Tag Archives: penybont

Sunday 23rd August 2026 – ONE THING ABOUT …

… yesterday that I forgot to mention was that when I awoke at 20:30 from crashing out, it wasn’t just the tiredness that I’d noticed. I was freezing cold and all the hairs on my arms were standing up. It was 22°C in here too, so it wasn’t actually the cold that was making me feel like that, but something else.

As usual, the answer to something like that is to go to bed. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, bed is my medication that cures everything. And you know that I’m ill if I’m prepared to miss a live football match in favour of bed.

So I ended up in bed at about 20:30 last night and I was asleep even before my head touched the pillow. But, as usual, not for long. I was awake at 00:30 and awake again at 02:00.

As well as that, I awoke a third time. I’ve no idea what time that might have been, but I couldn’t go back to sleep at all, so at 04:05 I was at my desk working on the computer.

No point in lazing around in bed when you can be working, and I had my notes from yesterday to write, so I dashed them off, put them online, and I was back in bed by about 05:30. I reckoned then that I’d stay in bed until the nurse arrived.

When he turned up, I was fast asleep in bed, so he awoke me and did the necessary with my legs and feet. After he left, I thought that I’d get up in five minutes and go for breakfast.

When I finally awoke, sorted myself out in the bathroom and went into the kitchen, it was 10:10. So much for my early start. I made my breakfast, and while I was eating, I was reading some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

It now looks as if he’s summing up, and as he begins to discuss Gothic architecture on the continent, he reminds us that "England, with less of gigantic grandeur in particular buildings, and less of rapid development in styles, gives to all a harmony and purity which is peculiarly her own, and in the course of her slower progress, calls forth forms of beauty unknown to other lands."

All that I can say about this is that anyone who has viewed anything at all of the Gothic architecture on the continent will be wondering what on earth Mr (or the Reverend) Freeman was smoking when he was writing his jingoistic prose.

Back in here, the first thing that I did was to transcribe the dictaphone notes from last night. That was a very painful exercise because I can’t believe how much I was coughing during the night, all of it recorded on the dictaphone.

This is another dream about roaming around in London. I wanted to buy a guitar for a friend of mine, but I didn’t really know where to go, so I went down to London and had a good wander around in the usual streets, in Oxford Street and so on to try to see if there was anything there. All I could see is the cheap kind of rubbish and crowds of people. I kept meeting crowds of people whom I knew too. Then I began to walk down to Tin Pan Alley, but I was almost knocked over by a taxi. Who should be driving that taxi but Emilie the Cute Consultant. I asked her if she could do me a favour, but she said that she couldn’t because she was too busy working – she had to go back to Crewe shortly. I said “yes, that’s the favour. You couldn’t run me to Crewe, could you?”. She replied that she couldn’t, so I was rather disappointed. However, she said that she’d have a talk with me very soon. I suppose that that cheered me up somewhat, and I carried on towards Tin Pan Alley with these crowds of people.

It seems that “in my dreams” is the only chance I have of seeing Emilie the Cute Consultant, even if she does turn me down. And she’ll “have a talk with me very soon”. That’s the line most people use when they are giving someone the brush-off.

However, being in London yet again would seem to be significant. This is the third or fourth time just recently that I’ve been here during the night. I expect that I’ll find out what it’s all about in due course

We were going off on another adventure, but this time, it was in my old J4 van. There were quite a few of us, including some people whom I didn’t know, and the van was quite loaded. The front of it was full of rubbish so we had to take all of it out and put it in the rubbish bin. That was when we found that this pile of oil had seeped onto the passenger seat so we were there scrubbing it, and the guy who was sitting there was rather disappointed. He was hoping not to get his clothes dirty. In the end, we managed to have it looking something like so we went to wash our hands. I couldn’t find the swarfega for ages, but eventually, when that guy had begun to wash his hands with fairy liquid or something, I produced the Swarfega and gave my hands a good wash with it and showed him the difference between my hands and his.

The J4 had long-gone by the time that I moved into Gainsborough Road, but this was where all of the action was taking place last night.

The guy sitting in the oily seat reminds me of that photo that was doing the rounds a few years ago – the old American politician sitting in his seat that was photoshopped into thousands of other photos all around the World.

After all of that, there was the football to watch. We started off with Penybont against Llandudno.

Whether or not you think that Llandudno’s position, for a newly promoted club, up near the top of the league is a false position, they certainly haven’t come into this league, as some newly promoted clubs have, simply to make up the numbers. They took the game to Penybont just as much as Penybont took the game to them, and in fact, from the kick-off, it took Penybont five minutes and fifty-five seconds to get into Llandudno’s half of the field.

In fact, the first Penybont goal was a marvellous overhead bicycle kick of the kind that was unstoppable, and had I been refereeing, or anyone else for that matter, their second goal would have been disallowed for a blatant foul on a defender

And this is the first game in which I’ve seen a club penalised under this new five-second rule for throw-ins, goal kicks and the like.

The 2-1 scoreline in favour of Penybont was about fair, but they can feel relieved now, just as Llandudno can feel disappointed.

Afterwards, we had Stranraer throw away a 2-goal lead to draw 2-2 against Stirling Albion. Stranraer had the Binos all over the place in the first half, and in the second half, the situation was reversed. Never was there a “Game of Two Halves” to match this one.

The next match was Greenock Morton v Arbroath. Although Arbroath won this game 2-1, this is the best I’ve seen Morton play since Ian Murray took over. And they finally managed to score a goal after about ten games of trying, and it had to be a sixteen-year-old schoolboy playing as an emergency full-back who scored it too, not one of the established professionals.

Finally, the fourth match was Trefynnon v Barry Town. This is the fourth game that Trefynnon has lost – this time it was 3-1. However, they played much better in this game and even took the lead. And had they scored the penalty that they were awarded when the score was 1-1, it all might have been so different.

They kept on playing and going on the attack as long as they possibly could, but the desire to score an equaliser when they were 2-1 down cost them dearly. Having committed everyone to the attack, they were torn open at the attack by a breakaway, and Barry scored their third goal with practically the last kick of the game.

But I’ll tell you something for nothing, and that is that the field microphone was placed right by the Barry dugout, and we had someone from their bench bellowing out instructions to his players in the loudest voice I have ever heard and using the most disgraceful language that would have been out of order even in the fo’c’sle of a Greenland whaler. It really was a disgrace, and the club should be ashamed of their employee.

Apart from that, though, we had two Cymru Premier matches today that were played with a lot of skill, not like some of the midfield mauls that we saw last weekend.

So no food tonight again. I’ve written my notes and when I’ve done what else needs doing, I’m off to bed ready to Fight the Good Fight at dialysis tomorrow … "I don’t think" – ed …

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about Greenland whalers … "well, one of us has" – ed … a couple of years ago, a crew member was washed overboard in the Davis Strait and was lost.
A year later, his wife had a visit from the Nova Scotia lifeboat crew. "We have some bad news for you, and some better news" said the skipper.
"Oh" says the woman. "Tell me the bad news."
"A body has been discovered in the sea near Luneburg" replies the skipper. "we can’t ask you to identify him because his body was all covered in lobsters and crabs, but by the clothing, we reckon that he’s your husband."
"So what’s the better news"
"We’ll pull him up again tomorrow and see what the catch is like then."

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Thursday 20th August 2026 – I DON’T KNOW …

… what kind of day it has been today. It certainly wasn’t as good as yesterday, that’s for sure.

Yesterday, I was really feeling fighting fit, that’s for sure. It was after midnight when I stopped letting it all hang out and crawled into bed, although I wasn’t feeling tired in the slightest, as I believe I said. And I didn’t go to sleep very quickly either.

But when I did finally go to sleep, it wasn’t for too long. When I realised that I was awake (we’ve talked about this just recently), there was a howling gale blowing outside, not the kind of noise you want to hear when you are trying to sleep.

There was no possibility of going back to sleep with all of that noise going on so I just lay there, gently relaxing, or, at least, doing the best that I could to relax. I remember at one point checking the time, and it was 04:42.

It was round about that point that I must have gone back to sleep, for I was definitely asleep when the alarm sounded at 06:29, and the wind was howling around like mad.

As usual, it took me a while to leave the bed and go into the bathroom to sort myself out and even to have a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon at dialysis.

Back in here I went to check the window to make sure that everything was in good order, but as soon as I opened it, the howling stopped. When I closed it again, the howling stayed stopped. So I have no idea what was going on. Was I dreaming the noise?

First thing to do was to check the dictaphone and to see where I’d been during the night. However, I needn’t have bothered as the dictaphone was devoid of entries again.

However : –

I’m not sure whether this counts as a dream or not, but I was having another one of those coughing fits that seems to go on for ever, so in the end, when it calmed down, I reached for my emergency supplies. When I was tidying up a while ago, I found a couple of packets of menthol and eucalyptus sweets, and I’ve been taking a couple to bed with me every night for the last few days. Anyway, I reached for one of my sweets, unwrapped it and went to pop it into my mouth. What happened next was that I bit my finger. There was no sweet at all in my hand and no unwrapped paper nearby. If it wasn’t a dream, it was certainly weird

This is a good example of never knowing whether I’m awake, asleep or somewhere in between when I’m lying there in bed. I would have sworn that I really was reaching for a sweet.

My nurse turned up a little later than yesterday. He was talking about not very much and soon left the building, leaving me to go and make breakfast.

While I was eating, I was reading yet more about the bombing of England in World War I. And interestingly, at Poelkapelle in Belgium not so long ago, they came across the wreckage of a Staaken, one of Germany’s giant four-engined bombers nearly as big as a B-29 Superfortress, embedded in the ground. It had been shot down on 21st April 1918.

Back in here, there were a few things to do so I set to work, and then I began to write the notes for the radio programme from yesterday. They were about half-done when I had to knock off, but not to worry, I’ll finish them tomorrow.

At midday I went to prepare my things for dialysis, and then my faithful cleaner put in her appearance to apply the anaesthetic to my arm.

She didn’t stay long today, which was just as well because the taxi came early for me. And not just early but at 12:33. Not that it bothered me because, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the earlier I start, the earlier I finish.

