Tag Archives: rosemary

Sunday 20th April 2025 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

… the dictaphone this morning when I awoke. And that was a big disappointment. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I depend upon what happens during the night for any excitement that there might be to brighten up my boring, miserable days.

Things might have been different had I had a decent night’s sleep.

After I’d finished my notes, which wasn’t all that late, I dictated the notes that I had written for the radio programmes that I’d prepared during the week, organised myself properly (and you’ve no idea just how long that takes) and then went off to bed, just before midnight. So with my lie-in until 08:00 it would be a good night’s sleep.

As I said yesterday, I was good and ready for it too. After the dialysis session I was totally exhausted. So once I was in bed I was asleep straight away and didn’t move a muscle for a good while after that.

However, it’s a Sunday after a dialysis Saturday and regular readers of this rubbish will recall what happens on a Sunday after a dialysis Saturday. And so at 08:00 when the alarm went off, I was sitting at my desk working.

What was so bad about that was that it had been another one of these “sitting bolt-upright” dramatic awakenings and at that point I was away on my travels, but the shock of awakening wiped absolutely everything out of my mind and I could remember nothing.

With over an hour to spare, I had a dive into that site that seems to know where all of the best Artificial Intelligence programs are, and after some practice I have now succeeded in being able to swap one face onto another person’s body with a reasonable amount of accuracy.

Add that to the voice generator with which I played the other week, my next trick is to go with a background remover. Then, with my PaintShop Pro (25 years old and still going strong) I can use the image that I created, transform the missing background into “transparent” with the aid of a green screen.

Once I’ve done that, I can superimpose it onto any screenshot from Street View (so I’ll need an Artificial Intelligence image enhancer for the screenshot) that I like, so I can have people doing strange things and saying strange things in any location in the World that takes my fancy…

There’s no doubt about it – amusing as it might be, it has some very dangerous undertones. I reckon that we will be hearing quite a lot more about Artificial Intelligence, and it won’t all be good.

The nurse turned up as usual and had a lot to say for himself. He was soon gone and I could make breakfast and read MY BOOK.

We’ve finally left Kenilworth and we’re now at Cydweli which, for the benefit of our geographically-challenged author, is in South-West Wales. And on page 154, without the slightest hint of irony, he tells us that "The new town, parts of which are of high antiquity … "

Back in here, we have football to entertain us. Stranraer were entertaining Edinburgh City.

Once more, today, I saw some more sad attempts at defending, with defenders standing around waiting for each other to clear the ball and watching as an opposition forward pushes it into the net, another shot fully covered by the goalkeeper until a defender sticks out a leg and diverts it into his own net, open goals by the dozen blasted wide or well over the bar.

For a change though, it wasn’t Stranraer doing all of this but Edinburgh City. How Stranraer managed to win this game 2-0 is one of those big mysteries that will forever remain unresolved.

We also had the highlights of the weekend’s games in the JD Cymru League. While highlights can be very, very deceptive, I do have to say that I have never seen a team look so disinterested as Y Drenewydd.

Relegated last week, I did nevertheless expect that their final game would be one in which they would go out with a bang but Y Fflint, deep in the mire themselves at one stage just recently, strolled through the game and the Drenewydd defence with ease. A 4-0 victory was nothing like representative of the hundreds of chances that they were gifted throughout the game.

Rosemary’s computer is now fixed and working. She reset all of the parameters for the internet connection and on one particular combination of settings, it made a Wi-Fi connection and we now have one very happy Easter Bunny, just as I was today at breakfast when I had two more of my delicious toasted hot cross buns smothered in vegan butter.

The bread roll that I made for lunch was perfection and made some wonderful toasted cheese and tomato bread roll halves washed down with disgusting drink, and then I came back in here.

Most of the rest of the day has been spent editing the radio notes. Programme 260220 is now finished (I just had to lose eight seconds) and 260227 is almost completely edited and assembled, the final track has been chosen and remixed and the notes written ready for dictation next Saturday.

There was a break to make some dough for the pizza. Two lots are in the freezer now and the third made probably the best pizza base that I have ever made. The pizza was delicious too, melted exactly as it should be.

So tomorrow, I have dialysis again. I also have to ring up Paris to find out what’s going on about this visit and also to ring around to find some workmen who want to earn some money. There’s a lot to do and time is getting short.

But seeing as we have been talking about Cydweli Castle … "well, one of us has" – ed … when our author Geo. T Clark went to visit it, he was totally taken aback by the most rude and offensive manner in which the castle welcomed him.
In the village pub afterwards he met the local doctor and talked to him about it.
"It was most offensive" he said. "All the time that I was there, it kept on shouting abuse, insults and rude word at me."
"It’s nothing to worry about" said the doctor
"Really?" asked our author.
"Ohh quite" said the doctor. "A psychiatrist came to see it a couple of years ago. Apparently it has Turrets Syndrome"

Saturday 19th April 2025 – THAT WAS EXHAUSTING.

Four hours in dialysis with the machine going full-tilt. It’s enough to finish anyone off. But at least I’m down to my target weight so with a little luck I might only have to stay for three and a half hours on Monday. We shall see.

Things might have been different and I might have been less exhausted had I gone to bed earlier instead of hanging about until some stupid kind of time, but there we are … "or were" – ed ….

To make things worse, it was a miserable night and I don’t think that I had much sleep, waking up here and there every half hour or so. At one stage I was even planning on leaving the bed but I gave up that idea quite quickly.

When the alarm went off I was however fast asleep and it was, as you might expect, a desperate stagger to my feet to beat the second alarm. And in the bathroom I had a good wash ready for Emilie the Cute Consultant at dialysis, and I hand-washed my socks, undies and night attire.

After the medication I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone and to my surprise, I had actually been out and about on my travels during the night. A girl was being examined for some kind of issue with her legs. She’s on a kind-of operating table on her back with her legs in the air and they are examining them. The doctor tells her to put them into the neutral position which she tries. After a little manipulation … "PERSONipulation" – ed … the surgeon or doctor manages to put her legs into some kind of neutral position. He tells her “well, that’s much easier, isn’t it? Perhaps you should have done that at some kind of earlier point in the examination or even beforehand, but I’ll make a mark now to let them know where it’s all correct”.

It’s much easier for me – I simply press “CNTRL-Z” and that puts any selected 3-D object or character into a neutral pose. That dream did remind me somewhat of some of my 3D work when I was living down on the farm.

And then I was back in that dream … "which dream?" – ed … later on. Some thieves had stolen a train with the ammunition on it. They were heading off for wherever it was. They were taking their time, not in any rush, and had stopped to have a meal somewhere. In the meantime, a group of Indians had been removed from a town and were not happy. They found these men and explained to them what was happening and that there was a train on its way towards them. What they did was that they started up the train and set it to going back down the line with all aboard at the maximum permitted speed of seven mph. When they were just a few hundred yards away from a collision they leapt off the footplate and the trains ploughed into each other. Carriages were destroyed, carriages went everywhere. They were saying that over 200 people were killed, including 131 in one carriage. All the wagons ran loose and even sheltering behind the rocks was not saving them from the wagons rolling up on them. There was even a railway wagon that had come from Russia on board this train and it rolled to a stop right at the feet of one of these robbers.

That plot sounds just like a cross between the plot of THE WILD BUNCH and that of A FISTFUL OF DYNAMITE, two films that spend a lot of time on my playlist. As for the wagon though, whilst Russian wagons ring no bells with me, regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we once encountered a railway box-car with “Alaskan Agriculture” on it.

Now there’s an oxymoron if ever I saw one.

The nurse was chatting to me this morning, telling me what I should do about the situation in the apartment downstairs. When he finished, I told him that I had a letting agent who was doing all of that. "But still …" he said, and started again.

After he left I made breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK.

We’re still in Kenilworth Castle where, on page 147, this rather peculiar paragraph caught my eye. What do you make of this? "The character of the ground makes it probable that the Norman fortress had but one entrance. This could not have been on the east, west, or south fronts, as the ground was low and marshy ; nor on the north, where the ditch is wide and deep."

The next thing that caught my eye was on page 150 where he tells us "the succession of great events which led to the death of the earl, and the celebrated siege of Kenilworth, belong to the history of England rather than to that of Kenilworth, and form one of its most interesting and most valuable chapters. The subject has fallen under the pen of Mr. Green, and has found a place in the pages of the Archaeological Journal (vol. xxi. p. 277), where the course of the events is disentangled, and very clearly narrated, and their political significance and bearing upon the constitutional history of our country treated in a manner both brilliant and profound"

He then devotes several pages to telling us about the Siege of Kenilworth.

Back in here, I carried on with the remote repairing of Rosemary’s computer. She is now connected to the internet with the aid of an Ethernet cable (but not the Wi-Fi) and has an antivirus installed. She ran a scan of the computer which came up with nothing (which was a pity because I had hopes for that) and when my cleaner arrived to fit my patches and I had to go, she was performing a deep scan.

After the cleaner had fitted my patches I had to wait for my taxi and was packing my bags for my next Paris hospitalisation when it pulled up. It was the boss again and we had a chatty drive down to Avranches.

Late in meant late coupled up and with a four-hour session I could see that it was going to be late. The blood pressure is set to be tested every half-hour and every half hour the nurses had to come running because of the wailing machine, complaining about my unbelievably low blood pressure today

In the end they set the machine to every fifteen minutes, so they had to come twice as often.

While all of this was going on, I was trying to watch the football. Caernarfon were playing Cardiff Metro for the privilege of finishing fourth. There wasn’t as much skill as I would have expected but it was an exciting game that roared from one end to the other.

And if ever there was a game of two halves, this was it. The Met had most of the play in the first half and were leading 1-0, quite deservedly, at half-time. But whatever Richard Davies put in his team’s half-time cuppa, I could do with a swig of that myself. The Cofis came out of the blocks at an incredible rate, had most of the play in the second half and eventually won 2-1.

