy was clearly put out of his stride but he was the kind who would never refuse to do something so he reluctantly agreed. I had to go next-door to find it. That was walking into one of the lean-tos of my house in the Auvergne – the one where I slept during the winter of 2007. Of course the snow had come in through the roof and it was snowing that way. It was freezing cold too and very uncomfortable, but I did manage to find the letter. I folded it into three making sure that all the text was on the inside, then handed it over to this boy. Folding the text over to the inside meant nothing because I was sure that one of the others would take it and read it but that would be a matter for them, not for me.

At school I wasn’t particularly popular. I tended to have friends by default. I didn’t really fit in anywhere. But going back to the happy time that I spent – two years living in that lean-to that was 2.0×3.2 metres, I learned an awful lot and believe it or not, I was really quite happy in there

Later on, while we were out we’d had a few business ideas and ended up going to put them to a bank manager. I didn’t agree with some of the things that were in the prospectus but never mind. When we came to show the bank manager a demonstration of our plans, everything that we did simply went wrong. We knew that it was a total wash-out but the bank manager seemed to be quite amused rather than angry. I thought that there might possibly be something to salvage from here. We went to have another chat and I decided that I’d go home. I had a long way to go and was only on a 50cc moped and had to do it all at 30 kmh. I said that I’d go for a bag of chips on the way home. My friend asked me if I would fetch a bag for her husband. I thought “yes, okay, I can do that and I’ll clear off quickly”. Then at the chip shop I met a man who was talking about vans. I joined in the conversation and in the end the two of us were talking. He’d just bought a Transit from the auctions. I asked him to which auctions he went and he said either Leicester for vans or to Shifnal. I asked if they were any good so we had a long conversation. In the end he said that he would have to go. At that point a woman pulled up. She was one of the people with whom we might have been interested in entering a partnership. I began to talk to her. It was clear that some things were interesting her but not others. We had an extremely lengthy conversation. In the end she decided that she had to go. Of course I had the chips and I thought that these are going to be stone-cold by now and by the time that I hit the road it’s going to be 22:00. This is going to be an awfully late night. I leapt onto my moped, raced away from the shop and at a set of traffic lights almost collided with the rear of a white Ford Cortina MkII. In fact I ended up falling on the boot lid. The woman who owned the car didn’t seem to be in the least bit concerned and waved me on. I carried on but was then held up by a level crossing. There was a line in the north of the city that was used about once per week for the movement of goods. Of course it had to be right now. I was sitting at this level crossing watching this slow goods train past, thinking “this is just my luck. Everything is seeming to happen to delay me on this particular trip. I have to return home but I don’t have a clue when”.

This is typical, isn’t it? Everything going wrong at the crucial moment. And ohhh! Happy days at the car auctions at Prees Heath, Silverdale or Longton. We had a calendar of what went on when and I made a little money by moving cars around from one auction to the other at one time.

As well as that, I did have a 50cc Honda Melody scooterette when I lived in Brussels. I remember one night late on going for a ride and ending up in Leuven, coming home as the dawn began to break. That was the scooter that I taught Roxanne to ride.

Finally, I was somewhere in the far North of Canada where I’d been with Strider in one occasion. I’d slept overnight in the back and in the morning I’d set out through the wilderness but as I went a little further it became a very green English countryside. I thought “this isn’t right for Labrador at all”. As I drove, the road became a little worse and a little worse and more narrow. It became a kind-of rough tarmac road. It went down a steep hill, and halfway down was a school on the right that said “Freetown School”. I thought to myself “I bet it isn’t free”. A little lower down was the sign for the town that said “Freetown, Québec”. We went over a hump-backed bridge which was a canal and carried on down. There was a bridge over the river all surrounded by willow trees etc. On the way back up the hill on the other side I could see a caravanette in the distance with two or three cars behind it. Eventually there was just one car behind it, an old Morris Minor. He stopped to turn right into a car park, holding up the traffic. We had to wait behind him. When he finally moved out of the way I could go forward, and found that there were now two more cars between this caravanette and me. I resigned myself to staying behind this caravanette for as long as it would take. I still couldn’t take out of my mind how everything has suddenly changed to an English rural green countryside when I was supposed to be in Labrador.

That was a great time, that trip DRIVING AROUND LABRADOR IN 2015 where I spent every night but one “sleeping out” and having creatures fighting to get into Strider’s truck cap with me.

And turning right into a car park, holding up the traffic? Are we driving on the left then, as in the UK?

While we’re on the subject of Labrador … "well, one of us is" – ed … I’ve had a rather strange, depressing and regrettable communication that has made me even more entrenched against this system of incestuous academia that seems to exist.

In July last year I had a note that another researcher had quoted me in something that she had submitted for publication, so I wrote to her asking for the details (as is my right) and for a copy of the work (which is an academic courtesy).

She wrote back to me today, 15 months later, to tell me that she can’t remember what she wrote and "Finally, there are two sets of Cartwright’s “missing notes” both of which I’ve published as books through McGill-Queen’s Press – Both listed here – " and then gives me the links where I can buy them

Buy them!

When I pore over all of these ancient out-of-print books and find items that have been forgotten, I publish them either here or on my TRAVEL WEB SITE.

Nobody has to pay a penny to access the information that I discover. It’s nice if someone makes an Amazon purchase using the links here so that I can receive a small commission, and grateful thanks to those who do, but much as I like it, it’s not compulsory.

But pay to look at the results of my own research? Some people are out of their minds.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall the trip that I made to Cambridge University to look at the papers that William Cory Johnson had bequeathed to it, only to be told that I can’t have access until a researcher from the University has had first dibs.

And they’ve only been there since 1877 waiting, or something like that.

Like I said, I’m sick to death of this incestuous academia. I’m clearly in the wrong business.

So abandoning yet another good rant for a while, I started on the two radio programmes. And they both gave me problems that took quite a while to resolve. They are now however up and running but I’m going to have to re-dictate the notes because the recorder is playing up again. It sounds as if I have my head in a bucket.

It was later than I hoped when I finished. However I then dashed into the kitchen where I made some pizza dough.

While it was rising I made the garlic butter that I needed to do, and then began to make the hummus (which was what I forgot to mention yesterday).

The first batch, with dried tomato and olive, went really well and made a lovely batch. But the second, which should have been spicy hot chili, ran aground when I found that I had no spicy hot chilis lying around.

