Tag Archives: llansawel

… thing is doing its job, right enough. It awoke me again this morning, and not once, would you believe, but TWICE I’ve no idea where it’s coming from or what it’s all about, but I suppose that I’ll have to just get on with it. Or, as I dictated at some weird time of morning –

This was another occasion where I was awoken by a phantom alarm. I actually went to switch it off before I realised. I’ve no idea what time, because I didn’t look, but it was certainly early in the morning rather than later, that’s for sure.

And then, to cap it all, a second phantom alarm went off just a couple of minutes before the real alarm did.

All of that was rather a shame because I needed all the sleep I could get. I crashed out well and truly last night, as I explained, and I still hadn’t returned to the Land of the Living when I crawled into bed. And although I was asleep quite quickly, it wasn’t for all that long before the “alarm” went off.

Once I realised that it was a phantom alarm, I went back to bed, but I couldn’t manage to go back to sleep. Although I must have done so at some point because of the second “phantom” alarm that also awoke me.

When the real alarm went off, I managed, after some not-inconsiderable effort, to raise myself from the Dead and head into the bathroom to organise myself. I had a good scrub-up and even a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon, and then I came back in here.

The first thing that I noticed was the temperature. Outside, at not quite 07:00, it was twenty-six degrees Celsius. Inside my bedroom, it was a mere twenty-five degrees centigrade. I opened the window and switched on the electric fan.

The first job, as usual, was to transcribe the dictaphone notes, which you have read just now, and then there were a few other things to do while I waited for Isabelle the Nurse to arrive. She was scorching already, especially as yesterday afternoon she’d decided to do her round on her bike. Granville isn’t the ideal town to go bike-riding, even at the best of times. It’s all uphill and down dale with no respite.

After she left, I could make my breakfast and read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

Today, he’s steering clear of controversy, although I must admit to not having taken very much notice because, as usual, I was dragged up several side alleys by remarks that he had made and which I thought needed a good deal of research.

Back in here, there were a few things to do and then I had to finish off the notes from yesterday. And once that was done, I closed my eyes for a little while and had a relax. I awoke at 11:40 thinking to myself “I really earned that”.

At midday, I went to prepare myself for dialysis, and my cleaner came around to apply the anaesthetic to my arm.

After she left, I waited for my taxi, and I didn’t have to wait too long either. She was early today, mainly due to the fact that we had Mrs Dinosaur to pick up. There was also a woman at the aqua-gym at St Pair, so it was a full car heading to Avranches.

We arrived early, which suited me fine, and what suited me even finer was that I was in one of the rooms nearest the front door. I was plugged in quite quickly too, but once more there was an excess of liquid to extract. Not very much more, so I just told the nurse that seeing as I was early, I’d stay for an extra fifteen minutes.

That seemed to work, but once more, we ended up with yet another world-record low blood pressure – a mere 6.3 over 4. This is becoming crazy.

Once I was plugged in, I watched the rest of the Cambrian United v Llansawel game. It ended up 1-1, and that was probably a fair result.

One thing that I’ve noticed though in the games at Rhydaman, Trefelin and Cambrian United is that we have proper old-time football fans, singing, chanting and hurling abuse at the opposition players throughout the whole ninety minutes, something that you rarely see these days now that the insistence on all-seater stadia has tranquillised the fans. I mean, since when has “polite applause” ever been any part of any football match?

In 2013, Trabzonspor winger Volkan Şen burst into tears and walked off the field after being on the receiving end of some abuse. But I’ll tell you what, and that is that I would go onto a football field and let the fans hurl as much abuse as they like at me for ninety minutes for just a quarter of what these players are being paid. After all, I used to be married, so I’m used to it.

The game that I saw afterwards was twenty minutes or so of Y Fflint v Y Barri. At the moment, it’s 1-0 to Y Barri so we’ll have to see how this match unfolds.

When I was finished, they unplugged me quite quickly, and my taxi was already waiting for me. It was a very interesting driver whom I hadn’t had before, and we had a good chat on the way home.

My faithful cleaner was waiting for me, and she helped me into the apartment, and I needed it. I flaked out in a chair, and she passed me a disgusting drink to cheer me up.

After she left, I vegetated for a while and then came in here. I couldn’t face any food this evening. While I was doing a few things, I was chatting to a couple of friends on the internet, and now that my notes are finished for the night, I’m off to bed. I need all the beauty sleep I can get.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about chatting to my friends … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of the conversations concerned a rather strange and weird statue that he had bought recently.
"Somehow, some strange things attract you like that" I said.
"Exactly" replied my friend
"Yes, I often wondered why Nerina married me"

Monday 10th August 2026 – DON’T BE SURPRISED …

… if I fail to complete today’s notes before I’m forced to retire early to bed.

This afternoon, I have been to dialysis, as you might expect, and the nurse who dealt with me is one of the longest-serving nurses there. But she’s one of these “minimalist” people who does as little as she possibly can while still completing her assigned tasks. It’s quite true that her approach can save an awful lot of time, and for that, it should be applauded. However, it also leaves room for some glaring errors, and we’ve had one of those today.

And for a change, my luck was well and truly in, so I’m not complaining in the least. Far from it.

Last night was difficult, though. I was hours late finishing off what needed finishing, and it was well after midnight when I finished letting it all hang out and crawled into bed.

For some reason, it was really difficult to go to sleep, and when I finally did, it wasn’t for long, because at about 01:20, I was wide awake again. And there I was for a few hours too before I finally managed to go off to sleep.

When I awoke next time, I wondered what time it was. I thought that I’d better go and have a look, but just at that moment, the alarm beat me to it. It took a few minutes as usual to bring myself round into the Land of the Living, and then I headed off to the bathroom for a good scrub-up and even a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant today. I have to do my best to look pretty, even if I don’t feel like it.

Back in here, I had the dictaphone notes to transcribe so that I could find out what’s been going on during the night.

We were doing some renovation work on a hospital. The original builder had not done a very good job at all. There were quite a few early mediaeval pieces of sculpture on show, and when we measured the dates with the periods, it seemed that there was plenty of ancient British craftsmanship going on between 375 AD and 450 AD. But when we wanted to know where this had come from, we saw that a message was posted on his page saying that it just came from various research following an investigation of the WORKS OF BEDE, which was no help at all. But then we were there in the afternoon, trying to take this wheel off this Land Rover, and he drove by, extremely closely, missing him by a couple of millimetres, I should think. We wondered if we should report him for the harassment of our diggings first.

You can see in this dream the influence of Charles Freeman’s book that we are currently reading and also my theory of ethnic cleansing by the Anglo-Saxons – about 450 AD was when the Anglo-Saxons began to arrive en masse.

There was something else about a film that we had been making, an old man and me. After a lot of time, expense and money, the film was about to see the light of day. The old man had now retired into the countryside, so I remember asking him if he was going to come up to London for the premiere or whether he was going to wait until it reached the local cinema near where he lives. He expressed some doubt or opinion as to whether the film would last until it reached any kind of cinema near him

There have been several films like that where they have underperformed so dramatically that they have been taken off general release before they have gone very far around the circuit. Probably the most famous of these is Stanley Kubrick’s A CLOCKWORK ORANGE.

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

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

There was a third thing about a girl who was playing football. She was right-back for some kind of team, but every time the ball came down the left flank, she would naturally gravitate towards the centre of the penalty are, which meant that out on the right wing where she had been, it was an undefended zone and the team was being cut to shreds through there

This dream is very reminiscent of a football match that I saw at the Stade Louis Dior in Granville. In this case, it was a male left-back who was being drawn inside, and just as I was discussing this with another spectator, a beautiful crossfield ball found the unmarked right-winger, who just cut inside and scored a simple goal.

Isabelle the Nurse came as usual, and she noticed my three new herb plants, now in jars of water. She was pleased that I was taking good care of them

After she left, I could make my breakfast, and while I was eating, I could read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

Well, in theory I could, but I was sidetracked up yet another blind alley, looking up obscure architectural terms. Some kind of glossary and maybe even pictures would have been a really great help with this book.

Right at the very beginning of the book, he told us "The present work is not illustrated ; there was at one time an intention of adding engravings, but the idea was relinquished, as to illustrate it completely was altogether out of the question, and a partial and inadequate illustration seemed even more objectionable than none at all …. But, though a complete illustration of the work would have been highly desirable, the way in which the subject is here treated renders its loss less objectionable than it would be in a treatise of detail, or a record of existing specimens."

All I can say on this subject is "you speak for yourself, Mr Freeman. You’re the author, but I’m the reader. A five-minute sketch of, say, a polygonal abacus or a vaulted clerestory would save me hours of research".

Back in here, there were the usual things to do, including checking the radio programme that will be broadcast this week and sending it off.

And once it had gone, I began to research the next radio programme. This is going to be another difficult one to complete as, once more, I don’t have all the music that I would like to use, and again, it’s all quite obscure stuff that might take me a week or two to find.

Round about 11:40, I’d finished the first part of it, and so, as a reward, I curled up on my chair for a relax. It’s a good job that I have an alarm set for midday on dialysis days, otherwise I would still be relaxing now.

In the kitchen, I sorted out a disgusting drink and my midday medication and then began to prepare myself and my things for dialysis. My cleaner came along to fix my anaesthetic, and after a brief chat, she cleared off, so I waited for the taxi.

And waited, and waited.

While I was waiting, I’d had a good sleep, which was nice, hunched up over the table, but I couldn’t stay all afternoon like that. I rang up the taxi depot to find out where my car was, and they replied “another five minutes”. Sure enough, five minutes later, he turned up. Apparently, they had given him a whole host of local work without the slightest of ideas as to how long it takes.

He made good time down to Avranches, but in the car park there was a plant shredder busily shredding away at branches they had cut down. We had to park almost in the road, and so I had an uphill slog of fifty metres on top of the long walk that I usually have to take.

There were no aides infirmières – “nursing assistants” – to help me today, so I had to find my bed all on my own, having first stopped off at the gentleman’s restroom.

With no one about, I weighed myself and then found my bed and sorted myself out. I put my weigh ticket on the temporary table underneath the bombe de froid – “cold spray” – sorted out my computer and climbed into bed.

And this is where it all went wrong. The weight that I’d recorded includes the weight of the clothes, etc. that I’m wearing so usually, the nurse knocks off eight hundred grams for my outfit, telephone, keys, etc. Anyway, she computed her figures into the machine and said “two thousand seven hundred grams to take off today”.