And I’ll have to be careful what I say at dialysis in the future. A nurse and I were talking about my diet and Emilie the Cute Consultant heard it from across the room and came to join in. I hope that she can’t hear me call her “Emilie the Cute Consultant” when I’m here and she’s there.

It was a very, very weary me who staggered to the car to come home and I was glad to be back. Coming up the stairs was a very long, hard trudge tonight.

So having had my tea of baked potato, salad and breaded quorn fillet followed by chocolate cake and soya dessert, I’ll dictate my radio notes and go to bed. I don’t think that I’ll be awake long tonight and I’ll be surprised if I awaken early, but dialysis is a funny thing.

But seeing as we have been talking about acute hearing … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of the snail, the tortoise and the sloth having a party when they run out of beer.
They draw lots and the tortoise loses, so they send him to buy more beer.
Three weeks later they begin to complain. "We should never have sent that tortoise" said the snail. "He’s so lazy and bone-idle"
"I know" said the sloth. "For all the good that he does, he may as well not be here"
Just then a voice from outside the door shouts "if you lot continue to bad-mouth me like this, I shan’t go for the beer at all!"

Friday 18th April 2025 – I HAVE HAD …

… a visitor today

My tenant has finally decided to present herself to me this afternoon.
"What do you want to do about the kitchen in the apartment?" she asked.
"If you look behind you" I said "you’ll see some kitchen units in boxes. I ordered them, paid for them and had them delivered a long time ago. It’s rather late in the day to tell me about yours"

She then began a long complicated spiel about the difficulties she was having with the apartment for which she has signed.

However, I cut her rather short. "That’s not my problem" I interjected. Then I proceeded to tell her what my problem was. I explained my medical issues, in rather forthright terms and how she was contributing to them. I told her that I had proposed an exchange of apartment but she had refused.
"But I can’t walk upstairs. I have this bad back"
"Madam" I replied. "In case you haven’t noticed, you’ve just walked up 25 stairs this very minute to speak to me. Your medical problems are obviously nothing like as bad as mine and I have to do that at least three times per week on crutches"

We carried on with that kind of chat for a couple of minutes and then I interjected once more, saying "I have nothing more to add to the matter. If you have anything further to say, you must say it to the letting agent" and I escorted her to the door.

Now she can walk the 25 stairs back down again.

She’s obviously not received the letter that I sent to the letting agent this morning because I have now decided on a course of action.

Gotthold Lessing once famously said "better counsel comes overnight" and that’s certainly true, especially when you have had a lot of night in which to think.

Having dashed through everything last night, I was finally in bed by not many minutes after 23:00, which made a very pleasant change. Looking forward to a good night’s sleep, I curled up under the bedclothes and made myself comfortable

When the alarm went off at 07:00 I had been up for an hour and a half. So much for my idea of a good night’s sleep. Of course, it’s dialysis night but it’s usually Saturday night / Sunday morning when I have sleeping issues. So it must be my guilty conscience preying on me.

But when you are awake at 05:05 and don’t leave the bed until 05:28 you have plenty of time, all nice and peaceful, to think of a plan.

My plan was firstly to go into the bathroom and have a good scrub up. And then into the kitchen and have my medication.

Back in here, armed with a mug of instant coffee, I sat down and listened to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I came home from school and found my mother doing her usual things, talking, and then our father came in. He was talking about a couple of things that he was intending to do in the future. One of them was “we have to pack because we are moving”. This took everyone by surprise. He said “we’re moving to London – I have a job down there. I already have the house and it’s all ready for us to move”. “Oh God!”. My mother and I were completely taken by surprise because he’d never said anything to anyone. We hadn’t put our house up for sale and there were still lots of little tasks that needed doing. The first thought that went through my mother’s mind was “I bet he hasn’t bought a house. He’s probably rented a room somewhere for us and the next stop will be two rooms and a bathroom then some kind of council house”. My mother was very dispirited. So was I. I said “I don’t want to go”. She replied “that’s not like you. You’re always wanting to move on”. I replied “yes but I want to move on to my place on my terms, not go down to south-west London”. My mother replied “you aren’t obliged to go, are you?”. I replied “no, but I’ll have to find a job, all that kind of thing, leave school”. My mother was worried about all kinds of tasks that needed finishing off, like the garage floor, all of that, but it never seemed to change anything and we were just extremely unhappy and dispirited by it all.

That is in fact just like my family. They never ever planned anything for the future. It was always a question of carpe diem quam minimum credula postero as Horace would have said and “make it up as you go along”.
.
Another intriguing thought is “why did I say “South-West London” “? I actually lived in Wandsworth once for a couple of months, that’s true. I was so fed up listening to someone’s sad tale of “never finding work” and having an excuse for every suggestion that I made, that I took action.

What I did was to place an advert in one of these local papers in South-West London – mainly because it was the only area of London that I didn’t know very well – and within 48 hours I had a room lined up. I caught the train down and found my room, dumped my stuff and went for a walk.

Around the corner was a pizza restaurant advertising for casual kitchen staff and delivery drivers (evenings) and a few doors down was an Employment Agency with an advert in the window looking for bus drivers to drive schoolkids around mornings and evenings. So within 20 minutes of arriving at my digs I was effectively in full-time employment.

It really was that easy.

When my mother said that not wanting to go was not like me at all, she was perfectly correct. I was always the adventurous one. If I had had my way, our family would have immigrated to Australia under the “ten-pound Poms” scheme in the 1960s.

After I’d finished, I sat down and wrote out my letter to the letting agents, the one about which I talked earlier. I set out all of my medical issues and all the action that I had taken to date vis-à-vis my tenant.

And here’s the crunch. The lease will definitely finish on the due date. And if she wants to stay on afterwards, she can do so – but on hotel terms and conditions and at hotel rates too. I finished with “these terms are non-negotiable. It’s ‘take it or leave it’ and I want to hear no more of the matter. The discussion is finished”.

The way she came upstairs and went back down after having rejected my home exchange offer eighteen months ago “on health grounds” has only made me more determined.

The nurse came round to sort me out and I asked me if he knew anyone in the Mafia. He seems to know everyone else who might be disreputable. It might come down to asking “Luigi and a couple of the boys” to help me do a home removal, and we’re not talking about my apartment either.

Once he’d gone I could make breakfast and read more of MY BOOK. We’re still in Kenilworth Castle having a good wander around looking at the architecture. And nothing has happened that is controversial as yet.

But seeing as we have been talking about breakfast… "well, one of us has" – ed … my hot cross buns were absolutely exquisite. Just as they ought to be, in fact. This is a real success.

Back in here, there was more discussion. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I should have had a ‘phone call from the UK last week. However, due to a family emergency it never happened.

Today though, we had a very lengthy exchange of messages, discussing the finalisation of phase one of my project and the projected start of phase two. We’ve had an estimate of sorts for the work and we discussed other work that we could also include. All we need to do now is to save up some money

Next task was to finalise my LeClerc order and send it off. They had almost everything too, and acceptable substitutes for what was missing.

We haven’t finished yet either. My niece and a couple of my little great-nieces (or great little nieces) contacted me for a chat and we had a lovely time together. Amber has just finished her exams and is quite confident that she’ll graduate in May. It’s streamed live and so she’ll send me a link.

Her High School graduation was streamed live too and I enjoyed watching it. It’s really hard to believe that in December 2003 she was such a tiny baby and I was bouncing her up and down on my knee in a car in a howling snowstorm in the Appalachians of Maritime Canada.

My first disgusting drink break, late that it was, was interrupted by the arrival of my cleaner who set about her afternoon’s task

After she left I could make a start on my Saturday At Woodstock, but not for long because my LeClerc order arrived and I had stuff to put away. With the LeClerc order came the tenant, about whom I spoke earlier, so I had her to deal with too.

Finally, I had everything put away (well, almost) and so I sat down to restart my Saturday At Woodstock.

And no sooner had I started then Rosemary rang. Just a short ‘phone call today – one hour and thirty-eight minutes. I forgot to mention earlier that I’d been speaking via text messages to Rosemary throughout the day, helping her to fix her computer at a distance.

It’s hardly a mystery that she’s having so many problems. I finally managed to receive her “SysInfo”. Her OSbuild is 5371 and mine is … errr … 5737, 360 rebuilds later, and mine’s not new. And her operating system is dated Seventh August … errr … 2020.

What I suggested to Rosemary is that she comes to help me move (if I ever do) and brings her laptop with her. I’ll fit one of my spare 250GB SSD units in it and give it a clean install from new.

What with one thing and another (and once you start, you’d be surprised at how many other things there are) it was a very late tea of salad, air-fried chips and some of those vegan nuggets, followed by chocolate cake and soya dessert. All really nice, that’s for sure.

So horribly late, I’m going to bed. It’s dialysis day tomorrow. But what a day that was today. I’m glad that it was a Day of Rest. What would it have been like had I been busy? Just about everything happened today and that makes a change from the usual.

But seeing as we have been talking about Italian restaurants … "well, one of us has" – ed … a new Italian restaurant opened in Crewe and I went for a job as a delivery driver.
Nerina thought that I was crazy going for that job and that I’d never have it
However I did succeed in my application and when I saw her in the street later I gave her a wave as I drove pasta.

Wednesday 16th April 2025 – I WAS RIGHT …

… about my hot cross buns. They have risen up like the proverbial lift and look absolutely magnificent. It just shows the difference that having an accurate water gauge makes. All these years that I’ve had some very hit-and-miss baking …

Something else that was magnificent last night was the fact that I was in bed by 23:00, for the first time for ages. I really appreciated it too, having blitzed through everything after tea – the notes, the statistics and the back-up et cetera.

As well as that, it didn’t take long to drop off either, and there I stayed, fast asleep, until 06:55. Probably the best night’s sleep that I have had for ages.

