Tag Archives: Nerina Hall

Thursday 24th April 2025 – ONCE MORE, JUST …

… like yesterday I was op and about before the alarm went off. Not quite as early though. It was about 06:20 when I hauled myself out from underneath the bedclothes.

Considering that it was almost midnight when I went to bed last night, that’s some good going too. After my Herculean effort in the morning, staying awake and up and about until then was pretty good too.

So after I finished my notes, the stats and the backing up, I loitered around for a few minutes … "more than a few minutes" – ed … before crawling off to the comfort and safety of my own bed.

Once in there I was soon away with the fairies (although not in any fashion that would incite comment from the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine) and only have the briefest of recollections of anything going on during the night.

It was a different matter round about 06:05 when I awoke. I couldn’t go back to sleep and I was actually crawling out from under the covers when I heard the water heater switch off.

In the bathroom I had a good scrub and a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon. And then into the kitchen for the medication.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. Nerina had a Ford Cortina MkIII, a gold one. She wanted to keep it or she wanted to sell it – she couldn’t make up her mind so I advertised it for her to have some people come round to look at it to see what they thought, to make an offer and she could decide and take it from there. But everyone seemed to think that there were some pieces missing from it. I explained that we did actually have everything – it probably just wasn’t to have at the moment. I’d be able to sort it out in a short space of time

That’s something about which I know a great deal. I have four Cortinas down in the Auvergne, three of which are basically quite good. There are plenty of bits to fix those that need fixing but ask me where they are. I know that they are all there somewhere.

Later on, when I awoke I was back at home, Shavington or Davenport Avenue, with a huge bunch of screaming kids, some of whom were ours and some of them weren’t. One of them seemed to take quite a fancy to me and hung around with me for a while. However I awoke in the middle of all of that and so never found out what was going on.

With plenty of time left before Isabelle turned up, I did some housekeeping on the computer to bring that more up-to-date. But like most things around here, I seem to be taking one step forward and two straight backwards.

Isabelle breezed in and didn’t stop long, just enough time to deal with my legs and admire my new compression socks.

When she left, I made my breakfast and read MY BOOK. We’ve finished Leicester Castle, breezed through several minor piles and now we are at Lincoln. I’ve no idea what we are going to find there but we probably won’t be there long trying to find it.

Back in here I attacked the notes for the radio programme and in a mad fit of effort I almost finished them too. That was some effort, I can tell you.

My cleaner was late today and so it will come as no surprise to learn that my taxi was early. I was nothing like ready when he arrived and we had to keep the two other passengers in the car waiting for a while.

We arrived early at the hospital but then again so did everyone else so I was still last to be coupled up. Luckily it was Julie the Cook who saw to me.

They set the blood pressure alarm higher than usual so every half-hour or so, one of the nurses came over to check me. It was just as well because I hadn’t been feeling well at all all day, aching in every bone and muscle, out of breath and so on.

One of the doctors (not Emilie the Cute Consultant) came to see me today. I managed to obtain from her a prescription for an occupational therapist to come to my new apartment to give advice about installations for the handicapped and disabled.

This evening I was one of the last to be unplugged, and then I had to wait around for fifteen minutes for the last person to finish so that we could leave the dialysis centre and drop her off on the way home.

My faithful cleaner was there and watched as I staggered up the stairs into my room. First thing that I did was to have a disgusting drink break seeing as the taxi came early and prevented me from having one before leaving.

Something else that the taxi prevented me from doing was taking a naan dough out of the freezer. And so I’ll have that and my leftover curry for tea tomorrow. Tonight I had sausage and mash with vegetables and it was delicious.

It’s really early but I’m still not feeling very well so I’m off to bed where I intend to sleep for a week if I have the chance

But seeing as we have been talking about Ford Cortinas … "well, one of us has" – ed … I remember when I was welding up the floor in someone’s Cortina when she was off to her mother’s.
She saw the legs sticking out from underneath the car so in passing, she reached under and … well … you can imagine.
When I came out of the garage with a G-clamp she had gone and my friend John from Stockport was nursing a lump the size of an egg on his forehead.

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Tuesday 15th April 2025 – I HAVE HAD …

… a Day of Rest today.

Our Welsh class is on an Easter break this week and next week so I was planning on having a leisurely day today for a change.

What contributed to that particular idea was the fact that I had another very late night – long after 01:30 when I went to bed. But there again, a Marshall Tucker Band concert came round on the playlist and as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I have something of a weakness for Southern Rock and lead guitar solos that can sometimes last for as long as several weeks. After all, how many other Southern Rock bands can you name WHO CAN MUSTER UP A FLUTE?

So eventually I made it into bed and settled down for a good sleep only to awaken in a real panic when the alarm went off – sheets and bedding flying everywhere. For some reason or other I was convinced that I’d heard the alarm go off previously and that this was the second alarm.

As it happens, it wasn’t, because it went off five minutes later. So whatever that was all about, I really don’t know.

The sad part about that was that I was off on an interesting little voyage at that particular moment and in the panic, the whole lot was wiped away completely and I can’t remember anything at all about it.

In the bathroom I had a good wash and then into the kitchen for the medication. It’s a non-dialysis day so I remembered the disgusting powder that I have to mix with water.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. We had a car parked on the lawn somewhere and the front end of it had sunk into the grass. We were debating on ways to manoeuvre it out. I would have expected that we would have raised up the front, put it on a couple of planks underneath the wheels and then pulled it backwards. My father though was going on about changing the gearbox. Even if it had been a practical proposition to change the gearbox, I didn’t understand how that was going to help to move the car out of the trenches that it had dug for itself.

The car, I can still see it now. It was my red Cortina Estate that I came in when I immigrated to Europe, all of my wordly possessions that remained, crammed into the back. I still have the car today – inter-galactic mileage and needs the valve guides replacing but apart from a spot of rot on the scuttle underneath the windscreen the bodywork is perfect and, rare for a Cortina, has never been welded. It’s sitting in my warehouse in Montaigut quietly gathering dust with the 2000E saloon that Nerina bought me once and my Citroën “Traction Avant”.

The nurse turned up early for the start of his week’s shift. No surprise, because he doesn’t have the injections or the blood tests to do, by popular request of his clients. He was complaining that he didn’t have much sleep last night, but that’s a quite common state of affairs around here.

After he left, I made my breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK.

We’ve finished our visit of Helmsley Castle and after a remarkably brief passage by Hereford Castle – a mere dozen pages devoted to one of the strongest fortifications in the Marches – we’re now visiting Hertford Castle.

Our author is once more tying himself up in knots. When talking about Helmsley, he tells us on page 106 that "it is possible that the whole may have been the work of Robert Fursan, especially as, remarkable as it is, it is not named in Domesday nor any early record"

However, on page 121, when talking about the town of Hertford, he tells us that the town of "Hertford was so held of the Confessor, and so accepted by the Conqueror, and entered in Domesday, which, however, as was not uncommon, makes no mention of the castle,"

So why is it remarkable that some castles such as Helmsley Castle aren’t in the Domesday Book, but not uncommon that others such as Hertford Castle are omitted?.

After breakfast I had some paperwork that needed attention and then I had quite an idle morning not doing anything except searching for items of personal interest on the Internet.

Something else that I did was to have another in-depth look at some Artificial Intelligence programs. Every day it seems that there are more and more slowly coming onto the streets every day. The latest one seems to be an automatic story writer. All you need is to write out the very basic outline of your plot, your main characters and their characteristics, press “send” and sit back to let the machine type out a book for you.

You can type as much – or as little – as you like for the story outline and so I had a little fun with it, testing out its limits and finding out what it could – and couldn’t or wouldn’t – do. But it’s going to spoil all kinds of creativity and imagination once it all becomes on-line.

While we are talking about Artificial Intelligence … "well, one of us is" – ed … I was told of a discussion between two people on the Internet about how someone, unable to find any secretarial assistance anywhere on the island where he lived, had engaged an AI bot to do all of the work for him and it seemed to be working fine.

Interesting as all of this might be, I couldn’t keep on doing that all day and in the end I began to concentrate on programme 260227 for the radio. First of all though, I checked over programme 250418 and sent it off for broadcast this coming weekend.

For 260227 I didn’t have half of the tracks that I needed so I had to hunt them down. One or two were quite obscure and took some finding but I found them in the end thanks to help from my Artificial Intelligence-powered search engine.

So all of the tracks are sorted out, re-edited and re-mixed, paired and segued. Tomorrow while my cleaner is here, I’ll write out the notes ready for dictation on Saturday night. For the rest of the week I can make a start on Saturday at Woodstock. There will also be a LeClerc order to prepare.

For tea tonight I searched through the freezer and found one of my aubergine and kidney-bean whatsits and cooked it with some pasta and veg, followed by orange, ginger and coconut cake and soya dessert. There is just one more slice of that cake, and then I’ll be into the chocolate cake.

Something else that I have to do tomorrow and not forget is to bake some hot cross buns. We can’t have Easter without toasted hot cross buns. The batch that I made last year weren’t particularly well-made but they tasted delicious all the same. I’m hoping that my new improved technique will improve things this year.

But now that I’ve finished my notes, I’m off to bed

But seeing as we have been talking about Artificial Intelligence … "well, one of us has" – ed … before I go I’ll tell you about the chat that I have just had with an Artificial Intelligence chatbot.
What I did was to ask it to tell me the funniest joke that it knew.
It came back with "A man takes his sick Chihuahua to the veterinarian. They’re immediately taken back to an exam room. After a while, a Labrador walks in, sniffs the Chihuahua for 10 minutes, then leaves. Next, a cat comes in, stares at the Chihuahua for 10 minutes, and leaves. Finally, the vet arrives, examines the dog, and prescribes some medicine.
The man is shocked and says, “That must be a mistake! I’ve only been here 20 minutes!”
The vet replies, “No mistake. It’s $100 for the lab test, $100 for the cat scan, and $50 for the medicine.”"
It finished by telling me " If you want, I can share more like this!" but I don’t think that I’ll bother. At least, when I remember a joke from the old “Plymouth Polytechnic” days (and that’s a story in itself) I don’t forget half of the story like my AI chatbot has just now. Artificial Intelligence is not all that it’s cracked up to be. I’ll prefer natural stupidity any day.

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Saturday 12th April 2025 – WE ARE BACK …

… amongst the painful dialysis connections. After a few sessions of comparatively painless connections since Emilie the Cute Consultant did her stuff, they have been gradually worsening and today we were back in the agony stakes. So I’ve no idea what’s going to happen now.

Another thing about which I have no idea now is this story about early nights. I cracked on rapidly to finish everything last night and managed somehow to finish relatively early. However I was as usual side-tracked by a couple of really good concerts on the playlist and it ended up being long after midnight when I finally crawled into bed.

For a change it was a comparatively decent night. I slept right though until the alarm sounded with only the vaguest memory of awakening in mid-sleep.

It was a struggle to rise to my feet when the alarm went off but I staggered into the bathroom for a good wash and even a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon.

After the wash I set the washing machine off with a load of clothes. For once, I managed to fit everything into it but it probably wasn’t a good idea because it struggled with the weight. I need to wash my clothes more frequently – or wash fewer clothes more often.

After the medication I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I should have been going into work with Nerina. We were on our way to catch our bus at the top of Mill Street. I was walking on my crutches and Nerina was with me. Nerina suddenly remembered that she had a prescription to pick up at the chemist’s across the road. She said that she would go and pick it up. I told her to be quick so she dashed off while I continued as quickly as I possibly could, which wasn’t very quick at all. I saw the bus come up Mill Street to the traffic lights and turn right. I knew that I wasn’t going to catch it. I saw Nerina come out of the chemist’s and run across the road. I thought “at least she’s caught the bus”. When I reached the bus stop she was standing there. She was saying that she had seen that I wasn’t there and so had waited for me. I told her that that was a silly thing to do. She should have caught the bus and gone on into work anyway on time. I would follow as best as I could. She would have been on time but now we are both going to be late and there isn’t another bus for hours so we are probably going to end up missing half a day. That was a strange decision.

Why I should be going to work on the K43 to Nantwich (that was the bus route where I was) is a total mystery, as is why I would be coming from the general direction of the railway station. And I wouldn’t be on crutches in Crewe either. Furthermore, I reckon that Nerina would have had far more sense than to have missed the bus in order to wait for me if I were going to miss it.

There was also something about being on board a yacht. There was some boy there who seemed to be very well-educated from a good family but that was far from the case. He was very insistent on his rights etc. He was going on wanting this, wanting that and everyone was annoyed with him in the end. They decided that they would teach him a lesson. When he made some more demands, someone reminded him that he was hoping that we’d move back into more traditional ways that were all good and proper a hundred years ago. They put him on a bed face down, removed his trousers and spanked him with a slipper. Every time he protested, they reminded him that he was hoping for a return to the Good Old Days and isn’t this just the kind of thing that he would have wanted? When his parents came back they were outraged by what they saw but everyone on board said “well, he was asking for this – it was literally what he wanted, a return to the Good Old Days of a hundred years ago and he’s receiving exactly what he wanted. None of us can see what the problem is”.

There have been some very, very strange dreams in the past but I don’t think that there has ever been one quite as strange as this. It quite possibly relates to an argument that broke out on the Internet a while back when someone posted "the problem with today’s children is that they don’t seem to have the sense of fear that the sound of a leather belt being withdrawn quickly so a series of belt hoops on a pair of jeans would instil into them.".