At the moment, that helping is in the fridge and I shall send my faithful cleaner off on an errand on Tuesday. She has to go anyway to look for some Tahini as I have no run out of that too.

In between everything I was organising all of the pizza stuff. 2 helpings of dough are in the ice box in the fridge and the third made a beautiful pizza tonight.

And then there was a mountain of washing-up to do. Tons of it tonight.

But now, later than usual and aching in places that I didn’t even know I had, I’m off to bed, still seething about that researcher.
She reminds me of the time that Rutherford was researching, and proudly announced "I’ve just found out that protons have a mass"
"Blimey!" said his Professor. "It’s news to me that they were even Catholic."

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Friday 18th October 2024 – I HAVE BEEN …

… a busy boy yet again.

So much so that not only am I going to have tomorrow morning off (apart from bread-making and doing a machine-load of washing) but I actually had a couple of hours off this afternoon too.

In a mad, fit burst of energy I had all of the work that I intended to do today finished by hot chocolate time and it’s nice for once to be in a position where I could just lounge around.

It’s not as if I was in bed early last night. It was another late night, midnight in fact, when I hit the sack. But something remarkable happened, or didn’t happen, as the case may be. I slept all the way through to the alarm.

No awakening, no drenching in perspiration either. It really was a deep sleep. But that means that it’s not the dialysis that’s causing the problem. It must be something else, and I wonder what it might be.

So when the alarm went off I crawled out of bed and went off into the bathroom for a good wash and scrub up. Then back in here to find that the internet was down.

Not to worry. There were plenty of things that I could be doing. Like transcribing the dictaphone notes. I was out driving a taxi around Sandbach last night. I could hear all of the confusion in Crewe by listening to the radio and thought to myself “in a minute I’ll be mixed up in that” but a voice came over the radio when I told them that I’d finished my job, and that was to go to Sandbach Hall and pick up a couple of passengers to take them to Northampton. I thought “that’s sounding good”.

Yes, I’d often go to drive the taxi that we had in Sandbach, just for an evening’s peace and quiet away from the stress. I always drove it on a Thursday night because there were the weekly accounts to do and sitting at the station there waiting for the trains to come in, I could crack on and do them. But I had a few decent fares from there on a couple of occasions. Never quite made it to Northampton but Coventry once one Sunday afternoon.

When I’d finished that I decided that I’d perform a full back-up.

The last one that I took was in September last year and since then I’ve been backing up every night on the memory stick that lives in one of the USB ports

The situation here is that I have the big powerful machine with a 1TB SSD that is the driver disk, and a 4TB drive that is the data disk. And then there’s an array with several hard drives in it that constitutes the back-up disks. That all works very well so let’s hear it for the array

… "Hip, hip array!" – ed …

There are several external drives that I use for the more specialised back-ups and then there’s the 128GB USB stick in the back of the computer where I back up my data at least every night, and more often if necessary.

The nurse came to see me while I was in the middle of it all. He changed my bandages and when he finished, asked me “can you put on your socks on your own?”.

These socks are actually elasticated and very difficult to manage, and also I can’t bend enough these days with all of my problems. But I asked why he wanted to know.

The answer is that he thinks that in a week or two’s time I’ll no longer need the treatment to my legs and if I could put on my socks myself I wouldn’t need the nurses round every morning.

Sounds like a good plan to me so I reckon that after my shower on Wednesday I’d have a try. Anything if there’s a possibility of a good lie-in on a Sunday morning again.

After he left I made breakfast and carried on reading the report of the Naturalists. We’re discussing primroses, cowslips and oxslips, not that I have any interest in botany, but I was interested to see the lecturer discussing treatment that was novel in 1867 but is commonplace today, and how flowers have evolved over the last 150 years or so.

He went on to say how putting manure on your primroses and cowslips improves their quality and, rather quaintly, goes on to extol the benefits of what he calls “street scrapings”. Yes, the horse-power back in those days came from real horses.

Back in here I carried on backing up until I’d finished, not having noticed that the internet was back on.

Once I’d finished another good job I started work,, finishing off the radio notes

My cleaner came early today. She decided that as it was a lovely day she’d go to join the crowds at the pèche-à-pied this afternoon so she’d come at lunchtime.

For the benefit of new readers, of whom there are more than just a few these days, I live in one of the best shellfish-producing areas in Europe, if not the World.

In principle, all of the beaches and rocks are let off to concessions who have the right to exploit what they find there. That right goes from high water-mark down to the low water-mark.

However, we also have some of the highest tides in Europe and about a dozen times per year, the tides are such that they go out beyond the low water mark. And when that happens, it’s a free-for-all on the very low part where everyone can rake up what he can, as long as he obeys the limits about size and quantity.

So she’s off with her bucket and grattoire and she’ll be OK as long as she shares her catch with her friends. After all, you mustn’t be selfish with your shellfish.

While she was here we chatted about this idea that I have about trying to put on my own socks. She’s not sure how I’m going to do it but she’s willing to see what I can do and how I do it.

And to be honest, so am I.

My salad butty at lunchtime used up the last of the bread and so tomorrow morning I’ll have to make some more. I’ll also have to set a washing machine off so even though it’s going to be a day of rest, I’ll still be busy.

Liz and I had a little chat which was nice. It’s been a long time since we spoke to each other

But anyway I finished off all of the notes for this programme that I’d been preparing. The music that I’d selected ran out at just over 53 minutes and I’d been keeping a careful count of the text that I’d written and I’ve calculated that it will run to 7 minutes and 12 seconds.

It’ll be great if it does because there won’t be much at all to cut out once the soundtrack has been edited.

After the hot chocolate I uninstalled a program that had been causing me problems and reinstalled an earlier version, only to find that I was having the same trouble.

That was when I discovered that I’d inadvertently changed a setting on the program that I’d deleted, that the version that I’d re-uploaded had remembered. A flick of a switch changed that and now I’ll have to uninstall that program and reinstall the new one again.

Tea tonight was vegan salad, chips and vegan nuggets, followed by apple cake and coconut-soya cream

So now it’s bedtime. so I’m clearing off, ready to fight the good fight tomorrow, and I hope that you like my Robinson Crusoe impression

When my cleaner was in I told her that today I was going to do my impression of Robinson Crusoe.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"Well" I replied "all of his work was done by Friday too"

0

Thursday 17th October 2024 – SOMEONE IS GOING …

.. to have their nether regions given a good kicking in the near future. And I can’t say that I’m sorry.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a few months ago I had an ugly confrontation in the private hospital at Avranches with someone on the accounts department that led to me writing to the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the company.