When the alarm went off I was awake thinking about leaving the bed early but BILLY COTTON beat me to it. Surprisingly it took me a few minutes to summon up the energy to leave the bed.

In the bathroom I had a cursory wash (after all, it is shower day today) and then went into the kitchen for the medication.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I had to meet Rosemary and we arranged to meet in London at one of the big railway station termini. She had a rough idea of when she’d be there. I was already in London so I said that I would be there or thereabouts. As the station is so big, I’ll just arrive there and we’ll contact each other by ‘phone or something. When it came time to go I set out on foot on my usual way. I suddenly realised that I was nowhere near where I was supposed to be. Just at that moment I was walking past a house when a taxi pulled up. I asked the driver which was the best way to the railway station. He pointed out the way from which I had just come. Down at that end of the road was a dirt track that led through some kinds of fields or common. I asked “surely you don’t mean that I am to go past there?”. He replied “no, it’s a great big main four-lane road”. I realised then where I’d gone wrong – I’d gone wrong a long way before the junction back down the road. I asked “could you run me there?”. He replied “I can’t. I’m finishing work. I live here”. I tried to persuade him but it didn’t work. Another taxi pulled up so I asked him but the first driver told him not to bother – that I was going to walk. I was rather disappointed by the two of them. I set out to walk back and walked probably the quickest that I have ever walked in my life. Eventually I could see the railway station in the distance. There was a big road junction just before it. There were millions of cars milling around there trying to go through, totally ignoring the traffic lights and the pedestrian crossing but people just surged across. Some girl in a car tried to drive through the crowd and the crowd was quite irate. They made something of a demonstration about it. In the end I extricated myself from this mess but still had ten minutes of walking to go and I thought that I was going to be late yet again.

This all rings a bell with me. I’ve walked down that dirt road and across those fields and common before during one of my previous nocturnal rambles, quite a while ago now. As well as that, I can see the railway station now. I was up on the top of a hill, something like Highgate in London. The railway station was on a slight rise across a valley, with its huge arched train shed clearly visible. However, we are once again overwhelmed in confusion and anxiety in a dream. Someone has commented on my anxiety and confusion dreams in the past and suggests that it might be due to stress. All I can say is that if my life now is stressful, what must my dreams have been like 40 years or so ago when I was running my taxis?

Later on I went back into that dream … "which dream is this?" – ed … I was wandering around Crewe near the Square, talking to a friend of mine while I was typing out some notes for the radio. One of the things that I was typing out was the notes of something about the Blues Brothers. At that moment friend climbed into his car and shot off just like the Blues Brothers did. of course, at that moment, a police car appeared. The police car went to block him off on the Square. I could see it all perfectly from my vantage point but my friend’s vantage point was obscured by the old Marks and Spencers building. When he came round the corner there he found himself face-to-face with the policeman. Of course he had to stop, he couldn’t really do anything. The policeman stepped out of his vehicle and the first thing that he did was to close the bonnet of my friend’s car – it was one of these bonnets that hinges from the front, not from the rear. He would often leave it open as he drove around, held only by the security catch

That reminds me of a time 40 or 50 years ago when we were all out late one night (or early in the morning, more like) in Crewe when there was a heavy snowfall. My friend took his car onto the public car park, that was totally empty, and was spinning round doing doughnuts on the slippery surface. What he had failed to take into account that it was right next to the police station. Two constables came out and gave him a ticket for “using a car park other than for the purpose of parking”.

The nurse was in a better humour today and was rather more cheerful than yesterday. However he didn’t stop for long and I could get on and make breakfast and read more of MY BOOK.

Our trip around the castles of England (and Wales) is turning into a real whistle-stop tour. On some of these sites we aren’t discussing architecture of any type (never mind military architecture) because there are no extant remains, so I’m not convinced of the reason why we’ve even come here.

However, he does make an interesting observation when it comes to Huntingdon Castle. He tells us that "William the Conqueror was at Huntingdon 1068, when he ordered a castle to be built, evidently on the site of the old fortress restored by Edward the Elder in 918. The names in Domesday show how complete had been the removal of the larger English landowners."

We’ve talked rather a lot just recently … "well, one of us has" – ed … about the ethnic cleansing that must have taken place as several waves of invaders overwhelmed the native population during the various invasions back in the early days of history and prehistory. So these “larger English landowners” – what happened to them? I can’t see them being allowed to remain, even as serfs and slaves, in the local area where they might command the respect and loyalty of their previous tenants and possibly incite a rebellion.

Back in here I had things to do that needed my attention, and then I cracked on with the radio programme. All of the notes for programme 260227 are completed and ready for dictation on Saturday night.

There was time for a disgusting drink break and to sort out my faithful cleaner when she arrived. And then I had a wonderful shower and found some nice, clean clothes so that I shall look fine for Emily the Cute Consultant tomorrow.

After my cleaner left, I had my second disgusting drink and then I had things to do.

After breakfast I had put some lentils and split peas into the slow cooker and after an hour and the water had boiled, I rinsed them and then put them back in the slow cooker on the lowest heat with some clean water. So after the afternoon’s disgusting drink break I began to plan my lentil lasagna.

First though, I had hot cross buns to make. And here I almost had a disaster. I didn’t have enough vegan butter.

However, any oil is good, as we have proved with our oil cakes, so why not use coconut oil? I made a really good mix of flour, coconut oil, salt, yeast and mixed spices with warm soya milk and melted coconut oil – the correct amounts of liquid – and left it to fester.

While it was festering, I fried a large onion and some garlic in my wok, tipped the lentils and split peas in after I’d rinsed them again, along with a pack of this soya mince in tomato sauce that I wanted to try. In went some tomato sauce and herbs and so on and I left it to simmer away.

The dough for the hot cross buns had risen nicely so I added some sultanas, raisins and some orange essence, and kneaded it all again.

After it had stood for a while and risen again, I moulded the dough into six balls, flattened them and put them on the biscuit tray. I made some thick flour mix and with my icing piper, piped the crosses on the buns and left them to rise again.

While they were festering, I assembled my lasagna and made a vegan cheese sauce that I poured over the top, and stuck it all into the oven.

When it was cooked I put the hot cross buns in and then had a quarter of my lasagne with some vegetables. And it was delicious. Even better, there are three more slices to go into the freezer for another time. It was the lst of the orange, ginger and coconut cake today too. Tomorrow I’ll start on my chocolate cake.

Rosemary had rung up while I was baking so after I’d finished tea and washed up, we had a little chat. Not very long – only fifty-four minutes.

Consequently I’m running really late but never mind – I’m off to bed right now. Tomorrow is dialysis day and shopping order too.

But while we’re on the subject of buns … "well, one of us is" – ed … one of my friends once told me that he had served in the Army in a regiment where the chief cook was Doctor Spooner’s brother.
"How interesting" I replied
"Very interesting" he said "especially when the Germans launched an attack on the kitchen"
"Why was that?" I asked
"Because Doctor Spooner’s brother personally led the counter-attack" he replied. "He went into action with all buns glazing"

Wednesday 9th April 2025 – I HAVE MADE …

… an executive decision. And for the benefit of new readers, of which there are more than just a few these days, an executive decision is on that if it turns out to be the wrong decision, the person who made it is executed.

It’s amazing the thoughts that go through your head when you are lying there in bed at … gulp … 05:20 in the morning trying rather unsuccessfully to go back to sleep after another dramatic awakening, but there we are. I put the time to good use.

It wasn’t as if I’d been to bed early either. In principle I could have been in bed at a realistic time last night but as usual, just as I’m about to make up my mind to stagger off to bed after doing everything that I needed to do, a decent concert comes round on the playlist and so I find something to do as a good excuse for staying up to listen to it.

Eventually though, I go off to bed and go straight to sleep, only to awaken bolt-upright at 05:20 wondering why I’m still in bed when I was convinced that a couple of hours ago I’d arisen from the bed and gone into the kitchen.

So while I was pondering and musing, I was thinking. And one of the things about which I was thinking was that I’m never going to go back to sleep so I may as well raise myself from the bed and do some work.

Into the bathroom for a cursory wash today, after all, it is Wednesday and shower day, and then into the kitchen for the medication.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night, and to my surprise, despite the short night, I’d been out and about on a couple of occasions. I had to board a bus to go somewhere, and I was with a friend of mine. We climbed on board but the bus was crowded and there were people sitting on the floor. We found some space on one of the side seats over the rear wheel arch but there were some people sitting right in front of it on the floor so we had to manoeuvre our feet around. One of the people on the floor objected. I told them that my feet have to go somewhere but they carried on complaining so I told them that if they didn’t like it, they should have sat on the seat when it became vacant and then they could have put their feet on the floor but they were still extremely unhappy. In the end I couldn’t care less and began to take the mickey out of them for complaining.

Back on the bus again after last night? That seems to be becoming something of a regular occasion. I could understand the situation if I were driving it but as a passenger, that’s hardly likely. When I was fit I would walk miles and miles without even thinking about it. I remember in Brussels a few years ago when I was going to the hospital at Leuven and went for a little walk around one afternoon – and covered nineteen kilometres. And how far did I walk with Hannah on that Sunday when I was showing her around Brussels?

Later on I was driving taxis again. I was parked on the rank and was ready to pull away when another vehicle came along, drove past and reversed into a space at the side of me, another taxi, a white Hillman Hunter. As he pulled into this space he hit the front of my car. I climbed out to see what the damage was but there wasn’t a great deal. The guy wasn’t really all that apologetic. He asked me if I’d seen the guitar, some package, a similar thing. I said that someone had left a package yesterday and I’d put it in the boot of his car for him. He didn’t remember seeing it when he looked so I told him that I was certain that it was there and if it’s not there I probably still have it at home and I’ll sort it out for later.

Yes, “again”. That’s becoming far too much of a regular dream too, or is it a nightmare? If I had my time back and had to go through it again, I would have changed a great deal of what happened. I made some very poor decisions back then but hindsight is wonderful, isn’t it? And as was once said in the USA "it’s hard to remember, when you are up to your neck in alligators, that all you are trying to do is to drain the swamp".