“Get off”, I thought to myself. “It’s never that much!”. I went through all of the calculations that I could, and I couldn’t come up with a figure of two thousand seven hundred grams, but not having the correct information to argue, I left her to it and the machine pumping away almost flat-out at nine hundred grams per hour. And sure enough, it wasn’t long before I was in agony. It’s hard work when the machine is running almost on “max” …. "”Max” in our hero’s case is nine hundred and fifty grams per hour." – ed …

Halfway through the session, I suddenly realised what had happened. I don’t recall her, or anyone else, asking me how much to deduct for my outfit. And when I factored in this eight hundred grams, the figures made much more sense. I still didn’t say anything, though. I’ll have a good head start for Thursday as long as they don’t realise what she has done.

While I was being dialysed, I was watching some more football from the weekend.

The first match was Trefynnon v Connah’s Quay Nomads. Trefynnon, newly promoted and thrashed 6-1 on the opening day of the season, played much better today against a team tipped to be up there in the fight for the title this year. They lost 3-1, and it’s true that the Nomads played the better football, but Trefynnon kept on pushing forward and had the Nomads defence in a panic on one or two occasions.

What was interesting about this was the size of the crowd for Trefynnon’s first home game in the Premier League. Once it was announced, hordes of locals began to appear, carrying big, big carpets to be cleaned for less than half a crown.

The second game was Cambrian United v Llansawel. Another new club to the league, the team from the Rhondda Valley impressed me last week in their match against Y Barri, and I was looking to see how they would get on today. I managed to watch about fifteen or twenty minutes of it before it was time to go.

The nurse dealt with me quite quickly, but she couldn’t stay and compress me, so she found some kind of clamps that would do the job too. And they worked. And when I weighed myself, I was indeed eight hundred or so grams under my dry weight. We’ll see how this impacts the Thursday session.

My driver was waiting for me – one of my favourite drivers – and we had a good chat on the way home. My cleaner helped me into the apartment and then pushed a disgusting drink into my hands.

After she left, I made some food – a cheese salad with rice and veg which was delicious – and then came back in here.

Fighting off waves and waves of sleep, I made a start on my notes, but I couldn’t keep going. After half an hour or so, I posted online what I’d written and then went to bed. The draining of this non-existent eight hundred grams has rather flattened me.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about losing weight … "well, one of us has" – ed … I once bought a lovely new dress for Nerina, but it was two sizes to small for her, so I left her a little note – "I’d love to see you in this"
When I came home from work the next day, there was a coffin in the living room with a little note from Nerina that said "Ditto".

Friday 31st July 2026 – I HAVE HAD …

… a somewhat better day today, not that you might think so at first glance. However, anything has to be better than yesterday, I suppose.

Last night, I was in bed at something like 22:00, I suppose, not that I looked, and once more, I’m sure that I was asleep before my head hit the pillow. And I managed to stay asleep for a little longer last night. It wasn’t until about 03:00 that I awoke.

Despite everything that I tried to do, I couldn’t manage to go back to sleep and by 05:50 or thereabouts, I’d completely given up all hope. That’s why, when the alarm should have gone off … "which it didn’t because he’d switched it off" – ed … I was sitting at my desk working.

Before that, though, I had to go into the kitchen. I had a thirst that you could photograph so a couple of mouthfuls of water with lemon juice

Back in here, what I should have been doing was transcribing the dictaphone notes from the night, except that there weren’t any, which, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed …is an extreme disappointment to me. But never mind. There were the notes from the previous evening, so I transcribed those instead and integrated them into yesterday’s notes.

There were still a few other things to do, and I was interrupted by the arrival of Isabelle the Nurse, who was early. We had a little chat about what’s going on in the town and then, when she’d finished, she cleared off on her rounds.

That left me free to make my breakfast, and while I was eating, I was reading some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

And he’s still going on … "and on, and on" – ed … about the superiority of the Northern races over the “Mohammedans”. "The Crusaders then imported, not Gothic architecture as a complete style, but certain forms thrown away on their possessions, but which northern genius at once felt itself capable of employing to some better use".

Be that as it may, a few lines later, he adds "The Arabian architecture in Spain does not present so close an approximation to Gothic forms as that of the east ; to go no farther, the round arch is retained in its most sumptuous buildings. The Spaniard then had not the same opportunities for learning Pointed forms in his own country as were possessed by the French or English pilgrim to the east".

Back in here, I had yesterday’s notes to complete and then post online. And once again, that wasn’t easy, due to me collapsing with fatigue on several occasions. It took me much longer than I thought and I was glad in the end to go for my disgusting drink and midday medication.

The next job after that was to look at the football news – I’d forgotten to do that last night. And the first thing that I noticed, apart from the last-minute transfers before the season begins, was that UEFA HAS WITHDRAWN FROM FIFA and won’t participate in any more worldwide competitions.

It’s not the only continental football authority to withdraw either. CONCACAF, the umbrella organisation for North and Central America and the Caribbean, is also making plans to join in.

The issue is over the “sale” of the World Cup competition to commercial marketing companies, one of which is a venture capital company run by Donald Trump’s son-in-law’s brother. UEFA has announced that “the World Cup is not for sale at any price” and in my opinion, quite rightly too.

It’s all about the supporters and the teams, and the disgraceful milking of supporters over the last few weeks in the USA has shown what can happen when greedy profit-mongers lay their hands on everything

The scenario that I have imagined is that Trump has, I imagine, seen how much money the World Cup has brought in and has worked out a way of bringing in even more, with his extended family being one of the main earners in this scheme.

On the other hand, it might just as easily be UEFA’s way of revenge for how the FIFA President overturned a red card decision against the American team when their star player was permitted, despite being sent off in the previous game, to play against Belgium after pressure was put on FIFA by Trump.

Then I turned my attention to the radio programme on which I’d been working.

The other day, I mentioned that I had found all the songs that I need. but that, I’m afraid, wasn’t the case. Because of my inability to count correctly, I found that I was two albums short so I had to scour the World for copies, and I eventually, after much binding in the marsh, was able to find them.

Once I’d managed to secure them, I had to reformat and re-edit them and then extract the songs that I needed. Now, at last, I had all eleven.

They have all now been paired and then segued, and all that remains are the notes to write. That’s going to take a while and it’s almost certain that I shan’t have them finished before Monday.

Things might have gone easier and quicker, but my cleaner popped in to do her stuff as usual, and that knocked me out of my stride for a while as we chatted about all kinds of things.

At teatime, I had sausage, beans and chips again – the beans cooked with cheese and black pepper, and it’s delicious. Probably my most favourite meal of all.

After washing up, I was back in here for the football – LLansawel v. newly-promoted Ammanford. The game was quite good, with Llansawel deservedly winning by 2-1, but this new TV company with whom the FAW has gone into partnership is, in my opinion, a total shambles.

There’s

no pre-match introduction
no team sheets
no match commentary
just one inexperienced camera crew who didn’t use their zoom lens until right at the very end
only one camera
no cameras behind the goals or in other positions on the fields
no action replays
no subtitles to announce the goalscorers
no subtitles to announce the substitutions

and probably a dozen other things that were wrong with it too that I’ll remember in due course

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we often go to Stranraer to watch the football. They are a small fourth-tier club in Scotland with crowds of about five hundred if they are lucky. Yet their match highlights and commentaries are among the best in the World. If Stranraer can do it, then a society such as NOVIRA should be able to out-do Stranraer quite easily.

After the match, I started to write my notes, but with the game finishing at 22:55, tiredness and fatigue beat me to the end, so I posted what I had written to date and I’ll finish it off later tomorrow.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the World Cup … "well, one of us has" – ed … an English guy who was planning to go to he World Cup to watch Ingerland play was dismayed to find that the third-placed playoff was arranged on the day of his marriage.
Reluctantly, he put an announcement in the local newspaper – "due to a clash of schedules between my marriage and the England game against France, I’m not able to go. Anyone who would like to go in my place, please contact me."
Someone rang him up and asked "where’s it taking place?"
He replied "St Stephen’s church and her name is Sandra"

Saturday 18th April 2026 – I HAVE HAD …

… a somewhat better day today. Mind you, that’s not at all difficult because yesterday was pretty awful.

But never mind. After writing my notes and doing everything that I have to do, it was about 21:00 when I finally made it into bed. As usual these days, it took a while to go off to sleep, but once I fell asleep, I remember nothing at all for quite a while.

At some point, and I’ve no idea when, I had to leave the bed, but I was soon back into bed and soon asleep again. At a later moment, I had to go down the corridor again, but I’d only been back in bed fifteen minutes or so afterwards when the alarm went off.

Despite the fact that I’d not long ago been up and about, it was another one of the usual struggles to leave the bed, and I eventually managed to stagger into the bathroom.

Afterwards, I headed into the kitchen for my medication and hot drink and then came back in here to listen to the dictaphone.

Nerina and I had gone on a coach tour and we’d been put into a hotel room like everyone else, and we went to sleep. When I awoke this morning, I noticed that there was a mouse, a crab and two really strange creatures. One was blue and the other was olive green. There was also a huge spider. I managed to deal with the crab straight away and threw it out of the room. The next one was something with a hard shell, so I hit it with a fluorescent lamp tube that was lying around and it shattered the shell, so I threw it out of the bedroom window. The spider – I managed to chase it out of the room and it ran off down the corridor. The mouse was not a mouse – it was the thing that I’d hit with a fluorescent lamp tube. It resembled a mouse of a kind. The two others – they were really gruesome things. The green thing was like a starshell, like a star or something with its tentacles. I managed to catch that at the right time and with the door open, I could flick it outside. But this blue thing was really rapid. Every time I tried to catch it, it ran off down another end of the room. Eventually, Nerina came out of bed and joined in the hunt. We managed to corner it but it still slipped out. In the end, I had the bedroom door open wide and we manoeuvred it over to that side of the room so that when we came close to it, it ran outside the door and off down the corridor so we closed the bedroom door.

These are obviously my brother’s monsters from last night’s notes, following Nerina and me about. But what a hotel in which to stay when it’s infested with things like those. I wonder if any other room had such a collection.

However, reflecting on yesterday, if anyone had asked me even five years ago to go a day without coffee, I would have said that it’s impossible. I used to drink coffee by the bucketful. But ohhh! How times have changed! Needs must when the devil drives and all of that.