Today I’ve finally had a response, full of grovelling apology (I had a cheque sent back to me a week or so ago) and containing the ominous “your letter will be placed before our Committee who will examine your complaint”.

Having received full reimbursement, it’s obvious that my complaint has been upheld, after all, it’s not like a private organisation to hand back money without a fight, so all we need now is a good witch-hunt, complete with a ceremonial burning at the stake

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment, after I finished my notes last night I had one or two things that needed doing so yet again I was rather late going to my nice, clean, fresh bed.

But once in it, I was away quite quickly and there I stayed, all curled up, until the alarm went off. There had been one or two minor awakenings during the night but I was soon asleep again.

When the alarm went off I was in the middle of a dream. I was auditing some accounts for some company, going through their office and checking everything. There was a guy and girl there working together. It was quite obvious that the guy had his eye on the girl. After he went out of the room I began to talk to the girl to find out a little more about her to see if I could encourage these two in some way. Then the guy came back and carried on talking. I could see that he was looking nervous and was glancing at me so I just said to him “oh, go ahead. Don’t mind me” and tried to encourage him to ask her for a date. Then I was at home and one of my friends was there. We were talking about diabetics. I was watching TV in French, a TV programme in French while she was working. She was wondering why I was sitting down and not doing things. She found that it was actually a programme about diabetes. They were talking about “if you’re having a crisis, have a fruit” but I replied that quite often when I have a diabetic crisis I don’t have any fruits any more. I’ve run out”. And then I was thinking “maybe it’s a good idea to go out and buy some, then we can have a coffee as well, things like that” but my friend had so much work on her plate that I thought “maybe it’s not such a very good idea to propose that we stop for a moment”

Eating a fruit is a good idea in a diabetic crisis and at the hospital they usually give me a cup of orange juice if I’m having a wobble. Then along came the dietician who tells me that fruit has loads of potassium in it, my potassium is too high and I must cut down on the fruit. But that is just how everything is – one thing going on is affecting something else so I need a pill for the side-effect, but that pill then affects something else so I need another. And so on. I counted once just recently and it was about 32 pills, tablets and medicines per day (it’s increased since then). And I bet it’s all on account of the first one that I started taking. It’s hard to believe that when I went to live in Leuven in early 2016 I was just taking four pills per day.

In the bathroom I had a good wash and scrub up, a shave and applied plenty of deodorant, even though it probably serves no useful purpose. And then I came in here to listen to the dictaphone. I can only remember a small part of this dream but I had to go to the bank to draw some money out at a cash point. I drew out £80:00 when I went to the shops last Tuesday but I thought that if I was drawing out that sum every week it’s going to be an awful lot of money. I was driving down the hill to where the little bank branch was where there was a machine where I could draw the money but suddenly I found myself maybe half a mile further on at a road junction. “Never mind” I thought. I could turn left here, turn round and go back again. But the left turning was a one-way street. I thought “I’ve been here before and turned down here but it’s all really complicated but I can’t remember seeing the bank branch when I drove down here just now. I mean, it’s dark and usually all its lights are on and you can see it from quite some distance away but tonight there was nothing. I hope that it’s not been closed down while I’ve been going”.

And I’ve been down this road during a previous night too. It’s the road that I drove down once and waited on a corner somewhere in South London when I was on another nocturnal ramble. And although I can’t recognise the first part of it, I now recognise the second part where I tried to turn left last night and the corner where I waited last time. It’s in Saint John in New Brunswick, just around the corner from where my Canadian insurance broker has her office. Well, well, well. But I wonder if the dream is symbolic of the issues that I had recently with my bank card.

It was Isabelle the nurse today, seeing as her partner has had to go to the doctor (and doesn’t that inspire a lot of confidence in a nurse?). She was her usual cheerful self, blitzed through her task and then cleared off, leaving me alone.

And so I made my breakfast and read my book. Right now, I’ve read the introduction and all the members are taking the train in the middle of a blinding rainstorm, to go to look at the rocks at Colwall in the Malvern Hills. We’re having a long, complicated talk on geology and underlying rock strata, which makes me wish that I could remember more of my A-level Geography. All the time that I spent studying rock formation in the Arctic with Mark St Onge on our trips out there on THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR seems not to have done me much good

Back here I cleared up a few bits and pieces and then made a start on writing the notes for the next radio programme. I’ve now done a few but this is turning into something rather more complicated than I had imagined. It’s not easy.

My cleaner came in and helped me with my anaesthetic patches, and then she tried some of the new tubi-grip bandage that we’ve acquired thanks to the prescription from Isabelle the nurse. That seems to work really well and I’m impressed.

The taxi came early and we set off, picking up another passenger on the way, for the Dialysis Clinic.

Being quite early I was soon installed in my bed with my laptop and music and the nurses didn’t hang about either. The first needle went in almost painlessly but the second one wasn’t so easy and they needed the echograph machine to test for the tube in my arm.

And when they finally found it and pushed the needle in, the anaesthetic had worn off.

It looks as if it’s definitely all over between Emilie the Cute Consultant and me.

She was there this afternoon and although she gave me a little wave of her hand, she kept her distance and that was that.

She certainly speaks English because there’s a monolingual English-speaker being dialysed and she was talking to him in English so she’s probably a regular reader of this rubbish and will recall a few of the comments that I have made. That’s enough to drive anyone away, I suppose. Let’s face it, I have enough trouble trying to persuade anyone to come near me in normal times, never mind when we are thrust together cheek by jowl to fester away in a hospital.

The other nurses came by every now and again to check the machine and to ask me to translate stuff for them so that they could speak to the English guy.

However I spent most of the time now that I have an internet connection trying to track down the dates of some of these live concerts that I have. I didn’t check many because it’s really had to do it when you aren’t comfortable, you only have one hand that you can use and that’s interrupted every 20 minutes by a blood pressure reading.

They carried out a diabetes test on me and sure enough it was at a critical level so they gave me a big glass of orange juice. Presumably they don’t think much of the dietician either.

After they unplugged me, disconnected me and compressed me, I went to weigh myself. I’d lost 3.1 kg in this session. All of that would be quite impressive if I wouldn’t put almost all of it straight back on again. It’s no good taking it off and it all going back on.

