Tag Archives: rachel

Tuesday 24th February 2026 – ♬ HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO …

… me ♬

Yes, another year older and deeper in debt, right enough. And don’t ask me how old I am because at my age, you don’t count the number of years that you’ve had – you count the number of years you have left. And in my case, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, it’s not all that many. In fact, if I see this one out, I shall be setting a new record.

So in preparation for my birthday, I tried my best … "and failed miserably" – ed … to rush ahead with what I needed to do. However, it was still late by the time that I finished, but not as late as some have been. I was in bed by 23:00, which is not bad going these days, although I wish that it could be better.

Once in bed, I was asleep quite quickly. But as seems to be par for the course following a session of dialysis, I was awake quite early. 03:50 as it happens.

And for the first time in a while, I managed to go back to sleep again – until all of 05:00. And after that, I just lay there trying unsuccessfully to doze off again. But when the time came round to about 06:15, I slid out from under the bedclothes and put my feet on the floor.

When the alarm went off, my feet were still on the floor and so that counts as an early start, even if I hadn’t been able to do anything in the way of work.

It was a struggle to stand up and go to the bathroom, but I did manage it in the end, and then I went off into the kitchen for my hot drink and medication.

Back in here, I found that I’d already received a few birthday messages, which I then read, with a great big thank you to those of you who had written. And my three friends from our travelling club were online and we all had a chat, including my friend from Munich who is just out of hospital after an eye operation.

While we were chatting, I was transcribing the dictaphone notes from last night.

There had been a body discovered in a shallow grave in Canada. It was of a girl about ten years old. Eventually, the police managed to track down her family – they lived in the Maritime Provinces. At one stage, they had moved out west but the lure of the Maritimes was too strong and they had returned. That was as far as I’d gone before I awoke.

Bodies are being pulled out of shallow graves by the dozen in North America, so there’s nothing new here. And neither is people going out west to the oilfields of Alberta from the Maritime Provinces, especially after the collapse of the fishing industry following the cod moratorium of 1992, something that we have discussed on numerous occasions during our visits around the Atlantic coast of Canada.

It’s also true that most of the families do end up coming back. The pace of life in the oilfields is much more intense than the laid-back attitudes of the Maritimers, so once they have done several years out there and made their pile, they gradually filter back home to work at whatever they can find while drawing on their not-insubstantial savings.

I was with one of my friends last night and we were in Crewe watching the Crewe Carnival. And while I was trying to fix something and she was watching me, another parade went past with all young people. I happened to recognise two or three people in this parade. I’d heard that there was going to be some kind of parade in respect of something else, some march or demonstration, so I wondered if this was it. After the crowds dispersed and we slowly began to walk away, we were walking down Queen Street … "It was Queensway actually" – ed … and there was sunlight with a very fine rain and we bumped into one of the girls whom we’d seen in this parade. I asked her how her parade went and she replied “ohh, the speech by the leader was magnificent and it’s really going to make him grow”. I replied “yes, but what about the parade?”. “Well, maybe there were six hundred people there and it all seemed to go very well” she said. And while I was standing in a queue for something or other, it might have been a packet of crisps or something, another girl whom I knew came along. She tried to take her mug off the counter but she couldn’t quite reach it, so I reached behind me and it was much easier to reach from there so I passed it to her with a smile. She wandered off, but my friend asked me about the girl – who she was. I replied that she was someone from our office. We began to walk down Queensway and I was eating my packet of crisps. I asked my friend what she was doing this evening. She replied that she was going to look for a pair of shoes in some of the shops around the area, so I said that I’d come with her, with the idea that maybe later on, we’d go for a meal or something. Then she began to talk about Margaret, a former employee of mine on the taxis. She said that she went round to see Margaret’s first accommodation which was some kind of bedsit place down one of the back streets off the West End. She said “it has to be worth more than £1000 per year”. She mentioned something about the smell but I didn’t really notice it. She began to think aloud about investing some of her money from her retirement pension into a rental property in Crewe and seeing whether that would make a better return than what she’s receiving on her investments at the moment.

Strangely enough, in our Welsh class later, we were talking about rituals and ceremonies and discussing how many old ceremonies have disappeared in recent times. The subject of Crewe Carnival actually did crop up during this discussion. It disappeared about fifteen or so years ago, which was a shame because at one time it attracted tens of thousands of people to the town.

The two girls – I know them too. The second girl was a girl with whom I worked for a while, and the first one was a friend of a friend from Stoke-on-Trent who came to stay with me for a few days while she was interviewed for a post at the European Commission. The bit about “the leader” sent a chill through my spine, though. There are far too many of these “leaders” around these days and it can only go all pear-shaped.

Isabelle the Nurse came along later and wished me a happy birthday as she sorted out my feet and legs. And after she left, I made breakfast. As a special treat, I had cheese on toast with my porridge, and it would have been really nice had I not dropped both slices upside-down in the oven.

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

He’s finally finished discussing pottery, and he’s still no nearer solving the riddles that have been plaguing him throughout the chapter. His conclusions are full of theories and unanswered questions, but at least, his “layering” technique for identifying periods of occupation seems to have produced positive results, even if they aren’t the results that he’s expecting.

Back in here, I went to revise my Welsh and then I joined the lesson. And it passed really well today. All of this revision seems to be paying off, if only I could remember it the following morning. Wouldn’t that be nice?

After lunch my faithful cleaner came to do her stuff and she shooed me into the shower too, so now I’m nice and clean … "well, clean, anyway" – ed …

Liz ‘phoned me later and we had a Rosemaryesque chat that went on for an hour and eighteen minutes. Just a short one today. We discussed lots of things and she promised to send a recipe for a grilled vegetable salad, which I received later.

My niece and one of her daughters ‘phoned me later, as did my friend from the Orkney Islands. I shall have to have birthdays more often at this rate, if I’m so popular.

Once everything had quietened down, I began work on another radio programme but regrettably, I fell asleep for almost an hour – one of those sleeps where I don’t even realise that I’ve gone to sleep until I awaken.

While I was asleep in the early evening, I was with two friends. I’d met them while I was out driving down Chestnut Avenue in Shavington, presumably on the way home to Vine Tree Avenue and they were walking up the hill. There was a house for sale in the avenue and I’d noticed it because it seemed to be remarkably cheap for what it was so I happened to mention it. They looked at it – a big, modern detached home, on sale for £199,000 and it had a big gazebo at the back. The wife liked the look of it so the three of us went into the garden. She was worried that we had no authorisation but I told her that it didn’t matter. I’d simply pretend. As we walked up to the house, we noticed that there was no path and the lawn towards the front door was badly eroded. But as we walked, it became steeper and steeper and more and more eroded until we found ourselves on the roof. There seemed to be no other way in, despite how it looked from the road. And the roof seemed to be all old slates rather than the nice, neat tiles that we’d seen from the road. We eventually found our way inside, and it didn’t seem to be so bad, but there was someone else in there showing another couple around. He was telling them “you’ll probably get this place for £130,000 because … ” and then he mumbled something that I didn’t quite catch. I asked him to repeat it but before he could, I awoke.

Whatever this is about, I have absolutely no idea. I can’t think of anything that has cropped up recently that will have triggered this off.

Tea tonight was a lovely vegan vegetable stir-fry with noodles followed by a slice of fiery ginger cake with thick custard. And “fiery” is definitely the correct word to use here. I’m well-impressed. Isabelle the Nurse had asked me if I would be putting candles on my cake, but I told her that with climate change, global warming and all of that, it probably wouldn’t be a good idea. Mind you, my breath alone after eating that will contribute to a rise in planetary temperature, I imagine.

But now, I’m off to bed to sleep off my rather large meal. I couldn’t resist all of that lovely food, no matter how ill I might have been feeling.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my friend from Munich … "well, one of us has" – ed … the doctor came to check up on him this morning.
"How many fingers am I holding up?"
"Four" replied my friend
"Good" said the doctor. "Now come with me" and they both went outside.
"Now what’s that?" said the doctor, pointing up into the sky
"That’s the sun, of course"
"Well, that’s ninety-three million miles away from here. If you can see that far, your eyes must be good enough to go."

Wednesday 18th February 2026 – I’LL TELL YOU …

… something for nothing, and that is that I’m not going to have one of those caffeine-filled energy drinks again.

Yes, never mind “last night” – I was still wide awake at 03:00 this morning and showing no sign whatever of going off to sleep? And that’s despite the early start that morning.

It wasn’t as if I was all that early going to bed either. By the time that I’d finished everything and gone to bed, it was round about 23:30. So seven hours sleep was the most that I could expect, but I ended up with much, much less than that.

However, it wasn’t all wasted. As I usually do when I’m having difficulty sleeping, I set myself an imaginary problem. Using techniques that I’ve learned about the building of prehistoric and Roman defensive sites, I redesigned the fort that Colonel Carrington built in the Black Hills of Dakota that was abandoned after the Fetterman Disaster. I made quite a few changes and additions too that would have made the fort so much stronger.

At some point though, I must have gone off to sleep because the alarm awoke me at 06:29. And then it was a desperate struggle to force myself to leave the bed. It’s becoming harder and harder to leave the bed these days.

After I’d had a good wash and brush-up, I went into the kitchen for my hot drink and medication, and then I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone.

I’d gone round to meet my girlfriend, and for a change, we decided that we’d go for a walk. We took some food with us too, and she put some bits and pieces in the food box that I was carrying. We’d hardly left the building when we bumped into one of the drivers from the taxi company, one of the young, chatty ones. He had a few personal problems on his hands. Apparently certain people had found out that he had a daughter and an ex-girlfriend living in Ireland. This was causing him a lot of problems. I said that although I knew, because he’d told me in the past, he’d never said anything to anyone and I knew nothing about it. He said that he understood, but he was still disturbed by the idea that people were gossiping behind his back over this matter and looking at him strangely. As this conversation carried on, I couldn’t seem to … not that I wanted to end it, but I wanted to be with my girlfriend, and this was rather inconvenient. But he carried on and carried on. In the end, we came to some kind of building where we all went in, but I turned round and my girlfriend wasn’t there. I found her leaning propped up against the wall in the corridor. She had a smile on her face but I could tell that she wasn’t happy, so I thought that I’d better take her for a meal or something, and see whether we could sort things out, not that there were any problems but I didn’t want her to be unhappy or be angry or upset with me because of that long chat that I’d had with that guy

Actually, that particular driver had been part of the conversation that I’d had with my cleaner earlier yesterday. It wasn’t about this subject, though. And I could understand why a girl would feel jealous or left out of things under these circumstances.

But maybe, if I’d bought meals for a couple of other girls in the past when they had been feeling left out of things, my life wouldn’t seem to be as disastrous as it appears

There had been some kind of invasion in Scotland – it might have been the Germans. They had rounded up a pocket of soldiers in the Glasgow Underground, and for one of them, they decided that they’d give him an examination for a fitness test for a PSV. What they did was to put some oversized boots on him and told him to simply run. He did a lap around the underground station and when he came back, he was roughly manhandled and pushed over to some kind of officer to be that officer’s chauffeur. One of the trips that they had to make was to go to see some kind of Scotsman involved in something or other, so they turned up at his house and the officer sent the driver in to fetch him. He went in, and he explained that he’d been taken prisoner and was now the chauffeur of this guy so they began to think of a way of escaping. One of the ways that they thought of was by going to the local swimming baths and disappearing in the crowd but when they looked out of the window, the officer wasn’t in the car so they nipped out of the house and started to lose themselves. The officer realised that they’d gone – he had an idea and began to follow them but he’d been drinking and was a little unsteady on his feet. As he was closing in on these two Scots people, he fell over face down into a puddle of water. Some young Scottish girl, rather intoxicated, saw him and fell down with him. She told him “you don’t want to go drinking this. Let’s go somewhere and have a real drink”. She knew some friends where they could go, so this officer, who now had a dog, followed her. They were heading right back to the house where he’d just come from, but suddenly, the dog ran off. The officer had to go to look after the dog, find it and bring it back so they didn’t end up actually going into the house at all. Instead, the girl went into a bar next door while the officer went to try to sort out what had happened to his dog.

