Tag Archives: rosemary

Saturday 28th March 2026 – YET ANOTHER EVENING …

… when I’ll be going to bed without any food. I started to take the stuff out of the fridge but it went almost straight back, before I’d even taken all of it out. Somehow, I just couldn’t face it tonight.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … my taste buds are definitely changing again. I wonder what’s going to drop off the menu this time, apart from my sausage, beans with cheese, and chips that I was planning on having.

This latest thing seems to be something to do with one of the medicaments that Emilie the Cute Consultant has prescribed for me. Last night, after I’d finished my notes at some kind of reasonable time, I finished off everything that needed finishing and then went into the kitchen for the medication. And about five minutes later, I began to feel quite uncomfortable.

The next thing that happened was that I was hit by a huge wave of fatigue, and I was glad to crawl into bed before it overwhelmed me.

Once in bed, I fell asleep quite quickly and apart from one or two brief awakenings, caused mainly by fits of coughing, I remember nothing whatever until the alarm went off at 06:29. And can you imagine just how difficult it was for me to leave the bed at that moment?

What with having some hand-washing to do too, I ended up being terribly late in the kitchen for my hot drink and medication. Still, better late than never. But I’ll tell you something for nothing, and that is that I had an incredibly dry throat, I was feeling dizzy and also quite lethargic.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And it was a disappointment – I think that Emilie the Cute Consultant’s medication is affecting my sleeping patterns too.

Wales was being attacked by England, so Wales responded by pushing the English back into England. Eventually, the Welsh army overwhelmed the English army right up to the point where not only did they capture most of the English army bases in the UK, it managed to capture a couple of bases’ settlements that were north of Hadrian’s Wall which, in theory, were in Scotland. Wales ended up capturing things like the forts at Newsteads which upset the Scots, and the Scots decided that they really would … fell asleep here …

And when I found the dictaphone later, it had been running for two hours and fifty-five minutes, so if you want to hear me snoring and coughing, you will have plenty to go at.

And “snoring”, yes. I’m sorry for doubting you, Percy Penguin.

As for the dream, the first part relates to very little that is current, but the second part refers to James Curle and his A ROMAN FRONTIER POST AND ITS PEOPLE that we read over Christmas and New Year.

There was something about a building somewhere in Crewe that should have been right in the centre of town but was somewhere tucked up a side street, one of the ones behind Market Street. I was on my way to visit it but I couldn’t remember exactly how I was going to be able to go there and at that point I was awoken by an enormous fit of coughing.

Apparently, at the back of Market Street, they have demolished a load of old railway engineering buildings and are building on the site. Let’s hope that the money lasts so that they can finish the job. Having gambled on HS2 arriving in the town, the council’s finances are in a total mess.

The nurse turned up as usual and saw to my legs and feet. He didn’t have much to say, but he doesn’t think much of my lifestyle and my lack of eating. He thinks that my main meal should be at lunchtime. However, if I eat a lot then, I just fall asleep in the afternoon and I do that too often without inviting it.

After he left, I made breakfast and read some more of ESSAYS ON THE LATIN ORIENT by William A Miller.

Today, we’re discussing the exiles living on the charity of the Pope in Rome. And as I said yesterday, there are piles of them – far too many to count. The Pope must have been a very wealthy man.

After breakfast, I had the fridge to tidy. I’d bought a lot of vegan milk because if it hadn’t been for running low on milk, I’d have waited for another week for supplies, with not eating much these days. So I’m going to see if I can last out four weeks this time.

It’s difficult to believe that a year ago, I was ordering shopping every two weeks

Back in here, we had the highlights of last night’s game between Caernarfon and TNS. These included yet another “let’s play it out from the back, boys”, with a predictable result.

There were a few other things that needed doing, but I’m not sure how I managed because I was feeling quite tired and lethargic, and shaking off wave after wave of sleep.

There was football on the internet at lunchtime – Hwlfordd v LLansawel. And after their dreadful display last week, Hwlffordd played much better and managed to grind out a 1-0 win to move ahead in the race for the European playoffs.

But I’d love to have a closer look at Hwlffordd’s challenge on Llansawel keeper Will Fuller as the cross came into the penalty area.

Eventually, I managed to begin to edit an outstanding set of radio notes. By the time that I’d knocked off, I’d assembled the two halves of the programme, chosen and dealt with the final track and written the notes for it, ready for dictation.

And seeing as we have been talking abut the radio programmes … "well, one of us has" – ed … I forgot to mention yesterday that that very long concert that I need to edit – it’s all done and the notes are all written. I managed to find a few hours yesterday afternoon when I sorted it out.

There were also a couple of chats with a few of my friends too. It’s nice to hear from them every now and again. We don’t see each other anything like enough these days since I’ve been ill.

Later in the afternoon, I began to make my hot cross buns. They are all made now, ready for Easter. Eight of them and then are huge. The trouble with my hot cross buns was that the oven was rather too hot and the buns are somewhat scorched. It won’t make much of a difference, though. They will still be nice.

So with no tea and having finished my notes, I’m off to bed and my lie-in tomorrow … "he hopes" – ed … because I definitely need it. I’ve crashed out a couple of times already today and I’m feeling as if I could crash out again at the drop of a hat.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the Pope and the refugees in Rome … "well, one of us has" – ed … Queen Charlotte of Cyprus came to see the Pope in her horse and carriage.
As it was such a nice day, she invited the Pope to come for a ride with her. And after ten minutes, the horse … errr… broke wind extremely noisily.
"Oh dear" said Queen Charlotte, extremely flustered. "I really am so sorry."
"It’s no problem" said the Pope. "In fact, if you hadn’t said anything, I would have sworn that it was the horse."

Wednesday 25th March 2025 – IT HAS BEEN …

… a strange kind of day today — neither one thing nor another. I’m not quite sure why but if ever there was a day of two halves, this was it.

Take last night, for instance. Even though I was late … "yet again" – ed … finishing off everything that needed finishing, I wasn’t in the least bit tired and I ended up sitting around for a while listening to a concert by Renaissance. As a result, I was quite late going to bed, and it was all my fault.

Not being tired, it took me a while to go to sleep but apart from one moment, more of which anon, I slept right through until just a couple of minutes before the alarm — 06:24 if I remember correctly. Not that there was any prospect of me claiming an early start by sliding my feet onto the floor before the alarm went off — that four minutes in bed was valuable.

Even so, when the alarm went off, it took me a good few minutes to raise myself from the Dead and head off into the bathroom. And then into the kitchen for my hot drink and medication.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out what had happened during the night.

There had been a dance at an army camp and plenty of male and female soldiers had attended. During the evening, a couple of males and a couple of females had made themselves into couples. At the end of the dance, when everyone was due to go home, one of the female soldiers remarked that there would be a bed empty in her hut because one of the female soldiers isn’t there this weekend. One of these ad-hoc couples decided that they would take advantage of this so they followed everyone else back to the various dormitories. They worked out which one was their hut, and they went in. But there were a couple of other women in there, including one who looked after the section’s lion, which was their mascot from Ethiopia and looked after by them, so this was a strange sight of a woman and a lion, another lion, another woman, a third woman and then this couple who were in this other woman’s bed. At some point, I was summoned to do something with the hot water firing. I thought that this was a surprise because it’s not really my job. However, it was explained to me that the person whose job it was usually was missing. So I was called out and came down and went to fix it, and then I began to ask about the whereabouts of this other guy, and so a search began. When they opened the door of this women’s dormitory and found him there with this woman and this lion in this room, and all these other women, the service went totally berserk.

This is another dream that has absolutely no connection at all with anything that has happened in the real World just recently, as far as I can tell. What on earth a woman would be doing in a dormitory with a lion is something that totally baffles me.

The army dance is interesting too, but that doesn’t seem to fit in with anything either. As for me being in the army, that would be most unlikely too. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … that if a war were to break out and conscription came into force, I would be heading for the nearest Merchant Marine office.

Then there was a dream about a group of people who had let themselves go in their lives. The first one was a graphic artist from Italy who had settled into the UK to do some kind of graphic work, but had lost his job and was content to sit around all day on benefits rather than go out to try to find a job to better his position.

As I was starting to dictate this, I was overwhelmed by the most enormous coughing fit, one of the biggest that I’ve had and which awoke me, as I mentioned earlier. When it calmed down, I found that I had forgotten everything else that I needed to know about it and so that was that.

Almost immediately that I had finished transcribing the dictaphone notes, the nurse turned up. He didn’t have a lot to say for himself today and was soon gone on his travels. I could make my breakfast, cutting the bread with my new bread knife that arrived yesterday, and it isn’t ‘arf sharp. I hope that my cleaner can find some of those vegetable knives if they are as sharp as the bread knife is.

While I was eating, I was reading some more of ESSAYS ON THE LATIN ORIENT by William A Miller.

Today, we’re discussing Bosnia and Herzegovina, and I can understand why there is so much fighting over the possession of these territories even today. Their history is so convoluted – at some time in the past, almost every power of any importance in the Balkans and in Italy has had possession of this area at some point. Numerous battles have been fought across the area as other powers have tried to take control.

Back in here, I had a few things to do and then an e-mail to write. That actually took longer than it ought.

When I’d dealt with that, I began to write the notes for another radio programme. However, the time seemed to evaporate and what should have taken about three hours at most ended up taking over five, and I’ve no idea why.

My faithful cleaner turned up to interrupt me at one point. She’d brought the rest of the medication that had to be ordered. I mentioned the side effects of the medication that Emilie the Cute Consultant had prescribed, and her response was “serve you right”. It’s nice to know that you have loyal friends.

Something strange happened after all of this. From going along, bright and cheerful, I suddenly became overwhelmed with fatigue and found myself slumped over the desk in one of these trances that I used to have quite regularly.

In fact, had Rosemary not ‘phoned me up for a chat, I would probably still be there now. Even so, over an hour crashed out like that is some going.

Rosemary and I just had a short chat today — a mere one hour and twenty-four minutes. We’re obviously losing our touch these days.

After she’d hung up, I attacked one of the radio notes that i’d dictated a while back. I’d hoped to have had these all edited, the two halves of the programme prepared, the extra track chosen and the notes written , with plenty of time to spare afterwards, but what with one thing and another … "and until you make a start, you have no idea just how many other things there are" – ed … I’d barely finished preparing the two halves.

That filled me full of dismay because the time is just melting away between my fingers and I can’t stop it.

Tea tonight was pasta and vegetables in a vegan cheese sauce followed by more delicious trifle. It was quite nice, except for the fact that some of the pasta ended up in the bin as I couldn’t eat it. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … my taste buds are definitely changing.

But right now, I shall be changing, into my night clothes to go to bed, ready for dialysis tomorrow … "I don’t think" – ed …

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the woman and the lion … "well, one of us has" – ed … she was walking with the lion down Hoole Lane in Chester not so long ago.
A policeman stopped her and demanded "where do you think you are going with that lion?"
"Where do you think?" she asked. "I’m taking him to Chester Zoo"
A couple of days later, the same policeman stopped the same woman with the same lion in Sealand Road
"I thought you said that you were taking that lion to Chester Zoo?"
"And so I did!" she retorted "but he didn’t think much of it so we’re going to watch Chester City play Scarborough Athletic."

Wednesday 11th March 2026 – THAT WAS ANOTHER …

… really nice tea, even though it took me over two hours to prepare it and then to tidy up afterwards. And consequently, I’m running even later than I was last night, and that was late enough.

So much so that, by the time that I’d finished everything that needed finishing and had crawled into bed, it was about 23:20 – so much for any possible idea of having an early night.

And just as the previous night, it was another bad one, and by 05:20, I’d given up all possible hope of going back to sleep. But not to worry – round about 06:00 I raised myself from the Dead and attacked the two lots of radio notes that I’d written last week. They are now dictated and ready for editing, and there’s nothing outstanding in that respect.