And a blood test report was sent to me today. After dialysis a few days ago the creatine was down to 283 (the required level in less than 100 and mine was at 450 which is close to fatal just before all of this started). However when I went back to dialysis a few days later it was up at almost 350 again. So not even that is staying put.

But never mind all of that. If I’m feeling better with just that much improvement, what will I be like if ever it goes down to less than 100 and I’m at my target weight?

There were three of us in the taxi and the driver was having an intense discussion with the other passenger so I sat in the back and relaxed.

My faithful cleaner was waiting for me and watched as today I made 8 steps without using my hand to lift up my leg. If I keep this up, in a couple of months I’ll be outside through the skylight climbing up the roof to the chimney.

My cleaner says that she’s noticed a major improvement over the last few weeks and thinks that I ought to try going for a drive. But that’s out of the question right now. There’s not enough force in my right leg to apply the brake and that’s that.

Tea was, as I said yesterday, a slice of vegan pie with vegetables in gravy and I forgot the herbs with the gravy. But the pie defrosted and warmed up really well in the air fryer and really was nice. I made the gravy thick and glutinous and stirred the veg in it so that the gravy stuck to all of them. That made it even nicer.

So right now, later than intended, I’m off to bed. But the talk of tying someone to a stake and burning them alive reminds me of a boy at our old school.
He came in one morning saying."I saw this incredible film last night. It was all about this man who changed into a bat and they killed him by hammering a stake into his heart. Can you imagine that? Killing a man with a stake?"
"That’s nothing" I retorted. "My mother can do that with egg and chips"

0

Tuesday 15th October 2024 – AS YOU MIGHT …

… expect, last night was something of a disaster.

In fact, it was quite a disaster, if the truth was known. Wide awake at 04:00 drenched in perspiration, up and about at 05:00. Of course, I had dialysis yesterday. It seems to be every time I have dialysis that this happens.

What I’ll have to do is to talk to a doctor next time one of them comes to see me. I’ll have to see if it’s an anticipated side-effect or whether there’s something else going on.

If it’s Emilie the Cute Consultant, I can always request that she comes here to rock me to sleep but I imagine that if I were to ask for that I’d be told to clear off in the fashion that JAH Catton, editor of “Athletic News” described when discussing an outburst from Wales international goalkeeper Leigh Roose, as "not such as might be expected from a gentleman.".

But as long as they don’t give me a sleeping pill. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the only excitement that I have these days takes place in bed while I’m asleep, and I wouldn’t miss that for anything.

You would think that that would be the trigger for me to rush to finish everything and dive into bed as early as possible, but somehow it doesn’t seem to work like that. Take last night, for example. I might have finished my work at a reasonable time, but then we had the battle to lift myself out of my chair.

Eventually though I made it into bed, later than I would have liked, and once again it took rather longer than it has done of late to go off to sleep.

My memory tells me that I awoke once during the night and went back to sleep almost straight away but by 04:00 that was that. I was wide awake, perspiring profusely from my legs, and no matter what I tried, I couldn’t go back to sleep.

In the end, at 05:00 I gave it up as a bad job and went to make myself a coffee and catch up with some personal stuff.

However, I had had a disaster. The toenail on the little toe on the right foot must have stuck in the bedding somehow and on leaving the bed I’d torn it off.

At first I hadn’t realised but I soon did, especially when I noticed the blood. Wrapping some tissue round it I staggered into the living and took one of the compress pads. I couldn’t reach to plaster it so I just wrapped it around the toe and hoped that it might stop the bleeding eventually.

There was some stuff on the dictaphone too, and that surprised me. No Castor, no Zero and no TOTGA either unfortunately, but several other people whom we all know and love and who are pretty close to me. It was the birthday of someone whom we all knew. Alison, Jackie, Liz, Terry and I had been amongst the invitees to go to his birthday party. We’d all chipped in and bought some kind of present, something that had a long stalk on it. They asked me if I’d write some poems. I wrote the poems and circulated them around. Everyone liked them but Jackie asked me “what was this event that took place in January?”. I couldn’t think of what it was at that point so I mad some kind of light-hearted comment. Liz ‘phoned me up and we were having a chat on the internet about this but suddenly it went dead, the conversation, right at a crucial moment. That’s the problem with the conversations on the internet – they go dead because someone comes to the door or you lose connection and you never know. eventually we were all assembled there. I presented the present to him which he gratefully received. Then I took it back because I’d fabricated some kind of grip for the stalk, made out of elasticated material. I put it on but it was too lose so I borrowed a needle and thread and began to sew it so that it was tighter. Everyone made a few comments so I told them that if anyone thinks that they could do it better, I’m only doing this by default so I’d gladly give up the place to someone else. No-one did so I carried on and was about halfway through it when the dream ended.

I’m impressed that I can discuss the issues about internet connections in my sleep. And sewing too. I can certainly sew in real life, and knit too, but when I’m asleep? Is there no end to my nocturnal talents?

And then later on I was with some people. They wanted me to take a caravan and trailer down to the South of France and into Italy. Although I was in principle agreed the first problem was that I didn’t have a car. They said that a car would be sorted out for me somehow so I didn’t say much until the very evening they produced this car. It was in a shocking state and it was impossible for me to even consider taking this, never mind towing a caravan and trailer behind it. There was some heated discussion about this and they proposed a variety of solutions which I rejected. In the end they produced a motor bike, a 350cc Triumph. I thought that this was the most absurd thing that I’d ever seen. I wondered where they had found the motor bike. It turned out that they had stolen it. All kinds of alarm bells were ringing for me at that point. The first thing that I said was “what about the insurance?”. There they were, rummaging through the papers in the side of this motor bike and they came across an insurance document. In the end, much against my better judgement, I was persuaded. We were in somewhere on the south of Manchester . We coupled up the caravan to the motor bike then coupled up the trailer to the back of the caravan. It would just about move it but I knew that it was all going to lead to a huge disaster. I thought that the first issue would be to take it over the Pennines, all of this, and I’ve no idea how I’m going to do that. I had a think and could remember how the major road system went. I thought that if I went a little way north I could probably pass over there somewhere towards Sheffield and then on the M1. I set out, but when I came to a road junction I heard someone shout “Phil Miller”. “Did you hear that?” and one of the other people said “yes”. I said “you know who Phil Miller is, don’t you?”. They replied “no”. “He was the keyboard player in ‘Caravan’. I wish that I had the time to go to say ‘hello’ to him”. They said “why don’t you go?”. I replied “don’t be silly. I have far too much on my plate at the moment with all of this”. We set off again. They were unhappy with the way that I crossed a certain road but I didn’t care. The further I went down this street heading out of this town the more I know that I was just coming closer and closer to disaster. This is all going to go wrong before too long.