Having put that out of the way I had plenty of work to do and I cracked on. I was hard at it when Isabelle the Nurse arrived to sort me out. We talked about my compression socks and she’ll remind the secretary of my doctor.

After she left I made breakfast. The loaf that I made before going to bed is absolutely excellent and made some lovely toast. I munched away on it while I was reading MY NEW BOOK.

This book has now turned into a whistle-stop tour of castles. We’ve probably been to six or seven this morning, just a quick walk around and then teleported ourselves on to the next one, in alphabetical order. With 669 pages at which to go, we are going to be covering a lot of ground at this rate.

Back in here, I began to concentrate.

My decision – about which I talked earlier – is that no matter what evolves downstairs, I’m going to rip out the kitchen and throw it away. I’ve been planning my own kitchen thanks to that 3D app about which I spoke the other day, and I’ve made myself a lovely kitchen and so I’m going to go with it and make my new apartment look really nice and practical.

Electrical appliances are next so I spent a couple of hours looking at fridge-freezers and built-in ovens and microwaves. In the end, my brain had turned to porridge so I abandoned the process. There were thousands and thousands and I had no idea what I wanted or what I needed.

It was at that point I had a good idea, and I contacted Rosemary. Just a short chat this morning – a mere fifty-seven yea … errr … minutes. But knowing how much care and effort Rosemary puts into checking things out, I set her a task TO PROVE THAT SHE IS WORTHY.

What I did was to tell her what I thought would be my requirements and what my budget is. And if she had my budget and my requirements, what would she buy?

She immediately made a couple of suggestions that had not occurred to me, and then she had to go to sort out a taxi to take her to hospital as she’s having some surgery in a couple of weeks. But she’s on the case which is just as well because I didn’t know who else to ask and I couldn’t sort it out on my own.

My faithful cleaner made a suggestion too. She reckons that this organisation with which I’m registered – the one that bends over backwards to help handicapped and disabled people stay in their own homes – might be able to offer some sort of assistance with the move and the fitting out of the apartment to suit my needs and requirements.

Having given the matter some thought, I wrote to them to see what they would have to say.

Then I had to send off the receipt for the new telephone and return one of the products that I’d bought from Amazon because they had sent the wrong one.

When my cleaner arrived this afternoon she helped me into the shower and I had a really good scrub up that made me feel so much better and then after a disgusting drink break, I cracked on with the radio programme.

But the time that I stopped for tea, I’d chosen all of the music (which wasn’t easy, as I said yesterday), edited and remixed it, paired and segued it and written all of the notes. That was a really busy spell of work and I was exhausted.

Tea tonight was a leftover curry. But there was so much left over that I added a couple of small potatoes, a jar of that korma mix that I bought ages ago, and made enough for three meals and the one that I ate tonight was delicious.

The naan was perfection too – definitely one of my better ones.

So it’s bedtime now, if the stabbing pain that has started up in my right heel will let me. Despite the late night and early start, I only had one or two wobbles during the day but kept on going until the end. But dialysis tomorrow of course, so we shall see.

Seeing as we have been talking about buses and Crosville the other day … "well, one of us has" – ed … I remember back in Crewe in the early 1970s and the Lodekkas were beginning to be phased out. The Bristol VRTs arrived and were equipped for one-man operation.
During the first week there were several accidents and on one occasion I was there when the police were interviewing the driver
"So can you tell us what happened?" the police asked
"I’ve no idea" replied the driver. "I was upstairs collecting the fares when the accident happened".

Sunday 6th April 2025 – WHEN THE ALARM …

… went off this morning, I was sitting at the table in the dining area having my medication. It’s another Sunday morning after a Saturday dialysis, and how many times now has this happened.

Even though the nursing staff assure me, I still remain convinced that they are adding something into the mix every Saturday. It can’t be a coincidence.

Maybe though, it just might be because I had an early night last night. While 23:30 may not sound as if it’s particularly early, there’s a lie-in in the morning until 08:00 and so it means (in theory, that is) that I can have a much longer sleep than usual.

After tea last night, I cracked on with the notes, the statistics and the backing-up and then I had some dictating to do – the notes for the extra track for broadcast 260130 and the notes for the major part of broadcast 260206 (I really am that far ahead), all of which I had written last week.

The dictation was pretty awful. I couldn’t concentrate and kept on muffing my lines and with all of the errors and going back to re-dictate, the timestamp on broadcast 260206 showed that it was just about the longest that I’d ever dictated. There will be some serious editing to do here when I awaken.

That was the cue to wander off to bed and despite a somewhat turbulent night, there I stayed, fast asleep until about 07:10.

For the last couple of nights I’d awoken early but had gone back to sleep so I lay there for a while hoping that jamais deux sans trois as they say around here. However, after fifteen minutes of waiting I gave it up as a bad job, arose from the Dead and went about my business.

Back in here I listened to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. A man and a woman were up to all kinds of criminal activities. They had a really good racket or two going but the relationship began to sour between the two of them and they both ended up wishing that the other one would clear off. They began to feel that the forces of law and order were beginning to press on them so the guy announced that he was thinking of leaving and going into hiding or emigrating or something like that and how he was rather nervous of being caught. That brought a little smile to the woman’s face and she made him hold that pose that he had while she took a photograph of him for his next passport. In the meantime she was talking about leaving. She’d looked at the photo of him that she had just taken and said that she could really do with a photo like that of herself so that she could have a false passport and move. The guy had noticed that the quality of the photograph was not exactly correct so instead of saying anything he encouraged his wife or partner to have a photograph taken in exactly the same fashion because if that went into a passport presented at the frontier it’s almost inevitable that a border guard would recognise it as false and arrest her, leaving him on his own with all the loot

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we had a similar criminal couple a few days ago … "Monday, in fact" – ed …. I had no idea of the significance then and I’ve even less of an idea about it now. As for false passports though, there’s an interesting story about that but the World is not yet ready to hear it.

The nurse was again in something of a rush this morning and didn’t stop around for long, so I could make my breakfast and read some more of MY NEW BOOK.

We’ve moved on from Dover Castle this morning and are now at Dursley Castle in Somerset. A quick glance at the first couple of paragraphs tells me that we are going to have another guided tour in the fashion of the National Trust, who have owned the property since the 1950s, rather than the engineering masterclass for which I was hoping

Once breakfast was over I made the dough for a bread roll for lunch and came back in here to watch the football.

Stranraer were in Edinburgh for a match against Spartans and once again, they fell apart in defence, standing around paralysed as the opposition ran rings around them. The first rule of defence always has been and always will be “if in doubt, kick it out”, not to stand around waiting for your team-mate to do something

For most of the rest of the day I’ve been editing the radio notes that I dictated, and I was right about them being a complete mess. However, by the time that I’d finished editing they came out quite well. So broadcast 260130 is now completely finished. I assembled 260206 as much as I could, chose the eleventh track and wrote the notes ready for dictation next Saturday night.

In the meantime, the bread roll was excellent and I had a lovely cheese on toast for lunch, thanks to the air fryer. And later on, there was the disgusting drink break.

My friend in the UK who is in charge of my project contacted me today and we had a chat. Apparently Phase One is now complete. He went to check on it at the end of last week and he says that he’s impressed with it. Seeing how much it cost, it should be too, but I’ll have to wait until Tuesday to see the photos that he took.

All we need to do after that is to do Phase Two, and then Phase Three.

Rosemary rang me for a chat too. Just a short one, a mere fifty-nine minutes. We’re obviously losing our touch these days.

There was a third discussion too, with my friends on the Wirral. It’s been ages since we last chatted and it was nice to have their news, even if it was only a short chat.

It was pizza for tea tonight, another candidate for the best pizza ever. At the moment my bread-making seems to be doing OK, and I hope that it can continue like that. I’ve ordered a new calibrated water-measurer for my bread-making and when it arrives, I’ll be able to check to see if it really was the previous gauge that was incorrect that was causing all of my problems.

Something else that I’ve been doing is looking at kitchens. The more I think about it, the more I don’t like the kitchen in this new apartment and I think that maybe I ought to treat myself for once to a kitchen that I like. That would actually be a unique experience for me – I’ve never had a kitchen of my own choosing. Even the kitchen in “Expo” In Brussels, new as it might have been … "actually it was the ex-display kitchen from the Belgian Ideal Homes Exhibition" – ed … was chosen by Marianne. I didn’t like its colour but there was no doubting its quality.

However I shall worry about that tomorrow. Right now I’m off to bed ready to finish my Welsh homework tomorrow and then go to dialysis where I hope that I only stay for three and a half hours.

But while we’re on the subject of passports … "well, one of us is" – ed … it reminds me of the Russian who applied for a passport to visit France.
"Why do you want to go there?" asked the passport clerk. "Aren’t you happy here?"
"Oh, I can’t complain" replied the applicant
"So why do you want to go to France then?"
"Because In France I can complain, and I can go out onto the streets and riot if I like as well."

Friday 28th March 2025 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

… the dictaphone this morning when I awoke.

And that’s not surprising either seeing as I didn’t go back to bed until 04:15 and I was awake again at 06:50 (you will note that I said “awoke” – I didn’t say that I left the bed).

Last night’s fiasco was enough to put the shakes on just about everything. After my rather dramatic exit from the dialysis centre, coming home and going straight to bed where I was probably asleep before I hit the horizontal position, there I stayed in a state of what I can only imagine was unconsciousness until after midnight.

When I awoke, I was fully-clothed still, with a thirst that you could photograph. Luckily I still have some of that banana-flavoured soya drink that I like that I bought in Belgium (is it really eighteen months ago since my last trip to Belgium?), so I helped myself to a litre of it, wrote my notes and backed up all the files.

After I’d finished what I had to do I still wasn’t tired so I found a few things to do to keep me occupied and then eventually crawled into bed, fully clothed again.