This dream, despite it being so long, seems to relate to nothing at all – except that when I was in Brussels and my boss was on holiday for a couple of weeks, I drove the Finnish general who had come to discuss the possibility of a European Army, something that only seems to be happening today, twenty-five years later.

Isabelle the Nurse was early today. She told me a few stories of Carnaval but she says that she’ll show me the photos at the weekend. One thing that she did confirm was that the town is in total and absolute chaos after the parade yesterday.

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

And I must admit to having had a laugh at one of the comments in his book, even though I know that I shouldn’t. Freudian slips are not the subject of history at all – they really do happen, especially as in where he writes "There is also a very similar situation at South Street in north Wiltshire (Ashbee et al 1979), where Late Neolithic activity with Peterborough pottery occurred in secondary woodland." and then goes on to ask "What sort of activity went on in these woodlands and why did it have no effect on the vegetation?"

Judging by the considerable evidence of the presence of numerous children at the site, I have a pretty good idea of what went on in the woodland, and it had probably been going on for so long that the vegetation had seen it all before and so was immune to the shock factor.

But to be serious … "for once" – ed … we’ve gone past molluscs and are now onto plants. Judging by the types of seeds in the different layers of soil, his team’s opinion of the timeline of the land-use as judged by mollusc remains is pretty much correct

However, interestingly, in the earliest layers, round about the period of the early Neolithic, remains of nuts, seeds, grains and fruits seem to be indicative of the remains of a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Although there was a great variety of different remains, the edible remains were few, indicating that it was still very much a precarious hand-to-mouth existence.

By the time that we reach the Iron Age, though, the diet seems to be much more monotonous, with a predominance of grain, leguminous plants and arable weeds. This seems to point to a people who abandoned the hunter-gatherer lifestyle a good way back and are now practising sedentary agriculture – large-scale arable farming necessitating a totally different lifestyle involving cooperation and coordination.

Even more interestingly, the amount of crop “waste” recovered that relates to this latter period is described as "copious". It was clearly anything but a hand-to-mouth existence, and this bears out something that I heard when I went to a lecture at the university in Brussels years ago, that agricultural production per capita in the Iron Age was sufficient to support a much larger population than existed at the time, hence there would be little reason for warfare amongst the different tribes and groups of people.

Back in here, I had several things that I needed to do, and then I attacked the radio programme. All of the music is now paired and segued, and all of the notes have been written, ready for the next early start, whenever that might be.

As well as that, I’ve had a couple of online chats with a few people, including my niece in Canada and also with a friend, who wished me “happy birthday”, which is nice of him, even if he is a little early with his best wishes.

When I’d finished, I had a play around with a few artificial intelligence story writers, and I was astonished at the results from two of them. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … this Artificial Intelligence is going to lead to total chaos and a whole lot of trouble before too long, if it hasn’t already. In the past, I’ve already been swapping heads and backgrounds around from one image to another with startling results.

With what time was left, I began to edit a rock concert to use for the next radio programme, only to find that it’s the wrong date, so I’ll have to look for another way of filling up that broadcast.

Tea tonight was pasta and something out of the freezer. It should have been an aubergine and kidney bean whatsit dating back to November 2023 (there is stuff far older than that in there) but it wasn’t. I have no idea what it was, or why it was in the wrong packet, but I identified peanuts in it.

Pudding was a peach half with vegan sorbet. My imagination is rather lacking right now. But when I’ve finished this tin of peaches, I might go for a pear upside-down cake, just to be different. Rosemary reckons that instead of sugar, you can use a mix of desiccated coconut and ground almonds. That should be fun to try.

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

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about swimming baths just now … "well, one of us has" – ed … the Municipal Swimming Baths in Crewe closed down a few years ago, and they now have somewhere much more modern – and privatised.
They put up a big sign above the door to advertise the place. It said "PSWIMMING BATHS".
And so I went along and asked them "do you know that you have made a spelling mistake?"
"Not at all" the receptionist said. "In these swimming baths, the ‘P’ is silent."

Tuesday 23rd December 2025 – GUESS WHO …

… has been a very busy boy today?

It’s been non-stop from start to finish here today and I’m thoroughly exhausted after all of it. And the worst of it all is that it all started at about … errr … 04:30 this morning too.

Last night was busy too. Apart from falling asleep several times while I was trying to write out my notes, there were the usual man-made distractions and everything else. What should have been an early night ended up at 23:15. Still, it’s earlier than some have been just recently.

Once in bed, I was asleep quite quickly, but not for long. Mind you, 04:30 is later than some have been just recently too.

Round about 05:30, I gave up any further hope of going back to sleep and heaved myself out of my stinking pit. And taking advantage of the early start, I dictated the notes for the joining track for the radio programme that I’d been preparing, edited them and then assembled the programme.

This one was just about eleven seconds over the hour, but editing that out is no real problem.

Just as I was finishing, the 06:29 alarm went off so I scurried off into the bathroom to organise myself and then into the kitchen for my medication and hot ginger, honey and lemon drink.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night. I was out at my niece’s and my father was there. A couple of years ago, my brother had been to visit but no-one had seen hide nor hair of him since then. My father and everyone else were talking about going off on holiday – they’d arranged a camping holiday for two weeks, leaving the following morning. I had to go down to Sartilly to pick up their tent ready for an early start. Just at that moment, the door burst open and my brother walked in and said “hello” to everyone. Of course, everyone was pleased to see him but the timing was all totally wrong. Everyone would be off on holiday that following morning. He’d come all this way and no-one was going to stay with him. He said that it didn’t matter anyway. He couldn’t stop because the alternator on his car was giving up. My niece’s husband turned to me and said “while you’re out at the shop picking up the tent, pick up a voltage regulator 1071. That’s the one for his alternator”. I walked out and left them to it and set off for Sartilly. For some reason, I was in a coach, and when I reached Sartilly I found myself going to reverse all the way through the town centre. It wasn’t the real town centre at Sartilly but somewhere else. I was trying to reverse this coach and making a real dog’s breakfast of it. A few people on board were talking about another coach driver, a woman who owned her own business so I immediately thought of Dolly Barratt. I was busy trying to sort out this coach, reversing through this town centre in all this kind of chaos, but eventually I arrived at the shop, which was something like Boots in Crewe. I went in and found the counter. There was a guy serving behind it, and he had a port wine birthmark on his face. Where it was was not in the car part or the camping part, but his post was surrounded all by seeds of flowers and vegetables

The chances of us all being together and pleased to see each other are … errr … somewhat remote, especially as spread out as we are. As for my father, someone would have to drag him up from shovelling the coals in the depths of Hades and that would be rather a complicated task for someone.

What else impressed me was how much of that dream was actually based on real events, people and situations too.

Another thing is that, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, we had another dream, only a few days ago, where I was with my brother and trying to reverse a coach through another city centre. There’s obviously some kind of significance here.

Isabelle the Nurse beamed herself into the apartment at that point. I asked her how her week’s break had been, and she told me that she’d spent the week ill in bed. Now that’s what I call sad. However, she was still smiling, so I definitely want a mug of whatever she drinks before she comes out.

After she left, I went and made breakfast and then started my new book – A ROMAN FRONTIER POST AND ITS PEOPLE.

This is the report, all seven hundred and more pages of it, of the archaeological excavations of the Roman fort of Trimontium near Newstead in the Scottish Borders by James Curle at the start of the twentieth century. The book has 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."

It was an outlier fort, built beyond Hadrian’s Wall and after the Antonine Wall across the Forth-Clyde gap was abandoned, it was heavily fortified, presumably because then it was deep into enemy territory. It was finally abandoned, presumably as untenable, round about 184 AD.

After breakfast, I began the hard work. The first task was to make my vegan Wellington for Christmas and New Year. It’s a roll of flaky pastry filled with a stuffing made of chestnuts, mushrooms and sweet potato. I made one a couple of years ago and it was delicious, so I hope that this one is as good. It took several hours and a lot of hard work to make.

After I’d finished and it was all nicely baked, I was about to move on to the next task, but my faithful cleaner appeared and chased me into the shower. Not that I felt much like it but there was no possibility of argument. At least I’m nice and clean now … "well, clean anyway" – ed …

She had remembered to buy the tomato passata so after she had left, I could make the sauce for the baked beans. I have a feeling that it’s not going to be much of a success, because the recipe seems to need much less soy sauce than the instructions said. But you can’t win a coconut every time. At the moment, it’s all sitting simmering in the slow cooker where it will simmer away all through the night.

Finally, there were the hash browns to make. And after a very hit-and-miss start, I finally got to grips with it and understood what I was supposed to be doing. And these seem to have turned out to be a roaring success by the looks of things, much better than any attempt that I have made in the past. They even held together when I turned them over in the oven.

On top of all of this, the postie arrived with two packages. There still seems to be one missing, but now I have my new quilt cover, veggie knives and giant-sized sieves. My previous giant sieve is destined to go to that great kitchen in the sky because the paint has come off and when I drain my carrots for freezing, it’s leaving rust stains on some of them. These new ones are stainless steel.

All of that had completely worn me out and when I finally came back in here, I sat in the chair and crashed out for an hour. I was totally exhausted.

For tea, when I eventually made it into the kitchen, I made pasta and veg in tomato sauce with a vegan burger, followed by fruitcake and vegan sorbet.

Back in here, late as usual, I ended up having a good, long chat with Liz and so I’m running horribly late yet again. But I don’t mind. I’d rather talk to friends than do anything else so I’m not complaining. It’s nice that my friends still think about me.

But right now, I’m off to bed. Tomorrow , I have a radio programme that I want to do from start to finish if I can. there are also several other tasks too but I’ll worry about those in due course.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my dreams … "well, one of us has" – ed … something in that dream reminded me of something many years ago.
Back in Crewe in the olden days, we had a man who was one sandwich short of a packed lunch (Crewe is full of those) and who thought that he was a suicide bomber. He’d creep up unawares on people and shout " BOOM" down their ears quite loudly
When I went back to Crewe once, after I’d left to live in Brussels, I didn’t see him so I asked one of my friends "whatever happened to the man who thought that he was a suicide bomber?"
"Oh, him!" she replied. "He’s gone off on holiday."

Friday 14th November 2025 – MY NEW OFFICE …

… chair is not as comfortable as I would have liked it to be.

Mind you, that’s not the end of the World, not at all. Firstly, if I can’t try it out before I buy it, I have to accept whatever I can find. And secondly, it’s far more comfortable than the previous one.

Anyway, my faithful cleaner and I had loads of fun late this afternoon assembling it and I’m now sitting in it, making the most of a seat that actually goes up and down as it’s supposed to do and a backrest that reclines into a comfortable sleeping position if ever I need it.

As you can gather, I’m feeling rather better this morning. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, sleep has always been my go-to cure for all evils.

Not that I had a good sleep last night, though. I was determined to push on and write up the notes for yesterday and the missing ones from the day before yesterday, before I went to bed, and although I managed it, it was not far off midnight by the time that I hit the sack.

And although I was asleep quite quickly, it lasted until all of … err … 05:10 when I awoke, and no matter what I tried, I couldn’t go back to sleep.

In the end, round about 06:10, I gave up trying and had an early start to the day. Not that I was in any rush, though. I took my time having a good scrub up and taking my medication, including making another honey, ginger and lemon drink, and I wasn’t back in here any earlier than I might usually have been.