This was a dream where I was in Edinburgh, and I was asleep in my car. When I awoke next morning, there had been a couple of stickers stuck on it. I wasn’t sure what they were about, so I didn’t read them at first. Eventually, I managed to tear one off because these stickers were on the inside. It said something about bad parking and how my vehicle would be taken away if it weren’t removed. I then had a look at the other stickers. These were car park receipts with £0:00 in them so I don’t know what this was all about. Anyway, I was trying to make up my mind which car I was in because I couldn’t remember and it wasn’t until the day began to dawn that I realised that I was in a gold-coloured MkIII Cortina saloon and I have no idea what I was doing in there because a gold MkIII saloon is one that I have never owned.

Sleeping in my car is nothing new for me and even Nerina has shared a car with me on occasion. There’s a story about Nerina and me sleeping in the car in Cherbourg, but the World isn’t ready to hear it.

Surprisingly, MkIII Cortinas of all shades and colours have passed through my hands at one time or another, either as taxis or to be broken for spares, except a gold one. Even now, I still have a dark brown one and a bronze one, and I shan’t be letting them go at any price. They are both 2000E models so they are worth a fortune. The bronze one, one of the very few surviving 2000E estates, will fetch a mint of money.

I was planning on moving down to London, and I’d noticed this huge estate on the north-east side which was terrace after terrace after terrace of modern houses so I went along to enquire about one of them. It turned out that many of them were social housing, reserved for undergraduates or pensioners, but there was one part of it where single people could either buy or rent one of these places, so I told him that I may be interested in one of those. We went through all of the procedures and everything, and I ended up signing for one of them. Once the contracts were exchanged, they gave me the address of the property, which was in Onllwyn, which is in North Wales, so I went there to see what it was that I’d bought. It was a small cottage with a very large garden. I thought “never mind. I can do quite a lot with this”.

Leaving aside the fact that Onllwyn is actually in South Wales, in between Neath and the Brecon Beacons, I would love a small cottage with a big vegetable garden, but I need to be fit and healthy to cope with it. The housing estate seems to remind me of the flats in Bartle Road in London near Ladbroke Grove underground station, built on the site of Rillington Place where Christie, the mass murderer, lived.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up as usual and was pleased to see me looking better, just as I was pleased to be feeling better. She sorted me out and then wandered off on her rounds. I made breakfast and read some more of THE CELT, THE ROMAN and THE SAXON by Thomas Wright.

And here we go again. We’re revisiting Roman Roads, passing by briefly on our way to agriculture, and out author tells us "Antiquaries seem often to have been misled by their dissimilitude to the great Roman military roads, to imagine many of these to have been British. It is not very probable that the older inhabitants of the island, such as Caesar found them, divided into separate and hostile tribes, which seem often to have changed their boundaries, as they were pressed forwards by other colonies, should have been great road-makers."

How did he think that the “other colonies” managed to press forwards? And how did he think that products only found in certain places, like the blue stones of Preseli, travelled from one part of the country to the other, such as Stonehenge? It has been recognised for a great many years that there is a whole network of prehistoric trackways across Britain dating back to Neolithic days and even before.

Back in here, I had a few things to do, interrupted by a couple of bouts of falling asleep unfortunately, but then I set about editing one of the radio programmes whose notes I dictated a couple of weeks ago. That programme is now actually complete and ready to be broadcast, although editing out thirty-eight seconds of speech was quite a challenge.

After a disgusting drinks break, I was debating whether or not to start editing the next one in the queue, but my mind was made up for me when Rosemary rang for a chat. I don’t know for how long we were chatting, but it took me right up to the start of the football.

It was the last match of the season for the league, and what a dramatic day it was. Two matches were of major interest, Y Bala v Llansawel and Y Fflint v Cardiff Metropolitan.

The situation was simple – Y Fflint had to equal or better Y Bala’s result, and Llansawel had to beat Y Bala and hope that Llanelli would beat Hwlfordd so that Llansawel would qualify for the European playoffs.

We were watching the Y Fflint v Cardiff Metropolitan game, which I thought was the wrong one, and although it was rather “agricultural”, it had plenty of action. And as goal after goal was scored in both the matches, the pendulum swung from one way to the other – Y Fflint stay up and Y Bala go down, and then a couple of minutes later, Y Bala stay up and Y Fflint go down.

Our game finished in a 2-2 draw, but Y Bala were undone late in the game to go down 2-1 after leading 1-0 at one point, so Y Bala are relegated to the Cymru North next season. Llansawel, even though they won, were forestalled by Hwlffordd hitting Llanelli for six with no reply.

Y Fflint threw everything that they had at the Met and did everything they could to keep the Met out. They finished the game with only nine players, two having been sent off for “denying a goalscoring opportunity”. However, I thought that the first one was rather harsh as there were two other defenders rushing back to cover.

Other good news on the football front is that the five clubs whose Tier One licence application was refused – Colwyn Bay, Y Bala, Trefynnon, Caerau Trelai and Caerfyrddin – have all been successful on appeal. For the latter two, they’ll have to wait another season because they both missed the promotion bus this time around.

So right now, I’m going to bed, early as it may be, and hoping for a nice lie-in tomorrow. Isabelle the Nurse can treat my legs while I’m still in bed.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my old vehicles … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone once said that the group “Queen” had written a song about me.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Well, who else would a Cortina landslide in ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ refer to?"

Saturday 28th March 2026 – YET ANOTHER EVENING …

… when I’ll be going to bed without any food. I started to take the stuff out of the fridge but it went almost straight back, before I’d even taken all of it out. Somehow, I just couldn’t face it tonight.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … my taste buds are definitely changing again. I wonder what’s going to drop off the menu this time, apart from my sausage, beans with cheese, and chips that I was planning on having.

This latest thing seems to be something to do with one of the medicaments that Emilie the Cute Consultant has prescribed for me. Last night, after I’d finished my notes at some kind of reasonable time, I finished off everything that needed finishing and then went into the kitchen for the medication. And about five minutes later, I began to feel quite uncomfortable.

The next thing that happened was that I was hit by a huge wave of fatigue, and I was glad to crawl into bed before it overwhelmed me.

Once in bed, I fell asleep quite quickly and apart from one or two brief awakenings, caused mainly by fits of coughing, I remember nothing whatever until the alarm went off at 06:29. And can you imagine just how difficult it was for me to leave the bed at that moment?

What with having some hand-washing to do too, I ended up being terribly late in the kitchen for my hot drink and medication. Still, better late than never. But I’ll tell you something for nothing, and that is that I had an incredibly dry throat, I was feeling dizzy and also quite lethargic.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And it was a disappointment – I think that Emilie the Cute Consultant’s medication is affecting my sleeping patterns too.

Wales was being attacked by England, so Wales responded by pushing the English back into England. Eventually, the Welsh army overwhelmed the English army right up to the point where not only did they capture most of the English army bases in the UK, it managed to capture a couple of bases’ settlements that were north of Hadrian’s Wall which, in theory, were in Scotland. Wales ended up capturing things like the forts at Newsteads which upset the Scots, and the Scots decided that they really would … fell asleep here …

And when I found the dictaphone later, it had been running for two hours and fifty-five minutes, so if you want to hear me snoring and coughing, you will have plenty to go at.

And “snoring”, yes. I’m sorry for doubting you, Percy Penguin.

As for the dream, the first part relates to very little that is current, but the second part refers to James Curle and his A ROMAN FRONTIER POST AND ITS PEOPLE that we read over Christmas and New Year.

There was something about a building somewhere in Crewe that should have been right in the centre of town but was somewhere tucked up a side street, one of the ones behind Market Street. I was on my way to visit it but I couldn’t remember exactly how I was going to be able to go there and at that point I was awoken by an enormous fit of coughing.

Apparently, at the back of Market Street, they have demolished a load of old railway engineering buildings and are building on the site. Let’s hope that the money lasts so that they can finish the job. Having gambled on HS2 arriving in the town, the council’s finances are in a total mess.

The nurse turned up as usual and saw to my legs and feet. He didn’t have much to say, but he doesn’t think much of my lifestyle and my lack of eating. He thinks that my main meal should be at lunchtime. However, if I eat a lot then, I just fall asleep in the afternoon and I do that too often without inviting it.

After he left, I made breakfast and read some more of ESSAYS ON THE LATIN ORIENT by William A Miller.

Today, we’re discussing the exiles living on the charity of the Pope in Rome. And as I said yesterday, there are piles of them – far too many to count. The Pope must have been a very wealthy man.

After breakfast, I had the fridge to tidy. I’d bought a lot of vegan milk because if it hadn’t been for running low on milk, I’d have waited for another week for supplies, with not eating much these days. So I’m going to see if I can last out four weeks this time.

It’s difficult to believe that a year ago, I was ordering shopping every two weeks

Back in here, we had the highlights of last night’s game between Caernarfon and TNS. These included yet another “let’s play it out from the back, boys”, with a predictable result.

There were a few other things that needed doing, but I’m not sure how I managed because I was feeling quite tired and lethargic, and shaking off wave after wave of sleep.

There was football on the internet at lunchtime – Hwlfordd v LLansawel. And after their dreadful display last week, Hwlffordd played much better and managed to grind out a 1-0 win to move ahead in the race for the European playoffs.

But I’d love to have a closer look at Hwlffordd’s challenge on Llansawel keeper Will Fuller as the cross came into the penalty area.

Eventually, I managed to begin to edit an outstanding set of radio notes. By the time that I’d knocked off, I’d assembled the two halves of the programme, chosen and dealt with the final track and written the notes for it, ready for dictation.

And seeing as we have been talking abut the radio programmes … "well, one of us has" – ed … I forgot to mention yesterday that that very long concert that I need to edit – it’s all done and the notes are all written. I managed to find a few hours yesterday afternoon when I sorted it out.

There were also a couple of chats with a few of my friends too. It’s nice to hear from them every now and again. We don’t see each other anything like enough these days since I’ve been ill.

Later in the afternoon, I began to make my hot cross buns. They are all made now, ready for Easter. Eight of them and then are huge. The trouble with my hot cross buns was that the oven was rather too hot and the buns are somewhat scorched. It won’t make much of a difference, though. They will still be nice.