It was difficult to go back to sleep, so I don’t suppose that I slept all that much, and when I looked at the time and saw that it was 06:50 I gave up all hope.

The alarm clock made up my mind for me so I crawled out of bed and went to the bathroom to sort myself out. Then into the kitchen to take my medication and to do yesterday’s washing-up which I had forgotten. I hate going into the kitchen in the morning and finding the washing-up still there.

With nothing on the dictaphone I found some things to do and then Isabelle the Nurse arrived. I told her about yesterday and she thinks that the machine was too powerful for my heart to cope and that caused the dramatic loss of blood pressure that triggered everything off.

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

We’re still discussing these stone circles and avenues in the West Country. At Stanton Drew he makes the point that while there are circles and avenues that suggest that Arcturus was the target when they were constructed, at 1690BC and 1410BC, he finds that "With regard to this N.E. circle … " – the third one in this series of circles – its strange alignment "… would suggest that the N.E. circle was really erected to provide the alignment, from the centre of the great circle, or from the Cove, to the summer solstitial sun, about the year 870 B.C.,".

Furthermore, "There is other evidence, to which I attach importance, as it deals with a method and policy found in many temple fields in Egypt, that of blocking the alignment of an older star- or sun-cult, which the astronomer priests replaced by their own. The stones of the avenue, of the solstitial N.E. circle I expect once blocked the May sunrise line from the great circle ; judging from the Ordnance map, and remembering the number of stones that have disappeared,"

According to my “wave of invasions” cheat-sheet, a huge wave of Celtic invaders began to arrive in England round about 800BC. They brought with them the Iron-Age “Halstatt” culture and their superior tools and weapons would have overwhelmed the previous settlers. If those previous settlers were pushed west, they would push before them the people who had previously occupied those lands, so maybe they replaced the previous culture of the worship of Arcturus with their own culture of worship of the sun.

What is also interesting is the reference he made to the situation in Egypt where the worshippers of one star arrived and overwhelmed a previous culture. Archaeological evidence lends a great deal of support to this idea, so I’m now interested in plotting, as I said yesterday, a timeline of the worship of Arcturus and seeing if I can follow it through Europe and maybe arrive in England at the same time that the worship of Arcturus seemed to have begun there.

But this is all sounding like my University studies. I’d start by researching something and be so engrossed in what I’ve found that bore no relation to what I’d be studying that I’d go miles off course on a tangent into some other realm that had nothing whatever to do with the subject. I enjoyed what I was doing, enjoyed it very much, but the lecturers didn’t.

His next chapter is actually on “folklore”, but not the folklore what we know. He’s more interested in finding relics of customs that relate to the old forms of worship and how they became tied into Christianity, rather than using them as I would and as LAURENCE GOMME was doing – plotting the migration of groups of people by the relics of the customs that remain in modern society.

After the book, I came back in here and prepared my LeClerc order. And I was really struggling to complete it too. Despite the fact that I haven’t sent in an order for three weeks, I’m not eating as much (or as often) as I did and I was really struggling today to reach the €50:00 minimum order

Times are really bizarre around here. I look at my “usual products” and my “reminder list” and think “I have some of that” or “I don’t need that” or “I don’t feel like eating any of that”. I don’t think that I can ever recall a period such as this that has lasted for so long. I look in the kitchen and the shelf unit is full of stuff.

Once I’d sorted that out, I spent the rest of the day (or much of it) on my Woodstock programme. I now have every song that I need, and they are all re-edited and remixed. Some of the tracks took some hunting down, others had to be extracted from the soundtracks of concerts that I have.

Every song (except one) was actually played at Woodstock by the band or musician concerned, although I can’t use any sound that came from the loudspeakers at Woodstock. I’ve had to use versions from other places.

My cleaner put in an appearance to do her stuff as usual, and while she was here the LeClerc delivery turned up. I usually order it for “after 16:00” but he often rings me up to ask if he can come earlier if I’m the only client in the afternoon. I’d rather have it after my cleaner has left but I’m not going to stop him having an early finish on a Friday if he can.

After my cleaner left I had 2kg of carrots to wash, dice and blanch ready to freeze and then back in here Rosemary, back from her break in Italy, rang me up for a chat. I’m convinced that she has a camera hidden in here somewhere to find out when I’m free.

Tea tonight was a rushed salad and chips with some of these vegan nuggets and it was delicious. The chips were cooked to perfection in my air fryer.

Tea was rushed because we had football, Drenewydd v Y Barri. Y Barri needed the win to keep alive their push for the European playoffs and Y Drenewydd needed a win to keep alive their hopes of avoiding relegation.

Y Barri came out of the traps so much quicker and played some nice football and were looking comfortable at 2-0 up. But Y Drenewydd came alive in the last ten minutes and when they scored with three minutes to go, they threw everything that they had into the attack.

Y Barri won the ball and roared upfield with a one-on-one on the Y Drenewydd goalkeeper – only for the Y Barri forward to miss the easiest goal that he could have scored in his life. That spurred Y Drenewydd on and we witness some desperate defending in the final minute and Y Drenewydd couldn’t find the goal that they needed.

Why they hadn’t played like that with the same desperation throughout the game I really don’t know, but now, while they are not mathematically sure of being relegated, they are going to have to find something special from somewhere.

At half-time I did the washing up and then I grabbed a slice of my new orange, ginger and coconut cake to eat for the second half. And it really is as delicious as I thought that it might be. I’m proud of that.

So now that I’ve finished my notes and backed up the computer, I’m off to bed ready for an exciting (I don’t think) day at the dialysis centre.

But seeing as we have been talking about shopping … "well, one of us has" – ed … I’m glad that I don’t go shopping any more. It saves unpleasant surprises.

Once I was in a supermarket in Belgium and a woman came up to me and asked me "aren’t you the father of one of my kids?"
That stopped me dead in my tracks. I had to rack my brains and think hard. There was the girl in Morlaix and the other one at that strange house when I was hitch-hiking around Brittany but that was in France in the mid-seventies.
For a whole minute I had to rack my brains about trips that I’d made into Europe subsequently. In the end I gave up.
"I can’t really recall anything" I said, shaking your head.
"Oh, I’m sorry" she replied. "I’m sure that I’ve seen you bringing Roxanne to school. She’s in my class this year"

Tuesday 25th February 2025 – NOW THAT’S WHAT I …

… call a wasted day today. I have emulated my namesake the mathematician and done exactly three-fifths of five-eights of … errr … nothing.

Some of it has been my own fault, as you might indeed expect, but some of it hasn’t. I really need to motivate myself better if I am ever going to accomplish anything.

The most obvious excuse to use is that I was thoroughly, completely and utterly exhausted. The other day, returning from dialysis, I was in bed at 21:30 and last night it was 22:20. and I was lucky that I made it that far because I really wasn’t in the mood.

Once in bed though, going to sleep was another matter. “At least, being in a horizontal position is resting and relaxing” I kidded myself.

Eventually though I dozed off into oblivion and had yet another turbulent night. For a change though, following a dialysis session, I was actually asleep when the alarm went off at 07:00

At that moment I was with a friend of mine and we were trying to go into her office. There was a security reception desk and the girl on there was known to be rather strict so it was necessary to fill in an application form, and when you went for an eye test, the optical test, it would come up with several people similar and you had to guess which one you were. The aim was that I would find someone similar to me and say that I’d lost my card. She would give me a new card and I would go in. This however wasn’t working and there was nothing very similar to me at all so my friend had to think of another excuse. The girl at the reception desk took an absolute age to deal with all of this before she finally handed me a duplicate card. My friend said “this is just typical of this girl. She knows that this is a fraudulent application because we have thousands, and she’s just taking her time about it as she always does”. We went in a walked down a corridor, then we had to climb down into a courtyard and up the other side. Climbing down was fine but climbing up was almost impossible for me so I had to think of another way of doing it. At that moment a man came down and sat in the corner to begin to smoke a cigarette. I thought that the easiest way was to strike up a conversation. This place looked rather Asian so I talked about having a Japanese garden in here. My friend came back to look for me. He asked her “how long have you worked here?”. She replied “oh, years. I came here in August” and said which year it was. He asked “how do you find it?”. She replied “I made a mistake because I came here in a jumper and I regretted it”. She wandered off and he said to me “she’s a tough girl, isn’t she?”. I said “someone who had had the problems that she had had and survived, anyone would be tough”. He was looking at me and could see that I was disabled and said “oh please sit down”. I replied “I can’t because if I sit down I can’t stand up”. Then he began to panic saying “oh please sit down, sit down, sit down”. I wondered what was going on. This place where we were was like a volcanic crater although it was a garden with pavilion-type Japanese buildings in it, all ringed by a really jagged range of mountains in a huge circular form that looked just as if it was inside a volcano but with a garden inside instead of a crater.

That’s an interesting idea for Security, isn’t it? Being able to choose who you were. After all, NAMES ARE FOR TOMBSTONES, BABY. And I had a friend for a while in Brussels who had been a diplomat in Japan, but it wasn’t she. But if I’m going to be disabled and handicapped in my dream, then it rather defeats the point of them, doesn’t it? Not much point in escapism if you can’t escape.

Into the bathroom for a good wash and then into the kitchen for medication; Finally back in here to listen to the dictaphone because there was much more than just the above. I’d been working on a radio programme and I couldn’t ever make it right. It never seemed to go anywhere as how it was supposed to do. It was continually failing the quality control check. After several weeks of editing I finally had it something like and was ready to send it off. The recording engineer and some of the producers were however rather fed up of having this come up on their desks every week so they were determined to stop it but I sent it off anyway but they still came back and refused it. What should have been a deadline for the 28th of April was now running into May. They basically said that they wouldn’t edit it again and it was finished. I replied “well for failing it this last two or three times on tiny issues, it shows a serious lack of goodwill particularly when I have worked as hard as I have done over the past day or two to put the issue right. If there was nothing substantially wrong with the last one you should have accepted it” but they were still very unwilling to move on this particular issue and I could see this programme running on and on and on.