However, there are no fewer than six lots of radio notes that need editing, so I am going to have a busy weekend by the looks of things.

When the alarm went off, I staggered into the bathroom for a scrub-up and then into the kitchen for my hot drink and medication. And the medication is much better in the drawer opposite the microwave rather than scattered all over the place.

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

There was something about being back in historical times. There was a young boy who was in bed in this house and having to measure how far away from the nearest plug he was in his bed so that we could put the correct amount of cable on a table lamp. For some reason, instead of calculating it from a plug in his bedroom, we calculated it from a plug in the living room and that seemed to go for metres – maybe there were five, six or seven metres. And if we’d taken it from the plug by the bed, it would have been next-to-nothing in the way of cable. But while we were measuring it, we had a metal ruler that was a metre long and a scribe that we were using to mark everything. Part of this route took us outside, and we were measuring in the snow and ice. We were looking at the ice and thinking of how things were frozen up, thinking that we’d better hurry and take ourselves inside again before we freeze in this weather.

It’s not very likely that they would have had table lamps back in historical times, but it’s certainly possible that there might not have been electrical sockets in every room. I can remember times like that in the dim and distant past. And don’t forget that the farm down in Virlet doesn’t have mains electricity or running water.

It would be interesting to know, though, why our route from one bedroom to another took us outside into the snow and ice.

Did I dictate the dream about being in Germany with my German friend? … "No, you didn’t" – ed … We ended up going around one of the supermarkets in his town looking for things that he needed. I saw some Heinz baked beans on special offer, so I went to look, but they were beans with pork sausages, so that ruled it out for me. So we had a good wander around and we noticed a couple of tins of beans on the shelf which were for sale. He asked me if they would be any good, so I replied that there was only one way to find out, so we put them in the trolley. I went to the check-out and waited for my friend who was still looking. I was chatting to the cashier, and he was saying goodbye and talking politely to everyone who was leaving the shop, but no-one seemed to reply to him. He was very annoyed by this. Eventually, we climbed into our car and drove out of the car park into the main street, but we were in Wandsworth by this time. Seeing as we were here, I asked him to turn to the left, which he did. I pointed out a row of shops, which in the past included an Indian takeaway, which was really nice. Up at the junction ahead, the round swung round to the left and headed down towards Wimbledon. Where the Italian restaurant had been, where I used to work, it had all been demolished and it was modern shopping units, things like these tool supply places and DIY hardware fittings places etc. I couldn’t believe how things had changed since the early 1990s when I was working down there. I was really, really disappointed by this.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall my desperate search for decent baked beans, and it would be just my luck to find a huge supply, only to be thwarted by something like several pork sausages.

A while ago, I was looking at one of these online 3-D mapping sites, checking the area where I used to live in Wandsworth for that couple of months, and I didn’t recognise any of it. How it’s all changed since those days. It was really difficult to believe just how different the area is now, compared to how it used to be.

The nurse came extremely early today. He had several blood tests to carry out, including one on me! Unfortunately, he doesn’t have “the touch”, and as my veins are very small and fragile, I suffer enormously.

Not only that, I should have been à jeun – that is, without any food. However, I’d forgotten, so heaven alone knows what they are going to think at the laboratory when they find my blood full of home-made lemon, ginger and honey drink.

After he’d sorted out my feet, which was also agony because the pain in my right foot has returned, he left, and I could make breakfast and read some more of ESSAYS ON THE LATIN ORIENT by William A Miller.

Today, having finished the accounts of the downfall of the individual duchies, he’s discussing the situations on the islands. It’s, regrettably, exactly the same as on the mainland, with different groups in conflict with others, internal revolution, external warfare, appeals to various European bodies and even craven submission to the Ottomans in order to seek protection from a different Christian force.

It really is difficult to understand why these people couldn’t see that they were signing their own death warrants.

Back in here, I finished off a few things and then, regrettably, I had a little “doze” in my chair for an hour or so. I can’t say that I was surprised.

Once I’d brought myself back round fully into the Land of the Living, I carried on writing the notes for the radio programme on which I’d been working yesterday. And by lunchtime, I’d finished everything. So this idea of being “up to date” didn’t last any longer than six hours.

After a disgusting drink break, I had a few things to do.

This fibre-optic cable issue is still rumbling on … "and on, and on" – ed … due to the inability of the estate agent’s manager to understand the problem. And now another inhabitant of the building, not exactly known for his patience, has thrown his hat into the ring following the failure of the installation chez lui. It seems that I am shortly to have a visit from a technician nominated by the estate agent, who intends to check the situation.

And not before time, either.

There was also an order to pass to my online retailer, and as a result, my late birthday present to myself should be arriving in about a week or ten days or so. In fact, a part of it should be here within the next couple of days, as it was “en route” about an hour after I’d ordered it.

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

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

A third thing was to reply to a letter that I’d received from the Auvergne. A few weeks ago, I wrote about a letter that I’d received from someone sending me his sympathies for my illness. I’d written back with an update as to my condition, and he’d replied. He’s going to carry out a little task or two for me, something that should come as quite a pleasant surprise to whoever inherits my possessions.

And finally, I’ve had my tax demand for my property in Canada. Looking at the increases over the last few years, property values close to the border with the Great Satan (and you can’t be much closer to the border with the Great Satan than my property) are rising dramatically since the orange utan took power down there.

Rosemary rang for a little chat. And it was a “little chat” too – it only lasted one hour. She’s been noticing the lack of worms in her garden these last couple of years, and the compost that she spreads on her vegetable plots doesn’t seem to break down as quickly as it should. Consequently, she’s planning on ordering a couple of hundred worms from a place in France so that she can dig them in with the compost.

With the time that was left, I chose the music for the next radio programme. And some of that took a lot of finding too. But it’s all now present, reformatted, remixed and re-edited. I can pair it and segue it tomorrow and maybe even write a couple of the notes for it.

Tea tonight was a fresh vegetable curry … "well, frozen vegetable curry actually" – ed … with onion, mushrooms, tomato, lentils, broccoli, cauliflower and sprouts in a thick vegan yoghurt sauce with rice, followed by birthday cake and home-made ice cream. And it really was delicious.

However, I might have to smile sweetly at Alison and ask her to take a little trip into Leuven on my behalf because my stock of spices is running rather low right now.

But that’s a job for the weekend because right now, I’m off to bed, hours later than I would like.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my blood test … "well, one of us has" – ed … I told one of my friends from Crewe that I had had a blood test this morning.
And so she asked "did you have to study hard last night, then?"

Friday 6th March 2026 – GUESS WHO …

… has been a busy boy today?

It’s difficult to understand where all of this energy has come from, but it was certainly there today and I hope that it will still be there for the weekend too and I can keep it up.

Last night, though, it didn’t look as if it would be a good day today. Once more ♬ I dillied and dallied and dallied and dillied, lost my way and don’t know where to roam ♬ and ended up being quite a bit later than intended going to bed. If I’d rushed, I could have been in bed by 22:30, I suppose, but it was in fact 23:30 when I crawled under the covers.

At least, I went to sleep straight away, which was one thing, but it was rather sad to awaken at 05:00. I could have done with much more than that. A good few minutes were spent deciding whether I should leave the bed at that point but instead, I curled up in the warmth of my quilt and went, surprisingly, back to sleep.

But not for long. I don’t know what time I awoke after that, but the alarm went off a short time afterwards and I tried my best to raise myself from the Dead.

Eventually, I was able to stagger into the bathroom for a good scrub-up and then I went into the kitchen for my medication and hot drink. And DISASTER – no fresh lemons. I had to make do with processed lemon juice, and it’s not the same.

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

There was a huge meeting of some kind of Gamblers Anonymous thing where people were invited to comment on how they stopped gambling. There was one guy who gave a lengthy speech about how he’d managed to stop gambling etc. and everyone applauded him. He was taken as being one of the shining examples of this meeting. Later on, while he was with his friends, they all went off somewhere and left him on his own. It was then that someone else came round to bring him a prize that he’d won when he’d been gambling. It was a huge prize too, and there was no possibility of hiding it. The people who had brought him this cheque decided that they’d take him out for a meal, and they ended up presenting formally this cheque to him in a restaurant where his friends were actually dining at the time. That proved, of course, to be something that was most embarrassing to everyone. Of course, his friends were really angry at having supported him at this Gamblers Anonymous thing. They went over to the table later where he was sitting, or he went over to theirs and they had a most acrimonious argument or discussion about this whole affair.

This was a strange dream. It’s another one that seems to have come out of nowhere, with nothing that has happened in recent times provoking anything like this.

I’d met a girl walking around Granville and I began to chat to her. She was part of a large family whose father had died and they had been evicted from their house where they were living and were basically on the road looking for somewhere to stay. They were heading in the Rennes direction. It turned out that the previous night they’d spent in a hotel just down the road from where I was living, one of these cheap village hotel-type of things. I felt really disappointed that I hadn’t seen her then. After we’d had a really good chat and she had wandered off, I went down to look at the street. I thought that what was this big hotel had been all boarded up and padlocked. There was no possible way in to it, so I didn’t say or do very much. I realised then that she was actually at the house next door because I could see the tables being laid out for breakfast the following morning, so I loitered around there but she didn’t turn up, and neither did any of her family, so I wondered if they had moved on. At some point a little later on, I met her again. She said that they were leaving and were going towards Rennes. I was spending some time chatting to her. She had this very large family and one of the children was underneath my bed, stuffing stuffed toys up underneath the mattress, so I had to chase her away. I was chatting to this girl when this old, strange minibus turned up. She basically said “goodbye” to me, and I felt terribly disappointed that she was leaving. They all crowded into this ancient minibus, one of those that had the luggage underneath the floor, and they set off. I decided that what I would do would be to try to hitchhike down towards Rennes to see if I could catch up with her at some point. So I set off and arrived at Rennes. I was on an airfield when this strange aeroplane came in to land. It nearly knocked down an officer, who made some kind of gesticulation at it, but I thought that he shouldn’t have been walking across the landing strip anyway. I wondered if this was the family arriving, so I ran towards the aeroplane, but it had crash-landed, sticking up with the tail in the air, landing on its nose. There was some kind of riot going on around this ‘plane and the police were called to quell it, which upset the commander of the base because he didn’t think that it was appropriate for the police to intervene in some kind of military affair. But there was a description of the airfield somewhere, and somewhere, people were talking about the different places where the aeroplanes were parked etc, but I didn’t take much notice because I was hoping that this was the ‘plane in which the family had arrived and everyone in it, especially her, were all OK.

And I was going to say that this was another one too, but meeting a girl in the street and staying in one of these shabby village-type of hotels of the kind that you would have found in every French village fifty years ago but are now long-gone reminds me of my hitchhiking trip around Finisterre in the mid-seventies when, in Morlaix, I was staying in such a place, I did meet a girl while I was walking around the town, and we did have quite a chat.

Furthermore, the streets in which this dream took place resembled very much some of the streets in the Quartier St Paul of Granville around which we drove yesterday looking for one of our passengers.

The rest of the dream would seem to be pretty meaningless, especially the part about the airfield and the part about the little girl shoving stuffed toys up underneath my mattress.

Isabelle the Nurse wandered in as usual and organised my feet and legs. She had a little more time today so we had a little chat. She seems to think that I ought to buy some garden furniture so that I can sit outside. And I would, believe me, if only I could lift myself out of it afterwards.

After she left, I made breakfast and read some more of ESSAYS ON THE LATIN ORIENT by William A Miller.