So with no tea and having finished my notes, I’m off to bed and my lie-in tomorrow … "he hopes" – ed … because I definitely need it. I’ve crashed out a couple of times already today and I’m feeling as if I could crash out again at the drop of a hat.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the Pope and the refugees in Rome … "well, one of us has" – ed … Queen Charlotte of Cyprus came to see the Pope in her horse and carriage.
As it was such a nice day, she invited the Pope to come for a ride with her. And after ten minutes, the horse … errr… broke wind extremely noisily.
"Oh dear" said Queen Charlotte, extremely flustered. "I really am so sorry."
"It’s no problem" said the Pope. "In fact, if you hadn’t said anything, I would have sworn that it was the horse."

Wednesday 18th March 2026 – GUESS WHO …

… has been a busy boy today? I don’t know where I found all of this energy, but I wish that I could find it more often. A good supply of it would do me some good.

And guess who is going to be a late boy too? Once more, making tea seemed to take forever tonight and it’s set me back quite a long way.

Not like last night, when, although it was after 22:30, my preferred curfew time, it wasn’t far after it … "22:40 in fact" – ed … when I finally crawled into bed, in the hope of having a good, painless sleep to make up for the sleep on which I missed out last night.

Unfortunately, it seemed to take an age for me to go off to sleep, and that’s something quite rare these days, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

Once asleep, though, I stayed asleep until all of … errr … 05:00, and that’s good for neither man nor beast. Round about 05:30, I decided that I ought to take advantage of the early start and go to do some work, but while I was debating the issue with myself, I must have fallen asleep again because the next thing that I remember was the alarm going off at 06:29.

As usual, it took me a good while to summon up the energy and motivation to go into the bathroom, and then I went into the kitchen for my hot drink and medication.

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

There were some headlines in some paper somewhere about how the navy and the army had missed a glorious opportunity to catch a German submarine. It seemed that the German submarine, in need of a refit, put into a neutral harbour somewhere and moored itself between two ships that were there so it couldn’t be seen. The refit actually took place on the surface between the two ships, with the submarine between these two ships. And then the submarine was able to sneak out of the harbour again without too many people being aware of what had happened. This was seen as an embarrassment to the US Navy and the US Army.

There were a few stories similar to this during World War II when German submarines would put into ports on small, obscure islands, destroy the island’s radio communication network and then have a rest and a refit before sailing back out again, ready for more action.

If it had been me in charge, though, I would have fitted out a few ships from a friendly neutral fleet, such as the Spanish fleet, and loaded them with torpedoes, fuel, spare parts and fuel and sent them to these obscure islands to repair and refit the submarines so that they could stay out at sea almost indefinitely.

This was another one of these games played by Cymru against some foreign opposition. This time, it was Iran in the Middle East. We were in Deauville talking about this particular game, but unfortunately I can’t remember exactly how the conversation went after that, but I know that there was some kind of discussion about my right foot and leg and my inability to walk correctly these days.

There are a lot of current events in this dream, even the casino at Deauville, which relates to a radio programme that I prepared earlier in the week.

While I was at work, I was reading the file of a trainee stockbroker who had an enormous amount to say on the structure of non-league football, of its faults, and on how it could be improved. As it was a lovely day, I went and took this file outside and stood in the sunlight, in the shade of the trees and read it there. After I’d finished, I thought that I’d go for a little walk to clear my head and digest what I’d read, but I noticed that the time was 06:20 and the alarm would be going off soon, so I turned to head back to the office, which was in a huge, Gothic type of building like the Houses of Parliament. There were several ways to go into my office – a choice of several doors – but one door involved taking a lift so high and then climbing up and walking through the dead space in the false ceiling and climbing out again back down into my office. As I turned to set off back to the office, I found myself carrying a bottle of wine that was half-empty. I thought “what was I doing with this bottle of wine? I don’t drink alcohol”. Just in front of me was one of my colleagues, a one-legged guy who had lost his leg in the war and had an artificial leg fitted. He was walking back to the office, and for some reason, I decided to follow him but to keep a discreet distance and not let him know that I was there. He walked in through the door where it was necessary to take the lift. I’d be intrigued to find out how he managed to climb up into the roofspace, so again, I followed at a discreet distance. When he took one lift, I noticed that he went to floor three instead of floor four, so I took the next lift and came out at floor three. A couple of people loitering around there looked at me and said “oh, another one”. But then I wondered “where do I go next? I couldn’t see my colleague – he’s disappeared”. I didn’t know that there was a way through from floor three into my office. I thought that we still had to go to floor four and climb through the roof. So I was standing there, wondering how on earth he’d managed to disappear from me just like that.

As it happens, I did have, at one place where I worked, a colleague such as I described. And regular readers of this rubbish will recall that quite a long time ago, there was a dream when we were clambering through the roof of another building such as this one.

But there is a story that relates to this. Where my office was when I was chauffeuring in Brussels, to go to another part of the office, I had to pass through two security doors. It wasn’t until I’d been there for six months that someone explained to me that if I were to have gone up one floor by the stairs or lift, I could have walked down a corridor and then down another set of stairs at the far end and avoided the security doors completely.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up as usual, in a happy, joyful mood as she desperately tried to cheer my up and raise my morale, but without much success.

After she left, I made my breakfast, remembering to put the coffee into the percolator today, which was more than Bane of Britain did yesterday, and read some more of ESSAYS ON THE LATIN ORIENT by William A Miller.

We’re still discussing the island of Lesbos and also the island of Tenedos and the colony of Aenos. And once again, we’re seeing different Christian groups and kingdoms arguing amongst themselves as the Ottomans are massing on their frontiers, and some disaffected and disappointed Christian groups are even calling on the Sultan to help them.

There’s no doubt that all the way through the fourteenth and the first half of the fifteenth century, these various Christian groups and kingdoms were writing out their own death warrants.

Back in here, there was plenty to do, but first, there were the highlights of the Cardiff Metropolitan – Llansawel game from the other night. And regular readers of this rubbish will recall that the other day, we discussed this awful new development of “playing it out from the back”. By pure coincidence, we had a lovely example of that during this game, with the oh-so-predictable result.

After I’d sorted out quite a few other things, I began to work on the radio programme that I’d started yesterday. And by the time that I’d knocked off, I’d not only finished that one (bar a little piece that is holding me up for the moment) but also organised and almost completely sorted out and chosen the music for one of the ones that is due to be written next week. I’m really getting ahead of myself at the moment.

There was an interruption too. My late birthday present to me turned up this afternoon. And so for Friday afternoon and all of the weekend, I’ll be a very busy boy organising all of this. And that will at least give me a return to sanity.

Tea tonight was a vegetable curry with rice, followed by a slice of vegan cheesecake. And it really was delicious yet again. And I managed to eat a fair-sized helping of curry, which is good news after the vicissitudes of the last few months.

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

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my one-legged colleague … "well, one of us has" – ed … he once told me a story about how he went into a barber’s for a shave.
The barber wasn’t, however, very good at shaving, and he nicked him a couple of times.
To try to lighten the situation, the barber began to chat with my coleague.
"I don’t think that I’ve seen you before" he said. "Is this your first time in here?"
"That’s right" replied my colleague. "I lost my leg during the war."

Saturday 21st February 2026 – IT’S BEEN ANOTHER …

… day when I seem to have accomplished quite a lot, without really realising it.

Mind you, I did have something of a head start this morning, and that can quite often make a great difference.

It wasn’t like that last night, though. Once more, everything that I needed to do seemed to take so long to do it that it was 23:30 once more when I finally crawled into bed and threw the covers over my head, as I usually do.

And there I lay, fast asleep, until all of … errr … 03:25 when I awoke. And from that moment on, try as I might, I simply could not go back to sleep.

So for about two hours or so, I lay there tossing and turning to no effect whatsoever and in the end, round about 05:30, I arose from the Dead.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that this week, I’ve prepared two radio programmes. The notes had yet to be dictated, and so I made the most of the early start by dictating both of them before we started having people strolling around outside and making a noise.

Once I’d finished, I went into the bathroom to sort myself out, change my clothes and have a clothes-washing session. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … having lived out of a suitcase for several years, I always try to keep on top of the washing of the undies so that I’m not overwhelmed or, even worse, run out of clothes. Handwashing my undies is no big deal.

In the kitchen, I made my hot lemon, honey and ginger drink with which to take my medication, and then came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out what I’d been up to during the night.

And I was surprised that I’d been up to so much, given how little sleep I’d had during the night.

There was a big group of us sitting around on the chairs and settees and the floor of a living room somewhere. We were discussing various things that had happened, various illnesses, and someone began to talk about a mining disaster up in the Cumbria region where people had been killed. They were discussing how it happened, and someone turned round to me and said “I suppose that if you’d been in charge, Eric, you’d have pleaded ‘Not Guilty'” to which I replied “not at all”. Someone said “yes, but you don’t want to say that at the top of your voice, do you?”. I replied “no, but you review the evidence first before you decide on what you are going to say”. The chap then turned round from that same subject towards the medical and said … “that’s why” I said “I have this illness but no-one is going to say that I die of it because I might die of something else in the meantime”. People usually hedge their bets as to when I’m going to die etc and no-one will give me a date because they are all making sure that they don’t pre-empt anything.

Yesterday, I was writing the biography for a musician who came from Aspatria in Cumbria. And as well as that, it was the anniversary today of one of the SPRINGHILL MINING DISASTERS, the one that took place in 1891.

Later on, we were singing a song called “Rebecca”. It’s a song in French and concerned a girl who was walking around Maiden Castle reviewing all of the changes etc that had taken place there. The song was in homage of what she saw. Of course, it was much more complicated than this and included a dream as well, but it was the song that stuck in my mind mostly, even though I’ve forgotten it now.

This is one of those dreams that I have mentioned before, where I remember nothing at all about it.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I am actually asleep when I dictate my notes during the night but even so, I usually have a recall of something or other when I’m transcribing them. However, this is one of those where I didn’t and I’ve no idea to what it relates.

It certainly sounds interesting, though, and I wish that I could remember it.