And so I transcribed the dictaphone notes to find out where I’d been during the night. I was in the tower block at work and had gone out for a quick coffee. However, there had been a couple of folk musicians playing in the café so I stayed around to listen for much longer than I really ought to have done. On the way back to my office, I found myself on the roof. It was November and it was a beautiful sunny day. There was a sandy kind of beach on the roof and you could see for miles, and the sea in the distance looked beautiful. I thought that I could bring my sandwiches up here at lunchtime to have a nice little relax. I looked back into the building through the fire escape. It seemed that the top floor stairwell had been completely redesigned over some kind of period and repainted. One of the senior officials who knew me was there, so I asked him when it had been done. He said that it had been done during the Luxembourg Presidency and made the building much easier to maintain and clean. I set off to walk down the stairs to my office but after about three or four floors, found myself on the ground floor. It was inside a little delicatessen type of place in the busy shopping street just outside. I wondered what had happened to all the intervening floors. I was being hours late back to work so I rushed to the lift and opened the doors, but there was a girl in it. I asked her “do you mind if I join you?”. She replied “yes, if you are going to do it today”. I asked her which floor she required but she gave a very non-committal answer so I set the dial to go to my floor and the lift set off. But there was the sound of a girl panting very loudly. It wasn’t the girl who was with me so I asked her if she knew what was happening. She replied that it was obviously some girl in a hurry so I asked “where is she?”. She replied “ohh, she’s around somewhere” and that made things even more confusing.

The tower block relates to a building in which I once worked for a short while in Manchester, although it didn’t have a beach on the roof and you couldn’t see the sea from there. There was no delicatessen on the ground floor either.

However, being horribly late back from a tea break or a lunch brings back a few memories of a very troubled time and I’m surprised that it has risen its ugly head once more after all these years.

And later on, I was at someone else’s house and my niece was there with one of her daughters and her daughter’s friend. They were messing around with an AI app and had managed to make the television in this room talk to them. They were discussing things like going out. It was a Sunday afternoon and fairly late and I would have expected them to go out much earlier because it was such a nice day. But they were talking to this app about going out, and in the end, one of them asked about when they could have a taxi. The app replied that he could be there in about ten minutes. My niece said “well, I want to get washed and get ready and everything” so I said “well, just go out as you are”. So they arranged to have this car come to pick them up via this AI app and they dashed upstairs to get ready. I went to look out of the window and there were crowds of people walking up and down the street, kids running around, and there was a huge dog, an enormous thing. Then there was a slightly smaller dog, all white like a polar bear, and there was a strange kind of deer that was also white. It had the two hind legs much shorter than the front legs so it was walking on a lead with someone in a kind of strange fashion. As I looked, a brown Cortina MkIII pulled up in the street at the bottom of the hill and went to reverse into someone’s drive. However, he hit a trailer that was parked on the pavement. I thought that if he’s the taxi, he’s going to be in a lot of trouble. But he parked in the drive and walked off. So then I went up with the television and found my mobile ‘phone, which was an old type of Nokia. The back of it didn’t seem to fit on the front. I noticed that I’d written some notes on the back about where all the data was stored on which memory stick. I didn’t remember doing that in the past, so I sat down and began to play around with this television and this AI map. However, it was long after ten minutes, the taxi hadn’t arrived and the girls still hadn’t come downstairs from getting ready.

The view from this house corresponds with a view that I had from a house that I used to visit in Neston on the Wirral fifty-odd years ago, although my niece never ever visited it. Talking Ai apps are all the rage these days, although I’m doing my best to avoid them. I prefer text that I can cut, paste and save rather than rely on my fading memory.

The animals were quite curious too and I don’t know what to make of them.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up and sorted out my legs. And then, in accordance with the prescription that I received yesterday, she took my blood pressure.

"If the blood pressure is less than 8.5" said the prescription. "telephone the dialysis clinic immediately."

And so she telephoned immediately. "Mr Hall’s blood pressure is 7.9!"

"Oh" came the reply. "That’s normal for him!"

After she left, I made breakfast and for once, I managed to eat everything as well as drink my coffee. And how I have missed a good mug of coffee!

Back in here, there was the uploading of a pile of little miscellaneous programs, some of which I’ve been using for over twenty years and which are difficult to find these days. Luckily, I’ve been saving all the installation programs but even so, there are one or two of the full executable programs that are no longer on line and in one case, the link to the executable program has been hi-jacked so I had to end up cleaning out all of the mess that it had created.

After a disgusting drink break, I made myself ready for the Centre de Ré-education and the taxi came to pick me up.

Having told them that three is the maximum amount of sessions that I feel able to do in a day, they had changed my programme to give me four this afternoon. And while it’s back to three next week, the week after, they have given me four again. I may as well talk to myself, I suppose.

The first session was sitting at something like a rowing machine, using my leg muscles (such as they are) to move some weights. A whole thirty minutes of it too and I couldn’t stand up afterwards. They had to lift me from the machine.

Secondly, I was with my physiotherapist who had me lying on my side giving me breathing exercises. She also suggested some exercises that I can do in bed, although I have my own ideas about those. That was when I realised that I was feeling better.

Thirdly, they strapped me to a machine that had me standing up. They kept on asking me every five minutes if I was still OK. I’ve no idea why, because it didn’t seem like any effort for me and I was enjoying the view out of the window.

Finally, the occupational therapist wanted to see me about hints and tips for the shower. However, that was really a waste of half an hour because he had no suggestions to make. And when he was talking about non-slip rubber mats, he was showing me examples at €150:00 or thereabouts. We’re doing the same job with a worn-out bath towel that one of my cleaner’s other clients was throwing away.

Back here, my cleaner helped me in and then we attacked the new chair. It was a complex piece of machinery to assemble but it seems to work really well. As I said earlier, it’s not as comfortable as I would have liked, but it’s definitely an improvement.

Tea was air-fried chips with salad and those breaded quorn nuggets that I like. And, regardless of there being only very small portions, for once I managed to eat everything. And it’s been a long time since that has happened.

So now I’m off to bed. With a repaired (I hope) washing machine, I shall be clothes-washing in the morning and then off to dialysis to see what delights they have in store for me there.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the girl in the lift … "well, one of us has" – ed … I did once meet a girl in a lift
"Do you mind if I join you?" I asked.
"I suppose so" she replied. "But honestly, I had no idea that I was coming apart."

Monday 10th November 2025 – MY CANADIAN VISITORS …

… have now departed. As I am writing these notes, they are probably hitting the high spots around Paris as a final fling before flying back out tomorrow morning.

This means that I can now do my best to return to normality, such as normality is around here.

It actually started last night. They left to go to have an early night ready for the voyage, so I could write up my notes, take the stats, do the backing-up and then sort myself out for bed.

It wasn’t as early as I would have liked, though. Probably more like 23:30 which, although not as late as some have been, is still after my ideal curfew time of 23:00.

Once in bed, I was asleep quite quickly and despite the odd brief awakening during the night, I was still asleep when the alarm went off at 06:29. How many times is this just recently that I’ve slept until the alarm? I reckon that it’s been more times this last ten days than in the previous ten months.

When the alarm went off, there was some kind of incident going on in the street. It concerns a prisoner. The prisoner managed to escape and climbed onto the back of someone’s motorbike in order to escape. However, the police set up a roadblock somewhere and the motorbike collided with this road block, and the prisoner on the back was catapulted over the cars that were blocking the road and into the street beyond, where the authorities managed to arrest him again.

This reminds me of a real incident that actually did take place in London years ago, but in that case the prisoner made good his escape.

Once more, it was an enormous effort to haul myself out of bed. I really didn’t feel like it at all. Nevertheless, I went … "eventually" – ed … into the bathroom to tidy myself up for dialysis, and then went for my medication.

That involved another glass of this honey, lemon and ginger mix, and remembering not to put the calcium in it.

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 who resembled one of the nurses. I was disabled and hobbling along with difficulty on my crutches and she was with me. We ended up at the shops and were in a queue at the till, ready to leave. The people in front of us, their bill came to so many Pounds and so many pence. They had the Pounds but they didn’t have any pence, so the girl with me rooted through her purse and gave them the correct amount of pence for the sale. Then she prepared her purse for ours at the check-out and I noticed that her number for the Co-operative Society was 24287. I explained that that was very, very close to the number that we had as a family and kids when we lived in Shavington. We passed through the till, and the cashier put two things on top of the belt. One of them fell off so I had to bend down and pick it up. The other one was a pair of very used Levi jeans. I looked, and the girl with me was now wearing her new pair instead of the old pair in which she’d set out. I rolled the old pair up, busy making sure that nothing fell out of the pockets, and put them in the bag. I asked her how much the Levis were. She replied “£9:99”. I said that that was an excellent price for a pair of Levi jeans. I told her that I really liked Levi jeans and they were the only jeans that I bought that actually fit me comfortably and the cut was correct.

It’s quite bizarre that, after all these years, I can still remember our “divvy” number

It’s also true about Levi jeans. They were the only ones that really fit me correctly. And wasn’t it nice to have a certain nurse accompanying me last night? She can accompany me any time she likes.

And I can’t remember very much about the next dream but I was trying to go through the duplicate files on my computer and remove them. But for some reason, it was taking hours instead of the usual ten minutes. I’d even gone for some food and then come back and it was still performing its search. While I was doing this, there was someone doing a pile of washing-up from all of the cooking and baking and everything that everyone was here for last week. She suddenly announced “there’s no hot water any more”. She added “now, there’s someone on this site who is touching a commission from the Electricity Board for this and we’ll have to find out who it is” although I knew how to switch on the hot water anyway, I was interested in finding the culprit

It’s true that with this temporary hard drive in the computer, searches are taking much longer. But the electricity issue doesn’t seem to relate to anything.

The nurse came around a little later, still in a good mood. He sorted out my legs and then left. This is his last day for a week so I wished him a happy break.

After he had left, I ate the two remaining croissants and then made another batch for my guests. I then came back in here to work on a radio programme while I awaited their arrival.

They turned up in the middle of a rainstorm so while they were eating croissants, I organised a taxi to take them to the station.

The car arrived at the same time as my faithful cleaner, so I gave my visitors a good hug and they left for their train. They are going to Rennes and then on a TGV to Paris. That will make a change from the decrepit, derelict excuses for Canadian trains that have been THE SUBJECT OF CONSIDERABLE DISCUSSION on here.

The taxi turned up for me just a couple of minutes late, and we had to go to the Centre de Ré-education for another passenger. However, after a good search and a long wait, she didn’t put in an appearance. As a result, we were late arriving at dialysis.

There was no peace for the wicked. My blood pressure was in free fall throughout the session and every half-hour, the alarm sounded, which brought the nurses running.

The doctor came to see me, and she decided to reduce the quantity of one of the medicines that I take, to see if that will make a difference.

My taxi was waiting for me when I finished, and it was a good drive home where my faithful cleaner was waiting to help me into the apartment.

After a rest, I portioned out all of the unused food into containers and then heated up some of the broccoli stalk soup. However, I couldn’t eat much and a large amount ended up in the bin. Nevertheless, I managed to eat the chocolate cake and strawberry dessert.

Having finished what I could, I washed up and then put the packed food away in the freezer in the bathroom. That involved a little sorting-out, and I really need to have a good tidying-up session in there.

That’s a task that will have to be done another time because I’m off to bed right now. I’m in absolute agony, aching from every joint, and I wish that I could snap out of this.

But seeing as we have been talking about trains … "well, one of us has" – ed … three men from Crewe were on a train where they met three other men.
They began to talk about their tickets, and the men from Crewe showed the other men their three tickets
"But we only have one" replied the other men.
"How do you manage for a control? "
"Watch" said the other men. And as the controller walked down the corridor, the three other men went to the bathroom and locked themselves in.
When the controller knocked on the door to ask for their ticket, they slid it under the door. The controller punched it and pushed it back.
On the return journey, they met again and the men from Crewe showed that they just had the one ticket.
"We don’t have any" replied the other men.
"How do you manage for a control? "
"Watch" said the other men.
As the controller approached, the three men from Crewe went to hide in the bathroom.
The three other men walked behind them at a discreet distance to go to a bathroom further down the train.
As they passed the bathroom where the men from Crewe were hiding, one of them knocked on the door and said "tickets, please" so the men from Crewe slid their ticket under the door.

Sunday 9th November 2025 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

… the dictaphone this morning.

Not that it’s any surprise, because if you don’t go to bed until after 02:00, what do you expect?

And for the first time in I don’t know how many months, I slept right through to the alarm, which, on a Sunday and it being a Day of Rest, doesn’t go off until 07:59.