The period of the Frankish occupation of Greece is coming to an end, due to the marauding Turks, and we’ve been discussing the Battle of Nicopolis when a reinforcing army coming from the West to relieve the besieged Franks in Greece was annihilated by a Turkish army, ending all hopes of salvation for the besieged. The End Is Nigh, right enough.

Back in here, I had things to do as usual, one of which was to send off an order to Leclerc because I’m now about to run out of soya milk. One thing that I really did fancy was a butternut squash because I wanted to make some butternut squash soup for next week, but it had gone out of stock since yesterday, which was a disappointment.

When I’d finished what I needed to do, I attacked the next radio programme and now, all of the notes are written, ready for dictation.

There were several interruptions too. I went to set the washing machine off with a load of clothes. I’m no longer able to hang the clothes up on the airer so I’ve arranged with my cleaner that I’ll do the washing on Friday lunchtime and she’ll hang it up when she comes in on Friday afternoon.

After she’d hung up the washing and done some cleaning, we emptied the top shelf in the wardrobe in here. There were plenty of bags, backpacks and so on, but we also found a large plastic box full of tools, screws and all kinds of similar stuff. I’d been looking for some of this stuff since the day that I first moved in here when I needed to erect the shipping radar aerial but couldn’t find it anywhere. So that’s another box to sort out this weekend.

Rosemary called me for a chat today too. Only a brief one – a mere fifty or so minutes – and, as usual, we didn’t discuss anything of any importance.

With what time was left, I began to prepare the following radio programme. This one will fall on the anniversary of the Day of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, and you’ve no idea how many songs I have in my library that include the word “child” or “children” in the title. I could make a really good radio programme with all of those.

Tea tonight was baked beans with cheese, chips and vegan sausage, followed by the last of the apricot halves and some more of my delicious home-made ice cream. Tomorrow, I can start back on my birthday cake and finish it off during the coming week.

But right now, ordinarily I would be going to bed but onto the playlist has come a COLOSSEUM CONCERT FROM 1971. This is a really strange concert, because every time it comes round on the playlist, something dramatic happens. It appeared on the playlist on board THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR in 2018 when I met The Vanilla Queen, and also in 2019 when Castor suddenly appeared on the scene, and we know how dramatic those encounters were. I was never the same again.

But before I go and listen to the rest of Colosseum, seeing as we have been talking about Gamblers Anonymous … "well, one of us has" – ed … there’s a similar society for people who suffer from alcoholic issues.
"Is that called ‘Alcoholics Anonymous’?" asked one of my friends.
"Knowing the people whom I’ve met and known" I told her "it’s more like ‘Alcoholics Unanimous’."

Sunday 1st March 2026 – DYDD GWYL DEWI …

… hapus iawn, pawb!

Did you all enjoy your leek soup? And did you arrange your daffodils neatly in your living room? And did you give your pet dragon a little treat? As long as you did all of that, you aren’t likely to receive a visit from an angry druid today.

As for me, I’m afraid that I didn’t. Sunday here is pizza day, and as well as that, I can’t go out hunting for daffodils, although Rosemary did send me some virtual daffodils via an internet chat program.

Instead, I’ve had something of a lazy day, and you’ll be surprised at just how productive I have been, because I know that I am.

Last night wasn’t as I had planned it either. It ended up being horribly late, just after midnight, when I stopped letting it all hang out and went to bed instead. And instead of the decent sleep and long lie-in that I wanted, it was one of those mobile nights where I was tossing and turning, half awake and half asleep, without actually going into a really deep sleep.

When the nurse put in an appearance, I was actually awake, and so I pretended to be asleep so that I didn’t have to leave my comfortable bed. He sorted out my legs and feet and then disappeared. I curled up under the bedclothes and tried my best to go to sleep, but with no luck at all.

Eventually, round about 09:15, I gave it up as a bad job and arose from the Dead. I gathered up my clothes from the chair and, throwing my slippers in the general direction of the bathroom, I scored a beautiful hole in one, right into the toilet bowl. What a way to start the day!

In the kitchen, I forgot my medication, but I had a lovely breakfast of porridge, hot coffee and two of my homemade croissants. That’s a really nice way to start the day, especially when you take your time and don’t go into your office to start work until 10:45. I wish that every day could be like this.

What took me so long was that I was engrossed in my new book, ESSAYS ON THE LATIN ORIENT by William A. Miller.

Today, we’re discussing the complicated relationship between Thebes, Athens and Sparta, a relationship that sporadically erupted into warfare, with any two pitted against the third. It’s helping me brush up on my classics from when I studied Latin at grammar school, and it’s amazing just how much of the old classical stories have been proved by modern archaeology to be true.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out what had happened during the night.

I was living in some kind of communal living thing. There were lots of different people there doing lots of different things. There should have been a meeting late one night before going to bed, but it turned out that the guy on whose behalf the meeting was being held had simply gone ahead and applied the texture mix to his skin, which meant that he’d be busy recovering or whatever, changing or something, and so the meeting was cancelled. That was extremely disappointing, so I gathered up a couple of things from the radio, some old English-language programmes that I’d done years ago and went to see the girl in the next room who worked for the local radio. She thanked me for coming but said that they were doing things in a different way these days and didn’t need the programmes that I had. However, there would be plenty of opportunity to do stuff in the future. She was thinking of having some kind of doll or something and she would want me to write the speech for it. I took my things to go back to my room, but on the way back, I heard that there had been some kind of announcement that Jim Dale, one of the CARRY ON stars, had been seen hiding in a tree near the old airfield up near Wardle – it was described as “Stoke Bank” in this news report. He’d been repeating one of his “Carry On” speeches from out of this tree and it had made the local news in all the papers.

Whatever the significance of the first part of this dream might be, I have no idea. As for the second part, I have a whole stock of English language radio programmes that Liz and I prepared when we were running “Radio Anglais”, programmes that were broadcast on French local radio. A short while ago, a radio station in Nantwich was calling for radio presenters and programmes, so I sent them one or two as tasters, to see whether they might be interested in a programme from me every now and again. It goes without saying that they never replied.

There is a “Stoke Bank” along the A51 a couple of miles from the old Wardle Airfield, which was my home … "the airfield, not Stoke Bank#34; – ed … for a short while when I was a baby. But there aren’t any trees there in which Jim Dale could loiter, whether or not he might be repeating a “Carry On” speech.

And I did once live in some kind of commune. But not for long, though. Firstly, I’m not a sociable animal, and secondly, most people in that place preferred to live off the backs of other, hard-working people. In the end, I preferred to live in my van.

There had been a couple of girls who had come over for an environmental conference. I’d been chatting to one and I was getting on extremely well with her. For some reason, my brother ended up with their contact details, but I didn’t. On the Sunday, we had various things to do, like we had to pack our place up as we were moving house that weekend. We were busy organising everything, and there was this beautiful cupboard that I’d had my eye on for ages with several drawers in it. It just looked like a huge bass speaker. The price on it was something like £275.00, which I thought was too much. Someone whom we knew came along and asked about it. The woman said “if you take it now, you can have it for £180.00. He paid her cash on the spot, and I felt really annoyed because I would have had it for £180.00 any day of the week. I told her to wait a minute because it had some of my paperwork in it. I had to go through and find somewhere to put this paperwork. I asked someone if they had a sack, and my mother made some kind of comment about that, but I wasn’t in the mood to joke. In the end, someone found a large paper sack and I began to put my things into it. One thing that I’d noticed was that a plot of land on which I’d had my eye too, which was formerly a garage in Audlem, had come back onto the market. The announcement from the paper was that there was a confusion about the closing date of the auction. Of course, I was far too busy to concentrate on this and we were still putting away our things. I came across a press cutting that showed that this conference to which we’d been was going on today, and there was a chance to meet all the contributors. That really annoyed me because I could have gone along and seen that girl again. Then my brother came up with some kind of story about how his car, with a trailer on it, had an electrical fault and he’d had to manually flash the rear lights to make some kind of brake lights every time he stopped. I was still in no mood for any kind of joke

This is quite a regular theme, isn’t it? Here I am, just about to Get The Girl, and a member of my family comes along and throws a spanner into the works.

The chest of drawers sounds interesting, and had I been healthy, I would have gone all-out to make one. And moving house, cars with electrical faults and looking for plots of land were habitual themes in real life back in the day.

There was also something about a Grand Prix around by Monte Carlo, the Monaco Grand Prix, twisting and turning through the streets with all of these cars taking part. We were watching it from a distance, and suddenly, after about half of the cars had gone past, there was complete silence and nothing. Then, all of the Grand Prix drivers who hadn’t gone through in their cars, they came through, and they were running. Apparently, there had been a major accident somewhere and they couldn’t proceed any further with their cars – this major accident behind the leading group so they couldn’t proceed with their cars, so they were going to run the rest of the course.

Before I went to bed last night, I was reading a news article about Cadillac’s entry into the Formula One circuit, but that their engine is not considered to be as reliable as it needs to be. Running the course on foot would be a novel way to proceed, though.

There was some kind of dream going on about a football competition. One of the teams had been relegated. There was something about a particular match and it involved my vegan ice cream somewhere, but I really can’t remember any more about it because I awoke as it was under way and it all evaporated … "the dream, not the ice cream" – ed …

Llanelli has just been relegated from the JD Cymru League, and lest night, we were watching the Welsh League Cup Final, complete with its very emotional ending, followed by vegan ice cream for dessert.

Seeing as we have been talking about the Welsh League Cup Final … "well, one of us has" – ed … this is the LINK TO THE HIGHLIGHTS. This is the LINK TO THE FULL MATCH. If you have the time, it’s well-worth it from a footballing point of view. The highlights don’t really show anything like a fair representative proportion of the game.

When I’d finished the dictaphone notes, there was yet more football. Morton were comfortably beaten by Airdrie after going down to nine men, and then Stranraer’s long unbeaten run came to an end as they were beaten at home by Elgin City.

After a disgusting drink break, with some of the medication that I’d forgotten, I had a pile of *.html coding to edit.

First thing though was to upload my graphics program onto this laptop. That’s easier said than done because there is no DVD drive on it. I had to rummage around deep in the bowels of the box where all of the redundant hard drives are hiding, and there it was, right at the bottom. And to my surprise, the USB cable and power pack were with it. Usually, knowing me, I would have expected them to have been scattered to the four winds a long time ago.

The next step was to open the drive. With not having been opened for years, the springs had seized. Luckily, there’s an escape hole, and a straightened paper clip fitted in quite nicely to lever down the internal catch.

Having uploaded the program, I could then go ahead and prepare some graphic images. And then I had to hunt down a few web links to tie to the images, and that wasn’t as easy as it might have been.

The next task was to edit the *.html coding to include the images and their links, and I was dismayed at how much *.html coding I’ve forgotten. Turn the clock back thirty years, and I was writing web pages by hand in “Notetab” and even teaching basic web design to a couple of interested people, but I couldn’t do it now.

There was an hour to spare, so I made a start on the Welsh homework. I’ve done about two-thirds of it, and as it doesn’t have to be done for two weeks, I’m glad that I’m well in advance because I can have a relax at some point.

At 16:30 I knocked off to go a-baking. A loaf of bread and a vegan pizza were today’s output. The bread rose like a lift and looks excellent, and the pizza was absolutely delicious, with half left over for tomorrow.

But right now, I’m off to bed, ready for dialysis tomorrow … "I don’t think" – ed … and to reflect on what a busy day I’ve had, considering that Sunday is supposed to be a Day of Rest.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about The Monaco Grand Prix … "well, one of us has" – ed … Percy Penguin once told me that she’d like to go there to watch the Formula One race.
However, I told her "we don’t have the money to go to watch the Formula One race in Monaco. And in any case, it’s pronounced Gron’ Pree."

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."