We were back right at the end of the American Civil War and the siege of Richmond or Fredericksburg. The Union Army was of course on top, and there was one Union soldier who was quite famous for a lot of things. He was running agents behind Confederate lines, doing all kinds of things that had made him something of a hero. The Confederates learned that he was in the front line in their sector, so one of their private soldiers made a kind of search amongst the Union soldiers as best as he could from his own trench, and thought that he was able to recognise the soldier by the accolades that he was having from his friends. One evening, the soldier went and constructed a kind of tent in the front line, a shelter using a tent half and installed himself in it. The Confederate soldier took a rifle from the rack and inserted a bullet in it. He took careful aim but of course the rifle was extremely heavy and he was unable to control it properly when he was standing up. Nevertheless, when he thought that he was correct, he fired. It hit the Union soldier in the leg and rebounded into his chest and there had to be all kinds of immediate, urgent reactions to try to save him, otherwise he’d die. So in the pause that was taking place, a couple of Confederate officers and their wives decided that they would try to cross the lines into the Union Army area and go to do their shopping. When the general heard about this, he was appalled and sent the strongest instructions around. A couple of days later, the Confederate Army surrendered and it made no difference. One thing about this rifle while I think about it was that it wasn’t a muzzle-loader with a paper cartridge and a Minié ball but a breech loader with a proper bullet. In the American Civil War armies, it was extremely rare to find that.

This dream actually concerned the siege of Petersburg, and regular readers of this rubbish in a previous existence will recall that WE WENT TO VISIT PETERSBURG on one of our trips around the USA back in the past.

And I do have to say that I’m so impressed that I can remember from my reading in the past, so much that is relevant to this dream. The Spencer Repeating Rifle that this Confederate private seems to be using was a very rare issue, only issued to Union cavalry and sharpshooter infantry regiments. It had a chamber that could hold seven bullets of the type that we know today

The ordinary “footslogger” used a Springfield rifled musket. These were long-barrelled and had to be loaded at the muzzle. A paper cartridge of gunpowder would be rammed down the barrel and then a Minié bullet, a lump of lead about six tenths of an inch in diameter, would be rammed down afterwards.

The discharge of a Minié ball from a Springfield was of a very low velocity, so rather than the bullet passing through clothes, flesh and everything, the Minié ball would push clothing deep into the body and the weight of the ball would shatter the bone. Consequently, there were many, many cases where gangrene developed, because of the dirty and stained clothing that the victim would be wearing. A surgical amputation of the limb in what passed for a casualty clearing station was a very common result of being hit by a Minié ball.

The survival rate of amputation after being hit by a Minié ball was not very optimistic. I’ve seen figures to suggest that over twenty-five per cent of such amputations resulted in death.

As for the tent, every Union soldier carried as part of his kit a “shelter half” which was half a tent. And when the troops stopped for the night, they would form pairs and make one tent from their two “shelter halves”.

And as I said just now, I’m impressed that I could remember all that in a dream.

Isabelle the nurse turned up as usual and told me that somehow, she’d been locked out of her health card-reading machine. That’s going to cause a few complications if she can’t unlock herself.

After she left, I made breakfast and read some more of MAIDEN CASTLE EXCAVATIONS AND FIELD SURVEY 1985-6 by Niall Sharples.

He has now moved on to discuss pottery. And it’s going to be a very long discussion too because his team found a total of 10,432 grammes of pottery from the Neolithic Age alone, never mind the Bronze Age, the Iron Age and the proto-Roman occupation.

At the moment, he’s trying to categorise it into rim formation and shape. I have a feeling that we’ll be here for a rather long time.

After breakfast, I had things to do. Up on the top of my shelf unit were some boxes from the move back in August. I can’t reach them so while my cleaner had the ladder here yesterday, I asked her to bring them down.

And you’ll be amazed at the stuff that I found in them when I was sorting through the contents. It really is quite impressive. Loads of stuff that I’d either mislaid, couldn’t find or didn’t even realise that I’d brought with me from the farm.

The problem now is to find a place to put the things because it’s no use putting them back on the top shelf where I can’t reach them. A lot of it is stuff that I ought to need.

After a disgusting drink break at lunchtime, I came in here and began to edit the notes that I’d dictated a couple of weeks ago for another radio programme. And by the time that I’d knocked off, I’d edited them all, assembled the two halves of the programme, chosen the joining track and written the notes for it ready for dictation on the next early morning.

Then we had the football. And at last, after several weeks, we finally had a match where both the teams were interested in the game and wanted to play it.

Llansawel, fourth from bottom, were entertaining Y Bala, second from bottom. Y Bala were desperate for points to haul themselves out of the relegation places and Llansawel had hopes of catching up the teams ahead of them and pulling further out of danger.

Consequently, they were at it hammer and tongs right from the kick-off and there was no respite.

The result, 2-1 to Llansawel, was probably about fair, but if Y Bala can play like that all the time, they might give Y Fflint, third bottom, a few things to think about.

After the final whistle, I went into the kitchen and sorted out the pastry to make my croissants. I tried my new technique and it seems to work, but we’ll have to wait until I bake them tomorrow morning to see;

By then it was teatime and I made baked potato, a vegan salad and some of those vegan nuggets that I like, followed by apricot with vegan sorbet

Right now though, I’m going to bed ready for my lie-in, I hope. I have to say that I deserve it. Tomorrow, I’m going to try to find a recipe for a ginger cake so that I can make a ginger layer cake, with some vegan ginger cream filling in between the layers, if I can find a recipe for that too.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about Neolithic pottery … "well, one of us has" – ed … Niall Sharples was asked about all the pottery that he had collected.
"The problem is" he said "that it’s all broken into small pieces. To all intents and purposes, it’s effectively dead."
"So why are you collecting it all?"
"We’re going to have to try to return it to its next-of-kiln."

Sunday 15th February 2026 – SUNDAY IS A …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Friday 26th December 2025 – I SHALL BE GLAD …

… when today is over and I’m tucked up in my little cot. It’s not been a very good day today.

It all went wrong last night when it seemed to take an age to make and eat my tea. As a result, everything else was running horribly late. It took hours to finish my notes and it was long after 23:30 when I finally crawled into bed.

What hadn’t helped was the fact that I’d fallen asleep several times while at the computer. It wasn’t as if it had done me any good either because I still felt just as tired as I had been earlier

And as usual, we had the very disappointing situation of being awake at 04:35 and not being able to go back to sleep, no matter how hard I tried.

Every cloud has a silver lining, though. After about an hour or so, I hauled myself out of bed, moved over to the desk and dictated the radio notes that I’d typed earlier in the week. When it was time to go for a scrub up, I’d even begun to edit them.

In the bathroom I had a wash, a shave and a good scrub of some of the clothes, and then wandered into the kitchen for the medication and the hot drink. I wasn’t very impressed with the state of the kitchen, though. Although I’d done all of the washing-up, there was still other stuff lying around that I should have tidied up. I’m not doing very well at the moment.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And last night, TOTGA put in an appearance. So “welcome back, TOTGA”. We’d been talking about two of her children who were still at primary school at the moment. They were just finishing Year 5. I asked how they were doing and she said that they seemed to be doing fine. I mentioned something about them being twins, always being promoted, going up to the next year together etc. But if one had to double a year, what would the other one do? She said that the girl is already well in advance of all of her fellow pupils so she’s almost certainly going to have no problems, but the boy is a typical boy and we’ll have to see. “I don’t know what they’d do if that ever were to happen”.

In British schools, children don’t double a year as they do in France. They push on to the next year, regardless of their academic abilities. Or, at least, they used to. I’ve no idea what the situation is now. Just like everything else, times have evolved.

In the meantime, something else that was happening was that I was walking and I had no idea why I was doing it but I was walking miles along this path at the sid of this main road. As I came into a town, I saw a lorry ahead of me suddenly swerve onto the wrong side of the road and stop. It was foggy so I couldn’t see what had happened but I imagined that there had almost been an accident or something. When I was further on, I could see that some lorry, like the red one of my brother-in-law, had come out of a workshop doing body repair. When it was turning to join the route, it hit a parked car. I thought “that’s an expensive body job that he’s just had done, isn’t it?”. I walked on down this steep hill into the centre of the town. I remember seeing a shop, closed and boarded up that was a former “Boots” shop. And then up the steep hill and out of the town. There was someone else walking up that hill but I walked past them. The woman said “did you receive that image that I sent to you?”. I’d no idea what she was talking about so I just said “I can’t remember now for the moment”. She went on and on about this image as I was walking past her and walking further on. At the top of the hill, there was a beautiful view across the countryside. The sun was starting to go down and I suddenly realised that I had to go back to fetch the van. I’d walked miles, so how on earth was I going to go back and fetch the van in the couple of hours before it’s dark? So I crossed over the road and began to hitchhike back the way that I had come. When I came into town, there was a crowd of people gathered round some kind of office. I stopped and went to see what was happening. It was the local planning consent people so I produced a baguette and a loaf of bread that I had in my van. I interrupted the proceedings and said that I’d like to apply for planning permission to open a bakery. I explained that the reason why I hadn’t made an application in time was that I’d only just been made redundant. In the end, they turned down my application on the spot. I asked if it was because it was late. They replied “no” because I needed to check out all these other kinds of things. So I climbed back into my van but he stopped me. He asked for the keys to the van so I gave them to him. he opened the side door and he could see that it was full of total rubbish so he closed the door again and handed me the keys. He said “the inside of your van is disgusting”.

What was impressive about that was that in the dream, I could recognise the red lorry. But although I said “brother-in-law”, it actually belongs to my niece’s husband and it’s the one that I drove from New Brunswick in Canada down to New Hampshire one year to deliver for repair an engine that had thrown a con-rod out of the side of the block.

Walking aimlessly around like that is something that I probably would have done in my youth. I often wandered over the hills and moors from one youth hostel to the next. It was lovely and peaceful and gave me plenty of time to reflect. But the inside of my van being a total tip? Now there’s a surprise!

Isabelle the Nurse breezed in later, bringing with her the news that outside, it was minus two degrees and she’d had to scrape the ice off her windscreen. So winter is a-cumen in. Lhude sing Rudolph, hey? No wonder I was feeling cold.

As she left, I gave her a little present – a slice of my Christmas cake and a mince pie in a plastic box. I’m feeling generous this year.

The plan was to make my Boxing Day breakfast as yesterday, but for some reason, I couldn’t face it. I decided to postpone it until Sunday when I’d have more time and went with the more usual breakfast of porridge, toast and coffee.

However, I did allow myself the luxury of mushroom pâté on the toast. And that gave me an idea. I make my own hummus every now and again, so why not try to find a recipe to make mushroom pâté?

In A ROMAN FRONTIER POST AND ITS PEOPLE, our author James Curle is now beginning to describe the excavations.