Isabelle was in quite a chatty mood today and talked incessantly about nothing whatever as she organised my legs.

Breakfast was next, with more of MY BOOK. We have left Harlech and are now at Hastings Castle, discussing the finer points of corbels and arches, with the odd flying buttress thrown in for good measures. A flying buttress is the equivalent of half an arch, leaning against the outside of a heavy stone wall to stop the wall falling outward. But does our author tell us that? Of course he doesn’t. He describes the buttress’s more elegant points from an artistic point of view and that’s about it.

Back in here I spent a couple of hours drafting a complicated letter to my tenant downstairs, but after having had a couple of chats with a couple of people and having had second thoughts, it’s all becoming far too complicated for words and so I’ve decided that she will leave at the end of the current lease. I’m too old, too tired and fed up to start to negotiate complicated deals and arrangements.

My cleaner turned up on time and fitted my anaesthetic patches and then I tidied up the kitchen while I waited for the taxi. I didn’t have long to wait either. And I was the only passenger in the car so we arrived at the dialysis centre quite early.

For a change I was second in and second to be coupled up. Despite the patches and despite the new procedure and despite the ice pack, it still hurt, and it was hurting throughout the session.

The good news is that if they had the machine on max and ran it for three and a half hours, it would leave 200 grams behind. After a discussion with the doctor today, I decided that it would make more sense to go with three and a half hours, and have a look at how things are on Monday. Four hours would probably be better then, and bring me down to an ideal weight ready for my three-day break.

There was football on the internet as I mentioned earlier – Y Drenewydd v Aberystwyth. And for once in my life in the Welsh Premier League, I saw a team play the way that I would play my team against any team that has a rather pedestrian central defence.

Y Drenewydd were desperate to win to keep alive any possible hope of avoiding the drop, so they went on an all-out attack, However Aberystwyth, who have clearly been reading my training manual, played with the rapid winger Niall Flint at centre-forward. Every time Aberystwyth won the ball in defence they kicked it upfield over the head of the central defenders and Niall Flint ran after it.

He was causing panic in their defence all through the game. And while Y Drenewydd scored two goals, Niall Flint scored two of his own for Aberystwyth, he hit the post twice and only some desperate defending kept him out on another couple of occasions. And when Aberystwyth scored a third as the game drew to a close, that, I’m afraid, was that for Y Drenewydd.

During pre-season I’d seen Y Drenewydd play against Hednesford Town, and what I saw prompted me to enter into correspondence with the Drenewydd club secretary. On the 5th of August I finished my correspondence with "I can see it being a long, cold season ahead"

At least the Chairman of Y Drenewydd was quite frank after the game. "We lost some very good players in close season but didn’t replace like with like". That is no surprise at all. What is a surprise is that he didn’t do anything to redress the balance.

The boss was waiting for me when the dialysis was over and he brought me home through the immense traffic queue as the Parisians desert their city for the Easter break. Despite dropping off another passenger, I was at home for 18:15 and I wish that I could do that every time.

My cleaner watched as I climbed my weary way upstairs where I relaxed for an hour or so.

Tea was as usual baked potato, vegan salad and breaded quorn fillet, followed by cake and soya dessert. Now I’m having a little break before dictating my radio notes and going to bed. A lie-in until 08:00 in the morning and then I have baking to do. Bread, more bread and a chocolate cake. Let’s see how the new water measurer copes

But seeing as we have been talking about football … "well, one of us has" – ed … tomorrow there’s a live football match in the Women’s League Cup – Caerdydd V Llansawel.
In the previous round Llansawel beat a team representing the Walt Disney Fan club. It was quite an easy match for Llansawel so I asked them why
"It was as if that Disney team only played with ten players" explained the Llansawel manager. "They had a player on the pitch called ‘Cinderella’ but she spent the whole ninety minutes running away from the ball"

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Friday 11th April 2025 – AFTER BREAKFAST HAD …

… finished I cleared up, put the tray onto my little trolley, then my cup and then pushed the trolley into the bedroom where I could finish my coffee while I was working.

And then I had a brilliant idea – “if I want to finish off the coffee while I’m working, why didn’t I bring the coffee pot in here with me when I brought the mug and the tray?”. Sometimes I really wonder what is happening to me and my memory right now. It’s always been bad and became worse after my depressed fracture of the skull in the accident when I was taxi-driving in Sandbach, but these days it’s going even worse.

In fact my whole character changed after that accident. I must have had a brain injury or something and my whole life ever since then became a constant battle against reality … "and still is" – ed …. It took several years to come to terms with my new situation. However, all of that is another story completely, consisting of water that has long-since flown under the bridge.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment, I really was ill late night after the dialysis. And to prove that I can do it when I really try, I had finished all of my notes, taken the stats and done the back-up and was in bed by 22:50. And by 22:51 I was fast asleep.

Apart from one awakening, before midnight according to a timestamp on the dictaphone, I didn’t move until about 06:50 either. That was what I really call a good sleep. I must have needed it.

While I was debating whether or not to pull my head from out underneath the covers, BILLY COTTON beat me to it and I fell out of bed.

In the bathroom I had a good wash and scrub up, then into the kitchen for the medication.

Back in here I sent a message to my faithful cleaner about my shopping and my new compression socks, and then I transcribed the dictaphone notes. The first thing that happened was that a girl from school appeared in my dreams last night when I was asleep quite early. I was on the point of inviting her out for a date when suddenly I awoke up and she completely disappeared and took off, taking everything with her.

The first question that went through my mind when I transcribed this was “who the heck was she?”. I wish that I had recorded who she was. That would have been nice to know. All these girls turning up in my dreams and I’m not aware of them. However, awakening just as things are about to become interesting – there goes my subconscious again, keeping me out of mischief. If I am going to be diverted from my evil designs, I’d rather it was me than any member of my family coming along, something that usually happens.

Later on I was out on one of the French islands near the Equator checking vehicle registration numbers. They seemed to be arranged in groups of – two numbers – a number and a letter – two numbers … "numbers like 11-2A-33" – ed … and the plates were yellow with black writing rather like the current French rear number plates.

Why registration numbers of cars on a French island should interest me, I really have no idea. The only French island that appeals to me is St Pierre et Miquelon, the French DOM TOM off the coast of Newfoundland. I’ve told you before … "and on many occasion too" – ed … about the exciting event that happened while I was sailing past there in 2017 across the Gulf of St Lawrence.

And then my Greek friend came round and told me that she was going off on a holiday somewhere. After a little discussion it turned out that she was going on a week’s retreat somewhere in a monastery, a nunnery or something. We had something of a chat. I noticed that she was feeling particularly depressed. After a while we said goodbye to each other and she wandered away. A short while later another girl whom I quite liked came round – the sister of a friend of mine at school. We’d had a little something of an association at one time. She had this sheep that she was keeping in her apartment so we went to look at it. We ended up having to chase it around the apartment and catch it, and had a really good time. We arranged to meet at another moment so I went home. In the meantime, a third friend of mine, who lodged with me for a year once at Expo, was in her little apartment, a tiny place with just a bed and a toilet in it. I went round there and she had a friend with her so there were three of us. She asked “have you seen your Greek friend recently?”. I replied “yes, I saw her earlier”. She replied “well, do you know that she’s gone off?”. I replied “yes, I know. I was talking to her just before she left. She was telling me all of her plans”. This quite surprised my friend in that apartment. She didn’t realise that I’d been talking to her. She thought that she was the only person concerned in this story. She asked “do you know that she has a son?”. I replied “I’m sure that she hasn’t. After all, I’ve worked with her for years”. “Well, she’s talking about going to Paris” to which I replied that it didn’t surprise me because she occasionally had whims like that. She asked me what else I’d been up to. I replied that I’d been herding sheep and began to recount this story with my friend’s sister and hunting sheep around her apartment

My Greek friend was an interesting girl. When I went to work in Brussels the job that I was to take wasn’t ready for me so I worked in the document preparation department where I learned all about desktop publishing, printing layouts and so on. There were about twenty of us who started at about that time and we formed a little group to go ice-skating, the cinema, that kind of thing. Gradually, two by two, everyone paired off and I used to go around with my Greek friend. She blew very hot when she thought that I wasn’t interested but whenever I showed more than a passing interest in her, she cooled off dramatically. I reckon that she was frightened and I don’t blame her. After all, which member of the opposite sex would ever feel comfortable with me around?

The sister of my friend is an easy one to guess. She was much younger than us at school but even so we all knew that she was going to be a beautiful girl. Quite a few years later I was running parcels to Belfast – the only volunteer with a British-registered van to take freight to Belfast in the 1970s but I needed the money – and apart from stopping to watch Stranraer and being arrested at gunpoint by an Army patrol (those two events were not connected), on one occasion I stopped at Galgate just outside Lancaster for some fish and chips and a pint. And who should be serving behind the bar in the pub? She was a student at Lancaster earning some pocket money. Consequently every time that there was a parcel to go north I was always the first to volunteer.

When it came to Easter she had no means of going home so I went and picked her up. We saw each other a few times and then one night I invited her home. Tuppence, my old, anti-social black cat came and jumped on her lap, something that took me totally by surprise as it wasn’t like her at all, and I thought "ahhh – even the cat likes her".. On the way home I told her that I’d like to continue to see her even when she goes back to University and she replied "yes – but you’ll have to get rid of that cat! I hate cats!".

It goes without saying that I kept the cat. She was definitely the Lady of the House and she drove more than just that one girl away. She stood no chance with Nerina though. Nerina loved cats and as soon as she saw Tuppence it was "ohh, a cat!" and she had Tuppence in her arms before the cat had had time to think. Tuppence was the first of our rather large adopted family of felines. I often wonder if Nerina still has cats

There was also something else about being in the Army last night. One of the depots was closing down and they were selling a whole pile of things. I was interested in their lorry but they told me that they wanted £200 for it or something like that and I was unwilling to pay it because I couldn’t afford it. They talked about what vehicles I had and discussed a part-exchange but it wasn’t really practical. Then the discussion turned to motorcycles. They had a Kawasaki. I said “Kawasakis haven’t been imported into the UK yet. You can’t have a Kawasaki”. They replied “oh yes we have, a 1985 model”. That totally surprised me because I thought that we were in the 1950s. When I enquired the guy told me “well, it is 1987 you know”. I thought “well, I thought that it was 1957. We’d just been watching a film on the television in black and white and it was only made a short while ago”. I was expecting that we were in the 1950s but this officer insisted that it was 1987 and they had a 1985 Kawasaki. I didn’t understand what was going on at all.

… "”I didn’t understand what was going on at all” – nothing at all new there" – ed … But it really was a strange dream – being in 1987 but thinking that it was still 1957, not that I remember all that much about the latter year. Even more interestingly, if I really did believe that it was 1987, how did I even know about Kawasaki motorcycles, let alone that they hadn’t been imported into the UK “yet”?

Isabelle the Nurse came by to sort me out and she brought me the necessary prescription for my compression socks.

After she left I made breakfast and read more of MY BOOK. Considering that it’s title is “Medieval Military Architecture in England”, today we arrived at Castle Harlech, which is well and truly on the west coast of Wales.

He’s pointed out hundreds of important factors that bear upon the engineering of the castle from a military point of view during his minute inspection of the civilian architecture, but not once does he give any indication of the purpose or the principle of that particular factor. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … that’s disappointing because that was just what I was hoping to find in a book like this.

Back in here I made a start on my Woodstock extravaganza and by the time I’d finished, Friday was finished too. The notes that I have written for Friday run to a massive sixteen minutes and fifty-seven seconds and are likely to increase when I read through them a second time. Friday’s programme now runs out at one hour ten minutes and twenty-six seconds which, for a programme that is supposed to last one hour, will provide its own complications. Even if I remove some songs, the text will increase because I will have to say what has gone and why.

There were the usual interruptions. Two disgusting drinks breaks, my cleaner coming to do her stuff and to sort out the medication, and the postman.

The postman brought two pieces of news. Firstly, regular readers of this rubbish will recall the bread-making issues that I have had in the past. The scientific water gauge that arrived today tells me that 200ml of water in the gauge is showing 230ml in the previous gauge that I used. That means that the previous gauge is under-reading by about 15% and will explain a lot about the shortcoming in my baking.

The second letter is one that I have been half-expecting. My tenant downstairs is asking for an extension of her lease until the end of June. Of course she can have an extension – I’ve never yet put anyone out into the street and I’ve no intention of doing so now. However, workmen will be going in as of the beginning of June to rip out the kitchen and the bathroom and fit the new kitchen and shower room whether she’s there or not, whether she likes it or not, and whether the water is cut off or not. And if the workmen use electricity and water while she is there, there is no possible way of splitting the bill so she will have to pay all of it. I’m not going to revise my plans at all.

By the time that I’d finished everything it was tea-time – air-fried chips with salad and a handful of those tiny nuggets that I found while I was tidying out the freezer, followed by more orange, ginger and coconut cake with soya dessert. The cake is nearly finished so Sunday I shall be baking. As it’s coming close to Easter, I shall go for a chocolate cake and see what happens.

Tomorrow is dialysis day of course and the vital match at the foot of the table between Aberystwyth and Y Drenewydd. Aberystwyth are already relegated, of course, but Y Drenewydd, the only other ever-present team in the League since its formation, must win and hope that Llansawel lose against Y Ff lint to give themselves hope for the final match.

But that’s tomorrow. Tonight is bedtime when I’ve finished my tasks and we’ll see how things unfold.