Last night, after we’d finished eating, we stayed around talking about old times for what seemed like hours, and it was almost 01:00 when my visitors decided to toddle off to their digs. Hardly surprising, because they had had a very long day, with jet-lag and all of that.

Once they had left, I came back in here to write my notes and then, totally exhausted, I hit the sack and that was that.

When the alarm awoke me, it was a real struggle to force myself out of the bed? And it would have to be a day on which the nurse came early. He caught me in flagrante delicto in the bathroom and I had to come out without having a wash.

After he left, I tidied up in the kitchen and put away some of the crockery that I’d washed, and then came back in here to listen to the dictaphone.

As I had said just now, there was nothing there, so instead I had a mini-footfest. We had the highlights of the other JD Cymru League matches from yesterday, and then a much-improved Stranraer grinding out a well-deserved point against league leaders Clyde.

Stranraer are now up to fourth from bottom – something that was looking extremely unlikely this time last month when they were rooted to the bottom of the table.

My visitors turned up some time later, having had the benefit of a lie-in. We ate breakfast together and chatted for a while. Then they decided that, because it was such a lovely day, they would go for a walk around the headland. And why not?

While they were away, I made a broccoli stalk soup ready for lunch and baked some fresh bread rolls. Then I came back in here and finished off editing the radio notes.

However, while I was editing them, I suddenly had a flash of inspiration about how I could finish the programme. This means re-writing the notes for a couple of songs, adding in a new song and shuffling the order around. It shan’t take me long to do that, the next time that I have an early start … "famous last words" – ed …

At some point, I also crashed out. And for about twenty minutes too.

My visitors turned up again at about 15:30. They had been for a walk around the headland and then gone down via the port into the town for a look around. There, they found a tea shop selling some gorgeous cakes, and the rest is history. I put the broccoli stalk soup into the fridge for my tea tomorrow night.

While we chatted, I prepared a pizza for tea. It was a mega-pizza, that’s for sure, and everyone liked it so much that not a single crumb remained. That was a really good pizza.

And one thing that it proved was that the new aluminium biscuit tray that fits onto the racks in the oven works a treat, although it’s really hot when you take it out.

Everyone decided to have an early night tonight so after they left, I washed up and put all of the uneaten food into the fridge. Tomorrow, I’ll be transferring it into containers to freeze. It’s a good job that I have two freezers around here otherwise I’d never have the room.

So now that everything is finished, I’m off to bed ready for an early start. My visitors have intimated that they intend to have a lie-in and if I didn’t have the nurse coming round, so would I.

But seeing as we have been talking about pizzas … "well, one of us has" – ed … I once had a girl from Crewe round at my house one Sunday night, and I baked a pizza.
"How would you like your pizza sliced?" I asked her. "Six slices or eight?"
"You’d better cut it in six slices" she replied. "I don’t think that I could manage eight."

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."

Friday 7th November 2025 – WHAT AN ABSOLUTE …

… debâcle this is turning out to be.

My niece and her daughter turned up at Charles de Gaulle Airport this morning at 10:30 as arranged, on Flight AC872 from Canada. However, their luggage didn’t. It’s still in the airport at Toronto, according to the tracking system.

"No problem" said my niece philosophically. "These things happen. Here’s my uncle’s address. Send it on to us when it arrives."
"Oh, we can’t do that " was the reply. "You have to come back tomorrow and pick it up "
"I can’t do that" replied my niece. "We’re only here for four days, we have a train booked and paid for, a hotel booked and paid for … "
"There is no other solution" replied the Air Canada official, and terminated the discussion.

They are now stranded in Paris, no luggage and trying desperately to find a hotel that they can afford.

Outraged, I rang up Air Canada’s helpline. After holding on for no less than seventy-four minutes, my call was finally answered.
"There’s nothing that I can do" replied the assistant
"In that case, put me through to someone who can"
"There’s no-one else here"
"You mean to tell me that, as a worldwide airline flying millions of passengers to thousands of destinations every day, there’s just one person on the helpline? Come off it!"
And I had the telephone slammed down in my face.

Air Canada has not heard the last of this. I have friends in the Canadian press.

My day has not gone as I would have liked it to go either … "but nothing like as bad as theirs" – ed …

Last night, I tried my best to finish at something like a reasonable time, but it was still almost 23:00 when I finally crawled into bed and curled up under the covers.

It didn’t take too long to go off to sleep either but, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, whenever I have to wake up especially early, I have a very mobile night. And last night was no exception.

When I awoke for the final time, it was 05:35. And a couple of minutes later, with a great deal of effort, I left the bed and went into the bathroom.

It was a good job that I was early too, because this 06:45 of the nurse was nothing like. I hadn’t even finished dressing when he arrived.

On the basis of “what doesn’t go in won’t want to come out”, I didn’t take my medication and just had a disgusting drink to keep me going while I awaited my faithful cleaner.

She staggered in, half-asleep, at 06:50 and sorted out the anaesthetic for my arm and then staggered off back to bed, poor thing. The sacrifices she makes for me are unbelievable.

The taxi turned up at 07:05 and we went off to pick up someone else who also goes to dialysis. We arrived quite early but they were having problems with the weighing machine so everything ended up running late.

The first needle went in fine but the second was one of those that really hurt and I suffered throughout the session. So much so that I didn’t do anything like as much as I wanted to.

They still hadn’t disconnected me when the taxi turned up, so the poor driver had to wait fifteen minutes for me, much to the disappointment of two other passengers. And then we came home via a Tour of Normandy so it was really late by the time that I arrived home.

There is one thing to be said, though, and that is that with these new Securité Sociale regulations, I’m seeing parts of Normandy that I never knew existed.

My cleaner helped me into the apartment, and I discovered that they had tried to deliver another parcel (which should be arriving this coming Monday) but as there was no-one in, they have left it at a collection point. And seeing that I can’t go to pick it up, I’m not sure what will happen next.

Back in here, I sent off my order to the supermarket for delivery this afternoon, and then I made breakfast and had my medication. While I was eating, I had my … errr … frank exchange of views with Air Canada.

It was my plan to make a vegan lasagna today so I had some lentils cooking overnight in the slow cooker. This afternoon, I attacked it and after a couple of hours, it was ready. Once more, I’m over-estimating the cooking time of this oven and it’s scorched around the edges.²

However, while I was doing it, I could feel my health slipping away and I began to feel really ill. Doing the pile of washing-up finished me off and when the food delivery arrived, it was all that I could do to put the frozen food in the freezer. The rest can wait to be put away.

But seeing as we have been talking about my cooking … "well, one of us has" – ed … I have had quite a few requests. Most of them are physically impossible, of course, but I have had a request for the recipe for my bean tajine.

Of course, it’s not my recipe, but I have modified it to suit my palette.

240g dried white beans
1 large onion
garlic to your taste
honey to your taste (seriously)
4 carrots
1 tin of tomato purée
concentrate of tomato (I use Harissa, the spicy stuff)
olive oil
salt
turmeric (2 heaped tsps)
other herbs if you like (I added basil and oregano)
coriander (fresh if possible)

soak your beans on “high” in a slow cooker for an hour
drain, rinse, then soak again overnight on “low”
drain the beans and rinse again.
peel, then dice the carrots fairly fine
put some oil in the slow cooker, on “high”. Then add the chopped onion and fry until transparent
add the honey and stir
add the carrots, tomato, turmeric, garlic, other herbs, and stir well
add the beans and stir really well
add water to cover, and stir really well
bring to the boil on “high” then leave for a couple of hours on “low”
garnish with coriander
serve with couscous, peas and mint.

Back in here, I sat down and although I didn’t crash out, I definitely wasn’t in. And for a good hour or so too. My left shoulder was in total agony. At one point, I went to lie down on the bed but I couldn’t go to sleep. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, sleep is my cure for all ills.

Instead, I transcribed the dictaphone notes. I was playing in a group with two other guys and living in Crewe. There was a home match played by Crewe Alexandra so I asked a friend of mine who worked for the radio whether he could obtain a few complimentary tickets for my friends and me. My girlfriend wanted to come too, but I can’t remember who she is. The two guys from the radio turned up but they didn’t have any complimentary tickets with them, so we chatted. Then someone else turned up with two kids and the conversation continued. I noticed that my girlfriend was taking some food with her to the football match so I went and found a flapjack that I’d made, and put it in my pocket. There was a knock on the door, and I thought that it might be my two friends who were coming with us, but it turned out to be two more people. One of them was in a wheelchair and the other one was on one of these low-down foot-forward bicycles. They came in. by then there was quite a crowd of us. Someone said to me “I hope you’re going to be OK after the game, Eric, with five people staying with you”. This was the first that I’d heard of this. “And those five people include those two children” someone else said. I said to these two kids “I suppose you want to sleep on the double bed in the spare room, do you?”. They replied “no. That double bed has been there for years, hasn’t it?”. So I had a think, and I thought that the double bed was about thirty-five years old so they were probably right.

Now, who was my girlfriend? It’s not like me to miss out on remembering something like that. There are many other things in this dream too that seem to have no significance either.

There was another dream about a man who was a comedian. He’d been invited to appear before a group of evil mafia-type people to entertain them. He wasn’t happy about this because she’d heard that they were pretty vile to people whom they didn’t like. He needed a lot of talking before he agreed to take it on. What he didn’t realise was just before this concert took place, there had been a serious jewel robbery with millions of pounds-worth of jewels stolen. He went along to this concert but as soon as he walked into the room, he took fright. He pulled out his gun, shot a couple of people and then ran. Of course, everyone ran after him, but he was hiding in places inside this theatre to try to shake them off. Then he made a break for it, and ran right across the motorway. Somehow, he’d managed to pick up this case full of these jewels in the meantime so everyone was chasing after him. They weren’t so lucky going across the motorway and a couple of them were knocked down. The rest of them couldn’t pass over to the other side. In the meantime, this guy was wandering up some kind of main road miles away from the scene, still with this briefcase. Stopped at a set of traffic lights was a mobile home, so he climbed in. This upset the owner but in the end the guy convinced the owner that he meant no harm, so the owner agreed to take him somewhere. Then he found the guy shaving inside the motorhome. There was something in the clause of the purchase of this motorhome that it should belong to the first person who shaved inside the vehicle. The owner hadn’t yet had a shave inside it so he had to relinquish control to this guy. The guy decided to drive off. In the winter, he’d be down in the southern tip of Italy or Greece and in the summer, he’d be back in Western Europe again.

This one is just like the first – a confused mass of nothing of any significance either.

Did I dictate the dream about the British guy who somehow managed to take possession of Heligoland in 1914 and succeeded in keeping the Germans off the island so that they couldn’t fortify it throughout the whole of World War I? … "no, you didn’t" – ed … I can’t remember very much about this dream but I wondered whether I’d written it down.

Heligoland, off the coast of Germany, used to be a British possession but the British swapped it for Zanzibar in 1890. It was a naval base in World War II, and the installations were destroyed in 1947 in one of the World’s biggest non-nuclear explosion.

I was with a guy and his two young daughters. As civilians, we were being pushed back from where we were living or where we’d been, rather, by an invading army. We had a few nightmares and confrontations but eventually, we made it back to his house. The fighting swarmed past his house but we stayed indoors while it was all going on. When things had quietened down, these two girls gave a big sigh of relief. One of them then was speaking to someone on the ‘phone and suddenly saying, “oh, I’m stuck in this huge wall of fire at the moment”. She didn’t realise what a wall of fire was until that particular moment when the battle raged past the house. Next morning, I had to prepare to leave. I had to wear all my heaviest clothes and carry as light a load as possible, but I had a lot of difficulty trying to find my boots. Eventually I found them and I could pack. But this guy and his daughters were already up and dressed, so I went for a chat after I’d dressed. I told them that I’ll have to be in touch with them because I needed the signature of the eldest girl for a reference to join the local library. We exchanged names and telephone numbers etc. Then I made big plans to slip out of the house and do my best to head for home. But the chat with those girls was really interesting, the one that I had. And I wish that I could remember it.