This is the interesting part because although we’re only on page 68 (of 708!), I’ve already learnt a great deal about how it all works and how they were able to identify the different layers of building and demolition. He makes plenty of assumptions about what he’s seeing, but most importantly, he explains exactly why he’s made those assumptions, and I wish that more people would do that.

Not for nothing has this book been described as " … a standard reference work, ahead of its time and still the most decisive work published in Scotland covering this period of Roman occupation, expansion and retreat."

Back in here, the first thing that I did when I sat down at my chair was to crash out. I’ve no idea why because I hadn’t seen it coming. I know that I’d been feeling out-of-sorts this morning, but I had simply brushed it off as one of those things.

It wasn’t just for five minutes either. I worked out that it was about 09:45 when I came back in here, and it was 11:20 when I awoke.

That had rather snookered my plans for today. I had wanted to finish this radio programme before going to dialysis but I was now lagging way behind and I was nowhere near finished when my cleaner turned up to apply my anaesthetic.

The taxi driver had a struggle to find me today. He hadn’t been to pick me up for ages, this one, so having come into the building with someone else instead of ringing my doorbell, he went up to the old place and was hanging around there when my cleaner discovered him.

We had to go to pick up someone else on the way, and he kept us hanging around for hours, so we were late arriving at dialysis. And there, they were in the middle of a crisis so instead of about 14:00 as is supposed to be, it was 14:50 when I was plugged in.

There had been another crisis too. On the way in, I nipped to the bathroom. And there, I found that I couldn’t rise up after the performance was finished. I had no end of a struggle, and it exhausted me. I’ve mentioned just recently that I’ve noticed a further weakening of the muscles, and it looks like I’m not wrong. This really is the end.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’d ended up making two Christmas cakes, due to the fact that I’d made too much mix. I took the smaller one into dialysis and presented it to the staff and let them demolish it. It’s probably the last time that I’ll see Julie the Cook, who is moving on to pastures new in the New Year, and I wanted her and her colleagues to sample my delights. She came to tell me how impressed she was with the cake, and that pleased me enormously.

There was football on the internet this afternoon – Penybont v Llansawel. I’ve mentioned in the past that Penybont have gone right off the boil just recently and have fallen down the table from a commanding second position to an also-ran fourth place. Today was more of the same as they ground out a 1-1 draw at home to a team third from bottom.

What didn’t help them was having to play eighty-three minutes with ten men, having had a player sent off after seven minutes for “striking an opponent”. Ironically, it’s the same player who was also sent off after seven minutes for “serious foul play” in his previous match.

The comments that his manager made after the first sending-off have led to him being charged with “bringing the game into disrepute” and “insulting and offensive language”, or some such, so I’ll be interested to hear what he has to say this time. But having seen both incidents numerous times, I don’t think that there’s any real cause to complain about either.

Eventually, they came to unplug me, hours later than I would have liked, and I staggered out to the taxi. I clearly wasn’t well, and I don’t know why.

Back here, my faithful cleaner helped me into the apartment, and after she left, I made tea. I wasn’t really in the mood for it, and a fair proportion ended up in the bin. I did manage a small slice of Christmas pudding afterwards, and that was excellent. I’m well-impressed with my Christmas cooking and baking, that’s for sure.

One sad part about it though was the number of times that I fell asleep while I was trying to eat. I almost fell off my chair at least twice.

Back in here, I began to type out my notes, but I couldn’t. I’d done four lines and that was that. I really couldn’t keep going any longer. I simply typed out a somewhat … err … terse remark and went to bed where I don’t care if I sleep for a week.

But seeing as we have been talking about archaeology … "well, one of us has" – ed … Nerina once told me that instead of marrying me, she should have married an archaeologist.
"Why is that, dear?"
"As I grow older, the more interesting he’d find me."

Saturday 8th November 2025 – MY CANADIAN VISITORS …

… finally struggled into Granville at about 21:30 this evening, bringing tale after tale of woe about their disastrous journey from Toronto.

They are here until Monday afternoon when they will be returning to Paris ready to fly out again, hoping for much better luck this time.

So all of that journey just to spend less than forty-eight hours with me. If you want an example of a real “flying visit”, you need look no further than this.

And I was ready to see them too. I’d made a determined effort to go to bed early, however, once more, I failed miserably. It was 23:20 when I finally crawled into bed. And there I stayed, fast asleep, until all of … errr … 04:20.

By about 05:20, I’d given up all hope of going back to sleep and so I raised myself from the Dead and began work.

Well, not exactly work. There were the highlights of last night’s matches in the JD Cymru League. Llansawel, third from bottom, beat Y Bala 2-0.

However, I’m still laughing about the result at Park Hall. Adam Roscrow, unwanted at TNS for over two years, scored a goal with just seconds to go on the clock, a goal for his new club, mid-table Cardiff Metropolitan that beat runaway leader TNS 3-2, their first defeat in I don’t know how many games.

Enjoy THE HIGHLIGHTS

After the football, I began to edit the radio notes that I’d dictated a couple of days ago. However, I abandoned the project for the moment when the alarm went off, and went to organise myself in the bathroom.

To accompany the medication today, I made another one of those fiery ginger, lemon and honey drinks. I’m not sure whether it’s doing any good because I can’t feel my throat for a couple of hours.

After the meds, I began to put away the shopping from yesterday. I was certainly feeling so much better than I did yesterday. That’s just as well because I had to totally reorganise the fridge to make enough room for everything.

The nurse caught me unawares, in the middle of reorganising things, so I had to stop what I was doing and let him attend to me. It didn’t take him long, and then I could push on and make breakfast.

The croissants are a little overbaked but the apple turnover things are perfection. They have really turned out well and I’m so impressed with them. Almost as impressed as I was with my stainless steel dustbin, something that regular readers of this rubbish will recall from a previous version.

After breakfast, I carried on with sorting out the shopping, and putting a pile of stuff in the freezer for another time. The place looks a lot tidier now than it did before, that’s for sure. There was some broccoli to blanch for freezing, and I saved the water because tomorrow, I shall be making a broccoli stalk soup.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was with a girl last night, but I don’t know who it was. We were going to find some kind of hotel place where to stay for the night. Something went wrong with the coffee but I’m not sure what it was. They had one of these things where you made coffee by putting the grounds in and pushing down a plunger. Something went wrong with the organisation of this, and we had a coffee that was made with one of these, but it seems to have been made by accident. If anyone had pushed the plunger down, it must have been one of the members of staff, so we had no idea how come this coffee had been made and why it had been made, but it was probably the nicest coffee that I’ve had for ages.

This is something that seems to be happening quite often these days – being with a girl but I don’t know who she is. That’s something of a disaster. Can you imagine not being able to recall who she is? These days, I don’t have enough contact with the female sex so being able to recall who they are is quite important. I ought to be extracting as much amusement and pleasure from my dreams because it’s the best that I can do.

The two navies met each other on a couple of occasions during the American Civil War when they had some kind of naval battle. On one occasion, the Confederate Navy ship was sailing when it was accosted by a Union ship. They had a battle, which the Confederate ship won. The story goes that the German gun shelled the Colwyn Bay bench with ammunition and injured almost everyone on there, although Colwyn Bay deny this. They say that what they did was in turning their weapon and employing it against the Russians in poor South Africa as a way of equalising the staff and maker and shaking the tip and changing money … fell asleep here ….

It seems that there are two threads running through here. One concerning the American Civil War, about which I have been reading so much just recently, and the second being the football, which is a constant theme these days.

Did I tell you that in the last dream, the cannon that scored the fight that smashed the deck of the Federal ship was as straight as anything used in the battle? … "No you didn’t" – ed … They had to have one man organising the gun, two men organising it and shooting it and another team of rangefinders. They had to spot where the shell landed. But the situation diverted towards Mons where they were all used in the English campaign, although only one of them became famous and was in danger of being captured by the Turks so its own sailors blew it up

What the Turks would be doing at Mons is anyone’s guess, but here I am merging two threads again – the Civil War and World War I.

After a disgusting drink break, I began to make everything ready in the kitchen and living room ready for my visitors, and to make sure that we had everything that we needed. It’s becoming quite complicated, all of this entertaining, but I’ll keep on doing it. It’s nice to have company.

Later on, I carried on with the radio programme but I stopped before I finished because we had football on the internet, Connah’s Quay Nomads (fourth in the table) versus Penybont (second).

This was another match that is best forgotten. Two teams with undoubted quality and several internationals on the field should have produced a match of real skill and entertainment but unfortunately, it was nothing like.

Penybont, who had a man sent off close to half-time, were dreadful. They played with no intent or ambition and were swept aside, 4-0, by the Nomads.

In their last three games, they have conceded a total of thirteen goals. That includes conceding three against a side that’s third from bottom. That is just totally unacceptable from a team lying second in the table. There’s something dreadfully wrong here.

Knowing that my visitors were now on their way, I made tea – more couscous and Moroccan bean tajine, but they had nibbled at things on the train and weren’t all that hungry. The chocolate cake and mango sorbet went down well, though.

It’s lovely to see them, even if it’s only for a very short while, and we spent hours chatting about the past. It was long after midnight when they went and as soon as I’ve pressed “send”, I shall be going to bed, long after 01:00.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my visitors being stranded in Paris … "well, one of us has" – ed … they told me that, in order to pass the time, they had been to an art exhibition featuring the works of a French painter who stayed for a while in French Polynesia.
"Gauguin? " I asked
"We don’t think so" they replied. "Once was enough."

Sunday 28th September 2025 – AS I HAVE …

… said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s totally pointless going to bed and going to sleep early, because all it means is that you awaken correspondingly early too.

So, having dashed all the way through my notes and all of everything else that I needed to do, I crawled into bed just before 22:30 – some kind of record these days – thinking to myself how glad I was to be in bed at something like an early night, with the prospect of a nice lie-in until 07:59 awaiting me.

And there I was, after my nice, long sleep, wide awake at … errr … 04:11, trying desperately to go back to sleep and failing miserably.

Round about 05:00, I gave it up as a bad job and left the bed. And for the first time this year, I put on a dressing gown because it was definitely colder than I would like it to be.

Today, we have had a footfest. Well, actually yesterday, because yesterday evening there was a live televised match Y FFLINT V LLANSAWEL in the JD Cymru Premier League. However, as I had missed the first hour or so of the game, I had deliberately kept away from anywhere where the score might have been displayed, and waited until this morning so that I could see all of it non-stop.