But seeing as we have been talking about my visits to Belfast … "well, one of us was" – ed … while I was there, I met an American visitor looking to find his roots.
He was clearly disappointed with what he saw, the violence, the destruction and so on, and loudly exclaimed, to anyone who would care to listen "I think that Belfast and Northern Ireland is the ass-hole of the World"
And some Northern Irishman standing nearby said, in an equally loud voice "if that’s the case, then he must be merely passing through it".

0

Monday 7th April 2025 – WE HAD ANOTHER …

… short session of three and a half hours at the dialysis centre today. Even though I wobbled a couple of times and crashed out for five minutes, I made it to the end

But seeing as we are talking about crashing out … "well, one of us is" – ed … I was in a different bed today where I could see everyone else in the public ward. And without exception, everyone else crashed out shortly after their machines were set under way. That doesn’t make me feel quite so bad now about crashing out.

Something else that we very nearly had this morning was another early start. Despite not going to bed until late, I was awake at about 06:40 and was debating whether to raise myself from the Dead – I’d even put the light on – when BILLY COTTON’S RAUCOUS RATTLE beat me to it

It’s quite surprising that I was awake so early because I didn’t go to bed until after 01:00. I’d finished my notes, the statistics and the backing up well before that but as usual something came along to disrupt me and I can’t remember what it was right now. It was probably a very good concert and I’ll always postpone bedtime if something decent comes round on the playlist. … "Actually, you were designing kitchens" – ed …

But once in bed I fell asleep quite quickly, but only for a short while and then we were back on the turbulent, somewhat mobile nights.

Whatever it was that awoke me at 06:40 left no impression on me whatsoever. It wasn’t the bin lorry, and it wasn’t the hot food delivery to the Foyer des Jeunes Travailleurs either because they both turned up when I was awake and trying to summon up the courage and the energy to leave the bed.

Billy Cotton made up my mind for me and his rattle certainly is raucous coming from this new ‘phone. No-one will sleep through this, that’s for sure

In the bathroom I had a good wash, scrub up and shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant and then went for my medication.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night, and no-one was more surprised than me to see all of the stuff thereupon. When I switched on my computer there was a message “you must go to full-screen view for this” it said, so I pressed on the full screen and there was a humanoid figure, a female one. Apparently I must have been trying to manoeuvre some of the limbs during a 3D exercise or something and somehow I’d become distracted and closed the window before I’d finished what it was that I was going. Now that I was in this full-screen I could read all the notes and see which would be the best way to resolve the issue with which the error message was dealing.

It goes without saying that in the middle of the night I didn’t actually switch on the computer. But manoeuvring … "PERSONoeuvring" – ed … the limbs of 3D characters is something that I did quite often when I was working in 3D down on the farm.

Then there was that I had to put a fascia panel across underneath the fridge and the model initiative size before its transform so that I know where everything should be

This of course makes no sense at all, but then what does? As we have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … There are all kinds of rubbish that comes to the fore during my nocturnal rambles … "and not just then either" – ed … But the fascia panel reminds me of something that I saw when I was looking at kitchens. A plinth of wood to cover the feet of the units, four metres long by about ten centimetres wide, will cost me €39:00

Later on I had another visit during the night. I was actually in hospital. At one stage in my life I’d fathered a child with someone but the relationship didn’t stick and the mother and I went our separate ways. I was in hospital last night and into my room came the sister of this girl and her mother and my little daughter who was about three or four with a couple of other small kids. I chatted to them all because I liked them. My daughter climbed onto my bed, standing there having quite a long chat about her birthday, what she’d had for her birthday, what she was going to do with her birthday money and everything like that. It was a lovely dream.

It’s a question that I’ve often been asked – "do you have any kids?" and my response is always the same – "none that I know of – no-one has come knocking on the door yet". Nerina didn’t want any kids – we’d had a couple of long talks about that – and that suited me at the time. It was only when Laurence, Roxanne and I set up home together in Jette that I realised just how much fun kids could be, especially girls. I came to the conclusion a long time ago that all kids should be girls, they should be born when they are five and at age eleven they should go into hibernation until they reach eighteen.

And then we were on holiday somewhere. We started off by going in a car and it was evening. We were driving towards Chester and came to Bluestones crossroads and turned right up the A51. We were heading towards the reservoir and noticed that the traffic had stopped so we stopped too. I could see the lights in the distance – this was a huge, enormous queue of vehicles that stretched for miles. We began to think about turning round and going back across country via Worleston, that way. Just then, a lorry came down pulling a bus with it and the bus had all been smashed in. There was another breakdown vehicle behind it pulling something else. Then the police came and told everyone to go back. They had us roll backwards down the hill towards Bluestones again so I let off our handbrake to roll back and all of a sudden rolled at an incredible rate of speed almost out of control. I really had to apply the brakes to make it stop but for that little moment it was frightening.

It was frightening too, I can tell you. I can still see it now.

And finally, I stepped back into that dream again. There was a group of us and we were going on holiday again. This time we were back at the hotel where we had started and a bus pulled up, dropped off a load of people and went again. A few minutes later another bus from the same company, one in Calveley, dropped people off as well. We wondered if this was anything to do with the accident and these people were maybe passengers on one of those buses that had been in an accident and the bus had brought me here. This time we left again and boarded a bus, an old double-decker. I was with two other guys so I grabbed a pair of seats with a free one in front but they all wanted to sit at the back. I looked round but there was no place to sit at the back so they couldn’t really do that anyway. Then we set off and were out doing something and all came back. We’d been through a forest and had been told to be careful in the forest. There were these people gathering the old decayed wood and burning it. One of them was pushing some kind of load and came to a T-junction in the forest path but instead of stopping, they just went straight on and straight through the undergrowth opposite the T-junction. We thought to ourselves “that’s not being careful, is it?”. Then we heard some music, trumpets and trombones. We had a look and it was one of these West Indian marching bands in the forest playing their instruments to entertain the workers presumably. We thought “we’d seen these on the road a little earlier. I wonder what they are doing here”. We came back to the bus and we boarded it. I grabbed three seats but the other two guys complained that they wanted to sit at the back but there was only one seat free at the back so again I wasn’t quite sure how they were all going to manage to sit at the back.

Why there should be a West Indian marching band in a forest in the UK is totally beyond my comprehension. As for the bus though, I travelled on loads of Crosville “K-series” buses, the type that they had before the Lodekka with the five-eater bench seats upstairs and the aisle down the offside. Crash boxes and manual steering, they were wicked beasts and once someone worked out the principle of the cranked axles so that they could drop the floors by a foot and the Lodekkas arrived, they soon all disappeared.

The nurse tells me that I need new compression socks – the ones that I have are wearing out rapidly, he seems to think. So as I don’t go near my doctor’s these days, I set him the task of persuading my doctor to write out a prescription.

After he left, I made my breakfast and read some more of MY NEW BOOK. We’ve finished our guided tour of Dursley Castle and have gone north to Durham. At the moment we’re talking about the history of Durham Castle and at least, the history of these places is interesting, but I don’t imagine that it will be too long before we have the guided tour.

Back in here I attacked the Welsh homework and one of the things that I had to do was to write a review of a film that deals with Crime and Punishment so I chose THE ITALIAN JOB, one of my favourite films. There was a second option, which was to write about famous criminals in your area. I considered that option for a moment but I decided to let someone else write my life story.

My cleaner turned up to fit my patches and it was a good job that she was early because so was the taxi. It was my favourite taxi driver, back from her holiday and the two other passengers with me in the car with her, we were regaled with tales of her holiday adventures.

The ‘phone rang en route. It was the hospital in Paris telling me that according to the hospital register I’m expected on Monday 5th May in the afternoon so I need my dialysis in the morning. But ominously, they have arranged a session of dialysis for me there on the Thursday. That is ominous. It looks as if it’s going to be a long stay in Paris.

We arrived early at dialysis and had to wait fifteen minutes for them to open the door. I was third to be plugged in and the good news was that I need only stay for three and a half hours.

While I was being dialysed I backed up the computer and while I was sorting some things out on the laptop I came across a book about the ephemeral railway line near where I used to live in the Auvergne. It took forty years to agree to build it, ten years to build and lasted just eight years before it closed down.

Emilie the Cute Consultant came for a chat to see how I was doing, which was nice of her. I mentioned to her about Paris but I’m not going to confirm it until I have a formal summons in my sweaty little mitt.

My taxi was waiting for me when I was unplugged and we had a nice, chatty drive back home. My cleaner was waiting for me and helped me upstairs. And wasn’t it lovely to be back home at 18:35?

Tea tonight was a delicious stuffed pepper with veg and pasta followed by orange, ginger and coconut cake with soya dessert. There’s plenty of stuffing left for the next few days too.

Now I’m off to bed ready for my Welsh class tomorrow. I need to be on form.

But before I go, one of the things that Emilie the Cute Consultant mentioned was this stomach x-ray that has been prescribed for me at the end of May.
"Why are they doing that?" she asked.
"I’ve no idea" I replied."I imagined that you had prescribed it"
"It’s nothing that I have asked them to do" she answered
"And there I was" I said "thinking that you wanted to see more of me. And let’s face it, once you’ve seen the contents of my stomach there’s not an awful lot more of me left that you won’t have seen"

0

Saturday 15th March 2025 – THERE WAS NOTHING …

… whatever of any interest happening today. I can’t think when it last was that I had such an uneventful day.

There was even a decent sleep for once. It may well have been late by the time that I went to bed, quite a while after midnight in fact, but I was soon asleep, which is no surprise after the difficult night the previous day … "??" – ed ….

Once in bed and asleep, I stayed asleep right the way through the night with no recollection whatever of awakening and it’s been a while since that’s happened too.

When the alarm did go off, I was away with the fairies – but not in any manner that would incite comment from the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine. I was doing something with a pair of lady’s shoes but I’ve no idea what because immediately that the alarm sounded I awoke and the whole lot evaporated completely.

Into the bathroom for a good wash and scrub up, some deodorant and a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant later on at Avranches.

There was also some washing to do, and amazing as it might seem, having taken care to wash my clothes before another large pile builds up, there was still too much for the washing machine. This is becoming ridiculous – either my clothes are growing or the washing machine is shrinking . There certainly aren’t more clothes than before.

With nothing on the dictaphone this morning, I could crack on and do some more unzipping. There’s not all that many left to do now but I keep on finding more and more that I hadn’t found earlier.

Isabelle the Nurse was late as usual, no thanks to the roadworks in the town centre where they are rebuilding the square outside the Mairie. As well as that, they’ve suddenly and spontaneously decided to carry out more roadworks elsewhere in the town centre that’s blocking part of the one-way system and it’s a nightmare.

After she left I made breakfast and carried on reading MY NEW BOOK.

We’ve begun to discuss the influence of Christianity on folklore. He is of the opinion that "Christianity was both antagonistic to and tolerant of pagan custom and belief. In principle and purpose it was antagonistic. In practice it was tolerant where it could tolerate safely. At the centre it aimed at purity of Christian doctrine, locally it permitted pagan practices to be continued under Christian auspices. In the earliest days it set itself against all forms of idolatry and non-Christian practices"

He goes on to quote from Gibbon’s DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE saying that "in later days, after the fifth century it accepted both pagan practice and pagan ritual."

It’s interesting that he picks the fifth century. Rome was sacked by Alaric in 410AD and by the Vandals in 455AD and in 476AD the “barbarian” Odoacer seized the throne of Rome. This influx of foreigners into the city of Rome doubtless weakened the grip of the Church .

Pope Gregory wrote in 601AD to Abbott Mellitus who was on the point of going as a missionary to England "because they have been used to slaughter many oxen in the sacrifices to devils some solemnity must be exchanged for them on this account, so that on the day of the dedication, or the nativities of. the holy martyrs whose relics are there deposited, they may build themselves huts of the boughs of trees, about those churches which have been turned to that use from temples and celebrate the solemnity with religious feasting and no more offer beasts to the devil [diabolo], but kill praise of God in their eating, and return thanks to all things for their sustenance"

Our author adds "This toleration took the shape either of allowing the continuation of pagan custom and belief as a matter not affecting Christian doctrine or of actual absorption into Church practice and ritual."

In fact, judging by the deterioration of the pure Christian faith in the way that it is practised these days by many so-called Christians, there’s a very strong argument that suggests that rather than the Christian faith having absorbed some facets of paganism, it’s more as if paganism has absorbed some (and only some) facets of Christianity. The more uncomfortable aspects of pure Christian belief have been abandoned a long time ago, if ever they were there at all.

Back in here I attacked the Woodstock radio project and I now have all of the music that I need – at least one track from every artist (even the ones that I didn’t believe that I could find) except one. And that’s because Sly and the Family Stone don’t really fit into my programmes and I’ll have to omit one or two groups anyway.

My cleaner turned up later to fit my patches and then the taxi, driven by the boss, turned up to run me to Avranches.

Once more, I was one of the first there and had to wait until they had cleaned up from the morning. Once I made it to my bed I was the fourth to receive attention (I don’t move as quickly as the others) and then I could settle down to watch the football.

Welsh Cup semi-final today between Connah’s Quay Nomads of the Premier League and Llanelli of the second tier. The Nomads are having a wretched season by their standards and Llanelli are leading their division so it was always going to be a tight affair.

The gulf in class and quality was evident however but even though the Nomads had most of the possession they went in at the break 1-0 down because of a penalty. Both sides had hit the bar however.