Children seem to be playing quite a rôle in my nocturnal adventures right now. I’m not sure why, though. But as for the warfare issues, that’s something that relates to whatever I’ve been reading just now. For example, at dialysis these last few days I’ve been reading Sir Douglas Haig’s reports to Parliament on the activities of his forces on the Western Front in World War I.

Tonight, I haven’t made any tea. I really couldn’t face anything cooked, for some reason. Instead, I finished off that cream cheese with some crackers. Not very healthy but it will keep the lupus from the porte, as they might have said in Ancient Rome while I go to bed.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my altercation with Air Canada … "well, one of us has" – ed … I can recall part of the discussion that I had with that obnoxious helpline attendant earlier.
After I had explained the situation to him, he replied "I don’t have any words to say to that."
"Well, I have" I replied. "Would you like to hear them? "
It was shortly after that when he hung up, and before I’d really got going too.

Saturday 27th September 2025 – THIS HEALTH ISSUE …

… that I mentioned the other day is still continuing. I’m feeling absolutely wasted right now and wish that I could just climb into bed and go to sleep, and forget about everything.

What makes it worse is that I had another decent sleep last night. I might not have been in bed so early but I managed to sleep right the way through until the alarm went off. There had been a couple of times during the night when I remember tossing and turning about, but I managed to go back to sleep again quite quickly afterwards.

As usual, it took a while for me to raise myself from the Dead but I picked up my bed and walked to the bathroom for a good wash and scrub up, and even a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant today.

After the medication, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone, and I was surprised by how much there was to hear. It was late in the afternoon and I needed to have a bath, so I decided to go into work where I usually had a bath at the time. I arrived there and it was just like at school, with many of my colleagues and classmates hanging around there trying to do some work. As I walked in, I overheard someone asking about STRAWBERRY MOOSE – did anyone know where he was. I piped up to say that I had him, which made everyone realise that I’d arrived at last. I went to sit by my bed, which was already being filled with water, but one of my classmates came over and he climbed into my bath. He stood there up to his feet. We had a little chat, and then I pulled out the plug, saying “right, you have to go now because I’m having a bath”. He moaned and groaned and then left. There were some clothes on my bed which were now soaking wet so I asked “whose are these?”. My brother piped up, saying that they were his. When he came to see them, he had a moan too about them being wet. He said that I’d done it deliberately. I told him that if I had had the time to arrive here, sort out a few things, fill the bed with water and then drain it all out again in the time that I’d actually been here, I must be doing really, really well. He took his clothes away with something of a moan. I began to chat to the little girl in the bed next to her, but as I turned my back and turned round a minute or two later, my brother was bringing a mortmain bag over, the kind of thing into which you put bodies that have died in a hospital. I wondered what had happened to that girl in the minute that my back had been turned. I thought that I’d wait until my brother has packed her in and then gone away until I could open the bag again to have a look to make sure in fact that she is still dead.

Mortmain is a French term that was common in post-Conquest England. It literally means “dead hand” of course but in those days, it was used to describe the type of holding that a body such as the Church would have, holding properties that were not governed by the usual laws of inheritance. So whatever its significance might be when discussing the death of a girl in the bed next to me, I really don’t know.

However, that’s how my friend Marianne died. I sat by her side for almost six months, watching her fade away as the cancer spread. But I was called away from her bedside to answer a telephone call. There was no-one on the line and when I returned to her side, she had died in that minute.

As for the rest of this dream, apart from the appearance of one of my family, the rest is meaningless. But then again, you expected that.

Later on, I’d been out for a ride on a little 50cc moped. I’d gone out towards Wrexham way, and I’d kept on meeting all of the little mini service buses coming back as I was riding. I travelled so far, and then I turned back. I was listening to a news report about one of the buses while I was busy chasing one on the bike. It was talking about someone who had taken a series of photos of the interior of what was said to be one of their buses and was using them in a campaign about some kind of ill child. Although the interior in the photos resembled very much one of their buses, the people who owned the buses were convinced that it was not one of theirs and wondered what had been going on with this coach trip with this disabled person on board. Gradually, I ended up behind another person on a motorbike. It was interesting because with the two motorbikes limited to 30 mph, I was passing him in certain places and he was passing me in certain places, but on an uphill stretch he managed to pull away from me. At a certain point, we came across a car that was on fire. It looked as if it was at the bottom of Gresty Road at the foot of the hill on the way up to Gresty. It was blazing away. We heard on the news that they were asking for the person’s relatives, to ask where this person was. Someone suggested that he was in the Cheshire Cheese in Gresty, although they called it Caws Sir Gaer of course in Welsh. But this car that was blazing, it had some flashing orange lights on the roof. They weren’t horizontal like many flashing lights but there were two of them set vertically, these banks of orange lights, and it looked totally strange to me.

Apart from the dream in Welsh, this dream didn’t mean all that much to me either. Consequently, seeing as I have been playing around with Artificial Intelligence recently, I asked an AI Bot what it had to say about it. Its reply was "Dreams about cars on fire often suggest turbulence or transformation in your drive, path, or personal ambitions. The exact meaning depends on your emotions in the dream and what’s happening in your life, but it typically signals strong feelings or changes needing attention. If the dreams recur or feel disturbing, consider exploring what real-life worries or transitions might be influencing your subconscious.".

Exploring my subconscious is a job for this psychiatrist person, so we’ll leave it to whoever pulls the short straw. However, these dream analysts don’t mean all that much because the whole point of this project when it started twenty-five years ago was that dreams couldn’t be analysed like this.

Finally, I was with my niece last night and her husband. We were doing something to the brakes of one of my cars, and we found that we needed a certain nut to hold on the brake pipe into the brake calliper. He had a few cars lying around so we went and went to take one off one of them. Of course, with the flared end on the brake pipe, we couldn’t pass the nut over the end. After a few minutes pondering over this, we began to reassemble it. I thought that my niece’s husband could post over from Canada the parts that I needed at some time if I were to ask him. While we were trying to reassemble this brake pipe into the car, the owner turned up. My niece gave him some story about checking it over for its annual safety check and that we’d be finished soon, but I couldn’t make this nut start up onto the threads on the calliper onto where it would fasten, no matter how I tried. I thought that for a simple job like this, it’s going to take me hours.

My niece will, hopefully, be here in a few weeks, but I doubt if she’ll be bringing with her any brake parts. Tinkering about with cars, though, was something that we did quite often over in Canada and, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … how I wish that I was over there now.

The nurse came early this morning. He gave me the last one of this series of injections, sorted out my feet and legs, and then cleared off, leaving me to make breakfast and read some more of BATTLES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

The British have succeeded now in dislodging the Americans from their best defensive positions on Long Island and are preparing to inflict upon them a vital disaster. However, as in the American retreat from Québec, the British are far too slow to follow up and press home their victory against demoralised and disorganised part-time soldiers.

Back in here, there were the highlights of last night’s game between Y Bala and TNS, and Llanelli and Hwlffordd. It goes without saying that TNS beat Y Bala, but Llanelli beat Hwlffordd, pushed the latter down into the bottom position and climbed out of the relegation zone, something that looked most unlikely three weeks ago.

My cleaner came along and sorted me out as usual, and for once, the taxi was early. However, it was to no avail because firstly, we had to pick up another passenger, and secondly, the patient connected before me had so many difficulties being connected – even the doctor was called -that they kept me hanging on.

13:30 was when I arrived, and it was 14:20 when I was finally connected up.

It was about an hour later that I crashed out, and then I was groggy for quite some time afterwards. It was a tough day there, all in all.

Luckily, I was uncoupled straight away and my taxi driver was waiting too, so I wasn’t all that late returning home.

My faithful cleaner was waiting for me as usual and helped me into the apartment where, after she had gone, I crashed out again. For fifteen minutes, this time.

Tea was baked potato, salad and breadcrumbed quorn fillet, and now I’m off to bed, thoroughly wasted and totally fed up. I hope that I feel better tomorrow.

But seeing as we have been talking about the American defeat on Long Island … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of the American Generals spotted some of his rearguard digging a trench instead of covering the retreat.
"What’s going on here?" he asked
"Well, sir" explained one of the privates "it’s a last-ditch attempt to stop the enemy."

Saturday 13th September 2025 – JUST BEFORE MIDNIGHT …

… last night, I suddenly awoke, with another one of these quite dramatic awakenings.

And about five seconds after I awoke, I received a message on the telephone. It really was an astonishing coincidence, almost as if awakening five seconds before the message was in anticipation of its arrival.

It wasn’t all that much beforehand that I’d actually come to bed, after another one of the slow, depressing evenings that I seem to be having these days. And I was so tired, yet again, that I must have gone off quite rapidly to sleep. It’s a shame that I couldn’t have remained asleep, though, but then that’s what usually happens.

It took an age to go back to sleep too, but once I’d slipped into the arms of Morpheus, there I stayed until the alarm sounded. And that woke me up quite dramatically too, I can tell you.

At that moment, we were back in World War I when the Germans were storming a trench full of Greek soldiers. They had launched a few shells into a few Greek pill-boxes and stormed the trenches. There were piles of dead people around, so they went through, identified the wounded and shot them on the spot. There was one person who was a British officer leading a Greek troop. They questioned him about a few different things but as he didn’t have the correct answers to what they wanted, they shot him too. But we were working somewhere behind the lines, watching a captive balloon or Zeppelin or something that had escaped from its moorings and was flying at a very low height around the edge of the cliffs. We were worried that it would collide with the church steeple, so we were trying to work out a way, if we could, of diverting it away because if we were to fire at it, it would explode and that would make more damage. In the meantime, we had been repairing a few watches and things like that. We actually had one working, but then we decided that we weren’t happy so we dismantled it to have another attempt. At this moment, the girls came along and looked at what we were doing. They couldn’t understand why we had decided to do it a second time. I was talking to one of the guys about new technology and how powerful it was. He was saying that how he wished that he had bought a new 2GB memory stick while their prices were low, because a new 2GB one these days would cost $64. I replied that a 64GB one would only cost $2, the way that technology is going these days.

There’s a bit of everything in there. The bit about colliding with the steeple relates to a discussion that I had the other day with one of the taxi drivers, when we were watching the Nazguls flying around near the spire of the Eglise Notre Dame de Lihou. As for the rest, it seems to relate to little snippets of conversation that I’ve had now and again with different people.

After the bathroom and the medication, I came back in here to transcribe the dictaphone notes, but as you have already read them, I needn’t have bothered mentioning it.

The nurse was next, still in his cheerful mood, and then it was breakfast and a new book.

While I was reading COLONEL CARRINGTON’S TESTIMONY, I noticed that he had written several others and so I began today to read his BATTLE MAPS AND CHARTS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that IN 2013 and 2014 I roamed up and down the Hudson Valley in Upstate New York visiting the sites of the battles of the Revolutionary War and also of the Seven Years War of 1756-1763, including the site of Fort William Henry, the fort that featured prominently in Fenimore Cooper’s LAST OF THE MOHICANS

One of the places that I visited in 2013 was Fort Ticonderoga, and I noticed from Carrington’s description of the siege of the fort that "The Americans neglected to fortify Sugar Loaf Hill", a prominent eminence overlooking the fort, ⁣strong>"deeming it inaccessible.".

You probably noticed just now that STRAWBERRY MOOSE and I walked quite comfortably to the top, and so did several other people. And there’s still a British cannon up there that the British Army managed to drag up the hill.

After breakfast, I came in here to begin a new radio programme, and in fact I’m currently working on two of them right now because, halfway through choosing the music for one, I realised that I’d missed one. Still, variety is the spice of life.

When my faithful cleaner came down to apply my anaesthetic cream, she brought with her my electronic drum kit. That was a one-day wonder, that was. I bought it as a challenge, something to do during lockdown, but my legs gave out before I was able to master it.

It was the boss who came to fetch me today and we had quite a quick drive down to Avranches. I was connected up quite quickly too and then I could concentrate on Y Barri v Y Bala.