There have been radio programmes that have taken an age to do because the editing has been so complicated. There was the one a few weeks ago that took several weeks, and the worst part of it was that it overran so I had to edit it, and one of the bits that went was the bit where I’d had all of the difficulty

There was a girl from school directing a film last night. She was running through the scenes. I had a look at the scenes and towards the end of the film there were thousands of scenes every second, so many scenes to go through and they lasted a blinking of an eye. I was appearing as an extra in it and so was a friend of mine. We’d been to makeup and we’d been dressed up and put our costumes on. As the film was being filmed it was passed through some kind of computer animation so people became like cartoon characters as they were going through the motions for real. When I looked at my image and the vision of the girl who was with me, the images were horrible, the faces were all distorted and nothing seemed to be correct at all. We were standing on the set waiting to be directed. The girl from school came along, took one look at us, took one look at the screen effects and told us to leave the stage. We thought “that was a waste of an entire day. What a shame. Our chance for fame and fortune”.

This is another girl about whom I haven’t spent a day thinking since I left school. So why she would put in an appearance right now I really don’t know.

Later on I was with another girl. We’d stopped somewhere to look at something that we’d seen earlier. All of a sudden I had a horrible realisation that I didn’t know where I was. I didn’t have a clue as to how I’d arrived at this place, or the name of the place or what I was doing here anyway. I left the girl with the car and walked a little way up the road to see if I could see anything. On the left-hand side of the road was a funeral director’s place with gravestones in it but it was all closed, dusty, and hadn’t been open for years by the looks of it. I decided to turn round and walk back to the car and drive until we find a village and see the name. What I could also do later was to look through the dashcam videos and see if I could identify the route. As I was walking back a lorry that was coming up behind me stopped at the side of the road behind me. The driver alighted and stood by the side of his cab. A lorry that was coming towards me, he stopped too and he alighted from his cab. He was carrying a small puppy and he stood by the cab. I was effectively blocked in between these two lorries, and my car and my friend were beyond them. As these two guys stood there I had this horrible menacing feeling that something pretty awful was about to happen.

So who are all these girls who keep on appearing? I wish I knew. Some nice, charming, pleasant company would be just what the doctor ordered and to actually have them present and allow them to slip away so easily like this is something of a shame. And I know that regular readers of this rubbish will recall saying on many occasions that I never “know where I was” but in this dream it was for real. As for those two guys in the lorries, I know THE BEST WAY TO DEAL WITH THEM .

isabelle the nurse breezed in this morning, late as usual due to having to do all of the blood tests that her oppo doesn’t want to do. She had a few cheery words of greeting and then rushed back out. She’s been working on her float for Carnaval and making the costumes and she’s promised me plenty of photos after the parades this forthcoming weekend.

Then it was breakfast time and MY BOOK time.

Today we are discussing miscellaneous earthworks again and despite his dismissal of much that has been assumed or inferred on the basis of no evidence whatsoever, he seems to conclude that everything uncertain is “probably” something astronomical or astrological, or both. However, he is yet to post one single piece of evidence to suggest what it is that is supposed to be indicated or observed, and the position of the stars and planets in the sky hasn’t changed that much in the last 5,000 years. The earth rotates through something like 1° every 7000 years.

His “pottery works” on the shores of the Thames estuary in Essex was excavated in the 1930s and identified as an Iron Age or Roman salt evaporation site, and not only did I manage to find the report of the excavation, I found a treatise on the operation thereof and now I would be quite confident in running my own sea salt production facility if the need ever arises. It would have been the kind of thing that, had I found it 20 years ago, I would have gone to try it to see if it would work.

Back in here I had all of the replies to deal with, and you’ve no idea just how many there were. Do I owe you all money or something? Once again, a great big thank-you for your continued support.

No Welsh today, so I decided to deal with the “Taste of Woodstock” radio programme. First task is to see what “songs played at Woodstock” I have in my live music collection As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I can’t use material actually performed at Woodstock unfortunately.

The answer to that is “not as much as I need” so I edited what I had and then set out to hunt down more music but I was waylaid. One of my neighbours, the President of the Residents’ Committee, wanted to come to pay me a visit. She’d left me a birthday present yesterday, which was nice of her.

She came along and we had a very nice chat for a while and discussed several issues, one of which was, surprisingly, one of the topics that I’d discussed with Rosemary the other day. It seems to be something that’s on the minds of a lot of people right now.

Next was my little great niece (or is she my great little niece) who arrived back home in Canada last night from Ecuador. She showed me all of her photos and videos of her trip and I told her how impressed I was with her. And I am too. These opportunities for travel only come along once in a lifetime and you should seize the moment. Sitting there with her feet straddling the equator beats the one that I took of Alison straddling the driehoek – the three-cornered border between Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, and also beats the one of Rosemary, STRAWBERRY MOOSE and me straddling the Arctic Circle.

Had His Nibs and I been able to reach the North Pole in 2018 I might have trumped it but, regular readers of this rubbish will recall, we stopped 700 miles short. My niece has 50 years ahead of her to do that, and good luck to her.

And while we’re on the subject of Rosemary … "well, one of us is" – ed … she rang me again today for a short chat. And it was short too – only fifty-three minutes. She needs the birth certificates of her parents and didn’t know how to go about finding them. Consequently I had a very happy time delving deep into the bowels of the Public Records Office in Kew and to my delight, I came up trumps too. When I was in Wandsworth working in that Italian restaurant I spent a lot of time in the PRO

The radio programme for this coming weekend needed chaeking too. That’s now done and sent off, but there was no time left to carry on with any more work. I was late as it was. But making a taco roll with rice and veg followed by date bread and soya dessert doesn’t take long.

So now I’m off to bed ready for shower day tomorrow. And I hope that I have a more productive day than today was. I can do without too many days like that. However, I’ll never turn down an opportunity to talk to a friend when the opportunity arises. There are more things in life than working.

But while we’re on the subject of working … "well, one of us is" – ed … One of my friends had sent me a message for my birthday, saying "I hope you managed to lay your hands on something tasty for your birthday"
And so I replied saying "unfortunately not. The nurses at dialysis kept well out of my reach."

Sunday 23rd February 2025 – I HAVE BEEN …

… a busy boy again today. Not only have I completed everything that I intended, or, as TS McPhee would have it, I’ve DONE EVERYTHING THAT I’VE EVER SET OUT TO DO, I had half an hour to spare too, and that’s not something that happens every day. And how I wish that it did.

That was despite several interruptions too, because I can’t seem to have a day without something happening to knock me right out of my stride.

Things actually set off with a good start because I’d finished my work and all of the dictating quite early. Although it was after 23:00 when I went to bed, it was before midnight which means, with my lie-in, that I could have over eight hours of uninterrupted sleep.

In theory, at least.

As I mentioned yesterday, I’m back with my turbulent sleep patterns, and last night was no exception. And following a Dialysis Day, it was a hot, sweaty night too and I really am going to have to find a solution to this

However, for a change on a Sunday morning, I was still in the bed when the alarm went off at 08:00 and although I can remember times when I have felt less like rising from the bed, there aren’t many of them that have been more difficult than today.

After my trip to the bathroom I came back in here because on a Sunday there’s not much time before the nurse arrives. I made a start on the dictaphone notes (of which there were more than just a few) instead.

In midstream I was interrupted by the arrival of the nurse who tended to my legs and then spent a few minutes trying to make his card reader read my health card so that he can invoice the Social Security for his visits. Being someone who is terminally ill, I’m 100% covered for my medical expenses so I don’t have to pay anything.

After he left, I made breakfast, took my medication and carried on reading MY BOOK.

Today we’re discussing dykes and ditches and we’re back on things about which I might know something.

He’s discussing the building of these earth ramparts and ditches that straddle the countryside and I’m not following his logic at all.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall the discussion from a few days ago where he stresses that invaders wouldn’t build earthworks and complicated defences. They would be the work of the beleaguered defenders.

Now when you build a wall, the purpose of the wall is twofold – one is to hide behind it and the second is to stop your enemy crossing it. To build a wall, you need to find the earth, so you would have to dig a ditch from which to extract it. That serves two purposes too – it means that you only need to build the wall half as high, because the other half of height is the depth of the ditch, and it also makes the defence stronger.

So if you are going to dig a ditch, you would dig it in front of the earthen bank, firstly to make the defence stronger, and secondly to keep your enemy farther from the wall. If you had the ditch behind the wall, it would allow your enemy to shelter behind the wall and you wouldn’t be able to come close enough to dislodge them. So the ditch will be the direction from where you are expecting the attackers to arrive.

Having said all of that, if the Cambridge ditches are to the south-west of the dykes, why does he propose, on page 511, that "they may very well represent the work of some of the earliest of the Baltic immigrants, who, as is now believed, began to make settlements on the east coast of Britain".

Why would the “earliest of the Baltic immigrants” be building these extravagant earthworks when they are the invaders? Especially when he tells us on page 518 he tells us "none of the finer and more elaborate English dykes contradicts the fact that the civilization of the island has moved always from east to west.", which is, I imagine, what the “earliest of the Baltic immigrants” will be doing.

So although I don’t have a clue exactly what his argument is, I shall refrain from saying “neither does he” because you will all be calling me “T Rice Holmes”.

When I’d finished I began to make a small bread roll for lunch. I’ve enjoyed the ones with my soups and the flexibility of an air fryer means that I can serve up one or two without any effort or heating the big oven

Back in here the first task today was to finish the dictaphone notes. I was preparing myself ready to go to dialysis, explaining to Nerina just how painful it was. She didn’t seem to believe it particularly. She thought that I was being a baby. She told me that I ought to do better with it and think more positively. Then she began to discuss operations with me. That’s the kind of thing that makes me squirm and was causing me all kinds of agony in all different parts of my body so I asked her if she would stop talking about it. Eventually she agreed. Later on that night though I was writing out my notes. She asked if I was writing out the story of what had happened early in the day between the two of us. I replied that I was. She replied “that’s fine as long as you don’t write anything personal about me”. I replied “that’s rather difficult to avoid because the fact that you and I were together is something rather personal”.