There have been many, many more skilful matches than this that we have seen, but this match was by far and away the most exciting that I have seen for a long, long time. It ranged from end to end at 100 mph and the entertainment was a credit to the league.

Whether or not there are any football fans reading these pages, I really don’t know, but if you have a couple of hours to spare, have a look at the game. The link is a few lines higher up.

At the final whistle I went for a wash and then for the medication, and finally came back in here to listen to the dictaphone while I awaited the nurse. In the vicinity of where this second battle was taking place, some British troops had installed themselves on the high ground nearby so that they could shoot the battlefield and keep a fire of stready maleiks or mareiks or something onto the dug-in soldiers. They did this as best as they could and managed to advance almost two hundred metres, and were then sent to bomb the English positions so they gored over a late attempt to cross by Proncis Richards take of work, although she’d long-since retired and seeing if they couldn’t between them manage to push this guy Simpson out of the post that he’s occupying.

What happened to the first part of this? It sounds as if it might have been really interesting, even if it did descend into a pile of utter gibberish towards the end. And what is a stready maleiks or mareiks or whatever?

We were back in North America last night. The Americans had dug themselves in somewhere and the British were on the point of advancing towards them. The British notes were quite unclear about this but they must have set out, for bloodstains along the way indicated that they had had little battles and skirmishes. The Native Americans were interested in what was happening but were remaining neutral. The results of this advance were that the American positions fell to the British. But there was no account of the battle or anything ever prepared by anyone.

This dream and the previous one must relate to Colonel Carrington’s BATTLES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION that I have been reading recently, when the British tried without success between 1776 and 1783 to suppress the colonial revolution.

Nerina and I had been living apart. I’d come back to Crewe to find a whole pile of stuff, old furniture and things like that, put on my driveway around the back of the house. I asked Nerina if she knew of anyone who would come along and remove it – she knew people who had a van – but no-one heard at all. I never heard anything from her. I was walking around the town late at night, wondering what to do. There were crowds of people drifting around, and I remembered that there was a nightclub on the corner of Market Street and Victoria Street where I could make a ‘phone call. I passed through these crowds of people going home, but when I arrived at the nightclub, it was far too noisy and far too loud to make any kind of ‘phone call. As I walked in, I met a friend of mine carrying a double-bass. He was dressed in a red velvet jacket. We began to talk, and asked him how he was, what he was doing. I told him that I was living in France, which he knew. He said that it had been the talk of all the clubs after I left. We carried on chatting and he introduced me to his friends. We had a chat, and I asked them if they knew anyone. They replied that with the sheerest bad luck, they were supposed to be meeting someone that evening who had a van but he hasn’t turned up. I persuaded them that if they could think of anyone, to send them round to my house. I prepared to leave but they offered to give me a lift. Parked outside across the road were several coaches, some with foreign number plates. They had a van out there. When we arrived at the van, there was a pile of rubbish in the back of it. It was a pick-up. Someone set light to the rubbish, and the woman of this group thought that this was a dangerous thing and she wanted to unload it and let it burn off the back of the van. When the lorry behind moved, she began to think of how she was going to do it, but it was well-ablaze by now. Someone reminded her that every community was obliged by law to appoint a fire warden. She replied that she was the one for this community. Someone thought “wouldn’t it be a good idea to write spoof orders and spoof instructions for spoof fire wardens in spoof villages, and publish it in all of the local papers?”. She wasn’t too happy but everyone else thought that it was a good idea.

The guy in the dream is – or was – actually a drummer and used to play in a cabaret band whose van and equipment I drove around from gig to gig in 1974 and 1975 after I left my job in Chester. And another dream about things burning? It’s becoming a habit. It must have some significance somewhere.

And the “nightclub” in question is the former Burton’s menswear shop, on two floors, that is currently up for sale. Its corner situation would make it an ideal spot for a café, bar, and games venue and I’ve often pondered about what I could do with a place like that.

Finally, in the back of my van was a whole pile of furniture equipment moving stuff and a whole pile of things that had accumulated over the years. I wanted to dispose of it but no-one would come along and lend me a hand. The van’s controle technique had expired and I couldn’t drive it, so I came back from Europe after four years to try to organise something. I couldn’t even find the van so I began to hunt around. Nerina was with me but she was living somewhere else – she’d just popped by. In the end, we went upstairs to one of the bedrooms, and in the bedroom at the rear of the house, there was the van. I thought “what on earth was it doing in the bedroom? How did I bring it up here?”. It was buried in the hedge in the bedroom. I had a look around it, found the keys, unlocked the back door, and the whole of this furniture stuff was in there. One thing that I noticed was that the light came on, so I went round to the cab, put the key in and turned it, and it started. I thought “that’s not bad for four years being away”. I worked out that I must have brought it up into the bedroom by winching it up on a couple of planks, making a kind of ramp, so I need to find those planks and then I could winch it back down to the street again. Once it was down on the street again, then never mind the controle technique, never mind anything, I would nip out one night down a really dark road that I knew and just drop everything off because I was beyond now thinking of any kind of reasonable or logical way and with no controle technique on the van, I couldn’t go anywhere in daylight where there was a waste recycling centre open

Can you imagine it? Winching a van up to the first floor bedroom on a couple of planks, and losing it in the hedge inside the room. But it’s true that there are many things that I’m having to consider and having to think about winding up as my health deteriorates from day to day.

There are also many things that will have to be wound up by other people as there are simply not enough hours in the day to deal with them. It will be an extremely sad and emotional moment, but at least I won’t be around to witness it.

The nurse finally turned up at 09:45 this morning, ninety minutes or so late. He’d been to another client and had no answer at the door when he knocked. However, he could hear noises from inside so, not knowing what to expect, he called the emergency services. When they arrived, they broke down the door and found the client on the floor, where, apparently, he had fallen yesterday and was unable to stand up. The nurse had to reanimate him and then he … "the client, not the nurse" – ed … was rushed off to hospital.

That, by the way, is the reason why I’m here in Granville. In the Auvergne, one is totally isolated if anything goes wrong. An old English guy with whom I was very friendly had a fall down his stairs and lay there at the foot for five days in temperatures of minus 10°C until someone found him.

He was still alive, but he didn’t survive long. And that was the fate that awaited me if I were to have a health issue.

After breakfast and more of my book, I came back in here for part II of my footfest – Stranraer away at Dumbarton.

Stranraer are having a wretched season so far and up at The Rock in the driving rain, things weren’t looking much better. A penalty had put them in the lead, but Dumbarton had equalised shortly after. However, a wonder goal in stoppage time from James Dolan gave Stranraer their first win of the season.

During the week, Stranraer had played against the Motherwell junior team and those highlights were online too, so I watched that game. How nice it was to watch Stranraer amble on to a comfortable 3-0 win for once.

While I was at it, I picked up a few other matches from Saturday, and it made a nice morning’s relaxation.

After the disgusting drink break, I spent some time working on my Welsh and then went to make the dough for the pizza and for the loaf.

The pizza was perfection itself – absolutely wonderful – and having read the instructions closely and adhered to them, the bread turned out to be marvellous too and it even looks like a proper loaf.

So now, I’m off to bed, trying … "in vain" – ed … to catch up with my beauty sleep ready for dialysis tomorrow.

And seeing as we have been talking about difficulty sleeping … "well, one of us has" – ed … it’s not like the hill farmer in Cumbria being interrogated by someone from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.
"And how many sheep do you have?"
"I’ve no idea" replied the farmer
"My goodness!" exclaimed the official. "Don’t you ever count them?"
"I try" replied the farmer "but I get just so far and then I fall asleep."

Wednesday 24th September 2025 – I DON’T KNOW …

… what happened to me this afternoon, but I suddenly went ice-cold, frozen to the marrow in fact, and I had another one of those sessions that I haven’t had for ages when I simply sit and am totally unable to function, rather like a catatonic episode.

It’s surprising really, because it was another night when I had something of a decent sleep. I was in bed by 23:30, which, although it’s later than I would like, is earlier than some have been.

Once in bed, I remember nothing at all until about 06:00 when I awoke. I hadn’t moved an inch during the night, which is quite rare.

No point in going back to sleep at that time so I switched off the alarms and slowly eased myself out of bed and into the bathroom.

After a good wash and after the medication, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night, but there was nothing on it at all. That’s disappointing in some sense, because the only excitement that I have these days is what happens during the night when I’m asleep. On the other hand, nothing on the dictaphone means that I must have had an undisturbed night.

Yesterday, there had been a full programme of football in the JD Cymru League, including a live match, and I hadn’t seen any of the games. I’d deliberately kept myself from looking at the scores so that I could enjoy the games this morning.

The live game was Hwlffordd v Y Barri so I watched that first. I didn’t get very far because the nurse put in an appearance.

He was disappointed that my guests had gone, but he gave me my injection and then sorted out my legs, forgetting to put away the oil afterwards. It drives me berserk, that does.

Once he had left, I could make breakfast – porridge and toast with coffee. And I do have to say that my bread is excellent these days, since I bought that scientific measuring gauge for the water. To think of all those years that I have been producing failures, all due to the measuring gauge on the water jug that I was using being incorrect.

Back in here, I resumed watching Hwlffordd v Y Barri. It sounds like an interesting and exciting game, finishing 3-2 in favour of Y Barri, but it really wasn’t. It had its moments, but the rest of it wasn’t a really good advert for the league, despite what Steve Jenkins, manager of Y Barri, said after the game.

The defeat for Hwlffordd has rooted them in the basement of the league along with Llanelli and Cardiff Metro.

It’s hard to believe that just two months ago, the club was competing in European Club Competition. It had just about the meanest back lines in Wales last season but the club sold the goalkeeper and three of the four defenders, and failed to replace them. It was odds-on that they were going to struggle in the league this season without adequate replacements, but what do I know? The chairman obviously knows best.

Their plight is worsened by Llanelli having their first win of the season last night, away at Llansawel. They are now on four points, with Hwlffordd and Cardiff Metropolitan on five, so things are looking interesting down in the basement.

While I was at it, I watched the highlights of all the other games and there were no real surprises in the results, although Y Fflint could leave Park Hall with their heads held up, having gone toe to toe with perennial champions TNS until the final ten minutes.