Y Bala had only conceded four goals all season up to date, but Y Barri doubled that total with comparative ease and could (and should) have had a bagful more except for the inspired performance of former Salford City goalkeeper Joel Torrance.

It was nevertheless an exciting game and you can see the highlights HERE if you are of such a mind.

Although I finished my dialysis earlier than usual, I had to wait to be unplugged, and then finally the boss brought me back in the most astonishing rainstorm that was engulfing Avranches.

Ironically, it wasn’t raining at Granville when I returned. It was a nice, leisurely walk back to my apartment in the howling gale, which has now been blowing for several days.

For a change, Tea tonight was a burger with baked potato – one of those luxury burgers that are really delicious. And now, I’m off to bed in the hope of a good lie-in tomorrow. I need one after all of this.

But I forgot to mention my ‘phone message from during the night. It reads "(we) will see you Friday November 7 for a few days fly back on November 11.". This visit from Canada looks as if it may well be happening.

But seeing as we have been talking about Ticonderoga and The Last of the Mohicans … "well, one of us has" – ed … it was at Ticonderoga where I told my famous story to one of the American tour guides.
Sent on a spying mission by Colonel Munro to find out about the French forces in Fort Ticonderoga, Hawkeye and Chingachgook approach the fort very carefully
"How many soldiers do you think there are in the fort?" asked Hawkeye.
Chingachgook lay down and put his ear to the ground. "About 300" he replied
"And how many cannon?"
Chingachgook lay down and put his ear to the ground again. "About 30"
"And how many horses?"
Chingachgook lay down and put his ear to the ground yet again. "About 60"
"And how many native allies?"
Chingachgook lay down and put his ear to the ground once more. "About 200"
"That’s incredible" said Hawkeye. "Can you tell all that by just lying down and listening to the ground?"
"Ohh no" replied Chingachgook. "If I lie down here like this and turn my head so that my ear is to the ground just like this, I can see right underneath the gates of the fort"
The response of the tour guide was "that’s incredible! I never knew that Hawkeye and Chingachgook came to Ticonderoga. I shall have to amend the tourist leaflets."
Which just goes to show, as Alfred Hitchcock and Kenneth Williams once famously said, "it’s a waste of time telling jokes to foreigners."

Wednesday 10th September 2025 – I’VE NO IDEA …

… what’s happening right now, but I suddenly seem to have become very popular and it’s not like me at all. All kinds of people are contacting me these days and if I’m not very careful, I’ll end up needing a bigger engagement book to control it all.

Not last night, though. I was left pretty much to my own devices after tea and once more, I failed to push on with my work in order to have an early night. It was almost 23:30 when I finished everything, and there was no real reason why it should be that late.

The water heater hadn’t switched itself on so I switched it on manually in the hope that it might keep going through the night, not that there’s any way of controlling or checking it that I have found.

Back in here, I was in bed quite quickly, and asleep quite quickly too, but not for long because I had another one of these highly mobile nights where I’m tossing and turning without actually being asleep, but not actually being awake either.

There was another one of this dramatic “sitting bolt-upright” awakenings, at 06:24 this morning, five minutes before the alarm would usually sound. I managed to be sitting on the edge of the bed with my feet on the floor when the alarm went off, so that counts as an “early start” – only just, but it counts just the same.

On the way to the bathroom, I checked the fuse box. Although the fuse setting for the water heater showed “off”, it was still humming as if it was drawing current, so I switched it off completely. I hope that I remember to switch it back on again tonight.

After a good wash and scrub up, followed by the medication, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. It was another dramatic awakening at about 02:50 that wiped this dream from my mind. It was something to do with sound files. I had various files with sounds in them and a few others with different other side effects of sound. I’d been trying to assemble something but someone came along to give me a hand but ended up dismantling what I had done. As they chose pieces from the first lot which were probably longer and better, it was much more difficult to find a piece from the second block that would actually match the sound. It was becoming extremely complicated.

This relates to what I was doing the other day when I had to re-dictate a part of the notes for that radio programme, and to make that which I dictated then sound like that which I had dictated previously.

At one point, I’d been on a sea voyage around the South-Central Atlantic somewhere off the coast of Brazil but I can’t remember that at all and … fell asleep here … but going back to that dream again, there was a little girl in an ambulance crew uniform with a portable x-ray machine who was waiting by the door. She was waiting there for ages until she was beckoned to come in to do her job on me.

As it happens, I can’t remember anything of this, whether I had a dramatic awakening or not. In fact, I’m always asleep when I’m dictating these notes, and when I say that I “fell asleep here”, what I mean to say, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, is that my speech gradually slows down and is followed by a long silence with the occasional breathing and snoring.

But here we are again on a sea voyage in the first part, and I can’t see what the second part has to do or how it relates to anything that I dictated in the first part.

I was asleep later on and in my dream, I saw all the stuff that I usually take with me when I’m going to hospital, all scattered about the floor as if someone had been picked up the bag by the wrong end. And all this stuff was … no-one was making any effort at all to try to clean it up.

That sounds more like my kind of house, doesn’t it? Rubbish all over the place and no-one cleaning it up.

It was the male nurse who came today. And surprisingly, he’s still in the same good humour as he was on his return from holiday a few weeks ago. I hope that he can manage to keep it going, because I like him much more when he’s like this.

After he left, I could make breakfast and read some more of ADVENTURES ON THE COLUMBIA RIVER.

Our author has now had enough of the Columbia River and has set out across the Rockies for “Canada” – which in those days was simply the combined Provinces of Ontario and Western Québec.

However, before leaving, he goes through a long list of animals that have been seen down near the coast and, to my surprise, he notes that "White bears are occasionally killed on the coast to the northward of the Columbia". Imagine that today – polar bears wandering around the streets of Seattle and Spokane.

Back in here, I had another go at sending off this radio programme, but the file transfer service is still playing up dreadfully and sent the file round and round in circles on several occasions and there was nothing that I could do to clear it. In the end, I uploaded it to my own web server and sent the link to the radio station.

And that was not without issues either. It took an age to upload, for some unknown reason.

After lunch, my faithful cleaner came round to do her stuff and I had a good shower – another lovely one in my beautiful new shower unit. However, I have encountered a problem that I never realised before, and that is that when I turn the tap on, the water is freezing cold for about fifteen seconds while I am obliged to stand underneath it.

Running the water through on the detachable hose doesn’t seem to make any difference either. I can see that I’ll soon be resorting to running a blowtorch up and down the shower column.

Back in here afterwards, I had a lovely message. "what are you doing for the Remembrance Day Weekend?"

As it happens, I’ll just be going to dialysis on the Saturday afternoon, but I was intrigued to know why someone wanted to know.

"My youngest daughter and I are thinking about coming to see you for that weekend" replied my niece from New Brunswick in Canada.

That will be a hell of a trip for a long weekend, but won’t it be lovely, really lovely if they actually do manage to make it here? I love my Canadian family and I wish that I could see them more often. I miss them terribly.

So having lived in splendid isolation upstairs for just over eight years, how many visitors is this that I have had in the couple of months that I’ve lived down here? And with ex-girlfriends planning to turn up, Rosemary and Ingrid discussing another trip, and now my niece thinking of coming over from Canada, the only person who has not so far declared for a visit is Nerina, and I’m half-expecting her to turn up on the doorstep any day soon.

The rest of the day has been spent radioing, and I’ve completed the one on which I’ve been working for a few days and have made a start on the next. This one is going to be complicated, I reckon, and will take some time, so the sooner I start, the sooner I finish. And then I can move on.

Tea tonight was a taco roll with rice and veg, and now that my notes are finished, I’m off to bed. I’m not sure if I’ll sleep tonight though, because it’s a very high tide and with the wind outside, I can hear the waves crashing into the cliffs.

It’ll be a while before the tide goes down so I’ll be hearing this for some time yet. Actually, it’s a lovely sound, the waves pounding the cliffs, and if it does keep me awake, I shan’t be bothered. I can always sleep at dialysis tomorrow afternoon.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my family … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone once asked me "do you miss your family in Crewe?"
"Yes I do," I replied. "I miss them terribly. But don’t worry. I’m trying my best to improve my aim."

Wednesday 13th August 2025 – THIS TIME NEXT WEEK …

… will see me installed downstairs, if all goes according to plan. It won’t be everything down there of course – just the essentials like the bed, the office and the kitchen. That’s the important part of everything. The rest will arrive when it arrives.

But it won’t be without its vicissitudes though. I’ve had the “summons” to attend hospital on Tuesday next week for chemotherapy, staying over until Wednesday afternoon. And it’s to Paris again. It seems that my plea to be treated at Rennes has fallen on deaf ears.

Something else that has fallen on deaf ears – my own this time – is my plea to be in bed by 23:00. Once again, it was after midnight and I was still letting it all hang out

For no good reason, except that yesterday I appear to have written WAR AND PEACE instead of the usual notes, and that must have taken an age. And by the time that It’d taken the stats and backed up the computers, it was probably closer to 00:30 than anything else.

That’s not the worst of it. I was wide-awake at 01:50. So wide-awake that I was giving serious consideration to leaving the bed. However, second thoughts prevailed and I curled up under the covers again, where eventually I managed to go back to sleep.

Not for long though, because I had one of these dramatic awakenings at – would you believe – 04:10.

This time I couldn’t go back to sleep and so round about 05:00 I called it a night and raised myself from the Dead. When the alarm went off at 06:29, I was in the bathroom having a good wash, having already dictated the radio notes that I’d written the other day. And not dictated them once, but twice. I made something of a pig’s ear of the first attempts and it was easier to start again.

After the medication, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. We were in dialysis, but we were allowed to be up and about while we were being pumped around. There was one guy there who had a tablecloth over the top of his table and it looked as if he was baking. He was weighing out certain quantities of this and certain quantities of that. The guy who was in charge of supervising the dialysis section told him basically to stop doing that and to concentrate on being dialysed. However, the guy didn’t listen and carried on so the guy in charge began to make a few sarcastic remarks, such as “it looks as if you are making the tea for your mother” etc. In the end, the guy said that he was passing the time making this whatever it was and he doesn’t see why he shouldn’t be allowed to do whatever he likes during the period of dialysis provided that he doesn’t upset or disturb the other people. It looked as if the guy in charge was going to have some kind of argument, but the first guy said “if you had been here a couple of hours earlier, you would have seen three women here from the other group making folders for different purposes. At that point, I stuck my hand up and said that if everyone were allowed to do all kinds of different things and people could do all kinds of different things during dialysis, I think that the period of dialysis would pass so much quicker than it seems to do at the moment”. The guy in charge wasn’t very impressed. He just put his head down and just totally ignored everything after that

Dialysis is quite literally the bane of my life. It really is three and a half hours wasted each time because there is nothing that one can do. We lie in bed, not allowed to move in case we disturb something, and no exercise of any value, nor any entertainment other than a TV is provided.

One thing about which I have been badgering them is to provide things like pedicures, bed-yoga sessions so that we could profit from the time that we are there, but that seems to have fallen on stony ground too.

Isabelle the Nurse was in a good mood this morning. Only three more days and then she’s off on holiday for a fortnight. That’s good news for her, but not so good for those of us remaining behind because we have her oppo for two weeks.

After she left, I made breakfast and read some more of THE DIARIES OF SIR DANIEL GOOCH.

Today, we’ve had our first meeting with Dr Dionysus Lardner. He was the Magnus Pyke of his day, one of the very first people to take science out of the laboratories and put it on the breakfast table in the ordinary home.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t always accurate in the events that he predicted. He told a tribunal hearing once that if the brakes failed on a heavily laden train going down a slope, it could reach speeds of 120 mph. Gooch and his boss, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, had to remind him that there are such things as friction and wind resistance, and these would slow the train down considerably.

He also predicted that the larger the steamship, the more fuel it would need, and there wouldn’t be the space on board for all the coal, failing to understand that if you double the breadth and width of something, you increase the volume fourfold.

Try it yourself – for example, if you have two metres width and two metres length, at one metre high, you have four cubic metres of space. But if you double the length and width, i.e. four metres width and four metres length, at one metre high you have a volume of sixteen cubic metres.