Apart from having all these people on a motorcycle, it was Steve Miller who was the keyboard player in “Caravan”. Steve’s brother Phil was a guitarist who, although he guested on Caravan’s album WATERLOO LILY is much better know for his collaborations with Robert Wyatt. Nevertheless, it’s still quite impressive that I could come out with that. And regular readers of this rubbish will recall that when WE WERE IN NEWFOUNDLAND IN 2010 we encountered a car pulling a caravan pulling a trailer.

In case you’re wondering, by the way, the way to go south-east to the M1 is via Stoke on Trent and the A500 to Derby, but if I’m heading from the south of Manchester and want to keep away from traffic I’d go via Macclesfield and Leek, past my old stamping ground in 1975 of Bosley.

Having done a pile of work I stopped for a good wash and then waited for the nurse to appear.

He didn’t have much to say for himself, but he thinks that my left leg is almost back to normal so he’s going to try it today without any plasters to see if it holds out. And he put a small plaster on my toe where I’d torn off the nail. It had actually stopped bleeding but it’s better safe than sorry.

After a quick breakfast I came back in here and revised for my Welsh. And once again the lesson passed quite well and I enjoyed it. I was surprised at how much I could figure out, even if I didn’t understand everything. The key to understanding is not to understand and translate every word, but just to understand the gist of the conversation. I reckon that when you are having a conversation in your mother-tongue, you don’t hear three-quarters of the words that are spoken but you know what’s being said all the same.

No lunch today. I started work straight away and by the time I’d finished, not only had I chosen all of the music for the next programme, I’d written half of the notes too. And that was without really trying either

Once again, there was something that happened that made me realise that I must be feeling better than I have been for several months. That cheered me up a great deal too because I need to convince myself that I’m feeling better.

As for my chocolate cake, I had a slice with my hot chocolate this afternoon. And it really was delicious. The best cake that I gave ever made. But it was more done at the top than at the bottom. If only I could turn it over somehow and cook it upside-down for some of the time.

Tea tonight was a taco roll with rice, followed by apple cake and coconut-flavoured soya cream. That was delicious too and there’s no doubt – I might be eating simply but I really am eating well. If I ever lose my appetite or lose the will to cook then I will know that it’s the end.

So now it’s the end of my day and I’m off to catch up with my beauty sleep. And after last night I certainly need it. But then again I always do, especially with a dial like mine.

But before I go, I have been taken to task for what at least one person considers to be humour that really belongs in the gutter and not in a family-orientated web page
"Don’t you know what good, clean fun is?" I was asked.
"No" I replied. "What good is it?"

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Friday 11th October 2024 – IT’S HAPPENED AGAIN

It was 03:05 when I awoke this morning. It makes a total mockery of trying to be in bed before 23:00. There have been nights – days, in fact, when I’ve not even been in bed by 03:05 so I may as well not bother if it’s going to carry on like this.

And yes, I did make it into bed before 23:00 last night. Not by much, it has to be said, but by enough to make it worth noting. And while it might have taken me a little longer that it has done of late to go off to sleep, that wasn’t too much of a problem either.

So there I was at 03:05, wide awake and transpiring, trying desperately to go back to sleep without any success so in the end, at about 4:20 I gave it up as a bad job and went to make the dough for the bread.

For a change, I tried a mixture of plain flour and bread flour to see if there’s a problem with my bread flour, but it’s not that because although it rose, it didn’t rise up by enough to make any difference to the usual.

One mug of instant coffee later, I came back in here and decided to catch up with some personal stuff. I’ve buckets of stuff that’s been hanging around waiting for me to do something with it, and so with this unexpected couple of hours I made a start. And made quite a bit of progress too.

First of all though, I had a listen to the dictaphone and found to my surprise that there was something on there. I was playing in a rock group and we were round at Gainsborough Road preparing everything ready to go out. We had three vans, two long-wheelbase Ford Transits and my old small Ford Transit. We’d loaded everything up and were sitting around waiting, then my partner motioned towards us and said “it’s time to go”. She took one sticker for her van and another sticker for the other big van. I asked “what about a sticker for mine?”. She replied “no”. I asked “why not?” but she didn’t answer. We had something of a back-and-to for a while and I asked her about it again. I asked “so why aren’t you giving me a sticker? Are you ashamed of the van or something?”. She replied “that van’s not having a sticker and that’s an end to the argument”. We continued to argue about it and I expressed myself in a rather extreme fashion. My sister said to me “you shouldn’t speak to your partner like this”. I replied “you need to open your eyes and see what’s going on here”. My partner left the room to make herself ready. I knew that she was waiting at the door listening as an argument then started up between my sister and me. I turned round knowing that she was listening, turned to my sister and said “it’s not going to take very much more of this and I’ll be out of the door of this place”

it goes without saying that regular readers of this rubbish will recall having noticed that even though my partner has adopted a totally intransigent and unreasonable attitude, my family is blaming me for what happened. That, I’m afraid was just par for the course and after I was 18 and had finished my studies, I was “out of the door of this place”. I had a lot of sympathy for my friend’s daughter Tina who told me once "I’m fed up. Every time I do something wrong my brother tells my mom and I get yelled at. But every time he does something wrong I tell my mom and she yells at me for not watching him". Had she not been 3,000 miles away I could have hugged her because I’ve been there and done that. Oh! The angst of being 11 years old! But mine lasted for years. I don’t have one single pleasant memory of my childhood.

Having made enormous strides (which means something completely different in Australia) in what I was doing, I finished off and went to give the dough its second going-over. As I said just now, it had risen, but not as much as I would have liked it to have done

In the bathroom, I had a good scrub up and then went into the kitchen to put the oven on … "clothes would have been better" – ed … While I was waiting for it to warm up I came across one of these half-cooked vacuum-packed baguettes that I’d bought a while ago and needed using so when the oven was ready and the bread went in, I bunged that in too and went back into my office to do some more work.

Isabelle the nurse was off on her high horse today. I’m supposed to tell her not to come on Monday because the Dialysis Centre wants to inspect my legs to find out why they aren’t healing.