After a disgusting drink break, my faithful cleaner arrived and she organised a shower for me. After all, it’s been a long time since I’ve had one, what with chemotherapy etc.

And while I was showering, she changed the bedding. Even better, when we were unpacking a few weeks ago, we came across a brand-new quilt cover and pillows, with matching new sheet. So I’m going to be in unashamed luxury tonight.

Once she’d left, I had some bills to pay and then I went for my mid-afternoon disgusting drink break. That was when I had my catatonic episode, sitting at the kitchen table. And I was there like that for well over an hour.

There was still time to carry on with another radio programme that I’d started the other week. I need to motivate myself much better than I am doing these days, because I’m really struggling to exert myself right now.

Tea tonight was lovely. There was some boiled potato and veg left over from the vegan pie meal on Monday, so I fried it in oil and butter, and with a vegan sausage cooking in the air fryer, I ended up with a lovely dish of bubble and squeak. It’s been years since I’ve eaten one of the “great peasant dishes of the world”, as Howard Hillman once described it.

But now, tiredness and my lovely new bed are calling, so I’m going, and if I wake up tomorrow, which is doubtful the way that I’m feeling right now, I’ll see you all tomorrow.

But seeing as we have been talking about bubble and squeak, one of the “great peasant dishes of the world”, another one of the “great peasant dishes of the world” is toad in the hole, made of sausages in a suet or batter pudding.
When there were three of us, impoverished as we were, living in an apartment in Crewe, we would often eat that when the money ran out.
But one day, just as we had finished cooking the dish, another group of starving friends turned up.
"What did you do?" asked my girlfriend when I told her later.
"There wasn’t much that we could do" I replied. "We all just ended up with more hole and less toad."

Sunday 10th August 2025 – HA HA HA HA!

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall the Welsh football club TNS. Created out of what used in the good old days to be Oswestry Town FC, and bankrolled to an enormous degree by its extremely wealthy chairman, in the last ten or so years the club has won just about every trophy or prize the Welsh domestic league can offer.

Some say that it’s a bad thing, that they monopolise the Welsh football system, but as it happens, I’m in two minds. I’ve seen the dramatic improvement in playing standards and in facilities in the Welsh pyramid over that period as other clubs struggle desperately to try to keep pace.

It’s also quite good for the morale when some lesser football team manages to scrape a win against them and their supporters collapse in a delirium of delight.

Last season, TNS became the first ever Welsh domestic club to qualify for the group stages of a European club competition and against all the odds, they managed even to win one of the group games to ensure that they didn’t finish bottom.

However, the success has gone to their heads. With the 5,000,000€ prize money, they have gone out and bought a raft of top-class professionals who really have no place in this league, and they kicked a pile of their journeymen professionals into touch.

Victims of their own hype, they had a dismal pre-season as their new stars struggle to adapt to the physical nature of lower league competition, and having predicted another successful European campaign, they failed embarrassingly to progress beyond the first round of the competitions in which they played.

Today, the JD Cymru League season began, and they were at home to Llansawel, a team that struggled near the bottom all last season and one of the clubs heavily tipped for relegation this season.

And if you want to see how the game progressed, HERE ARE THE HIGHLIGHTS. You don’t need to be a football fan to enjoy them. TNS are in the green and white.

Just two weeks ago, I wrote an article for a football magazine in which I said "having seen TNS’s performances to date, it’s a certainty that several optimistic managers will be searching desperately for some rapid wingers to exploit the cracks over the top and round the sides of the TNS defence". In this game, you have a perfect example of a manager doing just that – and doing it in spades too. THE KEYSTONE COPS have nothing on the TNS defence.

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

Last night was another … well … not exactly “early” night, but I was in bed by 23:00, having once more dashed through everything at another uncomfortable rate of knots.

It goes without saying that I awoke quite early – at about 04:10 this morning. But this tile I was determined to go back to sleep and to my surprise, I actually succeeded, only to awaken at 06:29 precisely.

That’s the time that the alarm is set to sound on six days of the week. Sunday is a Day of Rest and the alarm is set for 07:59 so in theory I could have tried to go back to sleep yet again, but instead, I decided to raise myself from the Dead.

In the bathroom for a good wash and scrub up, and then into the kitchen for the medication, followed by coming back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

And who had come with me too, because TOTGA appeared in a dream last night. I was in Crewe, sorting out some food, jars of all kinds of things, tomato sauce etc that we’d collected. I was going to put them into Gainsborough Road. However, one of the jars had leaked so I’d had to clean it. My friend told me to knock before I went in, made sure that the tenants knew that I was there etc. I decided in the end that I didn’t really want to go because being inside that house again would dismay me. By this time, TOTGA had appeared and we were due to go back to Normandy, the three of us. First of all, I wanted to telephone an old school friend. TOTGA knew who he was and she said that he hed been ill, he had depression and all of that kind of thing. As I picked up the ‘phone, I suddenly forgot his number, so I just dialled a number at random and then hung up, saying that there was no answer. Then we decided that we’d ring up Rosemary to see if she fancied a quick visit before we went back. I couldn’t think of Rosemary’s ‘phone number then. Eventually, I managed it so I ‘phoned up and we had a chat. I asked her if she fancied a quick visit and she was really surprised. She wondered where we were and what we were doing, so we agreed to go down there. By this time, some people from the street had come past. They recognised me and came for a chat. TOTGA knew who they were because her aunt had a shop in the street and she had served in there on several occasions. They wanted to be introduced to her of course but she was teasing them with little suggestive hints from back from when she was a kid and worked in the shop. They were scratching their heads trying to think who she was. She thought that it was rather amusing so we left it at that. By this time, we were standing on the edge of a river that ran through a little gorge with a stone arch bridge over it in the background. We were all chatting, and then we decided that we’d better shoot off and visit Rosemary quickly otherwise we’ll be going home without seeing her.

It’s been ages since TOTGA has been around during the night. I thought that she had gone for good, just as Castor seems to have done and The Vanilla Queen did quite a while ago. But it really does make a change to see a dream full of nice people and no member of my family coming along to throw a spanner into the works.

Curiously though, when we were moving jars and bottles and so on downstairs, there was one jar where the top had worked loose and the contents had leaked

Later on, I was somewhere in Africa with a group of people in one of our old Fordson E83W vans. I was trying to find some paper on which to write some notes about a job that I had just completed but the only paper in the van was wet, soggy and mainly had other people’s calculations on it. I couldn’t find a big piece at all. By now I was running behind the van that was driving so I made a signal to the driver to stop. I opened the back door and my notebook was in the back. I rescued my notebook and waved on the van to start off again. Once it was going, I closed the door and carried on running behind it.

We did have a couple of E83W vans when we were kids. The first one was one of the early ones, KLG93, which my motor traders’ handbook tells me was registered in October 1937, and one of the last ones, XVT772, registered in January 1957. And you might think that walking behind one would be ridiculous, with an 1172cc side-value engine, a three-speed crash box and a downrated gearing on the rear axle, these vans would struggle to see 35 mph flat out. In fact, I have very vague memories of all of us having to get out and walk behind one once because it didn’t have enough power, fully loaded, to climb Shooter’s Hill in Blackheath, and when I mentioned it to my parents as I grew older, I was told that my memories were correct.

Isabelle the Nurse was back to her usual routine and back on time. We had a brief chat about one of my neighbours who is now in an Old Folks’ Home and she dealt with my legs, and then she cleared off as quickly as she came in.

Once she’d left, I made breakfast and read some more of THE OLD ROAD.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that yesterday, we left our author arguing with the police, having been detained to “help them with their enquiries” and he, in a show of innocence, "of I know not what crime"

Today, however, things become a whole lot clearer. In order to cross a river, "my companion and I clambered down the hill, stole a boat which lay moored to the bank, and with a walking-stick for an oar painfully traversed the river Wey. When we had landed, we heard, from the further bank, a woman, the owner of the boat, protesting with great violence."

Later on, "with Margery Wood it reaches the 700-feet line, runs by what I fear was a private path through a newly-enclosed piece of property. We remembered to spare the garden, but we permitted ourselves a trespass upon this outer hollow trench in the wood which marked our way."

All that I can say is that if those events are samples of his habitual attitude and behaviour, I’m surprised that he hasn’t been arrested a long time before the previous day.

After I had finished breakfast, I came back in here to watch Stranraer lose at home to Edinburgh City, and then I had things to do.

It seems that no-one is interested in the furniture that I have for sale or that I’m trying to give away, so I rekindled my long-dormant on-line auction account. That took much longer than it did in the past, and putting your articles on-line is much more complicated than I remember it.

So after a great deal of huffing and puffing, I managed eventually to list everything that needs selling on. But probably there won’t be anyone from there interested either. It seems that selling on-line isn’t the thing that it was twenty years ago. But then, the internet is nothing like the community that it used to be back in those days either.

After lunch, I had a relax for a while before the TNS v Llansawel game, and then at the final whistle I went to make the bread for next week and the pizza for tonight.

Rosemary rang me for a chat while I was baking, but I couldn’t stay long because there was yet more football. Colwyn Bay, newly promoted to the JD Cymru Premier League, were at home to Connah’s Quay Nomads in front of a massive crown of over 1500 people.

Last time Colwyn Bay were in the JD Cymru Premier League, they didn’t last long. This time though, they have signed a whole raft of experienced players and they looked a much more formidable outfit. They went toe-to-toe with the Nomads for the entire 90 minutes and the 1-1 scoreline was quite a fair reflection of the game.

Almost immediately after the final whistle, the telephone rang. It was one of my former girlfriends from school years ago, with whom I’m still in touch. She’ll be in France in late September, so would I like a visit?

Now that’s a silly question. I don’t have enough visits, and so anyone can visit me at any time they like. If she would like to come, she’d be more than welcome, and so would anyone else (except of course, my immediate family)

Tonight’s pizza was excellent and I shall have to make more like that. There’s already been an order from my fiend from Munich when he arrives here next weekend.

That’s right, next weekend. That’s when my house move begins. Just four more climbs back up the stairs. I can’t wait for the torment to be over.

But right now, it’s over for tonight because I’m off to bed.

But seeing as we have been talking about TNS’s laughable performance against Llansawel this afternoon … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of a boxing match that I saw years ago where one of the contestants had been very quickly and very badly beaten.
The commentator was doing his best to console him, saying "Never mind. If you hadn’t been there, it wouldn’t have been much of a fight."

EPIC HALL

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