And so there’s plenty of room for extra coal.

Further along in the book, I stumbled upon one of my favourite quotes. Gooch talks about the early days of railway operation, saying "When I look back upon that time, it is a marvel to me that we escaped serious accidents. It was no uncommon thing to take an engine out on the line to look for a late train that was expected, and many times have I seen the train coming and reversed the engine, and ran back out of its way as quickly as I could. What would be said of such a mode of proceeding now ?"

Yes, "What would be said of such a mode of proceeding now?" How many times have I said that when reminiscing about my adolescence and young adulthood?

We have however reached the interesting part of the book. He’s off on the Great Eastern laying the telegraph cables along the sea bed from Valencia in Ireland to Heart’s Content on the island of Newfoundland.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we VISITED HEART’S CONTENT ON OUR MEGA-VOYAGE AROUND NORTH AMERICA IN 2017 when I went to say goodbye to all of my friends in Canada and the USA. Who would have thought that I’d still be here eight years later, defying all the odds

Back in here I attacked the radio notes that I’d dictated and despite several interruptions, they are all now finished and the radio programmes assembled. Tomorrow, I’ll move on to the next one.

Seeing as we have been talking about interruptions … "well, one of us has" – ed … the first one was the man who came to repair the electric door opening device. In a fit of pique and bad temper, I sent a somewhat … errr … intemperate mail to the building’s management team and, to my surprise, they reacted.

My cleaner turned up to do her stuff too, and that included putting me in the shower. Do you realise? That was the last time that I’ll have to clamber into the bath to have a shower. Te next shower that I have will be in my shower downstairs.

That is, if the plumber extricates his digit. He’s not the fastest of workers and he’s not going to have this finished by the time I come home from Paris. Mind you, he seems to be making a very thorough and solid job of everything.

Sadly, I also crashed out today, which is no surprise seeing how little sleep I’ve been having just recently. It was the hospital that awoke me, telling me the news about chemotherapy. And it was tough trying to follow the conversation, seeing that I was still somewhere up in the clouds.

Tea tonight was a delicious leftover curry. One of the best that I have ever made, I reckon. And now I’m off to bed for a really good sleep ready for a good afternoon at dialysis. There’s nothing like optimism, is there?

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my pleas falling on deaf ears … "well, one of us has" – ed … I mentioned the situation to my niece in Canada, with whom I have been talking today.
"That’s no surprise" She said. "The rest of the family thinks that you are a miserable pleader – or something like that, anyway."

Sunday 3rd August 2025 – I HAVE DONE …

… something this morning that I have not done for several months, and it took me completely by surprise.

This morning, I awoke early as usual after a dialysis session – 03:10 in fact. But that’s far too early to be showing a leg, even if I am accustomed to some very early mornings these days, and so I decided that I would curl up underneath the quilt and see if I couldn’t go back to sleep for a short while.

And sleep I did. When I awoke, the sun was streaming in through the bedroom window, the birds were singing, and a glance at the time showed that it was actually 07:37. How long is it since I’ve been in bed at that time of the morning (illness excepted, of course)?

It wasn’t as if I’d had a late night either. I’d finished all of my notes by 22:15, so the timestamp tells me, and after taking the stats and carrying out the back-up of the computer, it was 22:30 when I crawled into bed. And it didn’t take long for me to go to sleep.

On a Sunday, I plan to have a lie-in and so the alarm is set for 08:00 but since dialysis began seriously, I don’t think that I’ve ever actually stayed in bed until then, a far cry from when I had no visiting nurse in the morning, no alarm call and sometimes I’d stay in bed until after midday.

Had it been a normal day with an alarm at 06:29, lying in bed like this would have been classed as an abject failure, but on a Sunday it would be classed as an early start. However, I’m not going to note it as such because it’s disappointing.

Despite it being late, it still took me a few minutes to rise to my feet, and then I wandered off into the bathroom and then into the kitchen for the medication.

There wasn’t a lot of time for me to do anything much before Isabelle the Nurse arrived. She’d told me that she would be late because of the annual book sale in the walled town but she had the wrong date and it’s not until the 16th of August so in fact there was nothing to interrupt her passage and she was early.

After she left, I could make breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK.

Our author is still in Westminster and has gone to the Great hall, where he describes in great detail the origins of the King’s Bench, the system of Courts and Judges that lasted until about 1875. Initially, it followed the King around on his Royal Circuits, trying cases that had arisen since its last visit and which later settled in the Great Hall, with only a part of the Court followed the King.

He tells us that "King Edward IV, in the year 1462, in Michaelmas term" because the Court had four terms, Hillary, Easter, Trinity and Michaelmas "sat in the King’s Bench three days together, in the open court, to understand how his laws were ministered and executed."

Another thing that he mentions is "a cloister of curious workmanship" built by Doctor John Chambers, the King’s physician. How I would have liked to see that!

He’s being continually surprised by the meals and banquets that are being served up, as am I, I have to admit. He tells us of John Mansell, the King’s Councillor, who organised a banquet for "The Kings and Queens of England and Scotland, Edward, the King’s son, earls, barons, knights, the Bishop of London and divers citizens." His house turned out to be far too small and he had to erect "tents and pavillions" and "there was such a multitude that seven hundred messes of meat did not serve for the first dinner."

There’s also mention of another huge banquet with an enormous quantity of food and "sundry wines and plenteous wise" that went on through the night and ended with "the king and queen being conveyed with great lights into the palace."

Back in here, there were the dictaphone notes to transcribe. I was in Canada last night, round at my niece’s. Everyone had gone out and left me on my own for a while. By now, it was almost teatime and I was feeling hungry but it was very difficult to know what to eat. In the end I had a scavenge around and found some noodles and some powdered soy sauce which I thought would probably do for now. Then I found that I couldn’t open any of the tins or bottles. By now my niece and her husband were back and they were watching me as I tried to saw off with a sharp knife the bands that hold things like knives in their sheaths etc to try to have some kitchen utensils. My niece asked me if I wanted something else so I replied that I’d made a start on this so it would do. My niece’s husband asked me if I wanted to listen to any music. I asked him what he had and he read out a whole list of CDs so I mentioned one or two, so he gave them to me. However, he didn’t tell me where to switch them on, where the CD player was. So I was standing there with these useless utensils in one hand and a useless couple of CDs in the other hand and this strange concoction of food on the plaque de cuisson.

So here we go again. I’m feeling nostalgic for Canada again. That’s something that I shall have to chase out of my mind and accept that it’s never going to happen again. However, I did actually find a packet of noodles when I was tidying the kitchen the other day. Apart from the indecision, which seems to happen a lot in my dreams, I can’t fit the rest in with anything else.

Nerina and I had moved house, and we were thinking of adopting a cat. We went to the local animal shelter and the person there listened to our story and offered us a female cat and her five new-born kittens. Much as I liked cats, I thought that that was far too much and so did Nerina but the guy was doing his best to persuade us, saying that all food will be provided etc, but we were still not keen at all on this idea of having this kind of cat family in the house.

Anyone who has ever looked after a cat will know that you don’t actually choose a cat – a cat chooses you. You’ll have an idea about the kind of cat that you would like and go to a refuge to find one but you’ll always come back with completely the opposite of what you would have liked. Your ideal cat would be there, but it would take one look at you and slink off into a dark corner but another cat will cling to your legs and won’t let go.

There was also something about being in Virlet but I can’t remember anything about it now.

After that, I had a very slow start to the day and didn’t do very much at all for quite a while. I had hoped to see the Forfar v Stranraer football match but for some reason, the stream didn’t come online this morning and it’s still not appeared. I’ve no idea why not either because usually, the camera team is quite reliable.

Once I’d decided to start work, I carried on with the radio programme that I’d started the other day. All of the music is now remixed and apart from in one or two places where we had issues setting tone and amending the speed of a couple of tracks, it’s come out quite well and I’m quite happy.

The notes have also been written ready for dictation but I shan’t dictate them immediately because I’m not convinced that they are long enough and they will need reworking.

There’s also a photograph of STRAWBERRY MOOSE doing the rounds of the internet in Granville right now.

The estate agent who came round a couple of weeks ago took a couple of photos of the place and these are being used to advertise my apartment here as available to let, and His Nibs is prominently featured, sitting in the middle of the bed.

In case you are wondering why I’m not posting the link, well, let’s just say that it does not show my apartment in the best of lights. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that tidiness is not my particular forte.

There were the usual breaks in the afternoon for disgusting drinks and also for baking. I needed more bread and a base for my pizza so I dealt with that this afternoon.

The loaf is slightly heavier today, but the pizza base was perfect and it tasted delicious. However, I’m not sure why, but I’ve suddenly developed a craving for Cheshire Cheese. It’s a shame that I can no longer eat it. Since I went onto this vegan diet in 1992 when my pancreas ceased to function, cheese is the one thing that I miss.

So right now, I’m off to bed ready for dialysis tomorrow … "I don’t think" – ed …
. Do you realise that there are at most only seven more trips up the stairs after dialysis and then I shall be installed downstairs and shan’t have to worry any more?

And if the plumber, who is coming tomorrow, extricates his digit, there might be even fewer than that. As long as my bed, my desk and my kitchen stuff are down there and the water is connected, I shall cope as best as I can. I really have to move downstairs as quickly as I can because the stairs are finishing me off.

But before we go, seeing as we have been talking about banquets … "well, one of us has" – ed … some friends of mine once went to a big banquet in Spain where the dish of honour was the … errr … cojones of the bull that was killed in the corrida that morning.
However, at this particular banquet, the main dish was … errr … rather small
"what’s happened here?" asked one of my friends
"Well you see, señor" replied the waiter "the bull, he doesn’t always lose."

Saturday 3rd May 2025 – THAT WAS SUPPOSED …

… to be one of the easiest sessions of dialysis that I have ever had, with only 1.6 kg of fluid to be removed. However, it’s totally exhausted me and in a few minutes I shall be off to bed.

It probably wasn’t the early start that did it – after all, being up and about at 06:20 is pretty much par for the course these days. And as well as that, it was a comparatively early night last night – in be by 23:30.

What with one thing and another, I had had a good session at the work that I needed to do after tea last night and I didn’t hang around at all. I suppose I could even have been in bed before than had I applied myself.

Once in bed though, I remember very little of the night until, once more, I had rather a dramatic awakening for no good reason at about 05:55.

Try as I might, I could not go back to sleep and, checking the time once more, I nipped out of bed just before the electric water heater switched off.

After a wash and shave (in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon) I went for my medication, sitting at the table when the first alarm sounded at 07:00.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There was a group of us, including my father, in a car driven by some young lad whom we knew. We’d come by Leighton Hospital and on the old road cut-off there was a Sherpa minibus. It had a taxi radio aerial on the roof and another one bolted onto the back door. I had a quick look but couldn’t see a taxi plate on it so I suspected that this one was operating illegally. We carried on down the hill towards Pym’s Lane, and this Sherpa caught us up. It was probably half an inch from our back door but we were probably doing about fifty mph. As we reached the bottom and began to come back up the hill the Sherpa became even more aggressive. We told the driver “take your foot off the throttle”. The driver took his foot off the throttle and the Sherpa drove straight into the back of it. Of course, we stopped and he stopped and we all alighted. We could see the driver of the Sherpa beginning to panic. He tried to escape but my father reached in through his window and took the keys out to stop him driving off. We made him alight from the vehicle to talk to us about the accident. In the meantime the young lad who owned the car had set up some kind of workshop at the side of the road with all his tools. He was busy preparing stuff to make a running repair of the damage. I was impressed by all of this. He said “well, I have nowhere else to keep it except in my car”. I replied “it won’t be long before you have your own place, and then you’ll find somewhere”. I’d been to the new place that he had bought. It was a tiny two-bedroom flat much smaller than mine. He would have a great deal of difficulty putting stuff into it. He took the top off a tube of something or other but dropped the top and someone nearly walked on it. We were all there, becoming busy while my father and one or two of his friends were stopping this guy from driving away.