We had to pick up Mrs Dinosaur and also another woman at the health centre in St Pair, and then we could set off for Avranches.

It was 13:30 when we arrived, and by 14:05, I was up and running. However, it wasn’t easy because, once more, there’s a huge excess of liquid. Consequently, I told them to run it for four hours instead of three, and have you any idea just how tiring it is to have the machine going at max for four hours?

Still, it gave me plenty of opportunity to watch the football from this last weekend. The match between Hwlffordd and Penybont was exciting. It was proper end-to-end football with plenty of skill, not like some of the midfield mauls that we saw earlier. Penybont won 3-0, which was expected, but it was good all the same.

And afterwards, I managed to watch some of Caernarfon v Penybont from the weekend before. There’s still a good bit to go, but even so, it looks like another good, skilful game.

There were problems with the machine, or, rather, with me, and the alarm on the machine was constantly going off. A doctor came to see me too, the new relief doctor, and she gave me a prescription for an antibiotic.

There was also a nurse who came by with a questionnaire for me to answer. Honestly, it was like Euston Station in my little room this afternoon.

When it was time for me to be unplugged, the nurse dealt with me straight away. Even better, the taxi was waiting for me too. We had to drop off Mrs Dinosaur but I was soon back home.

My cleaner was there waiting and she helped me into the apartment, and when I was sitting down, she stuffed a disgusting drink into my hands.

After she left, I grabbed a couple of biscuits and came in here. I didn’t feel like making tea so I wrote my notes instead.

Now, I’m off to bed ready for a nice relaxing day tomorrow, I don’t think. And then on Saturday, it’s dialysis again. I’m getting sick of this.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the World War I bombing of England … "well, one of us has" – ed … a Zeppelin actually flew over Stoke-on-Trent and dropped several bombs on the city.
When I was speaking to a friend, I told him about this.
"What happened?" he asked.
"The bombing was terrible" I replied. "So much so that it caused £140,000,000 worth of improvements."

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Monday 17th August 2026 – THESE UNHAPPY, UNCERTAIN …

… days are continuing, piling up one on top of another, and I’ve no idea when it’s all going to end.

Last night, I actually managed to complete my notes (the first time for ages), although I ended up really late going to bed. And although I went to sleep quickly enough, I was back awake again at some point later.

It was one of those awakenings that I didn’t really feel. I can’t remember my eyes opening, but they just were. I wondered how long they had been open before I realised.

Again, it was an early morning of drifting off to sleep and then being awake again and not recognising which was the waking bit and which was the sleeping bit because I couldn’t tell the difference between the two.

When the alarm went off at 06:29, I went off to sort myself out in the bathroom and even to have a shave in case I encounter Emilie the Cute Consultant today at dialysis. Then back in here, I listened to the dictaphone to find out where I had been during the night.

I’d been invited to take over the management of a struggling football club in Scotland, so I went up there, and the first thing that I wanted to see was the football club’s accounts, but the accounts were heavily edited, and when I looked at the spreadsheet for the other clubs, it seemed that this was a thing that every club was doing. It was simply editing its accounts, and where there should have been a figure, there was just a yellow blob, so I had no idea exactly of what I was expected to take over and manage and how I was going to do it. There was much more to this, but the alarm went off and it evaporated immediately.

This is reminiscent of what’s happening at Greenock Morton right now. Their major sponsor has “financial issues” right now and, over the last three months, has failed to pay most of the sponsorship money that is due. Consequently, half of the players have left the club, and the club has been obliged to recruit players who, to be honest, aren’t up to the challenge of life in the Scottish Championship.

The nurse turned up as usual and gave me the treatment on my legs and feet. And after he left, I could make my breakfast and read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

Once more, he’s steering clear of controversy today and making sure that he doesn’t provoke anyone into taking an issue with him. Maybe he has had his nose bitten off more times than he cares to remember.

After all that, I came in here to make a start on everything. and there was plenty to do too. When I’d finished the more usual things, I had the radio to deal with.

First task was to review the programme for the coming weekend and make sure that it’s correct. Then I could send it off for inclusion in this week’s stream.

The second task was to carry on with the one that I’d started at the weekend. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that of this almost-two-hour soundtrack, I extracted five particular selections of music that made up over fifty-eight minutes, and this morning, I segued them all together.

The joints are absolutely excellent, and now it sounds just like one continuous performance, which is always what I’m aiming for with these concerts.

After that, there was even time to begin to write the speech for it. And that’s well over half-done now. It won’t take long to finish it now, and I can move on to something more important.

By now, it was midday and time to prepare myself for dialysis. I had to hunt down a few things and then wander off into the kitchen to sort out a disgusting drink and the midday medication.

My cleaner came along soon and helped me apply my anaesthetic, and then she put away the clothes that I’d washed on Saturday. They’d washed really well too.

After she left, I had to wait for the taxi, so I curled up on a kitchen chair and slumped over the dining table and drifted off into some comfortable place somewhere in the surreal. And what made it even more enjoyable was that the taxi was late. It arrived at 13:20, which meant that for a good forty-five minutes, I’d had a nice little snooze.

Today, I was the only passenger, so we arrived in Avranches just before 14:00. I was taken to my little room and installed, and I was dealt with comparatively quickly. By 14:20 I was up and running.

There was football to watch today – Connah’s Quay Nomads v Trefelin BGC, another newly promoted club.

Although the score of 6-0 to the Nomads makes it look like a very one-sided game, Trefelin had several moments of their own. The big difference was that the Nomads were much more clinical in front of goal, with Indonesian international Joe Simatupang Ferguson scoring a hat trick and Egyptian Hussein Mehasseb scoring two.

But credit to Trefelin, who kept on battling away. They never threw in the towel and were still on the attack even at the final whistle.

After that game, there was time to watch the first 35 minutes or so of the Hwlffordd v Penybont game. Hwlffordd have had a dreadful season so far, playing two and losing two, but Penybont have got off to a flyer.

By the time I had to close down the laptop, Hwlffordd were already one goal down.

Once more, no doctor came to see me today, and even worse, the nurse was obliged to finish my session ten minutes early because she had two other patients besides me who needed compressing, and everyone was due to finish at the same time. I wasn’t very happy about leaving here 300 grams overweight, especially as there’s a three-day gap until the next session on Thursday.

My driver was waiting for me when I came out, but we had to wait ten minutes for the lady who lives in Sartilly to finish. She was coming home with us, and only when she was safely on board our vehicle could we depart.

Granville, as usual, was a total mess. Most of the town centre was closed due to the annual braderie when the shops set out everything that they want to move on, sometimes at ridiculously cheap prices.

Eurocopter EC 145 F-ZBQA helicopter pointe du roc Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo November 2021The Air-Sea Rescue helicopter was on the Pointe du Roc today when we drove past.

Rumour has it that it had rescued a couple of people stranded on one of the Isles de Chausey by the very high tide. It was now unloading them so that it could fly back to its hangar at the airstrip up the coast.

Incidentally, the photo of the helicopter was one that I’d taken IN NOVEMBER 2021 when I’d seen that woman commit suicide.

My faithful cleaner was waiting for me, and she helped me back into the apartment, and I was certainly grateful. I’d had an exhausting session today. She stuck a disgusting drink into my hand, and after she left, I made tea – a bowl of cheese salad with rice and veg.

Back in here, I began to write out yesterday’s notes, but I must have crashed out at some point because I suddenly noticed that it was 22:15 and I’d not even written a dozen lines. I was feeling absolutely dreadful at that point so I posted on line what I’d written and crawled into bed. I can finish off those notes tomorrow morning.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about helicopters … "well, one of us has" – ed … regular readers of this rubbish in a previous existence will remember the day I flew in a helicopter. It was a prize offered in a free draw by the new Intermarché in Pionsat.
There were several of us on board, and the pilot announced "complete and absolute silence on board is essential. Anyone who speaks or even makes a noise will be fined €100."
We flew around for ten minutes and then he started to perform some aerobatics. We were thrown around in the sky, but still, everyone kept silent.
"That was amazing" said the pilot. "You lot are the first to withstand the test."
"Well" said a little old man sitting in the corner "I was going to say something when my wife fell out, But €100 is €100"

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Thursday 9th July 2026 – WHAT A NIGHT …

… that was.

At some point during the night, I actually dreamed that the alarm had gone off. It was so realistic that I actually left the bed and I was up for about two minutes before I realised that it was far too early.

It’s not the first time that that has happened either. I don’t know what caused it but I really did think that it was real.

However, I must have been ready to wake up, I suppose. After all, I’d managed to make it into bed at something like a reasonable time and I was soon asleep. I didn’t do much waking up either, until that phantom alarm call at whatever time it was.

When I saw that it was still fairly dark outside, I crawled back into bed and went back to sleep. And there I stayed until … errr … 06:19 when I awoke again. Just like the other day, I was trying to make up my mind whether to leave the bed and claim an early start, but I took so long debating with myself that the alarm beat me to it, and that was that.

After I’d finally plucked up the courage to stand up, I headed to the bathroom to sort myself out. That involved a really good scrub-up and, quite naturally, a good shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon. Then I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

There was a mother and daughter who had come down the Rue Couraye and the Rue Paul Poirier into the centre of Granville, where I met them. I asked them how they had managed coming here – whether there had been any danger. They replied that there had been nothing as far as they could see. I warned them that when they go back, they may well encounter something unexpected, like the big house there where they do tests on germs and allergies and whatever, and she might be taken in by the guy who runs it. Then we talked about the enemy soldiers. The woman said that she had a shield so she’d be fine. I asked her about offensive weapons like swords. She admitted in the end to having one, so I asked the daughter what weapons she had, and just as she was about to reply, the dream ended.

This is another one of those dreams that, at first glance, mean nothing at all. However, there are a couple of strands in it that do mean something to me

  • The streets that I mentioned are real streets in Granville, and that’s the way that you come from the station into the town centre and to the foot of the slope where you climb up to the mediaeval walled city.
  • Back in the past, I worked with a Swedish woman who had a daughter, and those two would correspond with the people in the dream.
  • There was a hoary old joke about how, in these computer games, men always go out fully armed and dressed in armour, yet the women have to make do with just a metal bikini.
  • The big house where they test for allergies reminds me of the allergy clinic in Avranches, to where I went a few months ago and which we drove past on Monday.