But I’m not standing around all morning with no socks and no plasters and going down to Avranches and the Dialysis Centre like that, oh no, according to Isabelle the nurse and she’ll tell ’em too. On Monday I’ll have my plasters and socks put on in the morning by her and like it.

And as for having the dialysis at home, certainly not under any circumstances and she doesn’t care if it is Emilie the Cute Consultant who wants me to. She’ll ring them up and tell them that too!

So if it isn’t all over between Emilie The Cute Consultant and me already, it looks as if it will be by the time that I arrive there on Monday afternoon. I shall have to chat up Elise the Dishy Doctor at the Centre Normandie instead.

While I was eating my breakfast I was reading MY BOOK. We’ve left Yorkshire and are back on the South Coast at Bramber Castle.

Having been sure that the Iron-Age hill forts on the Welsh border were actually Saxon strongholds, he’s now convinced that Bramber Castle is a prehistoric site. However subsequent archaeological excavations have found nothing earlier than Norman on the site.

Still, for an untrained amateur archaeologist, some of his opinions have sometimes been dramatically borne out by the facts.

Next stop was to prepare an order for LeClerc. There’s plenty of stuff here so I can cut back on the order, but there are still some essentials that need buying.

That took longer than it ought too for all kinds of reasons, not the least being that I need to bring the order up to €50:00 so that they will deliver it. In the end it reached €53:00 or thereabouts.

Lunch was a cheese and tomato butty on some of the baguette that I baked this morning and it was nice, followed by some of the fruit. I’ve been told to cut down on the fruit that I eat which is disappointing so bananas are regrettably off the menu from now on.

This afternoon while the cleaner was here I finished off the radio notes and I do have to say that I’m quite pleased with what I’ve written. For once, it all hangs together. It’s not as disjointed as it usually is.

Not that I’m complaining about my previous programmes though, but trying to be erudite and preparing a work of literature in a foreign language is not that easy.

It wasn’t too bad when Liz and I were running Radio Anglais down in the Auvergne because that was in English, but this here is … errr … challenging. How on earth Rhys is managing with his “Rutube” channel in Russian is mind-boggling.

After my cleaner left and LeClerc had delivered the supplies, I tried a little experiment.

My friend Ann tells me that she’s not used her big oven since she bought an air fryer. I have a few of these spring-loaded cake tins of various sizes, one of which fits in my air fryer, so seeing as I am now forbidden chocolate, I resolved to make a chocolate cake in the air fryer and “yah booh sucks” to the dietician.

First lesson is that one cup of measured for the oil cake produces too much so I need a smaller cup

Second lesson is that in its airproof and windproof drawer it goes up like a lift and is the softest cake that I have ever made.

Third lesson is that it needs the temperature turned down and cooked much longer (like 70 minutes) before it’s done

Fourth lesson is that even with a piece of baking paper over the top (thanks for the tip, John), it still burns the top, but that can be cut off and sampled so it’s not the end of the world.

And so the conclusion is that it produced the best cake that I have ever made, but the procedure is much more complicated so we’ll call it a draw. Further experiments are called for

Having stuffed myself with offcuts of chocolate cake I wasn’t in the mood for much tea. Just a small salad, a few chips and a few of these micro-mini vegan nuggets that were on special offer. No pudding though – we’ll call the chocolate cake offcuts the pudding.

So now I’m off to bed. I’ve not been the remotest bit tired today despite the lack of sleep so I’m hoping for a good sleep tonight.

But talking about Tina … "well, one of us is" – ed … reminds me of the time that her class at school in Florida went to see THE CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT.
Having an English father and spending all of her summer holidays in Winsford, she has a complete understanding of British slang and a British sense of humour. So when the film was shown, she was rolling around the aisles in laughter and her classmates were looking at her, totally bewildered.
Marianne and I actually went to see it in Brussels where it was shown in English. And you could tell who were the native English-speakers in the audience because we were roaring with laughter while the Belgians were looking on, completely disorientated.
But that leads us onto that famous discussion between Kenneth Williams and Alfred Hitchcock and "it’s a waste of time telling jokes to foreigners".

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Tuesday 17th September 2024 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

…night I had last night.

For a start, it was after midnight when, after I’d let it all hang out, I went off to bed. And if that’s not bad enough, I awoke again at about 03:30, and there I stayed, tossing and turning with one trip down the corridor, until long after 05:00. I have never been so fed up in all my life.

There was one moment round about 04:30 when I was actually thinking of leaving the bed and working, in an attempt to make up some of the lost hours, but it needs to be more sustainable than that if ever I do.

At some point I must have gone back to sleep, not that I remember doing so, because when the alarm went off at 07:00 I was fast asleep. So at least I’ve had some slumber somewhere.

In the bathroom I had a good scrub up to try to make myself presentable, and then I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. It was about 02:00 somewhere and I was wandering around the town. I suddenly bumped into one person after another out of my Welsh class. There were just three of us at first and there was something of a dispute between two of them about something rather trivial. One of them mentioned that he’d seen the others somewhere else in town and went off to fetch them. I went off to see if the little room in the café was free and we all met up there except the one who had been offended. He had disappeared and we couldn’t find him so we just ended up chatting amongst ourselves. This group slowly evolved into another group of my friends. We were upstairs on the top of a bus. I was sorting through some papers and had my personal, handwritten diary there. One of my friends grabbed it and began to read it. I asked for it back but she wouldn’t hand it back. I thought “well, never mind” and in something of a sulk went and sat somewhere else. I ended up having to go for a walk around the perimeter of the upstairs of this bus. I had STRAWBERRY MOOSE with me. It was quite crowded and we had to wrestle and fight our way through. By the time that I returned to where my friend was, she had almost finished my diary. I tried to take it from her and in the end she relinquished her hold. By this time I was in such a bad mood that when I noticed that she ws disappointed having to give it up I told her “well if it means that much to you, you carry on reading it!’ and I stormed off and went to sit somewhere else again. I found the place where I had sat before but just then a group of children in this real heavyweight pram pushed by these two women came past and crushed all the seats in under the tables etc. One of the little girls was sitting on my seat so I gave her Strawberry Moose, surprised that she hadn’t noticed him already. She began to feel all round him and I realised that she was blind. One of the other kids suddenly noticed the moose, began to cry and said something in Russian. I didn’t understand what it was that it had said but the woman replied in an American accent in English. I didn’t say anything but she made some kind of comment about the disturbance that she was causing and the mess that was going on. She said to me “and you should have grabbed me while the going was good”. I thought “well, yes, there’s not much chance of that, is there?” but I was still in such a bad mood about my friend hanging onto my diary and reading it

That is one of those dreams that the trick cyclist would have hours of endless fun examining. Freud would probably give you a completely different meaning and a third, say Nietzsche, would find another meaning. His involvement would be due to his famous phrase "out of chaos comes order" but he’d never looked inside my head at that point. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I feel really sorry for the person who draws the short straw and has to look inside my head

But that dream reminds me of one of Ambrose Bierce’s quotes – "A year is a period of 365 disappointments", and that dream seemed to be full of them

The chief nurse is back on duty today, complete with his sciatica, and maybe that’s the reason why he’s grumpy right now.