Friday 6th February 2026 – I HAVE THROWN …

… away another huge pile of food today. And that included the leftover Christmas cake and mince pies.

And what a tragedy that was – all of my Christmas stuff consigned to the bin. It just shows you how ill I’ve been over the last couple of months that I couldn’t bring myself to eat all that much of it.

But last night, as I said, I was beginning to feel better. For the first time for a long, long while, I’d managed to eat a proper-sized meal, and that is definitely progress.

So back in here afterwards, I wrote up my notes, although I’m still not as well as all that because I managed to fall asleep a couple of times while doing them. In the end, by the time that I’d finished everything that needed doing, it was about 23:45 when I finally crawled into bed. And it didn’t take long to go to sleep either.

But here’s a thing.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall me saying that I was convinced that it was the after-effects of the dialysis, particularly the following morning, that were causing me so many problems with my sleep, leading me to wake up at some silly time of the morning. However, last night I slept all the way through to the alarm at 06:29 without moving a muscle.

So much for that idea.

Anyway, another desperate struggle to leave the bed, followed by a stagger into the bathroom and then into the kitchen for the hot drink and medication.

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

I was with a woman and her daughter – it might have been Laurence and Roxanne. We’d been for a drive somewhere, just aimlessly driving around the suburbs of this city. I remember that we came to some traffic lights and I was waiting for them to change, but I was busy talking. Suddenly, the car behind me beeped and overtook me. I could see that the lights had changed and I hadn’t noticed. We turned into the main road, and there was a side street on the left that I had never ever been down. We went down there and came to this really magnificent parking area. It had kind of wooden pavilions, lock-up garages and trees, these monkey-puzzle tree things, and there was a lake. The lake was enormous and there were quite a few people sitting around there enjoying it. Whoever I was with, she knew the owners of this lake. They were extremely rich people and this was part of their property, although people were allowed to go on it. We had some flasks, so we went to sit down by the water’s edge. One thing that we noticed was that there were several families. One of them was a small child, younger than the girl who was with us. That child was standing there, arms folded, in a real sulk. We wondered what could possibly have been wrong with this child, given the absolutely beautiful view that we were having.

The road, the traffic lights and the parking place with the lake are so familiar to me but I just can’t put a name to them. I’m wondering if it might have been when I was at FORT NIAGARA IN OCTOBER 2010.

As for the child sulking, I’m not going to embarrass someone who might (or might not) be reading these pages by reminding them of an incident at Pegwell Bay in Kent in 1966 or 1967.

Isabelle the Nurse was rather later than usual this morning, and she didn’t hang around very long. But she was in an exceptionally good mood today which was quite surprising.

After she left, I could make breakfast and read some more of Mortimer Wheeler’s MAIDEN CASTLE .

Now that he’s left his rambling preamble behind, his notes of his excavations are much more orderly, although not on a par with those of James Curle. It’s still rather difficult to follow his timeline for the occupation of the site.

But, going off on a tangent as I usually do, I ended up reading a critique of Wheeler’s work. He hasn’t yet reached the cemetery, as far as I have read, but someone, in his critique, has posted to the effect that Wheeler has posted “some kind of fanciful description” of a battle that took place at the site between the natives and the Romans but says that there is “no evidence to support it”.

Leaving aside completely the fact that “absence of evidence” is a totally different concept than “evidence of absence”, our critic notes that Wheeler uncovered some kind of ad hoc cemetery with twenty-odd skeletons in it, many with wounds that can only have come from battle, one of whom has a Roman ballista arrow embedded in his spinal column, but notes that “there is no evidence that they actually died there”.

Now, I’ve commented before on Wheeler’s flights of fancy, but even so, nothing in this World is going to convince me that these people with battle wounds died elsewhere and that some people hauled them all the way up to the camp from wherever it was that they died, simply to cast them any old how into a series of hastily-dug, poorly prepared graves.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … office, I had a few things to do this morning and then I had to prepare my shopping order for LeClerc as I’m running low on a few things. After that, I finished off the radio notes for the programme that I’d started earlier in the week.

Having done that, I then began to research the next programme. That took some doing too, but having found out what I needed to do, I had to track down some music, and that wasn’t as easy as it sounded.

When my cleaner turned up, I had to knock off because we needed to make an inventory of the apartment and work out what we need the joiner to do when he comes back here for a day’s work. There’s quite a lot to do, and I’m sure that anyone who has visited this apartment can think of a few other things.

As my cleaner was leaving, she bumped into the delivery man bringing the food, twenty minutes early. And so the next hour or so was spent putting away all of the food and cleaning, dicing and blanching a pile of carrots ready for freezing. Only a kilo today rather than two because there are some left, although not enough to last until the next order.

While I was blanching, the ‘phone rang, so while the carrots were draining, I checked to see who had called.

It was Rosemary, who wanted a “little chat”, so there I was for one hour and nine minutes having this “little chat” with her. And once more, we talked about nothing much at all. But she was shocked to learn that my bill from the supermarket for three weeks’ worth of food was just €69:00. But it’s true, give or take the odd few mushrooms for the Sunday pizza that my faithful cleaner brings me.

There was time afterwards to finish selecting the music, reformatting, remixing and re-editing it and then pairing and segueing it. I even managed to write some of the notes for it.

Tea tonight was chips, sausage and beans with a pile of cheese melted into it, followed by some of the fruitcake from before Christmas with a soya dessert. It was a fair-sized meal, not the largest that I’ve had, but I still managed to eat it all, which, I suppose, is progress.

While I was messing around in the fridge, I threw out a pile of stuff that was long past its sell-by date and, as I said earlier, all of the uneaten Christmas stuff followed it into the bin. It really is a disaster, but it can’t be helped. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s not like me to throw away food. I really must have been ill over that period.

After finishing the washing-up, I put the water in which the carrots had been blanched into a glass bottle and put it in the fridge to use to make my leek and potato soup next week (I bought some fresh leeks today) and then put the carrots into the freezer to freeze for future use.

And now that I’ve finished my notes, I’m off to bed, late as usual. I wonder if I’ll sleep as deeply as I did last night, or was that just a one-off? We shall see.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about those skeletons in that cemetery at Maiden Castle… "well, one of us has" – ed … Tessa Wheeler asked her husband Mortimer "fancy letting themselves be killed like that. Why didn’t they fight back at all?"
"Well, darling" said Mortimer "people like that just don’t have the guts to do it."

Monday 2nd February 2026 – IT’S BEEN ANOTHER …

… tough afternoon today, and being at dialysis hasn’t helped one little bit.

What also probably didn’t help was that, once again, I remained stuck to my chair last night for ages and couldn’t sort myself out and go to bed. As a result, it was yet another late night, long after 23:30, and being as tired as I am right now, it’s all becoming far too complicated for me.

Once in bed, though, I was asleep quite quickly, and I remember nothing whatever until the alarm went off at 06:29 as usual.

It took an age to sort myself out and head to the bathroom but after a good wash and shave, I could head into the kitchen for the hot drink and medication, including the last of this course of five days of antibiotics.

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

I was driving my taxi last night. I’d just started to be self-employed so I was looking for as much work as possible to set myself off. A message came through on the radio to tell me that there were two people to pick up in Crewe to take somewhere at 06:30. But the following morning was a Sunday, so would I be able to do it? Even though I wasn’t particularly keen, the idea that there was a job like that to do made me feel that I would be able to do it. While I was speaking on the radio, a car pulled up alongside. It was the postwoman and she gave me a parcel. I hadn’t been expecting a parcel but I took it anyway. What I’d been doing while I’d been waiting for things to happen was that I was trying to make some tea. I’d been washing a load of really dirty vegetables and I now had four clean carrots, so I was going to make some kind of stew. I had dirty water, vegetable peelings and diced vegetables all over the place, and someone gave me a parcel, the postwoman. I put it down on a worktop where it became all wet, and then opened it. There were four solar-powered racing cars in there, each with its own track, and it was nothing that I knew anything of. However, I remember my mother talking about something like this so I called her up on the radio and asked her. She said that it was indeed something that she had been waiting for and could I bring it round some time? I wondered when it would be best to bring it round because she usually had piles of grandchildren hanging around and I imagined that she didn’t want her grandchildren to know about this parcel arriving.

Apart from the fact that I’m back driving a taxi again, there’s quite a lot of mileage in this dream. For example, my friend in Munich and I were talking yesterday about solar power and also about curried vegetables, and in Mortimer Wheeler’s MAIDEN CASTLE, part of the preamble that I mentioned the other day was a discussion about the cursus — the weird Neolithic structures that resemble something like an ancient racecourse.

And as usual, my family puts in an appearance.

The nurse breezed in quite early today, and he was soon gone, leaving me to make my breakfast and read some more of my book.

Mortimer Wheeler is reaching an interesting stage in his opening discussion. He notes that in the beginning, there were some reasonably substantial defences around Maiden Castle, but after a period that he estimates to be about fifty years, the defences are allowed to decay, although the site is still occupied. This seems to suggest that once the inhabitants were settled in, they were living at peace.

However, all of a sudden, there’s a hasty reconstruction of the defences, as if the situation has changed and warfare has broken out somewhere in the vicinity. And from then on, the defences are improved and improved with some massive, impressive defensive walls and ditches, enough to stifle any invader’s attack. And there are whole hoards of sling-stones discovered, tens and tens of thousands, cached at important points along the defences as if the defenders were prepared for a massive siege and attack.

After breakfast, I came in here again. There were a few things to do and then I revised my Welsh, seeing as I’m going to be out early tomorrow morning.

Rosemary sent me a message or two today to ask me a couple of questions. I forgot to mention yesterday that she had also ‘phoned me for a “quick chat” which, while not one of our usual length, was only supposed to be “just a quick question”.

My cleaner turned up to sort out my anaesthetic and then I had to wait for the taxi. The driver was early today because there were two other people to pick up, one in Granville and the other one in Donville-les-Bains.

The driver dropped me off first, and for a change, I was quite early. However, it counted for nothing because with a trainee nurse and no fewer that two trainee nursing assistants, I had to wait forty minutes before I was plugged in.

It was while I was waiting that I felt my morale disintegrating. And after a couple of hours of dialysis, I had another one of these fits that I have where I cease to function and just sit there, staring into space. This time, though, I closed my eyes and hoped to doze off, but that didn’t happen.

But you can tell that things aren’t going my way. We had a “satisfaction survey” to complete and when I read mine back after I’d filled it in, I noticed that what I had written was full of doom and gloom and pessimism. Still, I suppose that this is normal these days. The spark seems to have gone out, and gone for good too.

The taxi driver was waiting for me when I finished. It was the young, chatty guy and at least, he cheers me up when he’s driving. It was pouring down with rain and blowing a gale … "yet again" – ed … so he dropped me off at the back of the building where my faithful cleaner was waiting to open the fire escape so that I could come in that way. It’s much less of a distance to walk.

After my cleaner had sorted me out, I warmed up the half-pizza that was left over from yesterday and ate that. And now, early as it may be, I’m going to bed. I’ve had enough for today.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about Rosemary … "well, one of us has" – ed … she ended our little chat by saying "you are a real treasure".
And I quite agree with her. The way that I’m feeling right now, I really ought to be buried on a desert island somewhere.

Friday 30th January 2026 – JUST BECAUSE I …

… awoke this morning at 02:10 doesn’t mean that I was in bed early last night. I would have liked to have been, and I might even have been too, had I not fallen asleep on my chair during the evening. However, it was nearer 23:00 than anything else when I finally crawled underneath the covers.

However, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it looks as if dialysis is the catalyst for these early awakenings. It always seems to be following a dialysis session that I only have a very short sleep.

So last night, after lying awake for well over an hour (I was watching the clock), I must have gone back to sleep at some point because the alarm awoke me at 06:29.