Isabelle the Nurse breezed in again today, full of joy and energy. No trace of any bad humour as reported the other day. She sorted out my legs and feet and then went off to continue her rounds. I could go to make breakfast and, while I was eating, read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

And here we go yet again. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … a few days ago, he was knocking the simple “post and beam” architecture of places like Stonehenge, but today, it’s "There is then one mechanical system and one type of outline which pervade the whole style, and both of these the most simple that can be imagined. Posts supporting beams are arranged in the form of a parallelogram. No mechanical construction can be simpler than that of the entablature ; none requires so few component parts, or so small an exertion of any but the merest physical powers of mechanism."

And yesterday, I also mentioned that he’s now attacking the architecture of ancient Rome. Today we have him having a good moan about "both the debased Romans and their modern imitators …" As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, the Romans developed the architecture of the arch, something that has totally transformed the nature of building ever since.

Back in here, there were things to do and then I made a start on editing one of the radio notes that had been waiting for a few months, since early May in fact when I dictated it. There are loads to do, and they aren’t going to be done by me sitting in here looking at them.

Not that I managed to go very far, because I was slipping in and out of waves of fatigue, so hopefully tomorrow, I’ll be full of enthusiasm and energy and dash off the editing in five minutes.

My faithful cleaner was late coming today. She had been held up by her previous client, who wanted her wardrobe clearing out so that she could sell her surplus clothes at the walled city brocante or car boot sale on Sunday. Anyway, she arrived eventually, applied my anaesthetic, checked that I had everything and then cleared off.

Once she’d left, I decided to have a little doze at the kitchen table, but I’d hardly started when the taxi came, ten minutes early. I was the only passenger too, so I was there by 13:30 and looking forward to an early start and early return home.

Today, though, I was in the new air-conditioned building so I had to walk miles to my own little private room. And then I remembered that I’d forgotten to weigh myself so I had to go halfway back from where I’d come from.

Since Monday, my weight, for some reason, had increased more than any other time, so I was looking forward to a difficult, unpleasant session of dialysis. And it got off to a bad start, as I wasn’t connected until 14:25.

The low blood pressure alarm kept ringing every fifteen minutes, and every fifteen minutes a nurse came running. And then we had the doctor – not, unfortunately, Emilie the Cute Consultant.

The doctor told me that she had received the scans from yesterday, and they did indeed show a massive build-up of infection. The previous series of antibiotics had only managed to put them to sleep, not to kill them off completely.

And then she dropped her bombshell. She wants me to go for another one of those nasal things that I had several weeks ago. If I had been wearing boots at that moment, the news would have made my heart sink right into them, and no mistake. But we shall see how this pans out.

Eventually, much later than I was anticipating, I was released from my tubes and pipes, and it was a very weak and feeble me who made my way to the foyer of the building where my driver was waiting.

It was the young, friendly, chatty guy who brought me home, on my own again, so we had a good chat all the way back, where my faithful cleaner was awaiting. And it was a good job that she was there too, because I needed the help after that session of dialysis.

After she had me settled in the dining area, she cleared off. I loaded up a tray with a packet of crackers, the vegan cheese spread, a peach, a few biscuits and a disgusting drink and came back in here, because there wasn’t one football match tonight but two on the internet, one after the other and it was going to be a very late night.

The first match in the European Conference League was Caernarfon v Levadia Tallinn from Estonia. Caernarfon played some good football, even though they went 1-0 down after fifteen minutes, but an astonishing lapse of concentration for a five-minute period either side of half-time saw them concede three goals, and there was no coming back after that. They conceded a fifth one later and had a player sent off to compound their woes. All in all, it was a sad match with which to open their impressive, rebuilt stadium and entertain their full house of fans.

The second match was Penybont v Santa Coloma, from Andorra. As Penybont’s ground doesn’t meet European standards, they played the match at the Cardiff City Stadium, so the fans were rattling around like peas in a drum. If only they had played the match at a much smaller European-compliant stadium, there would have been a much better atmosphere to encourage their players.

A bad injury to Penybont’s centre-half Billy Borge forced him off the field, and while he was receiving treatment and Penybont were down to ten men, Santa Coloma scored a marvellous headed goal. That was the only goal of the game too. Although Penybont played so much better in the second half, they couldn’t pull it back. They had a glorious chance to equalise when they were awarded a penalty, but the weak kick was easily saved by Santa Coloma’s Mexican keeper.

By now, I was right out of it, and I just fell into bed, and that was that. My notes can wait until tomorrow.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about daughters and children … "well, one of us has" – ed … the daughter of one of my friends came home from school and asked her mum "what do you call it when one person sleeps on top of another?"
Mother let out a sigh and said "Here we go – I may as well explain the facts of life to her seeing as she brought up the subject."
Next day, the daughter came home crying, and said "mother, you told me wrong. It’s not called sex, it’s called bunk beds."

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Saturday 2nd May 2026 – SO HERE I AM …

… again, late as usual after another evening of football, and surprisingly, I’m not all that tired. Hardly surprising seeing that I seem to have spent most of the morning asleep.

Last night was a better night too. Although I started rather late in writing my notes, by the time that I’d finished and done whatever else I needed to do before going to bed, it was about 21:30 when I finally crawled into bed.

As usual, it took longer than it used to for me to fall asleep, and that’s all that I remember until I awoke some time later. The reason for that was that I had to go to walk the parapet yet again, so I checked the time for once as it looked as if day was dawning.

Sure enough, it was 05:46, which meant that for the first time since I don’t know when, I’d managed eight hours of uninterrupted sleep.

Back in here, I suppose that I could have dictated a few radio notes, but as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … how is it possible to dictate anything when I’m coughing like I am? One of these days, I’ll post the *.mp3 of some dictaphone notes so that you can hear for yourself just what’s happening.

Instead, I went back to bed and waited for the alarm to go off. And when it did, it took me a good while to leave the bed yet again.

In the bathroom, I sorted myself out and had a good scrub-up, and I also changed some clothes and had a handwashing session. Consequently, I was late in the kitchen but, nevertheless, I made my hot drink with which to take my medication.

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

For some reason, I’d moved apartment and was busy sorting out all of my things as to what goes where. The apartment that I’d bought was nothing like as nice as mine, but never mind. There was a kind of built-in chest in the living room, so I’d laughed and joked about it being a good place to hide the bodies and that had led to a local policewoman coming around. She wanted to inspect the box so I had to open it for her. It was rather a complicated affair with a long bar and two padlocks on it, but I opened it, and there was nothing in it, so she was satisfied and eventually left. Then I began to go to look at the bathroom because I hadn’t actually seen the bathroom beforehand. I turned on the light, and I was rather disappointed because it was one of these 1960s or early 1970s bathrooms with light blue tiles, very cheap fittings, etc. There was a shower there that was rather small. One thing about the shower was that there was a heavy padlock on it and I hadn’t been left the keys for this so I thought that I’d either have to contact the previous owner or else remove the whole bar and staple. I couldn’t understand why there was a padlock on the shower, particularly on the outside, because that was where it was pretty much useless from anyone who was taking a shower at that time.

What a strange dream this was. The bathroom reminds me of the one in Reyers, although there was a bath there rather than a shower. There is also no reason for me to want to move apartment, although when I was looking for a place to live in Brussels in 1999/2000, I saw more than enough. However, I wasn’t usually quick enough, and that’s how I ended up with Expo.

The padlock on the shower is interesting, though. What would a padlock on the outside of a shower be doing there?

Isabelle the Nurse turned up rather later than usual, having started her round at 06:00 with a series of blood samples to take. I’ve seen her working at 19:00 in the evening too so no wonder she only works one week on and one week off.

We had a little chat about nothing much and then she left. I could crack on with making breakfast and reading some more of THE CELT, THE ROMAN and THE SAXON by Thomas Wright.

Today, we’re discussing Anglo-Saxon interments and the grave goods that were found in their graves. And like most historians and archaeologists of his generation, he’s mistaking British pre-Roman burial barrows as being Anglo-Saxon, and consequently confusing the origins of the artefacts found therein.

After breakfast, I fell asleep at the table for fifteen minutes and then, back in here, I fell asleep on my chair for almost the rest of Saturday morning.

Once I awoke and came back round into the Land of the Living, I began to work on the radio programme. I managed to pair and segue the tracks, and then I began to write the notes.

There was an interruption in the middle where I went to make my taco roll with this pepper pâté and salad, with some of Liz’s salad dressing, and it was completely delicious. Then I had some croissants to make ready for the next few Sundays, seeing as I ran out last Sunday. They are now all prepared, ready for baking tomorrow morning.

Back in here, I plodded on with the radio notes wearily and bravely, with no ambition at all, but nevertheless, they were finished by the time the football began. That was a triumph of mind over matter to complete that, but at least it means that I can have a day off tomorrow, apart from Welsh homework and bread-baking.

The football was the deciding match to see who would earn the fourth European place for this summer. Penybont, who have slipped down the table since the last time they played as if they were enjoying it, beating Caernarfon in the autumn in a monsoon, and Hwlffordd, who, after a dismal start to the season, have played so much better ever since.

But Hwlffordd couldn’t seem to string two passes together today, and their wafer-thin squad meant that they had to play with a back three of two midgets and an attacking midfielder, and they paid the penalty. Penybont had seemed to find all of their old enthusiasm and were much better with their use of the ball. In the end, they ran out as deserved 2-0 winners.

So now, I’m off to bed, looking forward to a long sleep and a nice lie-in, if I have the chance.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about coughing … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone once went to the doctor’s with a cough like mine.
The doctor examined him and said "I’m sorry, but you don’t have very long to live"
"How long, doctor?" he asked.
"Ten" replied the doctor.
"Ten what?"
"Nine."

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Saturday 25th April 2026 – I AM BEGINNING …

… to feel a little better today, especially this afternoon when I began to feel something more like human.