He told me that he used to work in a dialysis unit and began to tell me some in-depth information that I don’t need to know and I had to tell him three times to shut up.

Another thing he said was that if my legs continue to shrink widthways we will be able to dispense with the puttees and go back to these elasticated socks. We shall see.

Breakfast was next. And while I was at it, I was reading my book and we have reached a chapter about a Roman brickworks and Tile factory in my old neck of the woods just outside Holt in Wrexham.

It had been excavated at the turn of the 20th Century and my author, writing in 1923, was eagerly awaiting the published report. However he will have a long wait even today because after the archaeologist died in 1925 there was no trace of his notes.

The site is extremely difficult to spot from the air, unfortunately, but I checked it by overlaying a modern field map over the rough drawing, and to my surprise, if you go to an aerial map viewer like Google Maps and type or copy in the map reference 53.08382914907756, -2.8868042627705814, can you make out the trace of the Roman Road that went through the site?

Back in here I began to revise my Welsh – the correct unit this time – and then went for the lesson. There weren’t very many of us today and it was hard work. After my wretched night I felt awful too, so it was not my best lesson by any means.

But it was nice to see one of my classmates back after a long illness.

After the lesson I had work to do. Once more the fridge had iced up and before breakfast I’d switched it off. After breakfast I had emptied it and put some old towels (thanks, Liz) in the bottom.

Now I had the job of cleaning the fridge and mopping up everywhere, and that wasn’t the work of five minutes either.

Strangely, I always seem to be struggling for space in the fridge but just simply emptying it and refilling it seems to make plenty of room. I wonder if that would work for the freezer, but I’m not brave enough to try it. Every time I open the door, something inside closes it again.

There I was though, up to my ears in soggy towels and waterlogged floor and who should stick her head in with some supplies but my loyal cleaner. She shoved me aside and in five minutes flat had made the place habitable again.

But sticking that lino down on the wood floor in the kitchen area was a master-stroke

The rest of the day was spent choosing music for the next radio programme. That’s all done and the pairs of music are chosen and segued together. Tomorrow I’ll be writing the notes as much as I can, but I need to sort out a physiotherapist.

One of my UK bank cards and the new card reader finally turned up today so I had to configure them, make sure they work, and then set about transferring some money round and about here and there. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that there’s something on the go in the UK and we are about to start in earnest

All in all, despite being totally exhausted, I’ve accomplished a lot today.

The bad news is that the cleaner has talked to the pharmacist, and she doesn’t think that the anaesthetic cream is any better than the patches and that we should persevere. My answer to that is that it’s my arm that they’ll be persevering with, not hers.

Tea tonight was a taco roll with rice and veg followed by jam roly-poly and coconut-flavoured soya cream, and it was delicious.

While we’re on the subject of coconut … "well, one of us is" – ed … I sampled my coconut cake today – the first slice. And it’s simply delicious.

It’s a standard oil-cake but with some of the oil replaced by melted coconut oil, and a big heap of desiccated coconut mixed in it.

So what else would work in this? I can make chocolate and ginger, and now coconut. Anyone any more suggestions? I haven’t overlooked a spotted dick – just haven’t reached there yet.

So that’s it, I’m off to bed. I’ve done enough, I’m absolutely worn out with my rotten night

But before I go, there are a couple of mails that I’ve received from some regular readers of this rubbish. I haven’t overlooked to reply – I’m simply overwhelmed with things right now

If anyone else feels the urge to write and say hello, don’t hesitate. There’s a contact form at the bottom right. And if you have a google or gmail address, it will be Strawberry Moose who will reply to you.

All hits, requests, comments and suggestions are welcomed, even those suggestions that are physically impossible. At least it shows that you are awake.

Once not too long ago there was someone who sent their son to study at the Sorbonne in Paris with the aim of giving him a formal and profound immersion in foreign culture and languages
"And did it work?" asked a neighbour
"Ohh yes" replied the mother. "In no time at all he could write home to ask for money in six different languages"

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Wednesday 28th August 2024 – MY GINGER CAKE …

… is really delicious. Not quite fiery enough, I reckon, but that kind of thing comes with practice. The consistency was exactly what it should have been, except that it was cooked more at the top than underneath.

Usually that would mean lowering it in the oven, but that won’t work as it’s already on the lowest possible shelf, so it’s going to be to turn down the oven and prolong the cooking time.

But that won’t work if I’m baking bread at the same time, so it will have to do.

Consequently, given the shortcomings of my table-top oven, it was a resounding success. Just wait until I have a real oven, whenever that might be.

At least the sponge rose up as it was supposed to do.

While we’re on the subject of rising up as it is supposed to do … "well, one of us is" – ed … I rose up as I was supposed to do this morning when the alarm went off at 07:00

That was helped by the fact that for once I was actually in bed before my ideal curfew time of 23:00. Not by very much, I have to say, but even one minute is some kind of progress.

After I’d finished my notes last night I did everything that I had to do and then headed for the hills.

Once in bed I remember very little. I started my little bedtime mantra but didn’t get very far before I fell asleep. And apart from a couple of awakenings at various times, there I stayed quite comfortably until the alarm went off.

In the bathroom I had a really good wash and clean-up, followed by a shave and some clean clothes. I must look my best for my trip out today. Who knows? I might even meet Emilie the Cute Consultant.