As seems to be the case these days, it took an age to sort myself out and crawl out from underneath the covers. In fact, I was giving serious thought to abandoning these 06:29 starts and setting the alarm for 07:15, today and for the future, but I still harbour faint hopes of being able to pick up my old lifestyle at some point.

In the bathroom, I had a good wash and scrub up and then went for my hot drink and medication. And I do like my hot lemon, honey and ginger drink.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out what went on during the night.

I’d received some kind of offensive e-mail from some kind of organisation so I was determined to sit down and reply. I’d been thinking for quite a while how to do it but eventually, I had some kind of idea formulated in my head. There was a young child, who was a cousin, who was in the house with us at the time so I sent her on a little errand to fetch a book, to fetch some paper and to fetch something else, and I said that she could help me write a reply. We sat down at the table, but for some reason, she was at the far end and I was at the other. There was a huge tablecloth on the table and as I tried to write, the pattern on the tablecloth was preventing me from writing on the paper so in the end, I had to roll it back. I began to write, and made three or four attempts but I couldn’t find the correct kind of words. All the time, this girl was sitting at the far end of the table. In the end, she asked if she could come and sit up near me. I said that she could, so she came up and climbed up onto the lorry that was parked next to me, opened the door and sat on the back of one of the front seats so that she was level with me at the table. Then I sat down to write out this reply. Even then, I couldn’t seem to express exactly what I wanted to say. I could see myself sitting there for hours trying to formulate some kind of response with what I had going around in my head previously for ages.

In fact, I have actually had such an e-mail, and I’ve been planning for some of yesterday evening and much of the day in order to make a suitable response. Why my cousins should appear, though, I don’t know. That’s twice in a week or so, and I haven’t really paid them much attention in the thirty or forty years before that.

As for the lorry, that was an extremely surreal situation. And I can see it now. It was either a Thames Trader or a Bedford S-series and was painted olive green.

But there was also something else about another one of my cousins who had left school. I enquired whether she had found a job yet. The response was “well, she doesn’t come from a very well-motivated family, does she?”. But I reminded whoever it was speaking that a couple of her elder brothers had actually gone on in life and started their own business so they were certainly well-motivated, and so were one or two others, so I didn’t really think that it was fair to pick on the younger ones like that.

And that’s perfectly true too. Two of my cousins, having left school with no job and no prospects, joined the Army and served under fire in Northern Ireland. On demobilisation, they went to work for a roofing contractor in Nantwich, and within a couple of years, they had their own roofing business. My niece came across a third who had been in a similar situation after leaving school. However, when she met her twenty-odd years later, she was running her own contract cleaning company. So even if their family environment had been non-motivational, they certainly weren’t.

But as I said, where do my cousins (my father’s sister’s children) come into all of this?

The nurse blew in quite early today to see to my feet, and he didn’t hang around at all, which suited me. I could crack on and make breakfast and read some more of A ROMAN FRONTIER POST AND ITS PEOPLE.

We’re now quite close to the end, going through the appendices. We’ve finished plants, animals and humans, and we’re now on coins. And once more, I must confess to having had a laugh at James Curle’s tale of cataclysm at the end of the occupation, as I mentioned yesterday.

He talks about the abandonment of the fort and in particular, "the bodies of unburied men". According to the anthropologist to whom he sent all of the human bones that he found, they related to just ten individuals, most of whom were in pits or ditches. Of those that were identified, two were children, three were women and four were men, and only one showed any signs of battle damage. That’s not, of course, to say that the others did not die a violent death – just that the parts of the skeletons recovered show no evidence of it.

The passage on sheep is interesting too. The bones recovered seem to relate quite closely, if not exactly, to the Soay sheep, the feral sheep on the island of Soay in the Outer Hebrides. As long as there have been written records – over a thousand years – there is no evidence of anyone having introduced a different breed of sheep to cross with the feral sheep there, so they would seem to be truly Neolithic sheep.

We’ve now started coins, which is interesting. And this is how a lot of dating of sites can be done. For example, if you find a coin dated 120 AD underneath a Roman road, you know that the road can’t be any earlier than that date. And successive coins (and pottery, of course) in successive layers can further help in dating.

After breakfast I came back here, and the first thing that I did was regrettably to doze off until about 11:00. I really was tired.

And then I had to chase up the comptes rendu of the aborted fibre-optic installation so that I can go and sit on the building’s management committee and make them pay attention to what’s going on.

Next task was to track down some music for the next radio programme, and if this lot isn’t going to be an obscure collection of songs, I don’t know what is. It took hours to track down everything that I needed, reformat, remix and edit it, pair it and segue it.

There were the usual interruptions too. My cleaner came in to do her stuff and she brought me a new pair of slippers, seeing as my old ones had died a death. We went for a stroll down the corridor to see what was going on in the technical zone too.

Then Rosemary rang. "Do you have a minute or two?" And so, one hour and twenty-two minutes later …

There was even time to write some of the notes for this programme, and with a bit of luck, God’s help and a bobby, I shall finish it tomorrow.

Tea tonight was vegan sausage, baked beans and chips. Proper beans too, not ones that I made. The sauce on those that I made was quite good but it was the beans that were wrong. I’ll buy a tin of French baked beans with my next order to see what they are like, and if they aren’t up to much, I shall have to bite the bullet and buy a tray of real beans online, unless any of my British friends are passing a supermarket on their way here sometime.

There’s one thing about this meal, and that is that it seems to be the only food that I enjoy these days. And as it’s packed with protein and fibre, especially when I drop a handful of vegan cheese into it, it’s quite a healthy food.

So on that point, I shall clear off to bed ready for a good start tomorrow (I hope).

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about sheep on the island of Soay … "well, one of us has" – ed … they are in fact a protected species, classed as “endangered” by UNESCO.
And as with most endangered species, they have to be counted every year. However, quite rarely for an endangered species, there has NEVER been a recorded tally of their numbers in the UNESCO yearbook.
One day, at a European Union meeting, I met a representative from UNESCO, and I asked him about it.
"Well, we do send people there" he said "but they don’t come back and we have to go to look for them"
"And do you find them?"
"Ohh yes, they are always there, but the task is never completed"
"Why’s that?" I ask
"Well, they only ever get as far as ‘sixteen’ or so, and then they always fall asleep."

Friday 23rd January 2026 – EVEN AS I TYPE …

… these notes, I really ought to be making tea. But the truth is that I have a churning stomach right now and running through a list of possible menus that I might eat, there isn’t one that appeals to me. All it seems to do is to make my stomach churn over even more.

As well as that, although I’m feeling somewhat better than I did this time last night, I’m still feeling a lot worse than I ought to be, so the aim is to do what I have to do as soon as I am able to do it and then head off to bed again, in the hope that yet another good sleep will do me some good.

Not like yesterday, which, despite my early, really early night, didn’t go according to plan.

As I mentioned yesterday, despite going to bed at 19:25 or thereabouts, I was awake again four hours later. And although I said that “I settled down again and waited to go back to sleep”, I was still wide-awake at 02:30 and showing no sign of dropping off.

At some point though, I must have gone back off to sleep because I was awoken by the alarm, and it took me completely by surprise. And I must admit that I have never felt less like leaving the bed as I did this morning. It took me an age to rise up to my feet and head off to the bathroom. As a result, I was running really late for everything else.

In the bathroom, I changed my clothes, having been in the same clothes without a change for forty-eight hours and I washed my undies. I like to keep on top of my clothes like that, having spent years living out of a suitcase. And then, I went into the kitchen for my hot drink and medication.

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

I was in the Soviet Union last night in my van. There had been some kind of concert supposed to take place, so I was in this village or small town down in the south of the Soviet Union on my way to Asia and I bumped into these two American girls who were also going to this concert. We went into this room and there were probably thirty or forty people standing around. So we sat down and waited for something to happen. We were expecting this music concert and then perhaps a discussion about what came out in the songs, that kind of thing. But I fell asleep, and when I awoke about ten minutes later, everyone else was asleep too except these two American girls. They were looking at their watch and one of them said “well, we may as well go. There’s a bus back to the USA in an hour. In the end, the three of us left, with all these other people asleep. Outside, there was plenty of snow, and we walked, and where the bus was due to be picked up was at this car park and there were two white MkIII Ford Zephyrs there with the word LEI written on the badge instead of “Ford Zephyr”. The girls went to stand there, and in the end, I invited them to come with me to Asia, but they were reluctant. They asked me if I’d ever been there before. I replied “no, but I have travelling in the blood”. I said that I’d been a taxi driver, coach driver, chauffeur and I’ve travelled the Northern Hemisphere all on my own in the past, and my father was a lorry driver so it’s all in the blood. But they were very reluctant, so in the end I left them and climbed over the roof of one of these Ford Zephyrs to head back to the van. I heard one of them say to the other one “it’s a shame that he’s such an untidy person” so I was thinking that maybe if I’d been more tidy, they might have come. I walked over to where I’d parked the van but couldn’t see it. This looked nothing like where I remembered having parked it. I thought that I must be in the wrong place so I tried to retrace my steps and ended up miles out of town trying to find the van. Where I was, all the snow had melted and it was an urban scene with trees in the distance. I wandered through all of these buildings, trying to find my way out to see if the van was behind them, but I couldn’t find my way out of these buildings. I was wandering around for ages. In the end, I found myself on a train. I was standing by a window, looking out to see if I could see the van somewhere, but I heard a commotion behind me. It was a teacher with a bunch of maybe ten girls. She’d gone to find the ticket controller. It seemed that some English-speaking people were sitting in these girls’ seats and she had to make them move. She spoke to them in English, so I spoke to her about the van. She said that she couldn’t help me. I need to see the police. I replied that the van hasn’t been stolen – I just can’t find it and in any case, I can’t speak Russian. I tried to speak some Russian from what I remembered but made a mess of it and she really wasn’t able to help me at all.

What a strange dream that was! For a start, I did learn to speak Russian, although I’ve forgotten most of it now. That started off when I was working for Shearings and I’d heard that they were trying to win a contract with an American travel agency to transport American tourists behind the Iron Curtain to “visit their roots”. It sounded probably the most fascinating coach-driving work ever, so I found a local Russian exile who taught me over a period of six months. When the company announced that they were looking for drivers to go behind the Iron Curtain, I naturally volunteered.
"Why should we select you ahead of everyone else?"
"Well, actually, I can speak some Russian"
It was the most fantastic work that I have ever done, and I enjoyed every moment of it, even if it did mean a relentless diet of wiener schnitzel.

But meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … dream, I could easily imagine myself at one time driving through the Soviet Union to Asia, somewhere like pre-revolutionary Iran, but the political climate east of Poland and Romania these days would put anyone off. And wandering around aimlessly looking for my van because I’d forgotten where it was parked is just like me, especially these days.

As for the white Ford Zephyrs, I couldn’t ever imagine them being in the Soviet Union, whether under a different maker’s name or not. They are much more likely to have been ZIL 111G vehicles, although if you were to see one of those, you would know that you are in trouble, because they were only ever given to members of the Politburo.

Isabelle the Nurse took me by surprise this morning. Fitted with a mask, she stormed into the apartment and attended to my legs. She had a go at measuring my temperature with my thermometer and it’s still quite high. However, she doesn’t think much of my thermometer and she’ll bring her own tomorrow.

After she left, I made breakfast and read some more of A ROMAN FRONTIER POST AND ITS PEOPLE

James Curle is still discussing pottery, and now, we’ve moved on to how we are able to identify the different potters. There’s a fascinating list of potters’ marks and some equally fascinationg comments such as "this little fragment is an example of pottery classified by Dragendorff as ‘Dragendorff 37’, and there is a sample of this ware in a museum in (some obscure town in) Bulgaria."