Mind you, anything is bound to be an improvement after the events of Friday. Let’s just say that a fibreoscopy is one of those things added to my list of “never a second time” – such as a ponction thoracique and a biopsie musculaire. In fact, when I look at the tortures through which I have been put since I fell ill in 2015, I’m amazed that I’m still here, fighting on.

Yesterday put the tin hat on it all. I’d slept almost all the afternoon and being totally unable to function when I awoke at 18:00, I simply did the barest minimum of what needed doing, wrote yet another terse note as my blog entry and then crawled under the covers.

And I slept too. Out like a light for I don’t know how many hours, but when I did awake, the electric water heater was on, so it was certainly after midnight. At some point, I had to leave the bed, and when I checked, it was 04:45. When I’d done what I needed to do, I went back to bed and, to my relief, back to sleep.

The alarm sounded as usual at 06:29 and it took me an age to leave the bed. It really did, and I was so late going for my medication that there was just enough time for a mouthful of orange juice to wash it all down. Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

There was something about being in a rock group last night, and all of our equipment was on a cart being pulled by a donkey. However, the donkey escaped and we all had to go to look for it. Eventually, someone found it and brought it back. Nevertheless, it tried to escape again, and we then worked out that, for some reason, this donkey hated to be called a donkey – it preferred being called by some other names, so we had to think of a few names and try them out on the donkey. Once we found one, with which the donkey agreed, we could then proceed. However, we had then to be very careful not to call the animal a donkey.

It beats me where this idea of transporting our equipment on a donkey-drawn cart fits in, but regular readers of this rubbish will recall that Greece has figured quite a lot in some of our dreams just recently. This is the only connection that I can see.

However, I’m not sure whether I’ve talked about this “self-identify crisis” recently … "yes you have" – ed … with people being allowed to identify as “trans”, “cis” (whatever that is), “asexual”, “furry” and all of a thousand other things. I couldn’t care less if a man wants to wear a dress and wear make-up or whether a woman wants to walk out in a catsuit. We are supposed to “take their feelings into consideration”, which is all very well and no-one is going to argue with that, but who takes into consideration the feelings of women who want a safe space free from masculine intrusion?

It reminds me of one of my passengers on the taxis, a guy called Booth, who totally cleared the ladies’ public toilets of the Royal Hotel in Crewe when some action that he took whilst in there revealed him to be a man. He was subsequently fined quite heavily for a “public order offence”.

And, of course, now we have our donkey wishing to self-identify as something else.

The nurse came as usual, but he didn’t seem to be very interested in the events of yesterday. We had a little chat as he sorted out my feet, and then he left.

Once he’d gone out of the door, I made breakfast, but I couldn’t get my head around THE CELT, THE ROMAN AND THE SAXON by Thomas Wright, so I left it for a better day when I’d be feeling much more like it.

After I’d had a little doze at the breakfast table, I came back in here to attend to a few things and then to write up my notes from yesterday. They are all now online, and I could concentrate on the next part of the day, which was the football.

It was the first match of the “also rans” in their attempt to qualify for the one remaining European place, so we had Colwyn Bay at home to Penybont. Colwyn Bay haven’t won for the last three games, whereas Penybont haven’t won since – I think – November, except for a squalid and depressing 1-0 win against bottom club Llanelli.

The game was as poor as it could have been, with a couple of rather inept attacks huffing and puffing but failing to blow the house down of some rather average defences. The number of good chances in this game could be counted on the fingers of one hand. It inevitably went to a penalty shoot-out, where, surprisingly, Penybont won 4-2.

Let’s hope that the other match on Sunday late afternoon between Y Barri and Hwlffordd is much better than this one was.

Once the game was over, I worked upon the radio programme for a while, finishing off the selection of the music, reformatting, remixing and re-editing all of the songs, and then pairing and segueing them. I’ll write the notes some other time.

Another thing that I did was my Welsh homework, but by 18:30, I’d run out of steam yet again so I abandoned everything and climbed into bed, and that was that. Who said anything about “beginning to feel a little better”?

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about self-identifying … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone once came downstairs to announce to his parents that he wished to self-identify as a cat.
A few hours later, he came downstairs at teatime but couldn’t see his meal on the table.
"Where’s my tea?" he asked
"Over there, on the floor by the sink in the silver bowl," said his father. "And by the way, wear something warm under your catsuit because, at 23:00 when we go to bed, we’ll be putting you outside with all of the other cats."

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Sunday 22nd February 2026 – WHAT A NICE …

… way to start the day today. By the time that I came back in here to start work after breakfast, it was 11:15. That’s about two and a half hours later than usual, and if every Sunday could be like that, it would be wonderful.

Mind you, it wasn’t an early finish last night. By the time that I’d completed everything that needed completing, it was once more just coming up to 23:30, and I would have loved to have been in bed an hour or so earlier. But simply, I don’t know where the time goes these days.

Anyway, once in bed, I was asleep quite quickly. However, it was something of a mobile night. I definitely remember waking up briefly a couple of times, although it wasn’t for long and I can’t really remember all that much about it.

One thing that I do remember, though, is that when Isabelle the Nurse turned up, I was fast asleep with my head under the covers. And while I was submerged at that end, she unsubmerged me at the other end to deal with my feet and legs.

After she left, I curled up again and went back to sleep. However, round about 09:30 I was found sitting on the edge of my bed. Much as I would like to, I can’t spend all day lying in my stinking pit. I have to make a start sometime.

After a visit to the bathroom, I went into the kitchen. First task was to bake the croissants that I’d prepared yesterday. And this new technique seems to have worked. The presentation was so much better today, and they looked like real croissants.

So a couple of those along with my porridge and hot black coffee, and I was well away. It really was a nice breakfast.

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

Yesterday, I mentioned that this section about pottery was going to be a very long job. And I was right, too. Today, we’ve been discussing the lugs that appeared on different kinds of Neolithic pottery – just the lugs. This book is going to be a very long read.

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

I’d heard a report that in the near future they would be bringing out a new version of the Berlingo. It was going to be a long wheelbase type of thing with more room inside. That became immediately more interesting to me because I would have liked to have had something like that at some point. I thought that if it was long-wheelbase, it would still be suitable for sleeping in if necessary when I was out on the road. I tried to find out more about it but apparently it was not being distributed for quite a while yet and that was disappointing news because I had a feeling that I was going to be needing a new vehicle fairly rapidly and this would probably have been ideal for what I wanted.

Back in the late 1990s, I needed a car in a hurry after the Mercedes went the Way of the West. With nothing better on the horizon, a friend at work sold me an old Volkswagen Passat diesel estate. Only just a few weeks later, Citroën announced the end of the run of C15 diesel vans, and they were selling them off at just €4995 plus VAT. One of those would have been perfect for what I wanted at the time.

There was also something going on about the Epstein affair. People had suddenly realised that the one important person, the former wife of Epstein, had not yet been arrested despite her name appearing in the files on numerous occasions. The official reason given was that although her name appears in the files, there’s no allegation of any wrong-doing and no-one has made a complaint against her. In that case, as far as the police go, there’s nothing to investigate until something is discovered in the files that implicates her in a crime.

With all of the revelations of the Epstein files and the aftermath, I’m just wondering when my name is going to appear in them. Everyone else’s has, for one reason or another, and I’m feeling left out.

As for the subject matter of the dreams, there was something the other day about AFKAP – the Andrew Formerly Known As Prince – and I imagine that that particular dream was in some way related to the revelations in the files.

When I’d finished the dictaphone notes, we had a footfest, with all of the highlights of the matches from the JD Cymru League over the weekend. And the unbeaten run of Connah’s Quay Nomads came to a shuddering halt as they were beaten by Y Barri 1-0.

And things are going from bad to worse for Penybont. With yet another player dismissed from the field, they crashed 3-1 away at Colwyn Bay. For a team that a few months ago was a comfortable second in the league, they’ve only won once since 21st November, and that game was against struggling Llanelli, where they scraped a narrow 1-0 win.

The next game was Stranraer v Spartans in Scotland. And at last, after a run of I don’t know how many draws, they managed to win. Mind you, it took A WONDER GOAL DEEP IN INJURY TIME by Aaron Quigg to break the deadlock.

A little later, after a little relaxation, I spent a couple of hours revising my Welsh ready for Tuesday, and then it was baking time.

No bread today, though – I took half a loaf out of the freezer ready for next week because I was going to bake a cake and didn’t have the time for everything.

For reasons that shall become apparent in early course, I really fancied a strong ginger cake. As well as that, Rosemary had found an obscure recipe that suggested that desiccated coconut and ground almonds were a suitable substitute for sugar when baking.

That sounded absolutely excellent, so I ground a couple of handfuls of almonds and added a cup of desiccated coconut instead of one cup of sugar in my oil cake and used coconut oil instead of the vegetable oil. With enough ginger to sink a ship, I mixed up all of the ingredients and poured the mixture into the baking tray.

After I’d made my pizza base, I started to make the layering cream for the cake. I’d found a good recipe with butter, icing sugar, coconut yoghurt (I mixed soya yoghurt with coconut oil), maple syrup and spices. I whipped it all up and put it in the fridge to stiffen.

But this filling and the consistency of the sauce looked excellent to me, and I was thinking that I could adapt it to almost any kind of filling, especially chocolate. I shall have to make further plans.

While I was assembling the pizza, I had the cake baking and it was done to a turn – maybe a little too much on top and not enough on the bottom – and I wish that I knew how to deal with that because it’s not the first time that it’s happened.

When it was ready, I took it out of the oven and put the pizza in. That was done to a turn fifteen minutes later, and as usual, I ate half of it, with the other half for tomorrow after dialysis.

Once I’d finished and tidied up everything, I cut my cake in half and went to put the layering mix in the middle in order to make a sandwich cake with the two halves. However, it wasn’t cooled enough and it began to melt the layering mix.

Next time that I make a sandwich cake, I shall have to stick it in the fridge for several hours to make sure that it’s properly and thoroughly cold. One thing, though, and that is that I’m certainly learning a lot as I go on, and that’s the whole point of doing it.