Two inspired substitutions at half-time turned the game around for the Nomads. They were 2-1 up in a couple of minutes before Llanelli had had time to re-adjust but once they had adapted to the new situation they held on to the end, having had a couple of chances of their own.

It was another one of those really exciting games however, with plenty of entertainment for the neutral fans.

After that I began to sort through the music for the Woodstock project until it was time to be unplugged.

The same driver brought me home – early once again. I could relax and unwind for an hour or so with my disgusting drink.

Tea tonight was a chiliburger on a bap with salad and baked potato followed by date bread and soya dessert. The same as last week’s, and the week before etc, but still just as delicious.

So right now I’ll dictate my radio notes and then go to bed. I have a busy day tomorrow, bread making and so on

While we’re on the subject of pagan ritual and belief … "well, one of us iss" – ed … to tell a little secret, I had my suspicions that Nerina might have been in touch with things that we know not what. Not long after we had come together, we were out driving when she touched my leg. I immediately turned into a lay-by
It made me suspicious, especially when we were in the local supermarket once and she wanted to buy a new broom to sweep the yard.
At the check-out I told the cashier "don’t bother to wrap it – she’ll fly it home"

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Wednesday 5th March 2025 – MY CLEANER IS …

… a heroine – an absolute marvel, and I’m really pleased and grateful that she’s here.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that now that I’m properly settled here on the coast with no prospect of returning home to the farm, I’ve been changing a few things around.

One of the things that I’ve been doing is slowly disposing of all of the plastic that I have and replacing it with glass as much as possible. My plastic chopping boards are looking very much the worse for wear and I have been planning to let them go the Way of the West whenever the next opportunity presents itself.

A couple of weeks ago, LeClerc sent me a preview of the next instore sale that started on Tuesday. They had some lovely tempered glass chopping boards – huge ones too – at just €2:85 each and had I been able to do so, I would have been queueing at the door on Tuesday morning.

When she was here last week I mentioned it to her in passing and talking about how I would have liked to replace my two plastic boards (I have one for smelly foods and one for other stuff).

So today when she came in to sort me out, she produced two tempered glass chopping boards, one black and one white.

It’s quite strange really that it’s the slightest thing that makes such an impression and makes such a difference. I couldn’t believe that I’ve been so impressed by this – even more impressed than I was with my stainless steel dustbin.

Not so impressed though with last night. A late night again and then pretty much more of the same old same old …, difficult to sleep, waking up drenched in perspiration again. The difficulty in sleeping I can cope with, but it’s everything else. However, at least, despite what I said yesterday, if I had another perspiration-laden night when it wasn’t a Dialysis Day, it can hardly be the dialysis that’s causing it.

Nevertheless I was asleep this morning when the alarm went off, doing something with someone else, talking about food, saying that the food, which should be a natural substance and not a processed kind of meal or processed kind of product. Then we were watching something on the television, a quiz game where people produced some kind of extraordinary object and the second team had to try to decide exactly what the purpose of that object was. They had invented some kind of quiz game out of this.

Something else that I can do in my sleep that I can’t, or never had the opportunity to do during my waking hours. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … if only I had found someone capable of making some use of all of these marvellous ideas that I only ever seem to have when I’m asleep. I’d be typing this from the deck of my yacht in the Bahamas with floozies peeling grapes and tossing them into my mouth.

It was another struggle to extricate myself from my bed before the second alarm and to struggle into the bathroom. Back in here straight away afterwards because I can’t ingest anything until after the blood test.

Instead, I transcribed the dictaphone notes from the night. Apparently at one point I’d just been for a walk through part of Crewe. I went down Mill Street and up Brook Street and up and over the railway bridge in Edleston Road. In fact was walking over the bridge in Edleston Road when I awoke. I don’t know what I was doing and there was no-one else with me. I was just strolling around.

That’s a disappointing evening, walking around Crewe like that during my sleep. I’m old enough to remember when the east side of Mill Street was a maze of cheap, crumbling terraced houses until in the early 60s the whole lot was swept away practically overnight. And as is typical for Crewe, it remained a derelict bombsite for thirty years afterwards until some kind of new development began. I can see the demolished town centre being like that for the next ever so many years.

Later on I was talking to some American woman about some people who had left the USA to go to live over the border in Mexico. I was explaining to her that to actually come to live in the USA and work was quite a straightforward matter but complicated as long as you had the right kind of education, background and qualifications but once you were in the USA changing jobs is extremely complicated and difficult. For many people it’s no longer an option to do so and they begin to look around for other ways of earning their income. At first she didn’t believe what I was saying and pooh-poohed it but gradually she began to understand the point that I was trying to make. She ended up by agreeing with everything that I was saying.

That’s a rare achievement, isn’t it? Having people agree with me like that. But conditions for employment in the USA are quite strict. Even though my niece’s second daughter is married to an American and lives in Michigan, she couldn’t even think about changing her job and leaving her Canadian employer until she’d applied for and been granted a work permit to do so. It took her fifteen months to obtain it.

The nurse came round and told me that he’ll take the blood sample tomorrow. So I’d gone without my morning drink for nothing. There’s no point remonstrating with him about it because it will only give me ulcers. I know what I would like to give him.

Breakfast and medication was next while I read MY NEW BOOK. Today, we’ve been talking about the myths of buried treasure, the myths of open-air meetings and also the ancient Graeco-Egyptian LEGEND OF RHODOPIA. Have a read of that legend and see if you recognise anything in it from your own childhood.

There is going to be a considerable amount of mileage in this book, I can see that. It’s going to destroy a great many of my childhood illusions.

Buried treasure, usually guarded by a mythical monster, is another story with a lot of mileage in it. It was usually buried in time of war and disturbance and his answer to the mythical monster is the threat that the person who buried it made to whoever was watching him bury it. People believed in mythical monsters in those days.

That’s not so far-fetched either. Nerina and I were driving around Brittany once many years ago and came across a garage proprietor who had discovered several ancient French cars from someone’s collection walled up behind a false wall to hide them from the Germans. The person who had walled them didn’t live to reclaim them and there they stayed until the garage proprietor found them.

“Buried treasure” is regularly turning up, buried in haste in the path of invading armies centuries ago, and presumably the owner didn’t live to dig it back up again.

After breakfast I made a start on the next radio programme. I’ve decided after much thought that I’m still going to keep on well in advance with one programme per week to keep up the rhythm, and use the spare time in the week to work on the Woodstock set. That way, I shan’t become bogged down.

Anyway, by the time I knocked off tonight, I’d done everything for the programme except dictating it and choosing the final track. That’s going to be another Saturday night/Sunday effort.

There were the usual interruptions – not a lunchtime one though because my appetite is still very much diminished. There was the visit of my cleaner, the shower and the disgusting drink break, as well as probably one or two other things that I can’t remember right now.

Tea was a leftover curry, except that there aren’t any leftovers. Instead I found a helping of pie filling in the freezer and used that instead. Not one of my more memorable meals, but you can’t win a coconut every time. The naan was delicious though. This batch of dough (of which this naan was the final helping) was an exceptionally good batch.

Tomorrow is Dialysis Day but I’m past caring about it and how it’s going to turn out. I’ll just wander off to bed (late as usual these days) and tomorrow will be another day.

But while we’re on the subject of treasure … "well, one of us is" – ed … one of my friends once told me "my wife is a little treasure"
"Is that so?" I asked
"It certainly is" he replied "and furthermore, I’m not going to tell anyone where I’ve buried her"

0

Sunday 23rd February 2025 – I HAVE BEEN …

… a busy boy again today. Not only have I completed everything that I intended, or, as TS McPhee would have it, I’ve DONE EVERYTHING THAT I’VE EVER SET OUT TO DO, I had half an hour to spare too, and that’s not something that happens every day. And how I wish that it did.

That was despite several interruptions too, because I can’t seem to have a day without something happening to knock me right out of my stride.

Things actually set off with a good start because I’d finished my work and all of the dictating quite early. Although it was after 23:00 when I went to bed, it was before midnight which means, with my lie-in, that I could have over eight hours of uninterrupted sleep.

In theory, at least.

As I mentioned yesterday, I’m back with my turbulent sleep patterns, and last night was no exception. And following a Dialysis Day, it was a hot, sweaty night too and I really am going to have to find a solution to this

However, for a change on a Sunday morning, I was still in the bed when the alarm went off at 08:00 and although I can remember times when I have felt less like rising from the bed, there aren’t many of them that have been more difficult than today.

After my trip to the bathroom I came back in here because on a Sunday there’s not much time before the nurse arrives. I made a start on the dictaphone notes (of which there were more than just a few) instead.

In midstream I was interrupted by the arrival of the nurse who tended to my legs and then spent a few minutes trying to make his card reader read my health card so that he can invoice the Social Security for his visits. Being someone who is terminally ill, I’m 100% covered for my medical expenses so I don’t have to pay anything.

After he left, I made breakfast, took my medication and carried on reading MY BOOK.

Today we’re discussing dykes and ditches and we’re back on things about which I might know something.

He’s discussing the building of these earth ramparts and ditches that straddle the countryside and I’m not following his logic at all.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall the discussion from a few days ago where he stresses that invaders wouldn’t build earthworks and complicated defences. They would be the work of the beleaguered defenders.

Now when you build a wall, the purpose of the wall is twofold – one is to hide behind it and the second is to stop your enemy crossing it. To build a wall, you need to find the earth, so you would have to dig a ditch from which to extract it. That serves two purposes too – it means that you only need to build the wall half as high, because the other half of height is the depth of the ditch, and it also makes the defence stronger.

So if you are going to dig a ditch, you would dig it in front of the earthen bank, firstly to make the defence stronger, and secondly to keep your enemy farther from the wall. If you had the ditch behind the wall, it would allow your enemy to shelter behind the wall and you wouldn’t be able to come close enough to dislodge them. So the ditch will be the direction from where you are expecting the attackers to arrive.

Having said all of that, if the Cambridge ditches are to the south-west of the dykes, why does he propose, on page 511, that "they may very well represent the work of some of the earliest of the Baltic immigrants, who, as is now believed, began to make settlements on the east coast of Britain".

Why would the “earliest of the Baltic immigrants” be building these extravagant earthworks when they are the invaders? Especially when he tells us on page 518 he tells us "none of the finer and more elaborate English dykes contradicts the fact that the civilization of the island has moved always from east to west.", which is, I imagine, what the “earliest of the Baltic immigrants” will be doing.

So although I don’t have a clue exactly what his argument is, I shall refrain from saying “neither does he” because you will all be calling me “T Rice Holmes”.

When I’d finished I began to make a small bread roll for lunch. I’ve enjoyed the ones with my soups and the flexibility of an air fryer means that I can serve up one or two without any effort or heating the big oven

Back in here the first task today was to finish the dictaphone notes. I was preparing myself ready to go to dialysis, explaining to Nerina just how painful it was. She didn’t seem to believe it particularly. She thought that I was being a baby. She told me that I ought to do better with it and think more positively. Then she began to discuss operations with me. That’s the kind of thing that makes me squirm and was causing me all kinds of agony in all different parts of my body so I asked her if she would stop talking about it. Eventually she agreed. Later on that night though I was writing out my notes. She asked if I was writing out the story of what had happened early in the day between the two of us. I replied that I was. She replied “that’s fine as long as you don’t write anything personal about me”. I replied “that’s rather difficult to avoid because the fact that you and I were together is something rather personal”.

Actually, I suspect that the nurses are secretly, under their breath, telling me “not to be a baby” but we all have our phobias. But the situation about people in my dreams, I had a discussion about this with someone just recently. I’m not obviously in control of what goes on during the night and so I don’t usually “name and shame” people who appear. It’s bad enough that they know me at all, poor people, without being outed for it. But some people’s association with me is too well-known to be hidden behind a nickname.

There was a plot of waste land opposite out house in Crewe that actually belonged to us. One day I sat down to clear it all out. I removed most of the weeds, bushes and shrubs, and there was a stream that ran through it. When I was upstairs in the bedroom I could see that it was full of big fish swimming around. I thought that it was wonderful. From a horrible, stony limestone surface it gradually began to turn green as I watched it. I thought that with another couple of hours work we’d have a nice lawn over there with a little featured brook running through. I went outside and sorted out a few things. I had an old Ford Thames van … "a Thames 400E" – ed … parked in the street with no tax and no MoT so I pushed that onto there too. In the end it was really looking quite nice and I was quite impressed with it

There actually was a patch of waste land (almost) opposite the family home in Davenport Avenue when we moved there in 1970. And the story of the fish relates presumably to the fish farming from the other day.

Later on I was working in the despatching of the ambulance company. One of the drivers came in towards the end of his shift and said that he had to go to fuel up his taxi ready for the morning. He asked if he could still keep the same car for tomorrow morning. I said that there’s no reason why he shouldn’t but he’d have to let me know what number it is so that I could mark it down on the sheets. He went outside and I heard his car start so I called him up on the radio and asked him to tell me his number but he didn’t reply and drove out. Then I was in the car with him after that. he said that he still had to go to pick up fuel and his car was number 210. I noted “210” on the sheets and he set off. He drove through Crewe down Badger Avenue and up to Bradfield Road at probably 100 mph. Someone pulled out a little further ahead and he said “look at that person there! No respect for anyone else. I whispered to the other passenger and said “said he, driving at 100mph through the town”. We turned onto Bradfield Road and he said “I hope that the petrol station down here is still open”. When we passed over the railway bridge there was a queue of taxis, the biggest queue you have ever seen. he looked at me and said “all of these will be alright for you, Eric” because of course they were Crewe taxis. He swung round and pulled up onto the station with a big line of vehicles but he weaved his way up the inside and went to an empty pump to fuel the car. There was a van next to us. Our driver had a jerry can and went to fill the car and the jerry can. The woman next to us was pumping diesel and it smelt horrible. he said “that’s a disgusting diesel, isn’t it?”. I replied “it’s the low sugar stuff so it doesn’t smoke and clog up your injectors”. he replied “I can’t think why people use it so I repeated that it doesn’t smoke and doesn’t clog up the injectors.