Back in here, I had a variety of things to do, not having attended to my affairs as I should for the last forty-eight hours, and then I had last night’s notes to write.

They are now online, and then I finished off the notes for the radio programme on which I’ve been working.

In the meantime, I was having a good chat with Liz, who was giving me loads of motherly advice about how to find natural remedies to deal with my current health issues, and later on a brief exchange of messages with Rosemary.

There was football too. On Tuesday night Stranraer had played Queen’s Park of the second tier in the Scottish Cup on a swamp in a monsoon and had beaten the Spiders 6-5 on penalties after a 1-1 draw during one hundred and twenty minutes.

In theory, they now have a match at Ibrox against Glasgow Rangers, but the behind-the-scenes and off-the-field controversy after the game will need to be resolved first before it’s confirmed.

But that’s about everything, really. I suppose that there’s much more about which to write, such as my faithful cleaner coming down to do her stuff, but instead, I’m going to bed. And good riddance to me. I really don’t know how to cope with this latest illness. It’s getting on my wick and it’s high time that something happens before I go berserk.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the Soviet Union … "well, one of us has" – ed … I once saw a man in the Red Square holding up a pice of paper.
I asked a local – a very vocal local yokel – what he was doing, and he replied "protesting, of course."
"But what about?" I asked.
"Ignorant foreigner!" he replied. "Why would he need to put that on his sign? Everyone knows what’s wrong! ".
Two minutes later, a police van pulls up and they drag him inside.
"So what’s he done now?"
"Ignorant foreigner!" he replied. "Everyone knows what he did!".

Thursday 1st January 2026 – AND A HAPPY …

… this has been today!

There hasn’t been a moment, I reckon, when I’ve stopped to relax. It’s been non-stop all day and the irony of it all is that there was very little of it that was actually in my plans this morning when I awoke.

It all went wrong this morning at … err … 03:20, when I had another one of these dramatic awakenings that I sometimes have. Sitting bolt-upright wondering what on earth was happening, totally bewildered when I looked at the time, and then not being able to go back to sleep.

Not that it had been a long night either. By the time that I’d written my notes, done the stats, done the back-up and everything else, it was about 23:30 when I slid underneath the covers. And although I went to sleep quite quickly, it wasn’t for long.

So there I lay, for a good few hours, tossing and turning and trying to go to sleep without any success whatsoever, and in the end, round about 05:30,I gave it up as a bad job and left the bed.

The first thing that I did was to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And, regrettably, I’d not gone far

I went down to town in my van and wanted to park it in an area where parking was free, so I parked up at the back on the way to the Val ès Fleurs. On the way back, into the centre do do my shopping, I bumped into one of the other residents. He was surprised that I had parked so far away, so he took me and showed me where I ought to park, which was right in the town centre but was a “pay and display” park. I explained that this was where I parked in the evenings when there was no “pay and display”, otherwise I’ll look for a free place. He seemed to be surprised that I was willing to walk a little distance rather than to pay a parking fee. After we’d finished our discussion, I asked him if I could give him a lift back up to our building, but he said “no”, he had other things to do.

When I was healthy, whenever that was, walking here and there would never bother me all that much, not even in inclement weather. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall me saying, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … that i’ve walked home from my girlfriend’s in Chester, all twenty-five or thirty miles, on several occasions when I’ve missed the last bus, and it’s never bothered me.

The next thing that I remember was being in some kind of hall. I walked in and there were quite a few people around. I went to sit on a bench against the wall, a nice, comfortable, padded bench. Gradually, as more people came in, I moved along to give them space. When it came time to go, and I tried to stand up, there wasn’t enough headroom to put myself straight. In the end, I had to say to a girl who was sitting on the bench a lot further up, if she’d mind if I slid along to sit there because that was where the roof had a greater clearance. She tried to help me to stand up but I explained that it was something that only I could do. In the end, I managed to struggle to my feet with bending my head and back forward. I thanked her for her help anyway. She replied “yes, have a nice time where you’re going. It’s a shame that we are going to be one Welsh person less in this hall. I couldn’t understand how it was that she had guessed that I was Welsh.

That’s something that many people can’t understand. I can’t be helped to stand up because my legs need to lock in one position and if I don’t have that correct, nothing on earth will enable me to stay upright, no matter how much help I have. And I don’t have a Welsh accent either. “Part of Flint” spoke very much with a South Cheshire – North Shropshire accent and my mother was brought up in polite society but nevertheless within the sound of Bow Bells.

After than, I went to check on where I was with the radio programmes and although this laptop isn’t powerful enough to undertake any serious radio work, I began to prepare the next two radio programmes. Both of these will be concerts, from my inexhaustible supply of concert tapes thanks to several friends of mine in the past who worked on sound desks.

When the alarm went off, I staggered off into the bathroom for a good wash and change of clothes, and then set the washing machine off on a cycle … “it’s a clever machine, this!” – ed … Once it was under way, I went into the kitchen for the hot ginger, lemon and honey drink qnd my medication.

Back in here, I carried on with the radio programmes, going through the thousands of concert tapes and trying to identify the dates thereof, but the nurse breezed in early, so I was interrupted. He sorted out my legs, had a little chat, saying how ill he’d been during the night, and then he departed. I went to make breakfast, but no reading matter as the laptop is in the office substituting for the dead desktop machine.

By the time that I’d finished, the washing machine had stopped so I went to hang out the washing – my cleaner had put out the clothes airer yesterday when she was here. But hanging up the washing is now becoming a difficult task and I might have to ask for help before long. What kind of state am I in?

Many years ago, I had an older laptop that was running on Windows 7 but had died unceremoniously not long after the support for Windows 7 was discontinued. I went on a mission to hunt it down and when I found it, I took it into the office.

The plan was to take out the hard drive and see whether it could be resurrected. That, however, was easier said than done. There was no hatch for quick access to the hard drive (which was probably why I hadn’t upgraded it to an SSD when I upgraded everything else) so I had to dismantle the entire case.

Eventually, after much binding in the marsh, I managed to extract it. I stuck it into my 2.5 inch caddy and plugged it into the travelling laptop, but “nothing”. The Disk Management picked up a phantom drive but wouldn’t let me initialise it, so that was that.

And then I had a rather wild idea.

Rummaging about on my shelves, I came across my box of old hard drives. There was a 500GB hard drive (not a SSD) that was not marked as defective so I plugged it into the computer. And after an hour or two of careful coaxing, I managed to persuade everything to fire up.

Bu to give you some idea of how old this hard drive is, I couldn’t at first make it accept the password. It was only after much thought and many attempts that I realised that the language settings were not “French French” but “Belgian French” – and I’d left Belgium in 2006.

So once it was running, which was a surprise in itself, I changed the language settings and screwed the case back together. And if you think that this one that I’m using now is steam-driven computing, the other one must be horse-drawn computing, that’s for sure.

And then we had another problem. And you won’t believe this … “or maybe you will” – ed … but the hard drive on this laptop had now failed. That was all that I needed! After an hour or so of trying some superficial checks, I went for an in-depth examination and finally afte about five hours of working on it, it’s now restored and working, minus the last three Windows upgrades.

But every cloud has a silver lining. A lot of the process was automatic and needed no input from me, so I began to tidy out the boxes that were littlering the room after the house moveThey are now unpacked and sorted, and the place looks much tidier.

There were several unexpected finds too. The wi-fi aerials for the big desktop computer than I knew I had and couldn’t find, for example, which was why I’d been running that machine off an ethernet cable. I’d been looking for them for months and it’s a shame that I found them a week after I no longer had any use for them.

And finally, I found the power pack for the Roland bass cube, also after many months of searching. At least, I think that it’s the correct one. It’s a generic Chinese thing, so I asked my Artificial Intelligence sourse to describe the power characteristics of the correct power pack, and this one fits the bill. In the past, I used to mark things like this so that I knew where they went and what they were for, so I hunted down one of my metallic markers and wrote “Roland Cube” on the power pack.

Something else I came across was the power pack and cables for the 2TB external hard drive that I found the other day, so that’s now plugged in and running. Piles of rubbish on it, so I’m slowly going through it all to either transfer or delete it. But plugging that in led to a tidying up of the plate of spaghetti of cables that is on the shelf above my head where the back-up disks, the printer, the studio amplifier and the internet box are

But here’s a thing. Since I bought my first “Acer” laptop in 2006, I have had five of them in total and they are all here – the earliest three in bits, the one that I repaired this morning and the travelling laptop that is now up and running again after its blip this morning. But would you believe – I can only find one power cable. The idea of repairing the older one early this morning was to use it just as a library and keep it on the kitchen table, storing all of my E-nooks, but that plan is a non-starter if I can’t find a cable.

So now, with a nice, tidy office, all of that took me right up to teatime. Tonight, it was baked potato, veg and a burger in a bun followed by Christmas pudding and vegan ice-cream. I’m running low on milk so no custard tonight. That’s all of the Christmas pudding gone now so on Monday, I’ll go back and attack the jam roly-poly.

Back in here again, I crashed out, and for an hour or so too, which is hardly a surprise after everything that I’ve done today. I’m totally exhausted, and I’ve hardly done anything that I had planned to do. Not that it’s important tonight that I’m running late, because I’m planning on a lie-in tomorrow morning and the nurse can shake me awake.

But seeing as we have been talking about language confusion … “well, one of us has” – ed … it reminds me of a story concerning Oscar Wilde that took place in Paris after he had been exiled there following his conviction for improper conduct in the UK.
Hearing an Englishman in a café struggling to place an order, he went over to see if he could be of any help.
“I can manage quite well” retorted the Englishman, indignantly.
“I thought differently” said Wilde “when I heard you ask the waiter to bring you a pair of stairs.”

… this has been today!

So there I lay, for a good few hours, tossing and turning and trying to go to sleep without any success whatsoever, and in the end, round about 05:30,I gave it up as a bad job and left the bed.

The first thing that I did was to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And, regrettably, I’d not gone far

I was in hospital in Ancient Rome. I was a member of the military for some particular reason, although I’m not quite sure why. That was really all that I remember except that song again, THE BOY WHO WOULDN’T HOE CORN somewhere in the background, sung by a choir rather than a musical piece, that kind of thing, with no music – just the voices singing it.

As if anyone would be likely to find me in the military. As I have said before … “and on many occasions too” – ed … if it had ever come down to a war when I was of fighting age, I’d have been in the Merchant Navy. But there is more relevance in this dream than meets the eye at first sight.

And then I had a rather wild idea.

Sunday 30th November 2025 – WHEN I WENT …

… to bed last night, I was looking forward to a nice uninterrupted sleep all the way through to when Isabelle the Nurse would shake me awake by the shoulder when she comes in to sort out my legs.

And so waking up at 01:06 this morning was something of a disappointment.

It wasn’t as if I had gone to bed early either. It was well after 23:00 by the time that I’d finished everything that I needed to do and crawled in under the covers. Mind you, I fell asleep quite quickly with the kind of sense of relief that you have, knowing that a good sleep is just about the ideal solution for all known ills.

Anyway, as I said just now, I awoke at 01:06 and when I noticed the time, I was devastated. I was not expecting this at all. However, I was lucky in that I managed to go back to sleep quite quickly.

But only until 07:46 though. I might not have moved a muscle in the intervening period, but it was still not long enough to have really enjoyed it. What was worse was that I couldn’t go back to sleep afterwards.

In the end, round about 08:00, I gave it up as a bad job and arose from the Dead.

It would, of course, happen to be a day when Isabelle the Nurse decided to reorganise her round in order to give me more time to sleep, so she was rather put out to find me sitting at the kitchen table with my glass of hot ginger, honey and lemon drink.

She had something of a mumble about it, sorted out my feet and then went to carry on with the rest of her patients.