But right now, I’m going to finish everything off and go to bed ready for dialysis tomorrow … "I don’t think" – ed …

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about baking a cake … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of Zero and her mother when Zero was at a young and impressionable age.
They had been baking a cake together and were relaxing in the living room when the timer sounded in the kitchen.
"Be a dear and go and see if the cake is ready" said Zero’s mother.
"How do I do that?" asked Zero.
"Take one of the meat skewers from the cutlery tray, poke it into the cake a few times and see if it comes out clean."
So off trotted Zero into the kitchen.
Ten minutes later, Zero came back in. "Yes, mum, it’s cooked."
"So what took you so long?"
"Well, the skewer came out so clean that I stuck the rest of the dirty cutlery from lunchtime in the cake too."

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Saturday 14th February 2026 – I HOPE THAT …

… you all had a nice, romantic day with the one that you love, and that there were hugs, kisses, roses and chocolates galore. For me, I moved the bedroom mirror to where I could gaze into it with admiration. After all, when there’s only me in the apartment, what else could I do?

What I could have done was to have gone to bed early but unfortunately, it didn’t work out like that. As usual, I fell asleep writing my notes and what with one thing and another … "and until you make a start, you have no idea just how many other things there are" – ed … it was, once again, about 23:30 when I finally crawled into bed.

One thing’s for sure, though, and that was that I slept right the way through until the alarm went off at 06:29. And then we had what has become the usual struggle of trying to find the energy and enthusiasm to leave the bed.

Nevertheless, despite the struggle, I did in fact manage to stagger off into the bathroom to sort myself out, and then into the kitchen for my hot drink and medication.

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

There had been a whole new series of elections in the European Union and hundreds of MEPs and directors had changed. They were beginning to have meetings with all of the new ones. There were also plenty of staff changes too and it turned out that I was one of those people who had lost their jobs as a result, so I had to leave my job. In doing so, I happened to make my way outside, which meant having to squeeze past dozens of meetings with people sitting everywhere, and basically had to walk along halfway up a fence in order to clear one group of people and was still walking in between them. As I was making my way out, I encountered someone whom I knew who told me that he was starting a new job in some other kind of directorate so I told him that I wasn’t starting at all, that I was on my way out of the building. When I was outside and in the street, I began to wonder what I was going to do. I could retire because I was old enough, but then I thought that there were plenty of employment agencies, so why don’t I go along to see what some employment agencies have, and if they have casual work so I don’t have to stay for too long in the same place. But walking along the street just outside our office where there were all these shops etc, traffic lines, tram lines, I couldn’t see an employment agency so I thought that I’d wait until a couple of days later and then have a day walking around Stoke-on-Trent to see what the agencies have to offer me.

So here we are again, at work long after retirement age. This time though, I’m the one who is being made to leave, rather than thinking about leaving on my own accord.

But the bit about going from employment agency to employment agency reminds me of the author Richard Gordon, who, on going from one shipping office to another in Leadenhall Street to find a berth as a ship’s doctor, also ended up making enquiries in the Leadenhall Street branch of Barclays Bank.

And we were in Stoke-on-Trent, wandering around the other night.

I was out in Shavington last night, walking past some houses where various kinds of actors lived. The first house was occupied by an actor who was starring in many leading roles which had received a really good critique. As I walked past her house, I saw that it was all run down and in need of a good going-over, with dead plants everywhere and long grass. I thought to myself that one day, that woman is going to start to have really bad reviews for acting and how on earth is she going to cope? The next house was someone from a well-known soap opera who was rubbing down his metal fence and preparing it for painting. He was as black as the ace of spades with all of the dust that had come off it. I remember one critic writing something that even if this is Britain’s most popular soap opera, it ought to be shown much less than it is now because the stories are all becoming all the same and there’s nothing ever new in any of them. But back home, I asked the parents how the football went. They just mumbled a few incoherent answers but I didn’t really understand what they were saying so I decided that I’d go to look myself.

Another place where I seem to be spending a lot of time is Shavington, even though we only lived there from 1956 to 1970. And there certainly wouldn’t have been any actors or actresses living there. However, it’s true that my parents showed no interest whatsoever in football so it would have been a waste of time asking them anything.

When the alarm went off, I was singing LIKE A HURRICANE by Neil Young. I’d gone into some kind of building that was a hospital. I’d written a scathing review of a doctor’s intervention but I’d had to go back to the hospital so I’d gone in rather quietly. I’d wanted Floor 6 so I’d gone to the goods lift, but there was someone else there with a trolley so we went in together. I pressed “6” but the lift carried on and went all the way up to the twenty-fifth floor and I had my eyes tight shut from about the fifteenth. This guy left so I pressed any button to take the lift down so that I could open my eyes again. I thought that I’d pressed about “Floor 10” or “Floor 12” but the lift roared on past. It roared on past “6” too so I pressed “6” and it shuddered to a halt and then began to climb up again. I managed to jump out onto the sixth floor as it went past. From there, I was walking across the campus of the hospital. I started off by singing Jackson Browne’s LOOKING EAST and then followed that by “Like a Hurricane”. I noticed that amongst the people on this campus was Castor, but the alarm went off before I had a chance to speak to her.

Actually, I wouldn’t have had my eyes closed if I were going up in a lift. Heights have never bothered me. I remember when Laurence and I went to look at an apartment on the eighteenth floor of a tower block in Brussels. I was out on the balcony looking to see what I could see, but she was pinned against one of the interior walls, far too scared to move. However, there is nothing on earth, not even the combined forces of TOTGA, Zero and Castor, that would entice me into a submarine.

The hospital needs no explanation, and neither does criticising the doctors, but the campus and jumping out of the lift are a mystery.

But seeing as we have been talking about Castor … "well, one of us has" – ed … imagine her appearing in a dream after all this time and I couldn’t manage to talk to her. What kind of tragedy or disaster is that?

But with her being in this dream, the lyrics of “Like a Hurricane” are extremely apposite. After all, it’s one of those rock masterpieces, especially the live version on RUST NEVER SLEEPS.

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

There are also links on the sidebar for AMAZON UK, AMAZON USA and, since the recent “troubles”, AMAZON CANADA for the use of my numerous Canadian visitors. As I said, I am extremely grateful when someone uses them to make a purchase

The nurse was early yet again, and with there now being the pressure on the streets with Carnaval, he didn’t stay long. I could then push on with breakfast and read some more of MAIDEN CASTLE EXCAVATIONS AND FIELD SURVEY 1985-6 by Niall Sharples

He’s busy picking holes in Mortimer Wheeler’s excavation report, disagreeing with many of Wheeler’s conclusions and accusing him of making reports based on speculation and stating that "it is really a testament to Wheeler’s imagination that any clear pattern could be claimed.". However, he’s not above making a few assumptions and speculations himself.

This book, like almost all of the others that I’ve read, is a digital scan of a hard copy in someone’s library. And interestingly, though, certain entries and references in it have been redacted. I wonder if another author in the field of archaeology has been mentioned in the Epstein diaries, because it’s certainly bizarre. I’ve no idea why the owner of the original book would not want these names and entries revealed.

Back in here, we had a footfest – the highlights of last night’s matches in the JD Cymru League. Nothing much exciting happened, except that Llanelli, hopelessly adrift at the foot of the table, picked up a surprising point away at Cardiff Metropolitan.

Having done that, there were a few other things to do until it was time for a disgusting drinks break.

This afternoon, we had football. Penybont, fresh from their 6-0 mauling by leaders TNS, were at home to second-placed Connah’s Quay Nomads.

Penybont played better today but they were still clueless in attack and for all the work that he had to do on the field, Nomads’ ‘keeper Kit Margetson may well have brought a book onto the field with him and spent the ninety minutes reading it. There were several lengthy periods when he was actually playing centre-half in a back four rather than a goalkeeper behind a back three.

But the Nomads weren’t much better. They made Penybont ‘keeper Luke Armstrong work hard, for sure, but they could be still playing now and they still wouldn’t have any idea about how to score. For a team second in the table, they should be doing much better than this.

The score was a 0-0 no score bore draw, and both sides were lucky to get nil.

Later on, I’ve been in an internet discussion with my faithful cleaner. I’m in the middle of writing out a work schedule for my joiner who will be coming back soon, and my cleaner wants a change to the rubbish arrangements.

No, she’s not talking about deleting the blog, but about a new set of rubbish bins that fit under the sink. So we’ve been discussing different alternatives and when she comes down here on Monday, she’ll be measuring up.

After that, I attacked a set of radio notes that I’d dictated a week or two ago and began to edit them. I’d almost finished too when I had to knock off for tea.

Tonight it was a burger on a bap with salad and baked potato, followed by jam roly-poly from several weeks ago and vegan sorbet. And it was all delicious. And now, I’m off to bed, ready for my lie-in tomorrow … "he hopes" – ed …

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about not having any particular work to do today "well, one of us has" – ed … the five day week has been around for longer than you might thing. Several centuries in fact.
Someone once asked me "who was the first person to work a five-day week?"
My answer was "Robinson Crusoe"
"Why was that?"
"Well, he had all of his work done by Friday."

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Saturday 7th February 2026 – I HAVE SEEN …

… one of the worst games of football this afternoon that I have ever seen in my life.

When you have the leader of the league against the third-placed team, you expect some kind of tense, thrilling contest. But not today, unfortunately. It was one of those games that is best forgotten.

Just like last night, in fact. That is best forgotten too. Having been endlessly sidetracked when writing my notes, and having fallen asleep yet again in my chair, it was almost midnight by the time that I’d finished everything and crawled under the covers.

And there I lay, without moving, until all of … errr … 04:30 when I awoke. Mind you, I didn’t manage to go back to sleep again and I finally awoke at about 06:25, a couple of minutes before the alarm. There wasn’t even enough time to check whether it was worth making an early start.

It was quite difficult to haul myself out of bed, as you might expect, but eventually I staggered off into the bathroom for a wash, a change of clothes and a handwashing session so that my socks and undies will be ready for next time.