There is actually a petrol station where this one in the dream was situated. But the whole place being saturated in taxis is most unlikely, particularly as many as there were parked around there last night. But despite all that I have said about Crewe in the past, they do stop and fuel up their cars with diesel. There’s not one single driver left in the town today who stops at the stables to fuel up his cab with a nosebag full of oats

There was also a dream where I was with some friends of my own age. maybe we were at school, I don’t know. Someone turned up with some parcels and I wondered what this was all about because it was nearly Christmas. It turned out that it was a girl who had left. She’d sent some of us some presents and one of them was for me. It looked as if it might have been a cake. I thought “this is nice of her”. When I looked at it, it was the wrapping that resembled the cake. When I undid it, it was a board game all about growing your crops, harvesting them and making all kinds of vegetarian and vegan food, which I thought was really wonderful. One of two of the others then received some strange board games from this girl too. I thought “this is a really nice idea. I shall have to try to find where this shop is and investigate it for myself to see what else they had that I could maybe give as presents to other people”.

That game actually sounds quite interesting and I wonder how it could be made to work. There’s an on-line course doing the rounds on OpenLearn about making a game app for a smartphone and I’ve been debating about using my dialysis spells to catch up with a few more short courses. This game app one might be interesting, with this idea as its theme.

I’d been in Northampton and was heading back out towards the motorway with “that” Liz. We’d gone a different way this time to see what was alongside the motorway the other way. We ended up in this town but didn’t recognise it. It was a very modern town with a huge distribution centre for a supermarket, one of the ones in red, right at the end of the main street. We parked up and walked out to have a look round. We asked these two boys the name of the place. They wanted to know why we were here if we didn’t know where we were. We explained that we’d been to Northampton and wanted to go back a different way. He began to ask passers-by “which is the best way from here to reach the motorway?”. He told us that this place was called TW17. He then went to a travel agent’s to ask her where she could send him on a flight while we decided that we’d go for a look around and maybe have a meal. I set off to find the car to park it somewhere better so that we’d have time to eat.

So here’s “that” Liz back yet again. We had someone who sat on a University Committee on which we served who lived in Northampton and we went there a couple of times. But Liz was more of a friend with her partner and she unfortunately sought her release from her difficulties in an extremely tragic way and we never went again. One thing is certain though. None of this took place in Shepperton.

Next task was to watch the football, Stranraer at home to high-flying Stirling Albion, and against the run of play demolish them 3-0 even though a friend of mine from University days plays in goal for Stirling Albion.

And hats off to Robbie Foster. A big, burly, clumsy but quick and powerful centre-forward, out of his depth at this level of football but due to an injury crisis of epic proportions, forced into the side for the last couple of months.

He knows where to be and what to do – he has all of the strikers’ instincts, but he’s just not able to do it. No-one on any football field ever has ever tried harder than him and today he had his reward when he muscled his way into the path of a loose ball and prodded it home

But one day someone is going to give the “man of the match” award to eighteen year-old Josh Lane, forced into goal for the first team for the last few games. A nervous start a few weeks ago but the last few matches he has pulled off some wonderful saves to give his team a fighting chance.

If you are interested in the highlights, you can SEE THEM HERE

Today’s work was to edit a series of radio programme notes that I’d dictated last night, and prepare or complete the programmes.

The first one was a concert that I stumbled upon in Germany in 1981. I’d written the notes the other day and they were the first that I’d dictated.

By the time that I’d finished the editing I was almost four minutes over, but that was part of the plan because there were several short tracks that I could edit out to fit everything down. So one track then went, a pile of applause and other “irrelevances” followed and it all went together quite nicely

There were two “extra tracks” for the two programmes that I’d prepared last Sunday, and I managed to resolve one of them and complete the programme before lunch.

Lunch was a fresh bread roll cut in half and transformed into “cheese and tomato on toast” in the air fryer. And it really was delicious too. I shall do all of this again too.

This afternoon I attacked the remaining programmes and despite stopping to make a full-sized loaf of bread, I finished bang on the moment as the telephone rang. I’m convinced that Rosemary mounted a camera in this apartment when she was last here.

Our chat today was only a small one, just one hour and three minutes. And the most exciting news is that Myrtille the cat goes to sleep under the bed but when Rosemary awakens, the cat is asleep on the foot of the bed. I’ll give it two weeks before they are both curled up together.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … no-one I ever knew ever won a battle with a cat.

After a half-hour break I went to make my pizza. And it’s another one of the “best ever made” pizzas. My loaf was perfection itself too . it all seems to be working fine these days. What I think has been happening is that firstly my technique is improving and secondly, I think that my water measurer is inaccurate. If I use more water than suggested in the recipe it works so much better.

So having done all of my work, I’m having a Day of Rest tomorrow. Well-earned too, I reckon. If only I could work as hard as this all the time.

If I had worked as hard as this when I was at school I probably would have had a different path. I had this discussion with Nerina once and she asked me "what would you have done?"
"I would have been a criminal lawyer" I replied
"How far did you go in your studies?" she asked me.
"Only half-way, I’m afraid" I said. "I still have to do the ‘lawyer’ part."

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Saturday 22nd February 2025 – I WAS BACK …

… here early this evening which made a lovely change. Mainly because I set out earlier to the dialysis centre. The taxi was well in advance. At least the driver sent me a message to say he would be here early, which is always a good idea.

Unfortunately though, I couldn’t emulate that last night going to bed. That night or two where I really cracked on and had things done early seems to be just an unexpected flash in the pan and I can’t repeat that, much as I would like to.

By the time that I’d finished my notes and done what I needed to do it was well after 23:00 and even later by the time I went to sleep in my nice clean bedding, having found the pillow case that had somehow gone missing from the wash the other week.

It was a turbulent night of the kind that I had when I was going through that cycle a few weeks ago and it was a very weary, bedraggled me that crawled out from under the covers when the alarm went off.

In the bathroom I remembered the sample that they need at the dialysis centre but forgot to shave and change my clothes for fresh ones. Emilie the Cute Consultant won’t be too impressed with me if she’s there today

The kitchen was next, and all of the medication. There’s a lot less than there used to be when I was going through that crisis six months ago, but it’s still an impressive quantity all the same. I wish that I could turn back the clock before my kidneys gave out and I was on just four per day.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been. And I’d travelled far during the night as well. I fell asleep quite quickly and found myself in the doctor’s discussing phallic symbols with him, I’m not sure exactly why but I wasn’t asleep very long and that’s hardly surprising.

Strangely enough I can’t remember dictating that – or even being awake at all at that particular moment. I thought that I would have remembered something about phallic symbols if it had been going on in my head. It’s not the kind of thing that you forget.

And then Nerina came round to my place of work last night. There was some kind of talk about a Trade Union meeting taking place in Manchester where the Trade Union Executive Committee was having its quarterly meeting. Someone was giving an account. They were talking about how they completed so much work, how it was sometimes quite emotional and how wen everyone went out into breakout rooms the observers were shared out between the rooms so that they could go to see. This person who had been on the Monday was extremely impressed. I was sitting tight up in a corner with Nerina. She turned and whispered to me in my ear “next time we ought to go to see this meeting”. I asked her if she really wanted to go because it was not something to which she had shown any particular interest before, but she was quite adamant about it so I decided that I’d make a few enquiries and see how we could go there. But I was actually with her and the two of us were so close together and so tight up in the corner.

That’s the kind of dream that brought back a few happy memories of former times. As for Trades Unions, I served on the Executive Committee of the Students’ Union at University and held a few other posts as well, such as Chair of the branch of students of Northern Europe. Those were the days after I’d taken early retirement from work and was looking for something to do. However I went back to work later, first covering for someone on maternity leave at General Electric’s training school in Brussels and then at that weird American company where I met Alison

And then it was my birthday so I had invited a lot of people round to my apartment, mostly friends from the University. They were all ages and they really were a bizarre bunch. Then at the end of the night I settled down in the armchair to go to sleep. Liz who was there as well, she settled down in the other armchair to go to sleep. Various other people settled down in all kinds of various other settees and chairs and prepared to spend the night. First thing was that I had to get up to go to the bathroom and come back down again. Liz came with me but she disappeared off somewhere. Gradually one by one other people began to disappear too. I began to wonder where they were going. There was a group of two people sitting on the sofa who suddenly began to awaken and eat chocolates again. A third person went along to sit on the sofa and join in with them. I asked them “is the party starting up again?”.

“That” Liz (not “this” Liz) has featured in several dreams just recently, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. In a fortnight’s time it will be sixteen years since she died. She came from the North-East of England and served on the same University committees as I did. As she couldn’t drive, she used to travel with me from one meeting to the next. Back in 2006 we were on our way from a meeting of the Disabled Students in Bristol to another meeting in Gosforth when we stopped for a meal in a pub near Oswestry, when into the dining room came the very same girlfriend from school with whom I was chatting yesterday. And despite it being 35 years later, you could have put her in her school uniform and she would have looked exactly the same as she did back then at school

Finally, In that dream … "which dream?" – ed … there was a moment when I was in the office. I was wandering around outside in all of the buildings that were there. I came across a woman who was walking around. I was the only person in the office at that time so I wondered who she was. She wondered who I was too so I told her which building I was in and asked her if she knew which one it was. She said that “it’s the one right down there at the entrance” so I imagined that she did. I ended up walking down a corridor where I saw someone else. Then I came into my room where everyone else was. I sat down on the sofa and then had to stand up, but suddenly realised that I couldn’t stand up sitting on the sofa. I had to go through all kinds of strange manoeuvres like leaning my back against the wall trying to push up with my ankles so that I was in an upright position in order that I might be able to stand up and move

That is actually my big fear – falling over, because I can’t pick myself back upright again if I do. When I fell over in an Underground station in Montréal in 2022 a couple of passers-by had to pick me up. It was difficult then, and I have even less control over my muscles today than I did back then. As for the “office”, the image that I have in my head is the hospital in Paris, which is in fact a collection of individual buildings on a campus.

There was more to it that all of that too, but you don’t want to know about it, especially if you are eating your tea right now.

The nurse was later than usual today and didn’t hang around at all. He didn’t even have time to ring the doorbell from downstairs to warn me that he was here. He was in and out in a matter of seconds.

Not that I’m complaining of course. I could make breakfast and carry on reading MY BOOK

Today we are discussing medieval fishponds and the delights of catching, cooking and eating a nice fresh bream “in its jacket”. In my opinion, he’s welcome to it. Even when I used to eat fish, oily, pungent fish like that was not to my taste at all.

Back in here I sorted out the bills that I needed to pay, dealt with all of that, and then finished off my Welsh homework so that I could have a day off to relax on Monday.

Some time round about then I had the ‘phone call from the driver who is going to take me to Avranches. Would it be OK to come round fifteen minutes earlier?

“No problem” I replied. The sooner we start, the sooner we finish (in theory) and I sent a brief note to my cleaner.

Just as I finished my homework she put in an appearance. Perfect timing, that. She sorted out my anaesthetic patches and then I had to wait for the taxi.

We had to pick up that woman who lives at the back of the dialysis centre and we arrived at the centre at about 13:05 which was rather early, because they don’t open the doors until 13:15.

For a change I was second to be dealt with, which suited me fine. I could settle down and watch the football.

A real bottom-of-the-table clash between Aberystwyth and Y Drenewydd, and it looked it too. Y Drenewydd were quite poor but Aberystwyth were dreadful and on this form they’ll find the second tier rather tough going. They look like a team that is already resigned to its fate.

The manager, interviewed afterwards, didn’t pull any punches about his team’s lack of fight but the problem lies with the club. Four years ago they had quite a strong team but a whole raft of players left and the ones who have come in haven’t been able to replace the quality and it’s been downhill ever since.

Unfortunately I fell asleep after that for a few minutes and then carried on tidying up and updating the travelling laptop.

Early in, early out which is good news and I was back here by 18:45, and I wish that I could do that every trip instead of some of these ridiculously late returns home that we have had.

Tea was a burger on a bap, some red-hot chili burgers that I found in the freezer. Certainly different, and quite enjoyable, especially with baked potato and vegan salad, followed by date bread and soya dessert. And it’s the first time in well over a week that I’ve felt like eating a proper meal.

So now I have things to dictate and then I’m off to bed. Loads of editing tomorrow, bread making and probably a few other things too, if I feel like it. But that’s not always obvious at this time of night.

But seeing as we have been talking about that meal in that pub near Oswestry … "well, one of us has" – ed … I told a little joke and the ex let out a sigh.
"Ohh Eric" she said. "You told me that joke when we were at school!"
"Yes that’s as may be" I replied. "I don’t change the material. I just change the audience"
"That’s why Eric likes travelling with me" said “that” Liz. "I have such a dreadful memory that he tells me a joke one day, then tells me again the next day and because I’ve already forgotten it I hear it again for the first time and laugh once more."