This was an extremely realistic dream. The road layout was just as I remember it from when I lived in Crewe and Winsford and travelled that way regularly back in the 1970s and 80s. But once again, someone from my family seems to be involved in one of my dreams, even though there was nothing at all from which I might have needed saving.

Then later on, there had been a group of us. We had been for a walk in the hills over by Macclesfield. We were walking around there looking at all the mountains on the horizon, trying to identify them, which was which, which were the fields beyond it. We were trying to identify where the Salt Way, the ancient road over the hills between Cheshire and Derbyshire went. We were all pointing out amongst this group of people what we’d seen and where we’d seen it. I’d had a really good view five minutes earlier and I told everyone about it. They all came back but we couldn’t see it, or I couldn’t find it again. We ended up on a pub car park, looking. Just then, a group of five motorcyclists and their pillion passengers pulled up. The riders alighted and we noticed that one of the riders had the most enormous feet you have ever seen. They parked their motorcycles anywhere, one of them in the middle of the road. We thought that it wasn’t the best place to leave it. They went in but we were all sitting around a table outside. The manageress came out with the notepad and wanted to take our orders. She ran through the menu. One of the girls with us said that she would have a “Vegan Delight” but she would be horrified if she knew how much it was going to cost. The woman said that the devilled kidneys alone were £31:00. nevertheless the girl ordered it. I ordered the “Vegan Delight” but without the kidneys.

A few of those people I recognised – members of my Welsh class. What we were all doing walking over the moors at the back of Macclesfield I really don’t know either. But the biggest puzzle about this, something about which I am still shaking my head, is whatever would devilled kidneys be doing anywhere near a “Vegan Delight”. It’s no surprise that I eschewed them.

The nurse didn’t have too much to say for himself this morning, although he was not at all happy when I told him that he needed to be here at 06:45 on Monday morning at the latest. He told me to go to bed in my compression socks, which was what I suspected that he would say.

After he left I made breakfast. And my new mini-loaf is really, really nice, just as it should be. As far as MY BOOK goes, we are still in the Tower of London having the guided tour. I’ve long-since abandoned any hope of having any military architecture explained to me.

Back in here, I had a few bills to pay. There’s still no earthly reason why this monthly standing order won’t go through. Whenever I go to pay it manually, it automatically inserts my bank details so it must have them on file somewhere.

There was also a sum of money to transfer from my Canadian bank account for my great little niece (or little great niece)’s graduation from University, which is tomorrow.

There was time to start writing the notes for radio programme 260403 but I didn’t go very far before my cleaner came round to fit my patches.

After she left, I waited (and waited, and waited) for the taxi to turn up. Eventually it arrived and we set off, picking up someone else along the way. I was the last to arrive and so was the last to be connected. But there was only 1.6 kg of fluid to lose today so it was a session of three and a half hours. Imagine how early I could have been out had I been first to be connected up.

For a change, it wasn’t me who had a crisis in there. It was someone else. The nurse explained to me afterwards that she had been coming for several years and was now on the final downhill slope.

No-one bothered me and the machine behaved itself. I revised my Welsh while I was waiting.

Julie the Cook uncoupled me and while she was compressing me, she showed me some photos of a cake that she had baked. It looked lovely, a kind-of flan with fresh summer fruit on a cream base.

The boss came to pick me up this evening, and the poor woman who had come down with me had had to wait half an hour for me to finish. I felt awful, even though it’s not my fault.

After the taxi driver drove away, I realised that he had taken my jacket with him in the boot of his car. He brought it back later on, full of excuses. I told him that my cleaner was most upset about it and wanted a word with him so he made a quick getaway.

Tea was a baked potato with vegan salad, delicious vegan mayonnaise and breaded quorn fillet followed by vegan chocolate cake and soya dessert.

That was followed by a lovely chat with my niece and her three daughters who are in Antigonish ready for the Graduation Ceremony tomorrow. How I wish that I could be there. Antigonish is a lovely little town – I went there on several occasions when her elder sister was studying here – and it would be a lovely day. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I remember bouncing Amber up and down on my knee as a tiny baby (Amber, not me) when she was just a couple of months old in 2003 that winter that I spent in Canada. It’s hard to believe that she’s graduating from University.

Right now though, I’m feeling pretty miserable so I’m off to bed. It’s a good job that there’s nothing to dictate because I would not have felt much like doing it.

But seeing as we have been talking about Julie the Cook … "well, one of us has" – ed … regular readers of this rubbish will recall that she appeared a couple of weeks ago in one of my nocturnal rambles.
So this afternoon I told her "I dreamed about you the other night"
"Did you?" She asked
"No" I replied. "You wouldn’t let me"

Friday 25th April 2025 – I WAS WIDE-…

… awake this morning at, would you believe, 03:05. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s a total waste of time really, going to bed early, because all it seems to mean is that I wake up correspondingly early.

And early it was that I went to bed last night – 22:20 in fact.

The dialysis on Thursday afternoon had left me thoroughly exhausted. So much so that I couldn’t keep on going at all. I skimmed through everything that needed to be done, despite going off into a trance at least twice, and then threw in the towel.

Once in bed, I fell asleep rather dramatically and there I stayed, dead to the World, until, as I said, 03:05. I lay around in bed, wondering whether or not I ought to raise myself from the Dead, until at least 03:20 when I happened to glance at the time, and quite a while after that too, but I must have gone back to sleep at some point.

There I stayed until all of 06:20 when I awoke again. That time, I couldn’t go back to sleep at all and when the alarm went off at 07:00 I was … errr … riding the porcelain horse.

After a good wash and my medication I came back in here to check on where I’d been during the night. I was talking to Julie the Cook during my dream. The discussion came round to checking over my apartment to have a look around and see what was going on for my ill-health. But as she said that she would come so I found the calendar and wrote in there that she was expected for the 29th of the month. Then I went back into the main room just to remind her and confirm that that was what it was going to be.

Julie the Cook has said before now that she will come to inspect my kitchen one of these days – in fact, she said it again on Thursday – but I will believe it when I see it. I don’t think that it’s ever likely to happen. However, the fact that I’m dreaming about dialysis and the people there tells me that I seem to have let it become embedded in my thoughts and that’s a depressing idea.

Later on I was round at my niece’s and her husband last night. They were sorting out transport and cars etc. I noticed that my niece was driving around in the old mini that she never usually drove. He husband asked her what had happened to the Riley. We went into the garage and there was a Riley 1.5 sitting there without the front radiator grille. She said that she’s hit a squirrel with the grill and had taken the grille off to try to remove the squirrel. The grille was currently in the back room. I had a look at the engine – it was an overhead cam engine with a chain pulley on the camshaft. I wondered “what on earth engine was this out of?”. Later on we went shopping and we were wandering around a big department store where there were loads of people. I suddenly saw a range of tissue … "he means ‘cloth’ " – ed … so I shouted to her “ahh … tissue” and she laughed. We went over and started to look through the tissue for my apartment. There was a really nice heavyweight deep red velvet type of embossed tissue there that looked really nice and was really heavy. She wandered off to the curtain range and came back with one of these Victorian-style curtains with frills and built-in lace nets and began to compare the two to see whether they matched

Whenever I think of overhead cam engines, the Ford Pinto immediately springs to my mind. I’ve dismantled and reassembled so many of them that I could at one time do it in my sleep – and I did too. However the camshafts in those are belt-driven and the pulley on the camshaft in the engine in this dream was definitely a chain-driven pulley, so I really don’t know.

Leaving aside the question of dreaming in French again, one of the things that I will be doing soon is to see the seamstress who has the little shop down the road whom I interviewed once for the radio. In her little shop she makes all of the dresses for the carnival queens and what I want her to do is to make the curtains for my new apartment, seeing as I don’t know who else to ask. I want to have everything just like I want it to be, right from the very beginning, because I’m never going to move again … "and we’ve heard that before, haven’t we?" – ed … and I don’t want to go through the bother of having to redo anything later.

Isabelle the Nurse came round and we talked about her trip to Avallon in Burgundy. Everyone knows about the story of King Arthur, allegedly mortally wounded at the Battle of Camlann in 537 and taken to the Isle of Avalon in Somerset to die. Just outside Avallon in Burgundy in the dim and distant past there was a battle in which the King of the local troops, Riothamus, was deposed and killed by the invaders. There have been several suggestions that this is the origin of the tale of King Arthur and that the Battle of Camlann is fictional. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall our reading of the book FOLKLORE AS A HISTORICAL SCIENCE in which the transplantation of folk tales by migrating peoples would facilitate such a confusion of memory.

After she left I made breakfast and carried on reading MY BOOK. And here we go again.

In all of the books and papers that I have ever read, I don’t think that I have ever seen a sentence with so many sub-clauses in it as "The general area, which at Windsor, Arundel, and Berkhampstead is oblong, to suit the contour of the ground, is here, as at Tonbridge, Tickhill, and Clare, where the ground is not strongly marked, nearer to a more solid figure, of which, in this case, two sides and the contained angle are governed by the line of the old Roman wall."

It took me several attempts to absorb this sentence and put it in a straight line. There is surely a more straightforward and direct route that the author could have used to express his thoughts and make them much clearer.

He’s also tying himself up in knots again. He tells us on the top of page 193 that "Two mounds, though not unknown, are uncommon.". Half a dozen lines later, he tells us that "Such subordinate mounds are not uncommon in earthworks of all ages,". I wish that he’d make up his mind.

Back in here, I began to work on my Woodstock programmes and pushed on with the Saturday events. There are just four more groups and the outro to write for that, and I’ll also have to think of a way of including Louis de Funès in my programme too. I can’t have a programme without a special guest.

There were plenty of interruptions. There were a couple of disgusting drink breaks, my cleaner put her sooty foot in here to do her business, and one of my neighbours, the President of the residents’ committee, popped in for a chat to find out about how things were and to tell me about her recent trip to New York.

Tea was a delicious leftover curry but the naan was not so good. It kept on falling apart as I was trying to flatten it for frying. The chocolate cake and chocolate soya dessert more than made up for that.

So it’s bedtime now, ready for dialysis tomorrow, I don’t think. And there’s a footfest too, Caernarfon v Barry Town to see who will push on for European competition, and later, the Second Division Cup Final between Airbus UK Broughton and Trefelin. That will be an interesting match because Lee Trundle, at 48, still turns out every week for Trefelin. In the pre-match summary he’s raring to go. He also says that he has no plans to retire and will carry on next season. How I wish that other International footballers would turn out for their local football clubs to give something back to the community, rather than retiring to their island paradise to count their fortunes.

But that’s tomorrow of course. Tonight, it’s bedtime

And seeing as we have been talking about the Battle of Camlann … "well, one of us has" – ed … I am reminded of the American tourist who turned up in Castlesteads early one morning and buttonholed a local.
"Can you tell me when was the Battle of Camlann?"
"537" replied the local
"Damn" said the American, looking at his watch. "I’ve just missed it"

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: rachel

Tuesday 24th February 2026 – ♬ HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO …

Wednesday 18th February 2026 – I’LL TELL YOU …

Tuesday 23rd December 2025 – GUESS WHO …

Friday 14th November 2025 – MY NEW OFFICE …

Monday 10th November 2025 – MY CANADIAN VISITORS …

Sunday 9th November 2025 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

Saturday 8th November 2025 – MY CANADIAN VISITORS …

Friday 7th November 2025 – WHAT AN ABSOLUTE …

Saturday 27th September 2025 – THIS HEALTH ISSUE …

Saturday 13th September 2025 – JUST BEFORE MIDNIGHT …

Wednesday 10th September 2025 – I’VE NO IDEA …

Wednesday 13th August 2025 – THIS TIME NEXT WEEK …

Sunday 3rd August 2025 – I HAVE DONE …

Saturday 3rd May 2025 – THAT WAS SUPPOSED …

Friday 25th April 2025 – I WAS WIDE-…

Your reactions

Excellent

Useful

Interesting

Weird

Surprising

Boring