In the kitchen, I made my hot drink and took my medication, and then came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

I was back playing bass guitar last night in my apartment. I’d been cleaning a few things and was cleaning the case in which the bass guitar lives when something made me stop and take it out. There was a “Man” record playing on the playlist, 7171-551 so I began to play along with it. then the next one came along, and the next one came along and so on. I hadn’t realised at that point that I had an audience. My cleaner was at the door and she was watching. After a while, she came in and said a few words of encouragement but I wasn’t particularly happy, it having been so long since I’d played. I didn’t think that I was particularly good but I did carry on. And once more, I was up on the stage. There was a young country-and-western or folk singer or something like that playing acoustic guitar, and I ended up accompanying him. On one of the songs, I played this really melodic bass guitar solo in the middle of it and it sounded really, really good.

Anyone who has heard my mobile ‘phone ring will immediately recognise the opening bars of “7171-551”, played by the Welsh rock group “Man” when they had the legendary ex-Quicksilver Messenger Service guitarist John Cipollina amongst their numbers. It’s said to be (although this is disputed) the ‘phone number of Mike Nesmith of the Monkees, and it’s also my mobile ‘phone ringtone.

But it’s true – I haven’t played guitar for almost two years since I had the implant fitted in my arm. It’s really painful to bend my wrist as I should. As well as that, I can’t stand up to play, and the guitars are too heavy for me anyway.

Did I dictate that dream about the private investigator who had a lot of work on his hands and was finding it very difficult to keep up and organise? … "no you didn’t" – ed …. I was spending a lot of time with him for different reasons. He had an assistant, a young guy. Every now and again, he’d give this young guy tasks to do which had come in which were fairly simple, straightforward etc. This private investigator had to take a few days off and went to Norway in the middle of winter where he sat, sorted out all his paperwork and then came back again. One of the jobs that he had to do was to drive two different Lotus vehicles because someone was alleging that they were the same car and they needed a report to say so. His young assistant chose to do that job so I said that I’d go with him. We set out and met the woman concerned and began to walk with her. We were walking through Chester and came past this music shop where this young boy nipped off to have a play on a guitar. We carried on walking and she said that she thought that he wasn’t the brightest spark in the box. I replied “no, but he’s nice enough”. He caught up with us and we arrived at this place, and she sent him to build some kind of seating area out of metal framework and OSB. When he’d done it, I went back to have a look and I noticed that he had small pieces of wood left over so I told him to use some of the OSB to fill in the gaps so that people would sit down there comfortably to watch this particular trial, but it turned out that he didn’t have enough wood to do that.

The private detective reminded me of Robert Mitchum, who played Philip Marlowe in the film FAREWELL MY LOVELY, one of the best films that I have seen for quite a while.

The street in Chester where the music shop was – I can see it now. It’s Frodsham Street, the street that leads from Foregate Street up to the bypass and then Brook Street. Of course, the rest of it is quite meaningless.

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

There are also links on the sidebar for AMAZON UK, AMAZON USA and, since the recent “troubles”, AMAZON CANADA for the use of my numerous Canadian visitors. As I said, I am extremely grateful when someone uses them to make a purchase

Isabelle the Nurse turned up to sort out my feet and legs, and after she left, I could make my breakfast and read some more of Mortimer Wheeler’s MAIDEN CASTLE .

And he’s not above taking a few pot shots at his colleagues, although not in the same subtle manner as James Curle. Re-examining the work of one of his predecessors who had examined the site at the end of the nineteenth century, he says that "Cunnington … found his black and white mosaic (apparently in situ) and a ‘mass of masonry’, 9 ft. by 6 ft. If the latter existed otherwise than in his imagination, it may have supported the cult-statue or altar, but no trace of the mass survived in I934"

He also talks about the pagan temple dating from the last quarter of the fourth century AD at Maiden Castle and examples at other hillforts, and speculates that there was a revival of paganism amongst the native population towards the end of the Roman occupation. He seems not to have considered the possibility that during this period, the Romans had been recruiting auxiliaries from beyond the boundary of the Empire who still adhered to their old pagan cults and had not yet adopted Christianity. And despite what Bede told us back in the eighth century, there is clear evidence that Saxon invaders were settled in parts of England as early as 368 AD, so it may equally well have been that the “Romano-Celtic” temples were built by or for these “foreigners”.

Back in here, there were the highlights of last night’s football, and that took me up to a disgusting drink break. Then I made a start on the radio notes that I need to finish, although I didn’t go very far because there was football on the internet – a game between TNS in first place and Penybont in third place.

And as I said just now, it was an appalling game. Penybont have been out of sorts since before Christmas and have not been doing very well. But today, they were the worst that I have ever seen.

Their manager said before Christmas that they need to strengthen the squad in the winter transfer window, but instead, they sold their two best players and recruited poorly to replace them. The fire has definitely gone out in their team. No team in third position in the league should EVER lose 6-0, no matter what the circumstances. And had it not been for an inspired display by their goalkeeper Luke Armstrong, the result could have been much worse

The thing, though, is that after a few really excellent games that have been a credit to the league, I was bound to come unstuck at some point. Who would have thought that it would have been at this game, though?

The rest of the afternoon was spent finishing writing the notes for that radio programme, and then I edited the notes that I’d dictated previously for another one.

Tea tonight was a vegan burger on a bap with salad and baked potato, followed by fruitcake and soya dessert. And delicious it was too.

Right now, though, I’m off to bed, hoping for a really decent sleep and a lie-in, but we shall see how things unfold.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the imagination … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of my brother at one of his many jobs.
The boss asked him "what are you doing?"
"I’m working" he replied.
"You’re only pretending to work!" roared the boss
"Well, you’re only pretending to pay us" replied my brother
He didn’t last long in that job.

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Friday 26th December 2025 – I SHALL BE GLAD …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Saturday 8th November 2025 – MY CANADIAN VISITORS …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Enjoy THE HIGHLIGHTS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Sunday 12th October 2025 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

… the dictaphone again this morning.

But then what do you expect? If you don’t go to bed until 23:30 and you are wide awake again at 01:30, you don’t really have time to go very far.

As you might expect, it was a horrible night last night – one of the worst that I have ever had. Having noted how much better I was feeling over the last couple of evenings, last night saw the collapse and I was back to where I had been earlier last week, struggling desperately (and sometimes unsuccessfully) to stay awake.

It was definitely one of those nights where I could have done with being in bed much earlier but as usual, I couldn’t concentrate on anything and the time simply drifted away to nothing.

Once in bed though, I don’t even remember being awake for a minute. I was out like a light, only to be awoken a couple of hours later by a dreadful attack of cramp in my thighs, an awful cough and a powerful urge to vomit. These sensations kept on coming and going, making things most uncomfortable for me and the pain and inconvenience was such that I abandoned all hope of going back to sleep.

For the last couple of nights, I’d been awake quite early but had gone back to sleep again without very much effort. But I tried – oh, how I tried – this morning and nothing would seem to work … "he was very trying" – ed … . So round about 05:30 I gave up the ghost and left the bed.

After a good wash, I went for the medication, and it was a very leisurely medication too. I wasn’t in any rush at all this morning, what with feeling as ill as I was. In fact, it was quite a struggle to keep the medication down.

Back in here, with nothing on the dictaphone to transcribe, I started my little footfest.

First match up was at the top of the JD Cymru League – TNS, who are leading, against Penybont who are second. It should have had all the air of being an exciting game, but quite frankly, Penybont were abysmal. The TNS attackers were going through the static Penybont defence like a knife through hot butter and the final score – 6-2 to TNS – didn’t do TNS any justice.

If Penybont are serious about mounting a challenge for the title, they are going to have to organise themselves much better and play much better than this.

In the middle of all of this, the nurse turned up. He sorted out my feet and then helped me fit these foot supports that the Centre de Ré-education gave me. But he didn’t really have much of an idea how to fit them, and neither did I, so after he left, I removed them.

After breakfast, which I really didn’t feel like eating, I came back in here to watch the highlights of the rest of the games, not that there was anything of interest to report.

All of this was followed by Stranraer v Queen of the South in the Scottish League Cup, and Stranraer ground out a very respectable draw against a team that is comfortably in mid-table in the league above.

What was interesting ABOUT THIS GAME was that we had another one of these exciting “let’s play it out from the back” moments that so entertain the crowd.

This afternoon, I’ve had a whole raft of exciting things to do, such as to sort out my tax affairs which are proving to be more complicated than I could ever imagine.

There was my Welsh homework to do too, and that’s almost finished. Half an hour on that tomorrow will see it ready to go off.

The printer needed a good overhaul too, as some of the stuff that I’ve been printing just recently isn’t as it is supposed to be. In the end, I changed a couple of ink cartridges and it seems to be working a little better, although the Magenta is still being troublesome.

And that reminds me – I need to order some more ink cartridges.

This afternoon was beautiful and sunny, so seeing as I didn’t have my shower last week and I shan’t be having one for a couple of weeks with all of these medical appointments, my faithful cleaner came down and helped me organise the shower. At least, now I smell nice and sweet for Emilie the Cute Consultant tomorrow, although how long it will last, I really have no idea.

There was bread to make, and pizza to make too. I really didn’t feel like doing anything, but it has to be done. I was in total agony while I was making it, but I forced myself to carry on, and in the end I managed to produce an excellent loaf and an excellent pizza.

In the middle of all of this, Rosemary rang me for a chat. She’s had her car serviced just recently and she didn’t understand a few things on the bill.

It wasn’t one of our usual chats though – my voice was giving out and in the end, I had to terminate the chat as I couldn’t keep on going.

Throughout the whole of the day, I could feel myself becoming worse and worse. By teatime, I was feeling totally dreadful. I don’t think that I’ve ever felt as bad as I was feeling just then. In fact, halfway through my pizza, I just couldn’t go on any longer.

The pizza was abandoned on the table. And even though I hate waking up to dirty dishes all over the kitchen, so was the washing-up. I came back into the bedroom and simply climbed into bed, probably the best decision I had ever made.

But seeing as we have been talking about the difficulties in going to sleep … "well, one of us has" – ed …, apparently one of the best ways to fall asleep is to try counting sheep.
I asked one of my friends if this were true.
He replied "I’m not sure. I tried it the other night, starting off with one sheep. By the time that I had to leave the bed to go to work, I had ten thousand sheep, a huge farm in Australia and I was busy constructing a meat-packing factory"

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Sunday 21st September 2025 – ONE OF MY …

… WEB PAGES is going berserk right now with hits, and the hit counter is rolling off the page through sheer weight of numbers.

