… art the dialysis centre this afternoon. I had a couple of small wobbles towards the end but I managed to keep on going until the session concluded, and that’s progress compared to how things were on Thursday.
Having a somewhat better sleep might have accounted for some of it. By the time that I finished my notes and had done the backing up, it was 00:45 – much later than usual thanks to the football, but much earlier than Wednesday night.
Once again, I was asleep quite quickly and there I remained, totally motionless, until about 06:00, just as it was starting to become light. “Far too early for me to rise up” I thought so I turned over and actually, this morning, managed to go back to sleep.
When the alarm went off I threw off the quilt immediately but it took me a few minutes to rise up into a sitting position and a few more to head off into the bathroom.
It’s Dialysis Day today so I had a good wash, a scrub up, a shave, a change of clothes and even hand-washed my socks, undies and nightwear so that I would look nice and pretty. Then I headed off 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. I was having a row with my brother … "what a surprise" – ed …. He made some kind of threatening gesture with a knife, that he was going to chase me until he caught me. Of course I dismissed that idea and carried on with what I was doing, which was preparing some things because someone was coming round to visit me. This story about fleeing through the woods with my brother behind me, I didn’t take it very seriously. A few minutes later I was working around the house performing some tasks. There was a couple of other people there, one of whom was my brother and one of them was this person who had come to see me, so I thought that I’d better finish preparing this pack of clothing that needs to be taken, then we can set off. While I was preparing it this guy came to see me. He asked “are you Eric?”. I replied “yes”. He answered “right, yes. I thought that I’d just put my foot in things. “Why is that?”. “Because I went up to your brother and asked ‘do you have those things for me’ thinking that he was you. He asked ‘what things?’ so I answered ‘that clothing that we ought to be dropping off in the woods’ and he made some kind of stupid remark about taking me into the woods and leaving me there’ “. I explained to him the situation and prepared everything so that we were ready to leave. But there was some swimming costume or something that fell out of the cupboard while I was fetching these clothes. I wasn’t really sure why that was there. It shouldn’t have been there either. I was sitting there puzzling about this and wondering if I was supposed to take it with me or whether it had found its way into that cupboard by accident.
Our disputes never reached the stage of going armed but we certainly didn’t behave like siblings, any of us. And I can still see this swimming costume even now. It’s a faded pale bluey-green bikini with a bright, dark pink trim. No-one I know has ever worn anything like this so I wonder why I’ve seen one during my sleeping hours. As for leaving things in the woods, in the past it was usually babies, especially sickly ones who were not expected to live. Sometimes they were simply abandoned and at other times they might be sacrifices to whatever gods and spirits inhabit the woods. FOLKLORE AS A HISTORICAL SCIENCE that we read the other week is full of fairy-tales relating to abandoned children.
Isabelle the Nurse had plenty to say for herself today, mostly about the chaos in the town centre. And sure enough, as predicted, the remodelling of the town centre won’t be complete for the Summer. They will stop work in July and August and then re-start. Heaven alone knows when they will finish.
After she left, I made breakfast, including some more of my apple and kiwi puree, and then read some more of MY BOOK.
Today, we are discussing pagan and prehistoric customs that have been absorbed into Church ritual, and he makes a very convincing case for many of them, although like most experts, he tend to see his favourite subject in every single one.
There were a couple of customs that stood out. In fact they leaped off the page right in front of my eyes. He tells us that "at both solstices it would appear that a special fire rite was practised. This consisted of tying straw on a wheel and rolling it when lighted down a hill. There is much evidence for the wheel at the summer, but less at the winter, solstice"
Anyone who has ever been to Gloucestershire on Spring Bank Holiday will know all about the Cooper’s Hill Cheese Rolling where a wheel of cheese is sent rolling off down a hill. People will be even more surprised to learn that not only has this event been going on for many centuries, it formerly took place on Whit Monday which, before Easter became a moveable feast, coincided with the start of what Lockyer describes as “the New May Year” and which corresponds with the alignment of many of the stone circles and menhirs … "PERSONShirs" – ed … at which we are looking.
He also tells us that in the olden days, some rural farmers "would travel bareheaded and barefooted from ten to twenty miles for the purpose of crawling on their knees round;" certain holy " wells, upright stones, and oak trees, westward, as the sun travels, some three times, some six, some nine, and so on in uneven numbers until their voluntary penances were completely fulfilled."
Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that in August 2013 when we were in Montréal WE WENT FOR A LOOK AT THE ORATORY OF SAINT JOSEPH and saw all of the pilgrims climbing up the endless flights of stairs on their knees to the Oratory. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
Back in here I had to hunt down a codec pack for some types of video as I had forgotten to add it in when I fitted the new drive. I found one of the more comprehensive packs and installed it, but there are still two or three videos that won’t play.
With downloading something from the internet I ran a complete virus scan on the computer and then emptied the recycle bin of all of the temporary files that the installation process had been using.
My cleaner came in, armed with a photograph, to fit my anaesthetic patches. The photo was the one that Emilie the Cute Consultant had prepared to tell my cleaner where to fit the patches these days.
The taxi was on time, driven by the young chatty guy and we had a very animated conversation all the way to the dialysis centre.
One of my predictions came true today. The dialysis session has been put back to four hours after Thursday’s fiasco. However, it’s not all doom and gloom because what we agreed is that there should be a maximum level of 850 millilitres per hour for a three-and a half hour session. So if I have 2000 millilitres to lose, at 3.5 hours that’s roughly 640 millilitres per hour so that’s good. But if there’s 3500 millilitres to lose, at 3.5 hours that’s 1000 millilitres per hour, so they will go for four hours in that case.
That sounds reasonable to me, I suppose. We need to reach some kind of agreement about something.
During the discussion I had an ice-pack on my arm, and when they came to plug me in at the news area of connection, it was one of the most painless that I have had. Still not perfect, but much better. We’ll have to see if it continues.
They set the blood pressure measurer every 20 minutes instead of every half-hour and came to check on me quite regularly. The machine rang regularly to say that blood pressure was low and they came scurrying over each time, but despite a few unpleasant moments, I kept on going.
The same driver brought me home and then I prepared tea. My bread bap wasn’t a success because I’d left the dough standing for too long and it had dried out. There’s nothing wrong with the principle though so in future I’ll have to make my bread roll early and bake it before I go to dialysis. The burger itself and baked potato and salad followed by orange, ginger and coconut cake with soya dessert was delicious.
So now I’ll dictate my radio notes and then go to bed. We lose an hour in the morning of course so I’ll be crabby all day… "so what’s new?" – ed …
But seeing as we have been talking about ancient customs, folk tales and the like … "well, one of us has" – ed … each village used to have its wise man or woman, the faith healer or the enchanter.
One day a farmer went up to the local faith healer and said "remember that cow that you had that had worms and a bad attack of disease?"
"Of course I do" said the faith healer
"So what did you give it? Mine has the same affliction"
"I gave it a mixture of burnt ashes, sacred water from the well, two feathers from a goose and a ladle-full of clay"
A few weeks later the faith healer is walking through the village when the farmer grabs him by the throat
"I gave that cow the mixture that you told me, and two days later it died"
"Now isn’t that a coincidence" said the faith healer. "So did mine!"