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Thursday 20th February 2025 – I WAS RIGHT …

… the other day when I prophesied how I would be feeling today after dialysis. Not only have I gone back to square one, I have fallen off the edge of the board. I can’t be doing with too many more of these dialysis sessions.

However, I have to carry on for the rest of my life and if it goes like this for much longer, that won’t be too far away.

Last night I was in bed rather later than previous, but not at an unreasonable hour. It was before midnight, at least. However we were back at the awakening shortly after midnight and staying awake for several hours.

And even if I did manage to go back to sleep, I was awake again at about 05:50 and when the alarm went off at 07:00 I was already up and about. No point in staying in bed when I have things to do.

We had the usual routine of bathroom and kitchen, and then back here, the dictaphone was next.

There was a group of us singing that Supertramp song “Schooldays” while there was a radio presenter talking about presenting the song, about what was actually behind it. A couple of people who were with us were quite young and obviously wouldn’t have remembered the song when it came out originally but this was one of those things where I was quite young too so it must have been the first time that I heard it. It was one of these anthem-type singers and there was a couple of other people there too but I can’t remember very much about what they were doing.

SCHOOLDAYS is actually a song by Gentle Giant, but let’s not be carried away by the minutiae. It’s impressive that I could even remember the song seeing as it’s one of the Gentle Giant songs that I can live without.

There were then two girls had stowed away in an aeroplane. They had been arrested and imprisoned there while the ‘plane took off to fly them home. There was a problem there with one of the engines on the ‘plane and the crew was busy doing some work on it in mid-flight. Under cover of the noise that the crew was making to hit this engine with a hammer the girls were chiselling away at the side of the aeroplane to make a hole ready for them to escape when the ‘plane landed. Suddenly the hole gave way and one of the girls was sucked out in the air pressure. She disappeared into nowhere. The other girl was left there just looking at it. She suddenly thought “well perhaps maybe this is the moment for her to escape”. She ended up next falling out of the ‘plane but her clothing was hooked onto a jagged edge and she was there suspended outside the ‘plane, thinking “this is wonderful, I’m flying! How marvellous it is!”. Suddenly her clothing gave way and she cascaded out. She was immediately in a panic about this but realising that there was nothing that she could do she just sat back and admired the view from 30,000 feet. She could see that she was about to hit the water on the edge of the coast just off the beach. The water couldn’t have been very deep. She hit the water and managed to walk away. She was rescued and taken to a local Air Force base where she broke down and had an emotional crisis. She could never concentrate on her career on the Air Force again. She resigned four or five times, her marriage had fallen to pieces with her being in such an emotional state but of course she was lucky to be alive.

Bizarrely, I can see them even now as they fell from the ‘plane. I was a few hundred feet underneath them, looking up. And I can still see the second one as she fell and hit the water. And she wouldn’t walk away from that. The water is a lot harder than you might think, especially if you were to fall from 30,000 feet. I’m not surprised that she had an emotional outburst or two subsequently.

Nerina and I had gone on holiday again, driving around the UK looking at different places. We’d ended up in New York driving around. Then I ended up walking around somewhere. I’d seen an old disused railway line that used to run down to the port so when I was back in New York a couple of years later I went to look for this railway line and began to follow it. I had to cross a street and this street was so, so wide that it took me an age to cross over. There was a lorry coming in the distance and I thought that I would never ever reach the other side in time before the lorry would arrive. It was miles. On the other side I saw a strange-looking building so I went to have a look. As I put my head inside the door a voice said “don’t stand there, come on in”. I couldn’t see anyone who had said anything so I went in. It was like a small community centre with a table tennis table, some comfortable chairs and a couple of annexes. There was a coffee bar so I ordered myself a coffee and went to sit down. Back in the car later on Nerina was feeling tired or something. I was listening to music. She said “you couldn’t put music on your headphones, could you? On the car ‘phone put a track of complete and utter silence so that I could sleep?”. I thought “why not?” so I was busy trying to programme the telephone in the car that it would play the longest possible track which would be called “Silence”.

Crossing this street resembles somewhere where I’ve been in the past, although the road was nothing like as wide as this. I’m wondering if it might have been NEW BERN where the railway does actually run down the centre of the main street. However, in this dream there was a very big green park on the far side of the road.

The nurse was late today. I recon that he was on his bike because he brought his rucksack inside with him. He didn’t have much to say for himself today and was soon gone so that I could press on.

Breakfast and MY BOOK were next. But as far as the book goes, I didn’t read it for long. I had too much to do and in any case, the events of modern times are not as interesting as what I’ve been reading to date, in my opinion.

Yesterday, I said that I’d catch up on correspondence, so that’s what I’ve been doing. I reckon that I’m as up-to-date as I have been so if you are awaiting a reply and you haven’t had it, let me know. The chances are that I’ve forgotten or overlooked it.

Having dealt with that I pushed on and attacked the Welsh homework. It would be nice if I could finish that before Monday, then I can have Monday morning off which would be a nice change.

My cleaner turned up to fit my patches and then I had to wait for the taxi. And although it was a little in advance, it made no difference because it was running late for another passenger’s appointment at the clinic on the other side of Avranches so I had the round trip

Dialysis was about as painful as normal, and I had the pleasure of the company of the unsociable doctor today. He’s wondering if I have an infection so they took a blood sample and on Saturday I have to take in …. errr … another type of sample.

The Social Security regulations are beginning to bite too. We have a new patient in dialysis today. He lives out in the sticks and used to go to St-Lô but the Sécu reckons that it’s closer for him to go to Avranches. So here he is.

Late in, I was late out too. It was my usual Saturday evening driver who brought me home, pretty much in silence too. I’m not sure why he’s suddenly gone quiet but these days he doesn’t have much at all to say.

Climbing up here was a struggle, given how I’m feeling. And tea was a handful of pasta and veg in a tomato sauce. I don’t have the morale, the courage or the energy to do much else.

So even though it’s really early, I’m off to bed, hoping that the sleep will do me good and I’ll feel better in the morning. That would really be nice, but I doubt it.

But seeing as we have been talking about archaeology … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of my friends once asked me "why are archaeologists so popular on these dating sites?"
"I’ve no idea" I replied
"Its because they spend most of their time dating these ancient and unusual ruins"

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Wednesday 19th February 2025 – STRANGELY ENOUGH …

… last night was almost an identical carbon-copy replica of much of the previous one.

Awakening shortly after midnight and not going to sleep for several hours afterwards. There’s something bizarre happening right now and I wish I knew exactly what it was. or maybe I don’t. Some questions are best left unanswered.

One of the questions to which I wish that I did have the answer is “how come I finished so early last night?”. It was like back in the old days back on the farm when I would finish everything by 21:30 and then watch a video or a DVD until bedtime.

In fact haven’t seen a film for many weeks, the last time being halfway through LORD OF THE RINGS. But then again, these days I am far more engrossed in my reading matter and it’s probably a more healthy pursuit anyway.

So even catching up on a couple of missed football matches (like the local derby of Llay Miners’ Welfare v Gresford Athletic in the Welsh Second Tier) I was still in bed way before 23:00. And it’s been a good while since I’ve been able to say that.

It seemed to be an age before I fell asleep but it can’t have been that long because at 00:20 I was back awake again. Wide awake too, to such an extent that at one point I was actually up and about. But I soon thought better of it and went back to bed, where I did finally manage to go back to sleep.

When the alarm went off I was dead to the World and rising up from my bed was quite the struggle. It really was touch-and-go for beating the second alarm.

In the bathroom I had a good wash and scrub up and then went into the kitchen to take my medication and notice that I’d forgotten to fill the water carafe and put it in the fridge before going to bed last night.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I alighted from the bus at Shavington, at the “Sugar Loaf” and began to thumb a lift to take me down to the family home. Eventually, a strange three-wheeled van went past, something similar to a Reliant but with a kind-of fastback rear with two aerials on the back sticking out of the roof. It shuddered to a halt just round the corner so I wandered round there and there was a woman. When I opened the door to see who it was, there was a woman sitting in the driver’s seat carrying a huge bunch of flowers which protruded onto the passenger seat side of the car. I asked her if she could take me to Vine Tree Avenue. She said yes, if I didn’t mind a bunch of flowers on my head. So we set out, and she said “when I saw you there earlier you had a Value Village bag in your hand. What was in it?”. “Probably some flour” I replied. So we arrived and I alighted from the car with my things. There were a few people standing around at the top of the garden. We had a friendly chat. I’d put my things down on the floor while I was talking so then instead of picking up my things I kicked them down the hill. There was a jumper and a bag of something or other that might have been the flour. I was also (…carrying a mug of hot…) tea. I was halfway through kicking these things down the hill when I thought “this is going to be dangerous because if I miss my kick like this I’m going to end up on my face with this hot cup of tea all over me”.

If I’m going to hitch-hike for a trip that I could walk in five minutes I’m clearly doing something wrong. But Value Village is the Canadian equivalent of a charity shop. They don’t have isolated charity shops scattered around here and there in the town like in the UK but one big one where the different-coloured price labels indicate which charity supplied the goods. If you look in my collection of books and CDs you’ll see plenty of Value Village labels. There’s stuff available in Canada that never made it over into Europe and which turns up in a Value Village.

As for me being forewarned about doing myself a mischief, I wish that it was like that in real life. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I never make mistakes. I just learn a lot of lessons and for some of them I pay a very expensive price.

The nurse was almost human today, and that makes a change. If he keeps going like this he might even become normal by the end of his spell on duty. But he did confirm a rumour that I have heard before – that they could well be opening a dialysis centre in Granville. That would save me a good hour every day at least.

After he left, I made breakfast and carried on reading MY BOOK. We’ve finished the Saxons, passed over the Norse voyagers and moved into the Norman era.

So far, there has been nothing particularly controversial, although I did have a smile when I read his remark that "the Saxons were not by habit builders of military earthworks at all. At their first coming they seem to have made few or none : theirs was not a military invasion but an immigration, and one need no more look for extensive traces of earthworks to mark it than one looks for them in the track of the Pilgrim Fathers of the New England States."

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that on our way down to South Carolina and Rhys’s wedding in 2005 we stopped off at ROANOKE ISLAND and went for a look around at the fort (or, rather, its site) of the very first English colonists of North America that the “Lost Colonists” built some forty years before the Pilgrim Fathers.

He further states that "Earthworks, except where they mark a deliberate military occupation like that of the Romans or of the Normans, are the work not of the people who attack, but of those attacked." which will certainly come as news to whoever wasted all that money building all of those stone castles in England in the thirteenth and fourteenth Century.

Back in here afterwards I started on the next radio programme and by the time I knocked off – at 17:30, would you believe, I’d chosen all of the music, tracked down that which I didn’t haven edited, remixed, paired and segued it and even written all of the notes. If that’s not a good day’s work I don’t know what is.

There were several breaks too in the middle of all of that. No lunch, but still a break for the lunchtime medication.

Next was my cleaner and a shower, and much as I need a great deal of motivation in order to make myself climb into the bathtub (roll on when I have a walk-in shower downstairs) I really do feel better for it.

Finally, there was the disgusting drink break. I seem to have quite a collection of these disgusting drinks right now. There’s the anti-potassium stuff and then this protein drink. All of this medication really is a torture.

Having finished work early I relaxed for a couple of hours as a little reward to myself, well-earned, in my opinion, and then went to make tea. A left-over curry with naan bread. Only a half-size curry but I still had to battle with it to finish it all, but the naan was delicious.

So I’ll be off to bed and home for some sleep tonight. Tomorrow I’m going to have a correspondence morning before I head off to dialysis. And see what they have to tell me about anything.

But yesterday, regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we were talking … "well, one of us was" – ed … about cutting your losses and starting afresh.
A few years ago I was talking to Nerina about that.
Her response was "I suppose that that explains it"
"Explains what?" I asked
"Why your parents had more children after you" she answered

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Tuesday 11th February 2025 – I DON’T KNOW …

… about anything that happened today. It was one of those days where nothing seemed to go to plan, even from the very start. In fact, this is probably going to be a week to forget, all in all.

Last night was rather later than I intended it to be, what with one thing and another. Well after midnight, in fact. And not everything that I wanted to be done was done either.

It had been my aim to finish off the Welsh homework before going to bed but with the head full of spaghetti that I had on my shoulders, I abandoned the plan and left it for another day. There was the radio programme that I’d edited at the dialysis centre that I wanted to send off, but that was left too.

Once in bed it took a while to go off to sleep and then it was a very disturbed night as is usual after a dialysis session, waking up here and there and perspiring like there is no tomorrow

When the alarm went off I hauled myself out of bed with the utmost difficulty and then staggered off into the bathroom to sort myself out, and then into the kitchen for the medication.

Back in here I started to transcribe the dictaphone notes but was surprised by the amount of stuff on there. I’d only finished about half of it when Isabelle the Nurse turned up, and she wasn’t early either. I’m not going to have the homework done this morning either, am I?

She and I had a little chat about nothing much and after she left I made breakfast and read MY NEW BOOK

Our author has made a couple of points that are extremely curious. He notes that at Worlebury Camp, overlooking Weston-Super-Mare, where there are according to him, unmistakeable signs of Roman siege and conquest, the skulls of the deceased, complete with battle-wounds, are "the long-headed (Iberian) type, and suggest that at the date in question the dominant race in south-western Britain were the descendants of those Iberians who had preceded the round-headed Brythonic race, and who had been ousted by them from the more easterly parts of the island."