The tiny little village of St Paul’s River, or Rivière St Paul, on the Forgotten Coast of Québec close to the border with Labrador has become famous overnight. It seems that a consortium of fourteen residents of that tiny place have won the latest round of Canada’s national lottery, a prize of no less than $50,000,00 or, as the Canadian national newspapers have to explain to their intellectually-challenged audience, about $3.4 million each.

When I say “the Forgotten Coast”, I really do mean the “Forgotten Coast”. Totally isolated from the rest of Québec, pretty much ignored by the Province and with its only road connection being east into Labrador. There is so little known or written about the place, and as I seem to be the only person on the whole of the planet who has ever researched and written about it, everyone seems to be coming to me and my web page for newsworthy snippets.

Not that I mind, of course. Everyone should be entitled to his five minutes of fame, especially me. After all, it’s been a long time since I’ve had any, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed.

But thinking about it – which I always do, of course – if I live for another year or so, I will have more than five minutes of fame. I was told right at the start of this illness that no-one had ever survived more than eleven years with it. I was diagnosed in November 2015 and in principle, based on the Law of Averages, I should have been pushing up the daisies, or “eating the dandelions by the roots” as they say around here, a long time ago.

In fact, when I was ejected from the hospital in Leuven after eighteen months and told to find somewhere civilised to live, I asked the professor if I should buy myself a nice little apartment somewhere.

"You won’t have your money’s worth from it" the professor told me brutally. But here we are.

Mind you, we won’t be here much longer if things carry on like last night.

Once more, I sprinted right the way through all of my chores and ended up nicely tucked up in bed by 22:30. And how I wish that I could do that every night.

The next bit isn’t so clever, though. And that is that at 02:30, I was wide-awake. Try as I might, I couldn’t go back to sleep so eventually, round about 04:15, I left the bed.

Yesterday evening, I’d missed the live Caernarfon v Penybont game so I found the link to the game and sat back to watch it.

It’s really difficult playing football in a tropical monsoon, especially when it’s accompanied by a hurricane, and I could tell after five minutes that most of the Caernarfon team was wishing that it was somewhere else than on a football field. They really did seem quite disinterested.

After about 75 minutes, they totally fell apart and Penybont were striding through the Cofis’ defence with monotonous regularity. They scored two quick goals and could easily have three or four more.

Caernarfon pulled one back late in the game when Adam Davies latched on to an underhit backpass, and even had the ball in the net a second time in stoppage time, only for it to be controversially ruled out for offside.

Seriously though, I was convinced that the referee was refereeing a totally different game to the one that we were all watching.

After the final whistle, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. At some point during the night, I had this desire to turn round in bed but try as I might, I just wasn’t able to move. I kept on trying to think how I could bring everything that I wanted down towards where I was, which was in bed with some trees that had been planted to celebrate some kind of victory growing all around me if I was unable to change my position. It wasn’t until I awoke at 02:11 that I was able to move into a different position.

Reading this back, I have no idea whether or not it was true because I have no recollection of any of this. I’ve certainly no idea why trees should be growing all round my bed, planted to celebrate a victory.

Isabelle the Nurse was next to interrupt my train of thought. She was grateful for the prescription that I had obtained for her, and so was I because, without it, she couldn’t give me my injections. We had a friendly chat as she dealt with my legs, and then she disappeared off on her rounds.

Once she’d left, I made breakfast and read some more of BATTLES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

We’re not discussing the American invasion of Québec which Colonel Carrington, our author, describes as strategically correct but with enough tactical and logistics shortcomings to short-circuit the entire procedure. And I do have to say that I agree with him in this respect.

It was a slow start to the day. I was a couple of hours in the living room doing not very much at all, and then I came back in here for a footfest of highlights, including Stranraer gaining only the second point of the season.

But what a flukey equaliser the Elgin City goal was. I reckon that Kane Hester will TRY THAT SHOT a thousand times over the next ten years and not put the ball anywhere near the goal, never mind in it.

After the usual disgusting drink break, I came in here and began to work on the next radio programme, being interrupted by my visitor for tomorrow asking me to confirm my address.

Round about 16:00, I knocked off and went to make a loaf of bread for next week and some pizza dough for this evening. I was however interrupted by Rosemary, who ‘phoned me to say that she was back home after her mega-adventures in Italy.

She told me quite a bit about her holiday, but it was only a short ‘phone call today, just one hour and five minutes. Not up to our usual standard at all.

While I was at it, seeing as I had some vegan pie filling in the freezer, I baked a vegan pie for my guests for tea tomorrow. They have to eat, after all. For Tuesday night, I might ask my faithful cleaner to find a small aubergine and then I can cook one of my aubergine and kidney bean whatsits.

Tonight’s pizza was totally delicious, another candidate for one of the best that I have ever made. And now, I’m off to bed ready to Fight The Good Fight tomorrow, I don’t think.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the football highlights … "well, one of us has" – ed … a footballer from one of the games was injured and carried off the field.
They took him to hospital and while he was sitting there in the Accident Department, the registrar came over to check him in.
"And why have you come to the Accident Department?" she asked.
"I’ve no idea" he replied
"What do you mean?" she asked
"One of the other team kicked me on the knee" he explained. "But it wasn’t an accident. He did it on purpose."

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Tuesday 1st July 2025 – I HAVE EMULATED …

… my namesake the mathematician today, and done three-fifths of five-eighths of … errr … nothing.

And I can’t say that I’m sorry either. Not only am I not feeling very well, and haven’t been ever since the first drip of chemotherapy went in, I’ve done rather a lot over the last couple of weeks and I need a rest.

My rest actually started last night. I’d finished everything that I needed to do by about 22:30, and very shortly afterwards, I was in bed.

From what I remember … "which isn’t an awful lot" – ed … I must have been asleep quite quickly. I didn’t even start my nighttime mantra that helps me go to sleep when all else fails.

It was something of a turbulent night though. I remember being awake at 01:40 and again at about 04:20 but it was at about 06:15 when I finally decided that that was enough sleep. Not that I was out of bed quickly though – it took me a good ten minutes to summon up the energy.

The first thing to do was to watch a football match. Penybont had been playing a friendly against Airdrie in order to warm themselves up for their European Championship match. Whilst Airdrie had most of the play, Penybont’s desperate defending only allowed them to score one, whereas Mael Davies and Gabriel Kircough scored two of the sweetest goals that you are likely to see at this stage of the season.

The next thing was to transcribe the dictaphone notes from last night. I was in a hotel with someone. It was one of these plush places where everyone dressed for dinner. I couldn’t be bothered to dress for dinner so my friend and I came downstairs and found a table where we could just sit anywhere, expecting at any moment to be shunted off into a side gallery or somewhere like that out of everyone else’s way. I began to look through the menu to see what we could have when a young couple came down. They were very much like 1920s socialists with the cloth cap and all of this kind of thing. They chose to sit down at our table, not that we minded, of course. We began to chat, and I asked the girl what she would like for her meal. She said that she would like some really typical English sausages. I replied that there were some very, very English traditional sausages in the freezer but they were vegan ones. If she didn’t mind, she could have some of those. She asked if I could fetch two for her so I went off into the kitchens to find these sausages and to find one or two things that I needed too. I couldn’t find a plate so I opened the door to the cupboard and began to rummage through it. The noise that it made was absolutely awful so everyone looked around. I said “if you wanted to see what I was doing to make this noise, you are a little too late”. A few people made some kind of comment. I then had to go to fetch a ramp, and I really had no idea where a ramp would be. There were still one or two people making a few comments so I lay on my back and pushed myself along with my feet arched and my elbows dug in so that I could move quite quickly. Everyone was impressed by that. Then I came to a trailer that had exactly what I wanted as part of the floor bed on this trailer, so I lifted out the appropriate piece. It was really heavy. I then set out on my back propelling myself with my feel and my elbows to go back to my table.

When I was skiing in Bulgaria with my cute little Irish friend, we met another young couple (I wasn’t all that young actually) in our hotel and had a little chat with them. The guy was one of these clever types who knew everything … "like someone else we all know" – ed … and so it was hard to have a chat with them, but the girl, although she wasn’t my type and in any case, I was with my friend, was quite sweet. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t have shared any of my vegan sausages with her. Coming from the kind of family that I had, “sharing” was a phenomenon that was quite unknown.

And then I was at school, and it was school lunch break. I met up with a friend of mine and we had a really long chat. It wasn’t until later in this chat that I realised that the time was now 15:35 and we were an hour and a half late to go back for our lessons. He thought that he’d better rush so I decided that I’d rush too. But I couldn’t go back to lessons at this time of the afternoon because it was nearly home-time. Besides, it would look silly just going in for the final thirty minutes, so I decided to loiter around. So when my friend disappeared around a corner, I hung back to wait until he’d gone but instead, he came back to look for me. I reluctantly followed him until we came into the school hall, where I took my leave of him and looked as if I was going to climb up the stairs to go upstairs. Instead, I went to hide in the bottom of the stone stairs that were in an artificial turret to wait there until the final bell went. However, a class came downstairs into the hallway, looking around. I recognised the teacher, who was one from whose class I had dropped out a while back. She was discussing certain things, but must have seen me somehow because she stuck her head in the door and asked “could you take these books back up to my room please?”. They were apparently books that she had been showing to this class but they decided that they weren’t of any use in this course. I began to collect the books but as I started to go, she called me back to take her handbag. I had to go upstairs and hope that the classroom was empty and that there was no-one in there; otherwise it would be extremely embarrassing, just walking in in the middle of a lesson with things to leave behind, and then to go again. They would all be wondering what I was actually doing.

Being in school was at one time a regular subject during my nocturnal rambles. Not that I enjoyed school – not at all – but when you spend seven years in a place during your formative years, it figures quite intensely in your make-up. Strangely though, I very very rarely see any pupils whom I knew. Quite a few “mystery girls” though, including the famous “girl from Worleston” whose appearance overwhelmed me for several months, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. I never did find out who she was.