While I was at it, I washed my trousers and undies in the sink ready for next time. I try to keep ahead as much as I possibly can.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. Nerina and I were going through one of our phases and were walking down Hospital Street in Nantwich or driving down there, but we stopped at a pedestrian crossing to let a pedestrian pass. I recognised him as he walked past. He was a musician and after listening to his album thanks to a recommendation by a friend I’d actually gone out and bought a copy. I just happened to mention that I’d bought a copy of his album and we ended up having a very lengthy discussion about the music business before he left. He noticed a cut on the side of my face so told him that it was nothing to worry about and began to sing a parody of the Dire Straits song I’D PUT A BIT OF PLASTER ON MY FINGER, PUT A BIT OF PLASTER ON YOUR THUMB. He came running back wondering where he’d cut himself. I had to explain to him that that’s the lyrics of a song. Once he’d worked it out he went on his way quite happily.

But I’ll tell you something for nothing, and that is that if I can write parodies of modern (well, for me anyway) songs while I’m asleep I’m doing really well here. And walking through Nantwich and encountering rock musicians would have been quite a usual occurrence in the mid-70s with a host of garage bands in the area and recording artists like Strife. They were some really good times with the pubs in Nantwich like The Wickstead, The Rifleman and The Bowling Green. There was a time when my friends and I were thrown out of most of the pubs in the town at one time or another.

There was a boxing match out in Aston, a girl from our class, whatever her name might have been. We set out in the car to go to see it. It was taking place outside the church. We knew that we had to rush. Nevertheless we arrived late and the fight was under way. It looked as if she had been hurt because she wasn’t her usual lively self for boxing. Her opponent, an older man, was there and they were standing toe to toe trading blows. She was fending off more of his but then she caught him with a beautiful overarm right just as he was trying an overarm right. It was a very painful, tired overarm right as well as if it was her very last effort that she put into it but it made a perfect connection on the point of his jaw and that was him out for the count. She won the competition again but this time it was much closer than it had been in previous attempts so we were going to have to work on why this was the case and do something about it for the next time

What beats me about this is that I actually mentioned the girl’s name. She would have been one of the most unlikely candidates for a competitor in a boxing match (having said that, had any of the girls in my year or thereabouts come up against a male boxer, my sympathy and commiserations would have been entirely with the boxer) but not only that, I don’t think that I’ve ever spent even a minute thinking about this particular girl since I left school. So what’s brought her suddenly to the forefront of my mind?

Later on we’d been sorting out some music concerts. There had been a complaint from one of the washrooms that all of the towels had been used by a certain group wiping the lipstick off their faces after being kissed by thousands of girls so there were no clean towels in the washrooms. A certain guitarist was also there on tour. He was a nightmare to handle as everything had to be absolute perfection but perfection according to his standards. He had no spatial awareness and no awareness of anyone else around him and their feelings and so on. Everything was all about him. It was a very complicated issue to deal with him. He was sacking everyone after the first show, replacing his staff and then firing them again after the second and we just couldn’t keep up with all of the changes. Neither could he. It was beginning to deflect from his show but he wouldn’t have it at all and wouldn’t listen to explanations from anyone that maybe he ought to moderate his unnecessarily high standards in order for a compromise to be made that would mean that everything would go ahead. The more people he upset and the more people he fired, the fewer people he would find who would be willing to work with him

Anyone in the music business would be able to name this guitarist – I did in my dream but I edited it out – whose constant search for perfection has had exactly the opposite effect to that intended. Anyone of any great competence will look at the speed at which our guitarist has been hiring and firing and decide that he’s better off where he is. It’s not at all like Neil Young who has often been criticised because of what is perceived to be the lack of ability of his backing group, Crazy Horse. But as he has said on many occasions, he’s here to have fun and a good time with his mates and make everyone happy, not to launch himself into an eternal quest for the unattainable goal of perfection.

The taxi was late coming for me but it was a lovely drive down to Avranches even if the driver kept the windows closed.

The letter that I had notifying me of my appointment showed a different time from the time that they had noted so I’ve no idea what was happening there.

Anyway, I was eventually seen and the first thing that the doctor did was to rip off the plaster and give me a lecture about having it covered. I felt like a small child up before the headmaster (although where I would find a small child up before the headmaster in that hospital I really don’t know).

So I have to keep it uncovered and let the air get to it, and like it. So far, I’ve managed to avoid not seeing it. How long I can keep that up I really don’t know.

The doctor ran her echograph machine all over my arm right up as far as my armpit, and passed it fit for service. So on the 4th September I’ll know when dialysis will begin.

While I was waiting for my taxi back I bumped into Emilie the Cute Consultant’s sidekick and we exchanged a few words. And then the taxi came for me

All the way back (with the windows closed again) and the taxi driver had to help me up the stairs – something that she found extremely difficult and so did I. Seriously, if my cleaner’s not available to help me it’s going to be a real struggle

First thing that I did back here was to have a very late breakfast. I’d had nothing to eat or drink all day as yet so I was ready for some food.

It was interrupted by the arrival of the nurse. "I was here at 08:20 but must have just missed you"

"Yes" I thought. "And the taxi was late so it was well after 08:30 when we left" but I didn’t say anything.

After breakfast I had a lengthy chat with a friend in the UK. We have a project on the go and that involved some lengthy discussion.

It should also have involved a transfer of money but the battery has gone flat in my card reader so I had to order another and the money will have to wait.

There’s some bad news about this project, but it’s not unexpected so it’s no skin off my nose really. But with having a professional on the job, there are already some considerable savings that have been made so it’s “swings and roundabouts” really.

Liz was on line too so we had a lengthy chat. She was keen to see how today went and what the plans are for the immediate future so I filled her in.

The cleaner was here too and she whizzed through the apartment.

Once everyone had gone and things had calmed down I went for a very late hot chocolate and a slice of ginger cake. And it really was delicious as I said.

But now I know that I can substitute things in my basic recipe, how about a coffee cake? What about strawberry cordial instead of water to make a strawberry cake, with real strawberries in there somewhere?

But this is how most recipes work – trial and error. Sometimes some of these experiments work in spades and other times they are absolute disasters.

After that I made some naan dough and put most of it to freeze but kept one ball for tonight’s leftover curry, which was delicious as usual and the naan was perfection.

But now I’m off to bed. I have no plans for the next two days so I might even do some work. But right now I’m listening to a live concert by a Canadian group called “Black Mountain” so I’ll be going nowhere for a while

But on the subject of Liz and “filling in” I’m reminded of the guy who went for an interview for a job at the Ritz Hotel in London
"You should fill in our questionnaire" said the receptionist
"Very good" he replied, and went outside and beat up the doorman.

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