Anyone remember when we were discussing stone circles, menhirs … "PERSONShirs" – ed … and none at all?

Secondly, "Incredible as it must seem to anyone who tries to realize the labour involved in the building of any great camp, it seems none the less to be the fact that many of them were planned and constructed according to one original design."

And if that really is the case (and after all, he’s the expert), given the number of different races and tribes, the time period and the distance to travel, it’s probably the most interesting thing that I have read on the whole subject.

Back here, I revised for my Welsh, complete with a full pot of coffee because I needed it. And I don’t know what I would have done without it because even so, the lesson, well, let’s just say that it did not go as I would have wished, and I was glad when it was over.

After lunch I came back in here and carried on with the dictaphone notes, and as I said earlier, I was surprised by how many there were. I dreamed that I was in a scrapyard looking for all bits and pieces of a car. I couldn’t see what I wanted. It was the springs that retained the headlight in. They were tiny micro-springs. I’d had three and I had put them down but when I went to look again I couldn’t see them. They were so small. I was hunting again. In the meantime two guys turned up in a red MkIII saloon with a black vinyl roof. They had parked their car on a trailer while they had gone off to the pub. Someone told them about their car on someone else’s trailer so they just took their car off the pile and just rolled it down the hill into the scrap. They said “well never mind. We only paid £50:00 for this. Immediately everyone swarmed over to it to strip it for spares as they did in the old days. I went to have a look and someone asked me if I needed anything. I told him that I was looking for an old tax disc holder, the type that suckered on to your window but which had an aerial connector in it. People remembered those from years ago but no-one had seen one. I’d looked at a couple of car tax discs of cars that were ‘S’ reg in 1977/78 but there was nothing around there at all. In the end I left and had to stop at a road junction while a big group of soldiers who were on a military parade marched past where I was standing.

Cars for £50:00. Anyone remember those days? And Nerina and I once drove all the way around Central and Eastern Europe in one that cost £25:00, and on another occasion in a different car at the same price all the way round the South of France.

‘And ‘S’ registered cars from 1977/78? I’m really impressed that I could remember that in a dream as well. But as for cars in scrapyards, I’ve done more than my share of scrapyard scavenging in the past

Later on I was with a group of people. One was a small girl. It was a girl whom I’d seen so many times before and we’d always had a laugh and a joke. Then I mentioned something about taking her out and she said “yes, fine!” she said. “When should we go?” or something like that so I hadn’t realised that she was serious but I was ready to take her then and there practically

There is more to this than meets the eye too. However, let me guess. Small as in “one whom I could throw over my shoulder and carry off to bed” I suppose. But me Getting The Girl in a dream? It’s a good job that this dream ended before my family came along to spike my guns as they usually do at the crucial moment

There was also something else about buses in Alsager, driving buses out towards Kidsgrove and the back of Stoke on Trent at Werrington, etc, but it was something to do with the arrangement of fares, keeping fares down and buses not going into anyone else’s territory but I can’t remember that

Later yet, I was living in an apartment in a modern block of flats in Brussels but I’d bought the apartment downstairs to where I’m going to move, so I’d given my notice to the landlord. He’d put the property in the newspapers and was arranging visits. The first visit came when I was really unexpecting it so the place wasn’t very tidy at all. It was a nice youngish guy, quite tall, who was shown around. He noticed the Tesla that I had in a wooden box that was a pre-war spark generator sitting in the bottom of the room on top of the piano so we had a discussion about that. Then he asked me a few more questions then he decided to leave. He talked about decorating but I told him that I moved here and didn’t do anything. It didn’t bother me, the decorations being a little tired but he said that maybe he could move into one room and decorate all round him. As he left the Estate Agents gave me all of the duplicate keys that I’d never actually had to the property. As he left he asked me a question about the television. Were the “Free” company’s services available here? I told him that I didn’t know. As he left I noticed another couple waiting in the hall. I thought that I wished that I’d known that there were going to be all these visits because I could have tidied up the property. He did ask me before he went if he could come back and have another look. He wanted to come back at 07:30 so I shuddered but said “yes, it’s not a problem” so at that point he left.

Me? An untidy apartment? Perish the thought! And I wish that I had a pre-war Tesla spark generator lying around here somewhere. But the apartment – we’ve been in that apartment before in another nocturnal ramble, a long time ago when I drove a car into the centre of Brussels round the big Basilica. It’s strange how these things crop up so far apart in time.

Did I dictate this dream where I was in a cheap hotel somewhere? … "no you didn’t" – ed … There was a crowd of people in the room with me. The bath was across the end of the room and there was a glass partition in it that only covered a part of the bath. I decided that I’d take a bath. I went in there and began to run the water but the bath didn’t fill up. Then I found that the plug wasn’t in so I had to put it in. It was still not filling up. I saw that the water was cascading out of the joint of the immersion heater. By the time that there was anything like some water in the bath it was cold. I didn’t really fancy the bath but I thought that I needed one. There were all these people there too. Next thing that I remember, I was outside. It was 18:30. I didn’t have time for the bath because we were going to a nearby café for a meal, so I thought that I’d have to hurry up

The idea of me having a bath is interesting too. Leaving aside the fact that I couldn’t climb out of a bath these days, I would prefer a shower any day of the week. And a cold bath? In my case, that’s water at 36.9°C

Later, I was with Zero’s father and a couple of small boys was asking me that he had to go to school and tell them how a carburettor worked . I asked him if he knew how a carburettor worked. He said a few words but obviously didn’t understand the basic principles. We went down to one of the cars. Zero’s father handed a set of keys to me but I couldn’t make them work. In the end I put the key in the other way round. It worked so I could open the bonnet and we began to discuss the carburettor. Zero’s father was there but he kept on confusing the matter. I was trying to make things as simple as possible for this little boy and he was just complicating them by giving long technical explanations that were not really what was needed, not for a boy in Primary School anyway.

There are always some people who will take a simple explanation and complicate it unnecessarily, who don’t seem to realise exactly who their audience is and the purpose of what you are trying to explain. It’s like our author, Arthur Hadrian Allcroft, who is writing for an audience that excludes about 75% of the population. I realise that the aim of any kind of education is to bring people up to a higher level, but how far up are some of these people sitting?

How depressing is it though that Zero’s father is there and not Zero herself?

Believe it or not, that took me up to afternoon nasty drink break and then I had bread to make as I have all-but run out. That took longer than anticipated but I do have to say that the loaf that I made is perfection itself. It couldn’t possibly be any better. I’ll go with that any time.

There was just time for me to finish the Welsh homework before going to make my tea. And why it was so difficult I have no idea. My brain, if that’s what you call it, has ceased to function, and ceased a long time ago.

Tea was as usual a taco roll with veg and rice, followed by apple cake and soya dessert. Just as nice as ever. If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t make it.

So that’s the end of another depressing day. I’m glad that it’s over, Here’s hoping for a better day tomorrow. I shall have to try to be more optimistic

But seeing as we have been talking of cold water … "well, one of us has" – ed … those crazy Canadians with whom I spent a lot of time up in the Arctic used to love to leap into the cold water from the loading platform of THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR at every available opportunity
On one occasion deep in the North-West Passage Castor and Pollux were going to leap in with them – at MINUS 0.5°C in the water. It was about minus 10°C in the air
Castor came to look for me and asked "are you going to come and jump in with us, Eric?"
"I can’t, pet" I replied. "I have this catheter port in my chest and it can’t be immersed in salt water"
After she left, a guy who had overheard the conversation asked me "if you didn’t have that catheter port in your chest, what would you have done?"
"What would I have done?" I said. "Simple. I would have thought of another excuse."

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Wednesday 21st January 2025 – THIS TIME TOMORROW …

… I shall be having my fevered brow soothed by a bevy of nubile nurses while I’m tucked up in my comfortable bed in The Land of Grey and Pink – I mean, the Hospital Pitié-Sampetrière in Paris.

Actually, I probably won’t be, but there’s no harm in wishful thinking, is there? As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s only my imagination and my dreams that are keeping me going.

To tell the truth, I will almost certainly be in a bed in a hospital in Paris, assuming that we don’t have a calamity along the route. But as for the rest of it, who knows? And who really cares? As long as I have my imagination I can continue my desperate struggle against reality.

And the desperate struggle against fatigue too, because I have to be up and about at 06:00 in the morning. I have dialysis tomorrow before I leave for Paris, so that means a taxi at 07:45 and a session on the bed in the dialysis centre starting at 08:30.

At 07:30 this morning though I was still struggling to come to terms with being on my feet. When the alarm had gone off at 07:00 I was deep in the Arms of Morpheus and it was a real struggle to rise to my feet. However I made it into the bathroom just in time before the next alarm call went off.

There had been a lot of perspiration during the night so I needed a good wash. Emilie the Cute Consultant told me that the perspiration was usual, but if it carries on, I shall need a water bed. Then I can sail into the bathroom. Or paddle my own canoe. Or be up the creek without a paddle. I dunno.

After the medication I came in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. My brother had a MkIV Cortina. He’d had an accident in it and damaged one wing. He came to see me to see if I had another MkIV wing. At that moment I had about three MkIV Cortinas, a pale blue one that I was using as my run-around which was something of a wreck. It had no MoT or insurance. Then there were two others, one of which was a reasonably good car and the third one that I was planning to rebuild. He came round to ask if I had one so I replied that I hadn’t. Everything that I had was spoken for. Nerina said “why don’t you give him the one off the blue one? You’ll be scrapping that soon and it’ll save you the time in dismantling it if he were to take that”. I replied “that’s the car that I’m using to drive around at the moment. I can’t give him that”. We had quite a big discussion about t which became quite heated. In the meantime my brother was wandering around in the garage and came across a wing for a MkIII Cortina. he said “I’m going to break your hearts now” he said “and I’m going to take this”. I said “come here” and went into my workshop. Scrabbling around on the worktop I found the washers and bolts that had been used to hold it on. I was scrabbling around and ended up with about ten at that particular moment. He said “that’s OK, I’ll take those”. I sorted out some washers for him but he didn’t seem to want very many. I thought that a MkIII wing on a MkIV would invite lots of comment but he didn’t seem to care. But there was a question that he’d asked me about “was Ford bringing out a new car to replace the Granada?”. I replied that I’d not heard anything. There had been no executive meeting so no-one seems to know as yet.

In theory of course, a MkIII wing will fit a MkIV Cortina because they have the same chassis and A-post arrangement but as I said, it’ll look rather strange.

But I was, and still am, a big fan of the Cortina MkIII, IV and V. Practically the same car from 1970-1982 with all the mechanical parts interchangeable, they did me proud when I had my taxis. Not only did I have the cars, I’d pick up MoT failures, dismantle them for spares, sometimes repair them and until I had my health collapse after my big car accident, I was always ahead of the game.

There are still several Cortinas lying around. There’s an almost-immaculate MkV estate keeping a MkIII 2000E Cortina and a Citroen “traction avant” company in the warehouse in Montaigut, a “rare as hens-teeth and worth a fortune” MkIII 2000E estate in the barn on the farm, and an old rotten MkV saloon down the field that was going to be cut up for spares but it’s lost in the undergrowth now.

All the same though, that dream was disappointing. Nerina was there, as of course she is entitled to be, but once more we were arguing. We spent so much time arguing in real life – if only we’d stepped back, breathed, and began to talk to each other, things would have been so different. And my brother was there once again. How disappointing is that? Why can’t I summon up any one of the Fearsome Foursome to come to me during the night?

As for the Ford Granada, that relates to something that is running in a thread through my mind somewhere right now, relating to nothing in particular. But no MoT or insurance on a Cortina is a thread that’s been running through my dreams for ages, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

The nurse was early today. It’s His Nibs starting his seven days. He’s not impressed with my early start tomorrow (neither am I as it happens) and told me to keep my socks on during the night. That’s not a sound policy – not at all.

After he left, I made breakfast and read more of MY BOOK.

As I suspected, I’m right about him working up to a crescendo. With no sense of embarrassment or responsibility he’s laying in to all kinds of people. Not even the Astronomer Royal is exempt from his scorn. It really is quite shameful and how his publishers accepted it I really don’t know.

Back in here I revised for my Welsh class and then went for the lesson. Once more, it seemed to pass off quite well. However, that was then, when everything was fresh in my mind. Give me half an hour and it will all have evaporated from my teflon brain.

After lunch I had a few things to do and then I pushed on with this radio programme that I’ve been trying to finish since Sunday. Now it’s all done as far as I can, the 11th track is chosen and notes written ready to dictate on Saturday night when it’s quiet.

The next trick will be to finish the one that I started at the end of last week and have it ready for dictation on Saturday night too. I need to snap out of this depression and lethargy and push on.

And that’s the first time that I’ve said that since dialysis started.

While we’re on the subject of the radio … "well, one of us is" – ed … there was the radio programme for this weekend to review and send off, so I listened to it to make sure that it was OK.

It’s just as well that I do this because I’ve been caught out before by people dying in between the recording of the programme and its transmission. And not that I’m bragging, but this programme was recorded in May 2023.

Tea tonight was a taco roll with some of the leftover stuffing followed by chocolate cake and soya dessert. Delicious as usual.

But then I had more food to make. The food in the hospital is dreadful, I’ll be arriving late, there’s never any food that I can make. So I’m in the process of making some bread and I’ve cooked a lentil and potato mix that’s in a plastic container that they can bung in the microwave when I arrive. I have to be prepared.

Right now though, I need to be prepared for bed if I’m going to be up at 06:00. I don’t fancy that in the least, but I can always sleep while dialysis is going on.