It took me about fifteen minutes to summon up the courage to rise from my chair in the kitchen in order to make my breakfast – coffee, porridge and home-made croissants from the batch that I had made last weekend.

While I was eating, I was reading more of Thomas Codrington’s ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN. I mentioned the other day that he had put me on the track of John Horsley’s BRITANNIA ROMANA. Codrington is not very impressed with Horsley’s interpretation of the Iter Britanniarum though, saying that "the way in which he dealt with the Itinerary distances is remarkable.".

Codrington talks about a Roman camp called Epiacum up on the northern edge of the Pennines. It’s described as "not rectangular but lozenge-shaped, with probably the most intricate system of defences of all the known Roman forts". So I had a little search around on an on-line aerial map, and what do you think ABOUT THIS? Isn’t it magnificent?

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And I was surprised to find so much on there. We were trying to smuggle someone out of mainland Europe last night into the UK. We had something of a trial run at one of the border posts but it didn’t work very well because he had a kind of wrong attitude towards the Customs officers and it rather shattered his nerve somewhat. So rather than adapting his behaviour and comportment, he just sat there like a clam and refused to co-operate. We tried everything we could to cajole him to coming along and crossing the border but each time, he refused. When we told him to prepare himself a drink, he’d prepare a drink and then pass it to one of us instead of bringing it with him. In the end, full of frustration, we decided that we’d leave him and go back on our own. There was no point trying to force someone. But there was some kind of dispute at the border between him and one of our army officers. It seemed that the guy at one time had stolen the girlfriend of one of the army officers, and that was what made one of the army officers in our group rather bitter and terse with him.

This dream probably relates to some of the issues that the Secret Intelligence Service had with trying to bring out their agents from occupied Europe in World War II. They had many different escape routes, but going over on a ferry would have been novel, especially as no ferries ran during wartime.

There had been talk of a giant whale stalking people in London. Things came to a head when it appeared before a group of Year Two children, so Holmes and Watson set out on the trail. They waited until it was a foggy night and then took a boat, and rowed to a wharf where this school was. These two young boys who were rowing were telling them stories about it. They climbed out and went for a little walk themselves, and stopped to have a bag of chips each. They put their chips on their plates and were sitting there outside, waiting. Suddenly, out of the mist, the whale appeared. The first thing that it did was to launch itself at the plate of Sherlock Holmes. He quite simply cut a piece out of it with his knife and fork and ate it. That was basically at the end of the drama.

There have been dreams involving Holmes and Watson before, but this one was one of those surreal ones that has no explanation at all.

I was somewhere in France. There was a road down which I had driven hundreds if not thousands of times, only today, I found that I was walking down it. When I reached the top of the hill, I noticed that there was an old car just at the edge of the field with a sign pièces detaches written on it. I’d not noticed it before, so I went through into the field and at the back was a kind-of wood or coppice. There were probably about thirty or forty old cars scattered around there, and there was some kind of workshop. Someone came by and asked me what I wanted. I asked if it was OK if I were to have a look around. The guy told me to please myself, so I did. Eventually, someone came over to me to chat. He pointed to an old 1930s-type car that was there. He said “I don’t know what I’m going to do about this because the cylinder block has cracked”. He couldn’t find anyone to weld it because it was such a long crack. I asked him if he had thought about re-sleeving the bores and putting smaller pistons in. I thought that when he had an idea that I knew what I was talking about, he began to chat with me. I told him that I had one or two old cars andA TRACTION. He replied “we have four around here”. I noticed that there was one that was being restored and painted. I told him that I would give my right arm to have a Traction that was running but he didn’t really hit on anything like that. We had a long chat, and then I found myself driving back into town again afterwards. I wasn’t thinking, and I was following two cars. One was a Rolls-Royce and one was something else. I suddenly realised at some point that we were going the wrong way down a one-way street. I hoped that no-one was watching and that there were no cameras. Eventually, I found the supermarket and grabbed myself a plate of chips with some weird Indian accompaniment. I had to struggle to find a seat in the café but I did in the end, and the chips were nice. But these Indian things, I wasn’t all that impressed. I decided that I wasn’t going to eat them after I’d tried a couple. Then I looked at the time and it was almost 18:00, time that I was due home, so I had to hurry up and move on.

This dream reminds me of that time ON LONG ISLAND when I stopped at this warehouse where I’d seen an aeroplane parked outside. I spoke to the manager of the place who interrogated me on my knowledge of the history of early aviation and, satisfied that I knew my stuff, allowed me in to see their prize exhibits, including a replica of Lindbergh’s Spirit of St Louis and sit at the controls inside it.

The Indian meal reminds me of tea last night.

Going back to that dream about the abandoned cars, later on, I was driving around somewhere in the USA in a hilly area. I found a nice patch of green at the side of the road where I thought that I’d pull up and I could eat my sandwiches there. I noticed that there was a group of kids in the field at the side. They were all playing about. One of them came over to say “hello”. I had a little chat with her, and it turned out that she was in Year 6 and was going to High School soon. She was talking about her new English teacher, that he was always crying and becoming angry. I explained that not everyone is always very happy and in a good equilibrium. Sometimes, people are like that and you have to push the emotions aside and push on with what you are doing. Learning English is fun. We carried on chatting and we talked about sports. It turned out that she wasn’t American at all. She was from somewhere else. She was saying that one thing she hated about the Americans was how they blew themselves up into something that they weren’t. They were always showing off etc, and how she couldn’t really cope with it. I told her a story about one of my niece’s children who played sports. They were playing against some team from a High School on a Native American reservation. There was one young lad who was winning everything, and no-one knew why he was so good until a few days later when they checked the results and discovered that he was an Olympic champion in some kind of events. That was much more like the way that people should be. She agreed. Then, one of her friends came over and the three of us began to chat. I said how well they had done, that they had gone through elementary school so quickly and were nearly ready for the High School, and I hope that they’ll enjoy it. Then, the school bell rang and they had to leave. I said goodbye to them and “maybe I’ll see you again”. I drove off and back over the hills with this beautiful view in the distance of what was going on in the valley.

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I have a lot of time for kids. I think that they have a really raw deal in life. They have such a lot to say, much of which is interesting, yet no-one wants to listen to them

There was football next. Stranraer v Clydebank in the Scottish Cup. The third round was full of shocks and surprises, with many clubs being knocked out by lower-league opposition, such as Dumbarton losing 4-0 at home to West of Scotland League side Auchinleck Talbot, for example.

And we almost had another one here at Stranraer, where but for several slices of good fortune, the score could have been 2-1 to Clydebank rather than the 2-1 to Stranraer, as the match finished.

This afternoon, I tackled my Welsh homework and waded through it from start to finish. I just need to review one or two questions and then I can send it off.

While I was at it, I was chatting to my friend from Munich, but I had to abandon that because Rosemary rang with a computer issue and needed help. It was another one of those long conversations where we can talk for hours about nothing at all, but it made me late for my baking.

The loaf that I made looks to be excellent, and the pizza really was delicious. However, I could only eat half of it, so the other half will do for tea tomorrow. Based on the weight, I’m eating between about a third and a quarter of a pizza that I would have comfortably eaten six months ago.

While everything was cooking, I wrapped my two Christmas cakes in baking paper and tinfoil, and they are now cooling in the fridge ready for marzipanning next weekend.

So now, horribly late, I’m off to bed. Dialysis tomorrow, unfortunately, but at least I’m only out twice next week, which is a major improvement. I can get on and do things.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about Holmes and Watson … "well, one of us has" – ed … I was talking to Holmes not so long ago and I asked him how his crime investigations were going.
"Ohh, I’ve retired now" he told me. "It’s only the elderly who remember me and appreciate me. The young people don’t know me at all."
"So I suppose you’re really an Old People’s Holmes" I replied. "But do you keep up with the news from London?"
"Watson still lives there" he replied. "He keeps me up-to-date with the news."
"So he’s your ‘Watson in London’ then."

Wednesday 12th November 2025 – I AM FEELING …

… quite ill at the moment and have gone to bed.

At 17:30 too. How about that for an early night?

But seriously, it’s been a long time since I’ve felt so ill, and as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, sleep is my cure for all ailments. I’m far better off in bed than struggling onwards, although I doubt if I could have struggled onwards for much longer.

To tell the truth, I’ve been feeling more and more fatigued for about the last week, and I spoke about it to the doctor on duty at dialysis on Monday. She reduced one of my medicaments, one that is known to produce fatigue as a side effect, but with it being a Bank Holiday on Tuesday, it wasn’t until this afternoon that I received it.

Despite the foregoing however, there wasn’t the least suspicion last night that it was going to end up like it has done. It wasn’t a particularly late night, not by some recent standards anyway, and I was still asleep when the alarm sounded.

One thing that I noticed this morning was that I seemed to be even slower than usual in preparing myself. It was difficult for me to make my honey, ginger and lemon drink and it took longer to sort out my medication.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. Last night, we were talking about the development league in women’s football, where dozens of teams and their organisations had decided to launch a women’s football team and the FAW had arranged some regional competitions. One of them was a team from Shell in North-East Wales. The problem with this, with arranging it in regions rather than divisions is that there are some very big scores and heavy defeats that were discouraging to a lot of teams. If they had been playing in divisions where the standard was more equal, they would have had much more of a chance and much more of an enjoyable game.

This is actually a hot topic right now. Apart from the Ladies’ Premier League, the rest of the “pyramid” that has been formed just recently is indeed divided into regional competitions rather than ladders, and there have been some embarrassing scorelines. I recall one score of 21-0 and there have been many others where one team has scored in double figures. It can’t be very good for the motivation

There was something going on that happened in Crewe. At the end of that particular day, we had to leave. I was with this woman and her two children, and we were walking to Stafford. The son was rather mentally-challenged and was quite a difficult proposition to look after. When we arrived on the edge of Stafford, we had to decide which road to take. It meant dashing over this road at the roundabout in front of a black Mercedes, then walking along a huge council estate that at first had houses like the one in which we lived in Shavington, and then there were a couple of big blocks of council flats with a lake around it, but it was all polluted and full of rubbish. We ended up back at their house where there were several home helps there who were trying to organise this boy. By now, he was in a wheelchair and passing stuff around between everyone was complicated because there wasn’t much room. The girl had decided that she was going to make some icing sugar so she had a pan of boiling water and a pan of sugar. She set the water to boil, but when it was boiling, there was no-one else around so I took the boiling water and poured it into the pan with the icing sugar in it. But there was far too much water and it overflowed slightly before I could stop it. It set into a horrible concrete mass. I thought that this isn’t going to be particularly good.

Not that I’m likely to be walking from Crewe to Stafford. My long-distance walking back in the olden days was always in the opposite direction between Crewe and Chester. The rest of the dream doesn’t mean all that much either.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up on time and sorted me out, and then I made breakfast, the usual porridge, toast and coffee.

Back in here, no sooner had I sat down when Rosemary rang. I’m certain that she’s installed a camera here because her timing is impeccable.

She wanted to chat about cars because her current one is becoming long in the tooth. She doesn’t know what to buy, and everything seems to be so expensive. It’s not as if she does much mileage these days either to justify a major expense.

It needs to be a 4×4 with her living where she does, so after a long chat, I told her to check out a Subaru. Their 4×4 technology is one of the best and the vehicles themselves are much better than they used to be.

When I awoke this morning, I had set the SSD from yesterday to format, and by now, it was ready. I installed it into the computer and uploaded Windows 10 onto it as a “clean install”.

Next, I searched the updates and that immediately told me what had gone wrong yesterday. Apart from the fact that there were about twenty updates, one of them was “a patch for repairing Windows C++ libraries”.