There was something somewhere about another friend of mine who had moved back to live with his parents. They had a large house on the edge of a wood. With another friend, we were wandering around and I pointed out this house. I said “this is where so-and-so’s family used to live”. He replied “so that was the house that he was hoping to have as his inheritance. What a shame he isn’t going to have it now”. For some reason I couldn’t bring myself to say that he was still living there, and I don’t know why I couldn’t say it.

This is a wood through which we’ve walked on several occasions in the past during our nocturnal rambles. But once again, here I am stuck in some kind of dilemma. Why take the easy route when there’s a way of complicating matters?

Finally, there were three of us on somewhere like a motorway services or airport concourse. We’d booked a room in a hotel on site. We found the hotel, which was enormous, by far the largest I had ever seen, but we couldn’t find the entrance. After walking all the way round, we found the entrance and found that we had room n°80. We set out to find the room, walking through crowds of people, several bars and so on, down several series of steps one after the other, until we came to a series of what looked like bathrooms. Even then, right at the end we still hadn’t found the bathroom for n°80,but there was another door with several more bathrooms beyond, and maybe n°80 was through there. But even so, we were still nowhere near finding our hotel room in this labyrinth.

This is a place that we have visited on several occasions during the night too. And dreams about hotels seem to be commonplace these days. I wonder why. Am I missing the fact that I’m not going away at all these days? And yet another dilemma?

Isabelle the nurse came round later to deal with my legs and to give me my injection. She tells me that it’s another one of the “injections of last resort” as I used to have all those years ago. It seems that we really have gone round full-circle.

She also seems to think that it’s a good idea to go to Rennes for chemotherapy rather than Paris. So does everyone, a sit happens, which is a change to find so many people agreeing with me.

After she left, I could make breakfast and then, now that I’m alone, go back to reading THE SURVEY OF LONDON.

There’s a beautiful example of the confusion caused by the calculation of the “old year” of the Julian calendar. Our author, John Stow, has been talking about the Rebellion of Thomas Wyatt.

He tells us that Wyatt and his men marched on London on 3rd February 1553. However, under the old calendar with the New Year beginning on 26th March in those days. In modern times the march on London has been dated as 3rd February 1554 because of the change of the date of the New Year to 1st January.

Back in here afterwards, I vegetated around for quite a while, chatting to my cleaner on the internet as she was doing a couple of laps around LeClerc.

When she returned, she came with a pile of shopping that she had found for me, including a shed-load of vegan cheese. Also two litres of olive oil on special offer at €13:20, a price that you won’t find bettered anywhere else.

This afternoon, I did something that I should have done a couple of months ago and filled in my tax return. This involves printing off a pile of supporting documents and luckily, my printer seems to be working properly for the moment. However, the ink is running low and we shall have to see if it continues to like these ersatz ink cartridges.

There were a few other letters to write. I’d been letting the correspondence run astray for a few weeks and it needed bringing up to date. No time like the present, before it goes completely out of hand.

For a change, there is some good news too. The plumber tells me that he’s coming to start work on Thursday, and won’t that be nice if he does? And not only that, the kitchen-fitter is starting on Wednesday next week and the way his programme is panning out, he thinks that he’ll be finished by the end of the month.

And so this move might be on much earlier than I thought. At least, I shall move my bedroom and office downstairs as soon as it’s possible. The rest can follow when there are people available to bring it.

As seems to be the case these days, I didn’t feel much like eating anything. However, I can’t go on not eating anything so I made a small about of stuffing and prepared a taco roll with some rice and veg. Even though there wasn’t much, it was still a struggle to push it all down.

And as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, if I’m off my food, then there’s really something wrong with me. I’ve been off my food ever since chemotherapy, and I wonder if my appetite will return before the next session. If not, I can see a huge load of complications arising.

So now that I’ve finished my notes, I’m off to bed. I’m restarting work tomorrow, and it’s also shower day, at long last. A good scrub will do me a lot of good.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my namesake the mathematician … "well, one of us has" – ed … he is actually famous for other things. And another poem has been written about him.
"A mathematician named Hall
Went to a fancy-dress ball
He thought he would risk it
And went as a biscuit
But a dog ate him up, crumbs and all."

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Friday 21st March 2025 – I’M HAVING ANOTHER …

… late night tonight. Mind you – this time it’s for a very good reason. Hwlffordd, third in the table, are playing Penybont, second, and need a win quite badly if they are to take second place. Normally, these days, I wouldn’t watch it until tomorrow afternoon at dialysis but this is a crucial match that I can’t really miss.

It’ll probably end up being later than last night’s, anyway. For a change, I was in bed not long after midnight once I’d finished everything that I had to do. And although I was asleep quite quickly, it wasn’t for long.

It was another freezing cold night and I was chilled to the marrow. In fact I grabbed hold of my dressing gown and put it on in bed and went back to sleep, feeling a little warmer.

And that’s surprising me. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that in the very recent past I’ve been sweating buckets and feeling so hot in bed that it’s unbelievable. Right now though, for the last couple of days it’s been exactly the opposite. So what’s happening here then?

Once I was asleep, there I stayed until the alarm went off and then a very weary me staggered to his feet and wandered off into the bathroom.

After a good wash and tidy up I went for the medication, and then back in here to listen to the dictaphone to see what had happened during the night. Some woman was talking to someone from the northern part of the USA about things that had been going on in a chat group. The person replied that it wasn’t actually things in general but a few specific occasions where people had been adopting some kind of strange attitude and coming out with some unusual comments. He couldn’t explain anything about them but he did mention that he was very friendly on line with a girl from Oregon. She was possibly the latest person to take part in this strange way of talking and using strange words and so on. He gave a couple of examples of things that she had said but they weren’t particularly complimentary.

That reminds me of a group of people with whom I used to hang around back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when we all talked in clichés. You would never ever hear someone say "it’s over there" without someone else replying "what? Behind the rabbit?"

Or when someone needed to find out how heavy something is the answer would always be "we shall use my largest scales"

There were thousands of quotes like that that filtered all the way through everyday conversation back in those days, and many of them still hang around today but for the most part, it’s a form of communication that has become very exclusive because there are fewer and fewer people who remember it.

These days, in general, a sense of humour is non-existent. I remember a fellow student, in despair after an “exchange” with an American, created a spoof web site with the University logo on it for a course entitled, “Understanding Irony” and pushed it into the USA. Not only did he have several applicants, his point was proven rather more dramatically than he intended because the University, which also didn’t have a sense of humour and would have benefited from his course, threatened him with all kinds of sanctions if he didn’t take down the site.

Later on in the night I had Crewe Alexandra v Barrow. Barrow, who were bottom of the league, put up a really stubborn existence but Crewe ended up overwhelming them and scoring in a late goal. As a result, Crewe won the championship, probably the first actual championship that they have won, and Barrow were relegated to the National League. Even so, many of the commentators were in admiration of Barrow’s determined style of play and their determination to hold on to win a point at all costs

Earlier in the season Crewe Alexandra were pushing for the leadership of the table and Barrow were down in the depths. But a look in the table just now shows that the Alex have slid down somewhat and Barrow have found some form and climbed up. So this is one dream that won’t be coming true – just like all the rest, I suppose.

The nurse is off to a funeral this morning so I told him to pass on my condolences to the family of the deceased. It’s for one of the guys with whom I used to travel to dialysis. He passed away last Saturday.

After he left I made breakfast and read some more of MY NEW BOOK. We’re still in the introductory basic astronomy lesson, discussing the various calculations of different New Years and, would you believe, mistletoe

Nevertheless I sat rather bolt-upright when I read his remark "It was absolutely essential for early man, including the inhabitants of Britain as it was then—townless, uncivilised — that the people should know something about the proper time for performing their agricultural operations".

Surely, if man had stopped being a hunter-gatherer and had settled down to a sedentary life to pursue agriculture, that must mean that they have stopped competing with each other and are learning to co-operate. And is it not the embracing of co-operation between human beings a sign that humans have become civilised?

Back in here I made a start on the Woodstock programmes and by the time I’d finished I had all of the music for Friday and Saturday, all edited, remixed and ready to go. Mind you, I’m not quite sure how I’m going to manage to fit one hour and twenty-two minutes of music plus all of the accompanying speech into a one-hour time slot on the Saturday

Tomorrow, if I have a moment spare, I shall have to do the music for the Sunday and see how much I have for that.

Some of the notes have already been written and I can work my way through the rest as I go along.

My cleaner turned up today and between us we have still not managed to find my medical card. This is going to become a problem if I’m not careful. I can’t think where it might be. I’ve put it somewhere safe and so that will be that.

That reminds me of life down on the farm. I’d see something on special offer and think that i’ll need that for a renovation in six months time, but it’s such a good price that it’s well worth buying it now. So I’d buy it, put it somewhere to keep it safe and when I came round to need it, I could never ever find it again.

Tea tonight was a very quick salad, veggie nuggets and chips, and then back here for the football.

Hwlffordd took off at a very rapid rates of knots and scored an early goal, but then Penybont roared back upfield and scored an equaliser almost immediately.

Having played at 100 mph for the first 20 minutes or so, Hwlffordd seemed to run out of steam and they became less concerned with attacking and more concerned with retaining possession, to such an extent that it became embarrassing at times. It goes without saying that Penybont scored a second late in the game and even so, Hwlffordd still didn’t show any sign of urgency

You don’t score goals if you don’t attack and Hwlffordd are one of the lowest-scoring teams in the league. Their defence is (usually) excellent but their lack of effort to move the ball quickly upfield and to find a striker who can score goals is going to cost them in the long run.

So now I’ll do the washing up and then go to bed. Washing clothes, making orange juice, and dialysis are on the agenda tomorrow.

But yesterday, we were having a discussion about light bulbs … "well, one of us was" – ed …
This morning a friend of mine in Germany asked me "how many Germans does it take to change a light bulb?"
"I don’t know" I replied. "How many does it take?"
"None" she replied. "German light bulbs are engineered correctly and so never ever need changing. And anyway, Germans don’t have a sense of humour."

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