Actually, I suspect that the nurses are secretly, under their breath, telling me “not to be a baby” but we all have our phobias. But the situation about people in my dreams, I had a discussion about this with someone just recently. I’m not obviously in control of what goes on during the night and so I don’t usually “name and shame” people who appear. It’s bad enough that they know me at all, poor people, without being outed for it. But some people’s association with me is too well-known to be hidden behind a nickname.

There was a plot of waste land opposite out house in Crewe that actually belonged to us. One day I sat down to clear it all out. I removed most of the weeds, bushes and shrubs, and there was a stream that ran through it. When I was upstairs in the bedroom I could see that it was full of big fish swimming around. I thought that it was wonderful. From a horrible, stony limestone surface it gradually began to turn green as I watched it. I thought that with another couple of hours work we’d have a nice lawn over there with a little featured brook running through. I went outside and sorted out a few things. I had an old Ford Thames van … "a Thames 400E" – ed … parked in the street with no tax and no MoT so I pushed that onto there too. In the end it was really looking quite nice and I was quite impressed with it

There actually was a patch of waste land (almost) opposite the family home in Davenport Avenue when we moved there in 1970. And the story of the fish relates presumably to the fish farming from the other day.

Later on I was working in the despatching of the ambulance company. One of the drivers came in towards the end of his shift and said that he had to go to fuel up his taxi ready for the morning. He asked if he could still keep the same car for tomorrow morning. I said that there’s no reason why he shouldn’t but he’d have to let me know what number it is so that I could mark it down on the sheets. He went outside and I heard his car start so I called him up on the radio and asked him to tell me his number but he didn’t reply and drove out. Then I was in the car with him after that. he said that he still had to go to pick up fuel and his car was number 210. I noted “210” on the sheets and he set off. He drove through Crewe down Badger Avenue and up to Bradfield Road at probably 100 mph. Someone pulled out a little further ahead and he said “look at that person there! No respect for anyone else. I whispered to the other passenger and said “said he, driving at 100mph through the town”. We turned onto Bradfield Road and he said “I hope that the petrol station down here is still open”. When we passed over the railway bridge there was a queue of taxis, the biggest queue you have ever seen. he looked at me and said “all of these will be alright for you, Eric” because of course they were Crewe taxis. He swung round and pulled up onto the station with a big line of vehicles but he weaved his way up the inside and went to an empty pump to fuel the car. There was a van next to us. Our driver had a jerry can and went to fill the car and the jerry can. The woman next to us was pumping diesel and it smelt horrible. he said “that’s a disgusting diesel, isn’t it?”. I replied “it’s the low sugar stuff so it doesn’t smoke and clog up your injectors”. he replied “I can’t think why people use it so I repeated that it doesn’t smoke and doesn’t clog up the injectors.

There is actually a petrol station where this one in the dream was situated. But the whole place being saturated in taxis is most unlikely, particularly as many as there were parked around there last night. But despite all that I have said about Crewe in the past, they do stop and fuel up their cars with diesel. There’s not one single driver left in the town today who stops at the stables to fuel up his cab with a nosebag full of oats

There was also a dream where I was with some friends of my own age. maybe we were at school, I don’t know. Someone turned up with some parcels and I wondered what this was all about because it was nearly Christmas. It turned out that it was a girl who had left. She’d sent some of us some presents and one of them was for me. It looked as if it might have been a cake. I thought “this is nice of her”. When I looked at it, it was the wrapping that resembled the cake. When I undid it, it was a board game all about growing your crops, harvesting them and making all kinds of vegetarian and vegan food, which I thought was really wonderful. One of two of the others then received some strange board games from this girl too. I thought “this is a really nice idea. I shall have to try to find where this shop is and investigate it for myself to see what else they had that I could maybe give as presents to other people”.

That game actually sounds quite interesting and I wonder how it could be made to work. There’s an on-line course doing the rounds on OpenLearn about making a game app for a smartphone and I’ve been debating about using my dialysis spells to catch up with a few more short courses. This game app one might be interesting, with this idea as its theme.

I’d been in Northampton and was heading back out towards the motorway with “that” Liz. We’d gone a different way this time to see what was alongside the motorway the other way. We ended up in this town but didn’t recognise it. It was a very modern town with a huge distribution centre for a supermarket, one of the ones in red, right at the end of the main street. We parked up and walked out to have a look round. We asked these two boys the name of the place. They wanted to know why we were here if we didn’t know where we were. We explained that we’d been to Northampton and wanted to go back a different way. He began to ask passers-by “which is the best way from here to reach the motorway?”. He told us that this place was called TW17. He then went to a travel agent’s to ask her where she could send him on a flight while we decided that we’d go for a look around and maybe have a meal. I set off to find the car to park it somewhere better so that we’d have time to eat.

So here’s “that” Liz back yet again. We had someone who sat on a University Committee on which we served who lived in Northampton and we went there a couple of times. But Liz was more of a friend with her partner and she unfortunately sought her release from her difficulties in an extremely tragic way and we never went again. One thing is certain though. None of this took place in Shepperton.

Next task was to watch the football, Stranraer at home to high-flying Stirling Albion, and against the run of play demolish them 3-0 even though a friend of mine from University days plays in goal for Stirling Albion.

And hats off to Robbie Foster. A big, burly, clumsy but quick and powerful centre-forward, out of his depth at this level of football but due to an injury crisis of epic proportions, forced into the side for the last couple of months.

He knows where to be and what to do – he has all of the strikers’ instincts, but he’s just not able to do it. No-one on any football field ever has ever tried harder than him and today he had his reward when he muscled his way into the path of a loose ball and prodded it home

But one day someone is going to give the “man of the match” award to eighteen year-old Josh Lane, forced into goal for the first team for the last few games. A nervous start a few weeks ago but the last few matches he has pulled off some wonderful saves to give his team a fighting chance.

If you are interested in the highlights, you can SEE THEM HERE

Today’s work was to edit a series of radio programme notes that I’d dictated last night, and prepare or complete the programmes.

The first one was a concert that I stumbled upon in Germany in 1981. I’d written the notes the other day and they were the first that I’d dictated.

By the time that I’d finished the editing I was almost four minutes over, but that was part of the plan because there were several short tracks that I could edit out to fit everything down. So one track then went, a pile of applause and other “irrelevances” followed and it all went together quite nicely

There were two “extra tracks” for the two programmes that I’d prepared last Sunday, and I managed to resolve one of them and complete the programme before lunch.

Lunch was a fresh bread roll cut in half and transformed into “cheese and tomato on toast” in the air fryer. And it really was delicious too. I shall do all of this again too.

This afternoon I attacked the remaining programmes and despite stopping to make a full-sized loaf of bread, I finished bang on the moment as the telephone rang. I’m convinced that Rosemary mounted a camera in this apartment when she was last here.

Our chat today was only a small one, just one hour and three minutes. And the most exciting news is that Myrtille the cat goes to sleep under the bed but when Rosemary awakens, the cat is asleep on the foot of the bed. I’ll give it two weeks before they are both curled up together.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … no-one I ever knew ever won a battle with a cat.

After a half-hour break I went to make my pizza. And it’s another one of the “best ever made” pizzas. My loaf was perfection itself too . it all seems to be working fine these days. What I think has been happening is that firstly my technique is improving and secondly, I think that my water measurer is inaccurate. If I use more water than suggested in the recipe it works so much better.

So having done all of my work, I’m having a Day of Rest tomorrow. Well-earned too, I reckon. If only I could work as hard as this all the time.

If I had worked as hard as this when I was at school I probably would have had a different path. I had this discussion with Nerina once and she asked me "what would you have done?"
"I would have been a criminal lawyer" I replied
"How far did you go in your studies?" she asked me.
"Only half-way, I’m afraid" I said. "I still have to do the ‘lawyer’ part."

Wednesday 12th February 2025 – MY JAW HAS …

… just hit the floor.

An apartment upstairs from the one that I have bought admittedly with a slightly better view, has just gone onto the market. And I have JUST SEEN THE PRICE.

Admittedly there’s a better view and there’s a shower, but it’s in nothing like as good condition as mine is and I really can’t believe this price because I paid, well, nothing whatever even on the same page as anything like this price, so I’ve no idea what’s happening here. I was convinced that I did very well from the purchase of mine, but I didn’t expect it to be anything like as good as it seems to be.

In a few senses I’m glad that I saw this because it’s high time that I had some good news. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, it’s been a long time since I’ve had any.

It wasn’t any better during the night either. After I finished my notes and what I had to do, I had a mad dash of energy, finished my Welsh homework, sent it off and then checked over the radio programme that is going to be broadcast this weekend.

The evening finished in a flurry as I sent off the programme ready to be pushed into the feed to be broadcast. And if you have some free time round about 21:00 CET, 20:00 UK time or 15:00 Toronto time on Friday or Saturday eveing, HAVE A LISTEN TO IT. It’s something that most of you will recognise, but I promise you – you have never heard it quite like this. I put a lot of effort into it.

Having finished, I should really have gone to bed but although I was exhausted, I wasn’t tired and didn’t feel at all like dropping off. In the end it was 01:30 when I finally made it into bed.

And 01:30 when I went to bed it might have been, but at 04:00 I was still awake. The night dragged on and on and on and at one stage I was convinced that I would never go off to sleep

Sleep though I must have done because I was definitely deep in the arms of Morpheus when the alarm went off at 07:00. It was a very weary, bleary me who emerged from the depths and staggered off into the bathroom.