But in our Welsh class today we were discussing War poets. And one thing that most of us had in common was that we all had had to study War poets for our ‘O’ Level English Literature exam, and without exception, it destroyed any love of poetry that we might have had.

We all agreed that it was so depressing and so miserable, but it seemed to us that the examiners were working to their own very private agenda. It wasn’t until I discovered the works of AE Housman that I began to develop a love of poetry, but I never ever want to hear another War poet again as long as I live, if I live that long.

On the other hand, I can listen to this all night and next day too – one of Housman’s poems SET TO MUSIC

Another thing that we were discussing was the early television programmes. And I remember when the BBC, in an economy drive, was selling them off to independent producers.
At one meeting the Director asked the Sales Department for the accounts.
He asked them "What did we get for ‘Larry the Lamb’?"
"According to our accounts" said the accountant "we got four shillings per pound"
"And the guy in the historical records" said the Director. "What did he get for ‘Muffin the Mule’?"
"Eighteen months, I think" replied the accountant.

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Wednesday 1st January 2025 – HAPPY NEW YEAR …

… to all my readers. Those of you whom I know and those of you who prefer to remain in the shadows of the unknown. Come and say “hello” – I don’t bite. Well, not hard, anyway. Click on the link bottom-right for a contact form.

But anyway, that’s another year done and dusted – another year which, when it began, I thought that I would never see the end. Round about Summer time I was actually writing out my will and making my funeral arrangements, but I seem to be fighting back right at the moment.

So here’s to another year with improved health and prosperity for all of you. And a great big thanks and appreciation for all of the support that you have given me over the years. You’ve no idea exactly what it means to me

For 2025 I wish you everything that you wished on everyone else in 2024 – wishes for the Conservative Party excepted, of course.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment, when the alarm went off this morning, I was off on my travels. I was with a group of people. It was something to do with a taxi business. These people were like extra-terrestrials, something like that, who didn’t belong on Earth and were wandering around here trying to find suitable humans to take back with them. There was something about an axe. I know that when the alarm went off there was a discussion going on about this axe. This axe fitted in somehow with the sound of the alarm so when the alarm went off, at first I wasn’t surprised to hear it because I thought that it was to do with the axe in the dream.

That’s right, you heard correctly. “When the alarm went off”. Brain of Britain has struck again.

It was 05:00 this morning and maybe later when I finally crawled into bed. After I’d finished what I had to do, I was playing about with this voice clone program and managed to produce some interesting effects.

But then I had a thought. If I dictated a sound-byte and recorded it, how would the voice-editing program that I use cope with it and transform the sound? After all, the voice-clone program must simply be a script editor that is changing pitch, tone and speed, so why can’t I do some of that by hand?

Admittedly, it’s much more complicated and much slower, but I could see more-or-less exactly how it’s done. In the free program at least. I imagine that the paid version is much more complicated and much quicker.

So there I was, working away producing some good results, and I noticed that it was 05:00. It’s a good job that I told the nurse to clear off. I cleared off too, into the bathroom to find my nightclothes and make myself ready for bed.

Then, of course, we hit a problem. Brain of Britain, who had been looking forward to a lovely, uncluttered lie-in where he could sleep until he awoke, for once in his life, had forgotten to switch off the alarm. That was the last thing that I needed.

But the dream itself was interesting. On our way up the hill from the railway station to the hospital in Avranches, we go past the “Battle Games” place where one of the entertainments on offer is of “throwing the axes” and I’ve often expressed an interest in going there to see what happens.

My taxi business ran in South Cheshire. Nerina and I had cars in Crewe and in Sandbach, so an extra-terrestrial, someone from another World and a more-advanced lifestyle would be anyone who comes from outside the boundaries of the Crewe and Nantwich and the Congleton Borough Councils.

After all of the drama I actually did manage to go back to sleep, and awoke at a much-more-reasonable 11:30. still not exactly the sleep that I wanted but I suppose that it will have to do.

It was 11:40 when I actually made it out of bed so it’s a good job that I told Isabelle the Nurse not to ‘phone me at 11:30.

After the usual trip to the bathroom I went into the kitchen to prepare my brunch.

Unfortunately, the hash brown mix that I made last week hadn’t survived. That’s a shame because I love hash browns, especially the ones that we have in Canada that I can’t find anywhere else unless I make them myself.

But no matter. With the fry-up in the air fryer, along with the sausages and baked beans with cheese I had a tomato and some mushrooms and all of that went down a treat on toast, along with porridge, more toast with cheese spread, grape juice and, of course, loads of strong black coffee. That’s what I call a good breakfast, but it’s still a shame about the hash browns.

While I was eating, I was reading MY BOOK.

We spent a lot of time discussing religion, but now he’s coming round to the first Roman invasion of the British Isles. He’s already mentioned the mass of human bones entangled with weapons, found in the Thames near Battersea, and he speculates that this was where the Romans tried to force a passage across the Thames.

He notes the difficulty of explaining all of the Celtic shields and the like in there, from a period well back from when the Romans arrive, so in the end he considers it unlikely to be the site. However, arms and armour were expensive items and I’ve seen all kinds of early Medieval wills where arms and armour were passed down from one generation to the next, and there’s no reason to suppose that in the pre-Roman days there was any change in this practice. So it’s quite possible that arms and armour from 200 years earlier might have been at any battle against the Romans.

But whatever they were doing in the Thames, some of the artefacts, such as “The Battersea Shield”, are magnificent examples of Celtic art.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I was during the night – or morning, more like. I was back in the Middle Ages later. There was something going on about promoting some kind of death insurance. It was the custom to wrap the dead in a shroud and hang them in the shroud from a hook. You would then take the shroud with the deceased inside and carry it to an undertaker. That was the limit of your duties – everything else would be dealt with automatically. I was surprised that there was this kind of thing going on back in those days but anyway …

Can you imagine that – rows of dead wrapped in bandages and shrouds like mummies and people unhooking them to carry them off? It’s a frightening thought and I wonder what on earth was going on during the day to put something like that into my head.

Apart from that, I’ve not done all that much at all today. I just loitered around in a relaxed frame of mind, totally forgetting until just now that I have bills to pay. I’ll have to do that tomorrow morning and I mustn’t forget.

Tea tonight was a taco roll and rice with veg, followed by the last of the Christmas pudding and some custard. There is still plenty of Christmas food left, like mince pies, Christmas cake, dates, biscuits and all of that. In fact I’ve hardly eaten any of my special supplies.

There’s a roll of pastry left which needs to be used, and so I’m going to have a bit of fun one of these days and make some individual vegan pies. We’re at the stage where the stocks in the freezer are running down and I need to be more imaginative with my baking. I’ll make a lentil and tofu mix, with oats to bind it all together, and use it all as filling

So tomorrow it’s the Dialysis Clinic again and I am not looking forward to that. Not even a smile from Emilie the Cute Consultant would persuade me to go there with any kind of eagerness. I’ll do a few things here and there and go to bed. A long way before 05:00 if I can.

And once again, a Happy New Year, many thanks and lots of love to you all.

But going back to the story of the extra-terrestrials, a few years ago they built a big rocket in Crewe
"Where are you planning to go with that?" I asked
"It’s called “Crewe’s Missile”" said the builder "and we’re planning Crewe’s first trip into Space. We’re going to the sun"
"Don’t be ridiculous" I said. "The sun is so hot that you’ll burn up long before you arrive anywhere near it"
"Ohh no we won’t" said the man. "We aren’t that stupid. We’re planning to go at night"
But the rocket still hasn’t left Crewe. Apparently they can’t find a bottle big enough in which to put the stick

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Monday 30th December 2024 – REGULAR READERS OF …

… this rubbish will recall that HIS NIBS and I have been to the town of Lech in the Austria Tyrol ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS.

It’s a town that has some kind of significance for me. When Nerina and I were on our way to Italy on our honeymoon to see her family, we passed through Lech. We thought that the place looked lovely but being pushed for time – the story of our lives – we didn’t stop. However we vowed one day to return.

Of course, the lack of time and other factors intervened and then circumstances changed. However, I kept my vow and have been back a few times. I often wonder if she ever went back.

It wouldn’t be a good idea to go back today though. Apparently someone took nine hours just recently to dig his car out of the overnight snow that had fallen. All of that snow would have been great if I had been already there and wasn’t planning on going anywhere. It would have been like that time that I was SNOWED IN IN ANDORRA

However, I’m right here at the moment having a good think about what went on today.

Last night was quite easy. After I’d finished my notes and backed up the computer I loitered around for (quite) a while, and it was about 01:00 when I finally crawled off into my stinking pit.

Once I was in there, that was that. I remember absolutely nothing at all until the alarm went off at 08:00 (I’m still in “holiday” mode here). It was quite painless. No-one was more surprised than me that I’d slept like that.

When the alarm went off though, I was in the middle of a dream about elephants dancing in a circus and someone beating a kind of drum with a hand. Someone had offered to teach me how to dance in time to the music too but unfortunately we never came round to that because the alarm went off and that was that.

It’s just as well too. Seeing me dancing would not be a very pleasant sight and I’m glad that we were spared that.

In the bathroom I’d only just begun to wash myself when the nurse put in his appearance. Nothing else for it – he had to wait for me to finish what I was doing and so, like the White Rabbit, he would lose the time he’d saved.

We had the usual banal questions that so irritate me and then he cleared off. It’s his oppo now for the next seven days so things might be looking up.

Breakfast was next, and I read MY BOOK.

A couple of days ago, I talked about the location of specific Neolithic (or otherwise) stone circles and menhirs … "PERSONShirs" – ed … in Britain and how it looks to me as if succeeding waves of invaders have pushed the previous wave further into the less favourable areas of the British Isles and so on in further waves.

This morning he was discussing these waves of invaders (without mentioning the stone circles etc) and saying "It would be surprising if these conjectures did not attain some measure of truth ; but those who will not accept guesses even from the highest authority without testing them will perceive that they bristle with difficulties"

He seems to think though that new waves of invaders pushed their way through the existing settlers and headed freely and willingly to the less-favourable areas, something that, knowing human nature, I consider most unlikely, and he pours heaps of scorn on a writer who tell us that the latest invaders "were last in the held, were not forced to seek distant abodes, but conquered the best parts of the country which were nearest to the Continent.", a scenario that I consider to be much more likely.

Not two paragraphs further down, he speaks of the Belgae – the final wave that arrived in Britain – and says "The Belgic conquest, which brought Britain into closer connexion with the Continent, gave a powerful impetus to the spread of Late Celtic art.". Now how could they do that if they had pushed through all the others and gone to the more remote parts of the island?

After breakfast, I tidied up. I cut up the cake and the flapjack into individual helpings and put them all in tins and boxes. But I really need to make toom in the fridge. having resolved all of the difficulties about the freezer, it’s the fridge about which I’m worrying these days, wishing that I could make more room in it.

While I was at it, I started to put away the washing up from yesterday, but I need much more time than I had available to do that this morning.

My cleaner turned up to fit my anaesthetic patches, and it’s a good job that she was prompt because my 12:30 taxi turned up this morning at 12:18. There were two passengers already in it – from the Centre de Re-education on their way home to the back of beyond near Rennes, and I was being picked up and dropped off en route

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … whilst I’m not complaining about these new Social Security regulations, I’d love to know what will happen if an infectious disease springs up amongst the clients of a taxi service because of all of this.

Being early to be picked up, I was early to be dropped off too and was actually second to be plugged in, which made a change.

And while I was undergoing treatment I was reading up on the various periods of the Stone Age (Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic) and the change in existence from hunter-gatherer to settled agricultural community. As I said yesterday, the site at Hallstatt begins right at the very, very end of the Neolithic period and takes us through the Copper Age, the Bronze Age and into the Iron Age.

What had piqued my interest was the existence of Hearne’s Copper Indians – still living clearly in the Copper Age from a tools point of view but a Palaeolithic Age from the point of view of hunter-gathering.

But this takes us back to another point I raised from a couple of days ago about the survival of Palaeolithic Communities in isolated upland areas of Britain well into Neolithic times. They did it for the same reason that the Copper Indians had one foot in either of their camps – because that represents the best use of the resources that are readily and locally available.

The doctor, the uncommunicative one, came to see me too. He asked me a few more questions about my foot and later on, handed me a big envelope full of papers to hand in at Paris. Maybe he’s asking them to follow up this issue. I’ll have to have a sneaky look.

Almost-first in means almost-first out so once Alexi had unplugged me, I was out of there like a ferret up a trouser leg and a rather uncommunicative driver brought me home.

My cleaner was astonished to see me home so early, just as I was astonished to be here so early, and having climbed up the steps and used the lift, I was back in the warmth of my apartment. It was freezing outside.

Tea tonight was a stuffed pepper with pasta in tomato sauce followed by ginger cake and soya mince. Tomorrow, I’m having my New Year’s Eve dinner so I shall have to work up an appetite.

But before I do, my dream today made me begin to think of the time at school we were discussing the sexual reproduction of worms.
We were looking at works through a microscope, examining their reproductive organs, and it struck us that something was missing
"There is no testicular substance there" we exclaimed
"Worms are devoid of testicular matter" explained the teacher
"What does that mean?" asked little Johnny at the back of class.
"It means" I shouted "that worms don’t have any balls!"
"Please Sir" asked little Johnny "why don’t worms have balls?"
And the teacher sighed. "Because they can’t dance, you fool!"

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