… but in indescribable agony I’ve a feeling that I’m going to regret this. In fact, one way or another I’ve not had a very good day today.

Just like last night actually. Once more it was a very late night, not that I was bothered because if I’m tired I can sleep at the hospital. I won’t have much else to do there.

Nevertheless I slept right through until the alarm went off at 07:00 with just the odd bit of tossing and turning here and there

But as the alarm sounded I staggered off into the bathroom to sort myself out, completely forgetting that I’m supposed to be using this special shampoo detergent stuff.

While I was waiting for the nurse to arrive I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I went during the night. This competition is now coming down to a knock-out between clubs rather than based on a league performance. There aren’t too many clubs or teams left and newspaper reporters are interviewing. They are astonished at how much has been spent but someone seems to think that it’s worth every penny and brings an enormous amount of revenue from advertising. And everyone doing this would have a team of his own racing in these races considering that it would put his town on the map. There were several other chairmen who thought it important that their team climbed onto the world stage and played this type of event for the attraction of the World all looking on and making sure that they did all their best

Where that came from, I don’t know. But it certainly seems to be true. I remember when Llandudno surprisingly won the Welsh Cup and qualified for Europe, the town council sponsored the club’s shirts for the European games and paid the travelling expenses of the club simply for the reason that the club’s presence on the European stage would attract enough tourists to the town to make it a financially viable proposition. And who am I to argue with Llandudno Town Council?

What I found was that there were too many small, tiny shopkeepers or market traders standing on this market each selling very high turnover goods which meant that there was no speciality or anything like that. It was all pretty much the same. There was nothing to choose between any of them. Where you bought your magazine from was by random and it made no difference. They weren’t sufficiently skilled in the products that they were selling. One of the shopkeepers was trying to market some kind of typing course but admitted that he hadn’t managed to work it himself . He had no idea how he could actually make it work but was still trying his best to sell it on to members of the public. I thought to myself that people with just one or two racks of magazines in a place like this just aren’t going to make any difference whatsoever. It needs one or possibly two major sellers to come in to reorganise it with a much wider range of goods and know much more about their product and generally go out to sell the stuff instead of being haphazard, hoping that someone would come along and buy it. I thought that it was very depressing and dismal that they were just sitting back letting the World roll by. They should have been out there selling their wares. But definitely half a dozen people with one magazine rack each trying to make a living in a place like this was never going to be a possibility. It just needed one or maybe two major players who could go for the variety of product and go all-out to try to grab hold of the passing trade.

So as well as fighting wars and inventing machinery in my sleep, I’m now running some kind of Cost Accounting and Business Planning service. I’ve definitely been doing something wrong all these years if I can think of all of these exciting and satisfying ways of earning a living while I’m asleep. The sad part about it is that not only am I asleep while all of this is going on, so are my clients. If they were awake and paying me good money for my services and advice, I’d clean up.

There was also something about a friend of mine asking me why some other friends of ours who had been in France as long as we had, hadn’t succeeded in accumulating more resources. She pointed out to her house, the holiday cottage and so on that they had managed to accumulate without too much effort and wondered why they hadn’t managed to do the same.

And that’s true too. In the Auvergne you can have as much property as you like. The place is littered with all kinds of tiny farms that are abandoned and available for next to nothing. The mechanisation of agriculture in France after World War II and the industrialisation of the country led to a flight of all the young people to the towns. All the old people died off and the houses were simply left to abandon.

The nurse came and did her best to cheer me up which was nice, seeing as I’d lost yet another clip for my puttees. I was expecting an argument. She’s given me a few tips about the hospital and then wished me luck.

No breakfast for me this morning. I have to be without food so instead I checked over my packing and made sure that I had everything that I needed. This requirement about “medication in the original boxes” is ridiculous, especially just for one night’s stay.

Next was to make some sandwiches because, without doubt, the food, if in fact I receive anything, is going to be rubbish. And if I’m without food all morning, I’ll be needing something.

Back in here I had a few letters to write and things like that but I was taken by surprise by the taxi that turned up a good 20 minutes early and I was nothing like ready. Nevertheless, we went with what we had.

It was a lovely drive down to Avranches and how I enjoyed smelling the open countryside for the first time since I don’t know when. It’s a shame that there wasn’t more of it.

It’s the Polyclinic, not the hospital, where I’m going. And finding my room was rather complicated as we turned up at the lunch hour. Eventually someone directed us to my room, which it seems I’m going to be sharing.

A nurse checked me in and asked me a load of questions, most of which I answered wrongly. She had to fetch an electric razor to shave my arm – what did I know about doing it – and then she wandered off.

They gave me a load of paper clothes to wear and once I’d changed, they wheeled me away in a wheelchair as far as surgery where they put me on a trolley and took me into a corner of the room.

While I was waiting, I fell asleep. I was dreaming that I was dreaming and dictating the dream into my dictaphone but someone snatched the dictaphone from me, threw it onto the bed and wheeled me off somewhere. There I was for hours hoping that at least they would be able to take me back to wherever it was that the dictaphone had landed and that it had been switched off so that the batteries hadn’t gone flat

It was another panic attack but with everything that’s going on right now, that’s not a surprise. I’m surprised that I’ve not had more of them just recently.

They moved the bed across the room (waking me up). “Hold out your arm” said someone, so I did.

Next thing that I remember, it was a couple of hours later, there was a big white plaster on my arm and a pain going all the way up into my shoulder. But at least the worst is over (I think) and it was done exactly as I would have liked it – no fuss, no explanation, no nothing. Knock me out and get on with it.

They took me back to my room and put me to bed where I slept for an hour or two before gradually coming back round into the Land of the Living

And then I had to hassle them for my meal. They seemed quite reluctant to bring it, although I can’t see why. I made sure that I had plenty of bread for my soup and my main course of carrot purée (and that’s it), thinking that I’m glad that I made my butties. I’ll need those if things don’t buck up.

One of the nurses asked about the pain. It’s been increasing all the time as the anaesthetic has worn off. When I mentioned it to a nurse she came back immediately with some Doliprane. Which I refused, of course. The whole of France is awash with Doliprane.

Seriously though, if you have a pain, it’s for a reason. And if you hide or mask that pain and put effort on joints that really need time to relax and recover, you can do more harm than good

So gritting my teeth, I went to bed.

And my arm in a sling reminds me of the well known Austrian who invented the brassiere, Otto Titsling

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