It took about three hours to download and install everything, but in the meantime, I had a visit. I’d ordered a new chair for the office, seeing as the hydraulic piston on this one has collapsed. It had been delivered while I was at dialysis last week and as there was no-one here to accept it, it had gone into store.

There’s not much that I could do about collecting it so I asked one of the guys at the radio if he could, and so he turned up with it. We had a nice little chat too, which I enjoyed, because I’m not seeing enough people these days.

Once the computer had finished installing everything, I checked to make sure that it was working correctly and then began to upload the various programs that I use.

Round about 15:00 I began to feel tired and I actually crashed out in the chair for half an hour. When I awoke, I couldn’t keep on going so after a while, round about 17:30, I realised that it was quite pointless.

Wracked with coughing and wracked with the pains again in my foot, I crawled into bed, fully clothed, thinking that after a couple of hours, I’d awaken and feel much better. However, it didn’t quite work out like that. I’d had no food either since breakfast.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my new chair … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of when Nerina brought me a new chair for my office at home.
"Shall I sit in it now?" I asked.
"Just give me a minute" she replied. "I have to plug it in first."

-1

Friday 24th October 2025 – AND ONCE AGAIN …

… I’ve left the table, leaving a pile of food on my plate. This is something that is beginning to worry me. It seems that these days, I’m living on a few mouthfuls of food and a pile of protein drinks, and that can’t be good for me.

And neither is going to bed late either, but here we are. last night, it was just after 23:30 when I finally made it into bed. I really don’t know where the time goes these days. It’s not as if there’s a great deal to do when I have finished my tea.

So after writing my notes, checking the statistics and backing up the computer, I went and sorted myself out in the bathroom and then a very weary me headed off to crawl underneath the covers.

For a change, I had a decent sleep. I remember tossing and turning a few times during the night, but that was about everything. At least – until about 06:20 when I had another one of these dramatic awakenings.

Only nine minutes to go for the alarm so I hauled myself quickly out from underneath the covers and switched off the alarms. The storm seemed to have died down somewhat, which was good news. One of the ideas going through my head was that if the wind was blowing anything at all like yesterday, I was going to cancel my trip to the Centre de Ré-education.

Being out of bed at 06:20 is one thing. Actually standing up and heading to the bathroom is something else completely, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

After a good wash and the medication, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone. And it was rather disappointing. Nerina and I had had a friend come round to visit us. We went for a drive into Crewe – the town centre. As we turned into Flag Lane, there was the Workingmen’s Club place on the right-hand side in the old temporary buildings so we stopped and went in. The person with us was extremely impressed. He’d never seen a place like this before – hundreds of people lounging around, playing darts or snooker, carpet bowls etc. I said that I’d been here a couple of times to give talks on different things. It’s the kind of place where you would come where there was a big football match on the TV and it’s a place where you would have plenty of atmosphere in here with the crowds watching it.

In Crewe, there were plenty of Workingmen’s Clubs and Family Social Clubs, although a lot less these days than there used to be. In my mis-spent youth I used to go to play snooker and table tennis (and have the occasional drink) in one or two of them, and I’ve even played in groups that have played in them. The buildings to which I’m referring though are the old Catholic primary school which, according to one of these street view things, has now been demolished and replaced by a flock of bats.

There’s an interesting story about the communal TV though. When I was very young, in the late 1950s or early 1960s, there was a cup game featuring Crewe Alexandra being televised. The parish council hired a television for the night and there were probably a couple of hundreds of us crammed into Shavington Village Hall watching the game on this tiny 405-line TV screen.

“The Good Old Days”, anyone?.

The nurse was early today. Apparently another one of his clients has been hospitalised … "what’s he doing to them all?" – ed … so his round is rather shorter. We talked about dialysis and the blood clot. He was formerly a dialysis nurse, and he told me that had it happened when he was working there, they would have cleaned the needle and re-inserted it, rather than abandon the procedure.

After he left, I made breakfast, even though I wasn’t all that hungry, and then came back in here to work.

There were a few things that needed doing, and the rest of the morning was spent sorting out some more music for a couple of radio programmes.

There were a few interruptions. Firstly, my cleaner came in with the injections for next week, and then Rosemary ‘phoned up for a chat. Just a brief one, because I needed to prepare my things for going out.

My cleaner came back a little later to do her stuff, and when the taxi arrived, she helped me out to the car although the wind was nothing at all as bad as yesterday.

At the Centre de Ré-education they put me through my paces.

Firstly, they had me working on a kind of press, sitting down and pushing weights with my feet.

Secondly, they attached a length of strong elastic to a pillar and I had to pull on it, keeping my upper arms parallel to my torso.

Those exercises were for fifteen minutes each

Thirdly, I was worked over by the physiotherapist who had me doing all kinds of things, even walking on my hands and knees. Thirty minutes of all of that was more than enough, thank you.

After a rest, during which I was drifting in and out of semi-sleep, I was given twelve minutes on the exercise bike. That was really tough, given the state of my knees and lower legs, but I managed to travel 1.3 theoretical kilometres. At one stage, I was developing as much as eleven watts of power.

It wasn’t just the exercises either. For many of the exercises, they had me sitting in low seats, from which it is almost impossible for me to haul myself up. It was a real gymnastic effort to do that, but, as they say, if it’s not hurting, it’s not doing you any good. I reckon that if that’s the case, then today I must have done a lot of good.

Just like chemotherapy, you don’t have a minute to recover before you are turfed out. It’s a labyrinth in there and you have to walk miles to where the taxis wait. Being disabled and in an exhausted state, it’s no picnic. When I arrived back here, I fell straight into a chair for an hour to recover.

Once I’d caught my breath, I came in here to sort out some more music and then went to make tea.

Tonight, I had a stir-fry of noodles, vegetables, bean sprouts and chick peas in soy sauce, but as I said just now, half of it went into the bin. I’m really not doing too well with my food and I can foresee serious problems ahead if I can’t find my appetite from somewhere.

But since chemotherapy, everything tastes of salt, I have the most incredible wind and I feel full all the time. What on earth is going on with my body?

Anyway, I’ll worry about that tomorrow because right now, I’m off to bed, hoping for a better day tomorrow. It’s dialysis, though, and we’ll see how the events of the last few days have affected that.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about having the wind … "well, one of us has" – ed … I mentioned to a doctor at dialysis the fact that I have wind.
"Can you give me anything for this wind that I have?" I asked.
He went away, and came back five minutes later with a kite.

Sunday 19th October 2025 – JUST FOR ONCE …

… I actually managed to have a lie in. And I really needed it too.

It wasn’t as if I’d had a late night last night either. After finishing off everything that I need to finish, and sorting myself out in the bathroom, it was just before 23:00 when I crawled into bed under the covers, and went to sleep quite quickly.

During the night, I awoke just once – at about 04:10. And although I did think for a moment about leaving the bed, I turned over instead and went straight back to sleep.

It was 06:20 when I awoke next. And had this been a weekday, I would have been straight out of bed. However, it’s a Sunday when there’s a lie-in until 07:59 so I curled back up under the quilt. I tried to go back to sleep but without any luck. Nevertheless, I stuck it out until about 07:10, when I finally abandoned the effort and left the bed.

After the bathroom and the medication, I came back in here to find out where I’d been during the night. There was a hospital somewhere where there were a great many sick patients for all kinds of reasons. One of the things that this hospital did was to give abortions. There was one of the doctors who was violently opposed to the idea of abortions, and he and his wife made themselves extremely unpleasant on the subject. They had to be diverted away from the other services. There was an issue with the woman, something to do with packing a baby away. They were in the middle of doing this when suddenly they announced that one of the baby’s left hand had disappeared and there was a feeling that it had its arm wrapped around its neck. They had to stop the procedure and examine it. However, this doctor was quite angry, violently so, against some kind of situation that was taking place between the hospital and his wife of this affair. I had to go along and check on something, and it was not a situation that I liked very much. He and this other woman were sitting there discussing this case, and I was trying to work in this room in the background, but it was not very encouraging. I wasn’t really able to complete what I was supposed to do while he was there. He was running back and to, doing things in connection with this issue, and I couldn’t really have some kind of minute to myself to do what I needed. I had a feeling that I was going to be discovered any minute now, and this was going to lead to an extremely violent confrontation.

As if there’s any chance of me working in a hospital. The story about the baby refers to the daughter of a friend of mine in Florida whose mother had a very uncomfortable birth with her. The doctor referred to seems to resemble someone whom I knew in Crewe fifty years ago. He wasn’t a doctor and he had no opinion on abortion, but the rest of his character and personality fits.

We were then having a little get-together in Gainsborough Road. I’d invited a friend of mine round, and she came because her husband was working on nights and he had gone to bed. We were there having a chat, and the woman from next door was here. As we had a close look at the houses, we saw that next door’s house had a cellar, or seemed to have a cellar – there was a small window underneath the living room window whereas mine didn’t. This was probably accounted for by the slope of the land. We were intrigued by this and had a discussion. In the end, we asked the lady next door “how do you go into the cellar?”. She couldn’t remember, but she said that she had been in there once. She thinks that she remembers that you collapse the side of something and open a window. From outside, she shone a torch in through the cellar window, saying “I wonder what’s happening here now?”.

Whoever the girl was, I have no idea. But there is no cellar at the next-door house in Gainsborough Road and as far as I am aware, there are no cellars anywhere in the vicinity.

Isabelle the Nurse breezed in as usual and breezed out again shortly afterwards. It didn’t take her long to sort me out, and she gave me my instructions – or, should I say “orders” – for the dialysis clinic tomorrow. I have to make sure at all costs that they examine me.

After breakfast, I came back in here and spent the morning catching up on the football highlights, including Stranraer’s monumental morale-boosting win against Edinburgh City. And not just a scrappy win either but a resounding 3-1 win away from home.

After the disgusting drink break at lunchtime, I had work to do. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I maintain the shipping beacon for the port. It’s mounted in my apartment with the antenna on the shutters. Its purpose is to detect the shipping identification transmissions from the equipment on board the ships moored here and transmit them to a central control in Denmark.

A few weeks ago, the beacon ceased to function, and closer examination revealed that the beacon was of an obsolete type that should be replaced. They had sent a new one during the week so this afternoon, I assembled and installed it. It now seems to be working fine.

While I was doing that , I was chatting with several friends on line It’s nice to interact with people like that, although of course it’s not as nice as to chat face-to-face.

There was bread to make and a pizza to make too. The bread didn’t rise as high as usual, which is a disappointment, but the pizza was excellent once more. I was really impressed with that.

But now I’m off to bed, early enough, to prepare for my busy week next week.

But seeing as we have been talking about babies … "well, one of us has" – ed … I once saw a guy coming out of the chemist’s with a baby under each arm.
"Where are you going with those?" I asked him.
"Back to the factory" he replied.
"The factory?" I queried.
"Yes" he replied. "I’m the local Durex representative and these are two complaints that I’m taking back with me."

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: rosemary

Saturday 28th March 2026 – YET ANOTHER EVENING …

Wednesday 25th March 2025 – IT HAS BEEN …

Wednesday 11th March 2026 – THAT WAS ANOTHER …

Friday 6th March 2026 – GUESS WHO …

Sunday 1st March 2026 – DYDD GWYL DEWI …

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

Friday 6th February 2026 – I HAVE THROWN …

Monday 2nd February 2026 – IT’S BEEN ANOTHER …

Friday 30th January 2026 – JUST BECAUSE I …

Friday 23rd January 2026 – EVEN AS I TYPE …

Thursday 1st January 2026 – AND A HAPPY …

Sunday 30th November 2025 – WHEN I WENT …

Wednesday 12th November 2025 – I AM FEELING …

Friday 24th October 2025 – AND ONCE AGAIN …

Sunday 19th October 2025 – JUST FOR ONCE …

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