After the medication I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to see if I’d been anywhere during the night. And to my surprise, I had. I was going to Manchester with Zero’s father to go to the hospital. The train pulled into the station – we’d been sitting there talking etc on the platform and the train, we could see the train come in the distance as it came around the bend. It took me so long to stand up and gather my crutches that we were struggling for time. When the train pulled in actually at the station it was a good two or three feet away from the edge of the platform and I couldn’t pass over the gap. The train just pulled away and left the two of us standing on the platform. There were two women from British Rail checking the tickets of the passengers who had just alighted so we asked one of them how long the station had been remodelled like this. One of them replied “at least three years”. The other one replied “oh no, it’s nothing like that at all”. We explained that I was wanting to go on that train but I couldn’t climb on board so it had left me behind. She replied “you don’t want to go to Manchester Airport …” which was presumably the destination of the train “… and be treated in the USA. You want to be treated in Manchester”. To which I replied “well that’s where I was going” which caused a couple of people in the crowd to laugh but the woman just turned her back and continued to check the tickets of the passengers. One of them said to me “you just have to keep on at her”. We thought “well, nothing in this World is going to make her do what she doesn’t want to do”.

So Zero’s father was there again. But not Zero unfortunately. That’s rather sad. It seems that it’s not just my family but Zero’s too, stopping me having whatever slight amount of pleasure there is available to be had during the night. Do you ever have the feeling that the fates are all conspiring against you?

Scrambling on board trains too is also problematic – or, it was. In the final days of my voyaging to Leuven I had to change my itinerary so as to travel on the flat-floor commuter trains rather than clamber in and out of the big SNCB expresses as I could no longer manage the stairs. Nowadays I have solved the problem by not going anywhere.

Also, at one stage, “train” dreams were a regular occurrence, but we haven’t had one for quite a while until last night, so welcome back. If we aren’t careful, the Vanilla Queen will be back soon TO HAUNT ME, EVEN IN MY DREAMS in her mask of sterile dignity.

Isabelle the Nurse had a laugh when I told her the story about Emilie the Cute Consultant on Monday. Those two know each other, so I gather, and they can probably tease each other about it. But what kind of state am I in when I have to take my pleasure vicariously like this?

After she left I made breakfast and carried on reading MY NEW BOOK. We’e reaching the end of the discussion on forts and fortresses and moving on to another topic.

It’s good to note that he is of the same opinion as I am about these modern theories. He tells us that "It is incredible that a tribe, otherwise engaged, according to the theory, in the pursuits of peace, should l)e at pains to construct such a work as Maiden Castle, or for that matter such a work as Blacker’s Hill, simply as a precaution against a possible day of danger ; and in a state of civilization, in which the first news of danger must usually have been brought by the foe himself, it is not easy to see how the refugees could have made good their escape to their asylum, let alone driving off their flocks."

The effort and painstaking labour that has gone into their construction defies all belief that they were simply showplaces, especially when Neolithic and Iron-Age man had far more urgent, important and necessary things to do with his time

However, he is tying himself up in knots. Having told us the other day that "Incredilde as it must seem to anyone who tries to realize the labour involved in the building of any great camp, it seems none the less to be the fact that many of them were planned and constructed according to one original design.", he tells us today that "theorists have tried to establish some relation between the three classes of camps—the very irregular, the less irregular, and the approximately circular—and as many different swarms of invaders, Lloegrians, Goidels, and Brythons.^ Such speculations require no detailed refutation, and passing by any more particular objection it is enough to advance this general one, that they are all based upon the unwarrantable assumption that ancient tribes in the first place constructed each some one uniform type of earthwork, and in the second place entertained a broad and well calculated strategy, a unity of purpose, for which there is no evidence at all. There were no Vaubans in the prehistoric days,"

It saves me the trouble of asking him, If these plans were all the same, how were they transmitted? And how were they worked? There must have been written records and notes of some sort. They couldn’t have passed all of this information on orally over the centuries over the entire country.

Occasionally, though, a sense of humour bleeds through the pages. "In many cases the heaps of fallen stone have all the appearance of ruined towers, although the erection of a tower must, to builders using no mortar, have been, if not an actual impossibility, at any rate as dangerous to the occupants as to the enemy."

He’s also talking about "various points upon the coast of England, particularly in Devon and Cornwall, in south-western Wales, Scotland, and Ireland." where "though there can be no doubt of their low degree of culture, it is not certain that they belonged, as has been thought, to the very earliest Neolithic times, for some of the weapons found in the middens appear to be palimpsests fashioned out of other weapons of much higher types."

The thought appears not to occurred to him that if the more “primitive” civilisations clung on in these far-flung corners, as we have seen, until a much later date, they must have come into contact somewhere along the line with more “advanced” civilisations of invaders coming into their area and succeeded in driving them away. They aren’t likely to have gone away quietly so broken modern weapons implies a victory in battle for the more “primitive” defenders, hence them clinging on to their terrain.

Having finished my breakfast I came in here and began work. And by the time I knocked off for tea I had chosen ten tracks for the next radio programme, edited, remixed, paired and segued them, and there’s just about ten minutes left and all of the notes would be finished too. I’ve worked hard too.

There were the usual pauses – lunch, my cleaner, a delicious, wonderful shower and right at the end of the evening just as I was about to finish and call it an early day, Rosemary rang me for another chat. This time, just a short one – one hour and eight minutes only.

Why does it always happen like that? I’ll be burning the midnight oil again tonight and I wish that I didn’t have to. Remember, I’ve only had about 90 minutes sleep since yesterday morning.

Tea was magnificent. The best curry I have ever made, with the best naan that I have ever made too. Life isn’t any better than this, I promise you. That really was a successful meal

But that story of the towers at the fort reminds me of my old neighbour and former taxi passenger BLASTER BATES
On a farm out at Chorlton (near Shavington) once to blow up the Brunel Chimney that was there, he saw a farmhand walking across the yard carrying two bricks.
"Where are you going with those?" asked “Blaster” Bates
"I’m going to castrate the new bullock" replied the farmhand
"With two bricks?" asked “Blaster” Bates incredulously. "Doesn’t it hurt?"
"I’ll say it does" replied the farmhand. "Especially when you get your thumb trapped between the bricks."

Sunday 8th February 2025 – WHEN I DON’T …

… have to go to dialysis, I can have some good days. And today was one of these, in many repsects.

Dictating the notes for the three radio programmes wasn’t so good though. There were loads of errors that I made and I don’t know why. I just couldn’t seem to get it together and once I slipped out of the rhythm I was gone completely. Some of the parts were dictated three times and there will be a lot of editing in the morning.

But one good thing about it was that it wasn’t all that long after midnight that I finished so with the lie-in until 08:00 in the morning I stand a good chance of having a decent sleep.

And I did too. After having sorted myself out ready for bed, once underneath the covers there I stayed, and I didn’t move a muscle until the alarm went off at 08:00.

What a struggle it was to tear myself out of my bed this morning. But I made it and just about finished washing and dressing as Isabelle the Nurse came in.

She told me that there isn’t a real problem about having eaten before the blood test and whether it might be 24 or 72 hours before the hospital visit instead of the prescribed 48. I’ll speak to the dialysis centre people on Monday and see what they have to day.

Seeing as it was Sunday she had plenty of time on her hands so she showed me some photos and videos of her skiing trip, just to make me jealous.

After she left I had my medication, made my breakfast and then went to read MY NEW BOOK.

We’ve now moved out of the hills and onto the plains and circular forts. These are, as their name implies, areas with circular defences down on the lowland and being mainly small, it implies that the area was occupied by some kind of closely-related agricultural period.

The difficulty with these is that, being a universal design, they could date from any era at all, even the modern age. But even if they are modern, they more likely have an ancient history, being erected on the site of a previous version of the camp.

If ever you drive up the A6 or M6 to Carlisle, up in Cumbria you’ll see farmhouses in the middle of fields closely surrounded by barns and other buildings, in a circular formation, and I’ve often wondered as I drove past whether they are modern equivalents of the circular camp. Being in an isolated spot near the border with Scotland, it’s almost inevitable that they were going to be targets for any Scottish raider crossing the border and bent on plunder.

One thing though – I’m not sure who his audience is by the style of his writing. I’m not uneducated (at least, I don’t think so) but even I am having trouble with some of his sentence phrasing and the meaning of some deep, hidden archaeological name.

Back in here we had a footfest. All of the JD Cymru League from Saturday including the Cymru North grudge match between Airbus UK Broughton and Colwyn Bay, a real top-of-the-table clash with probably the biggest crowd that has ever been at the Airfield.

That was followed by Clyde v Stranraer and our regular commentator Lawrence Nelson missed the game. He must have known what was coming because I have never ever in my life seen a team play so badly.

The score finished 2-0 to Clyde, and Stranraer were lucky to get nil. Clyde weren’t much better. They missed so many sitters that I gave up counting after seven. Had Clyde been any good it could have been an embarrassing scoreline.

This is a match that no fan of either team will want to see again but if you are feeling brave, THEN THE HIGHLIGHTS ARE HERE, complete with the Keystone Cops defending.

For lunch I had a lovely cheese salad butty. That bread that I made the other day really is exceptionally good and with vegan cheese, lettuce, tomato and salad dressing, it’s really good.

Back in here this afternoon I’ve been radioing.

The notes for the final track of programme 251024 have been edited and incorporated into the two halves of the rest of the programme. The music for the final track had been edited into the stream and so that programme is now ready to go.

The notes for programme 251107 were then edited and my little “discussion phrase” has been edited in. As it’s a concert these notes go onto the front of the music, which I had assembled during the week.

It ended up over-running by 36 seconds but that’s no problem to edit out. That’s now complete and ready to go to

Finally, the notes for 251114 need editing. That’s a full programme of 10 tracks (and one to come later) and I’d almost finished when Rosemary rang.

“Can you spare a minute?” she asked, and so 46 minutes later …. . Yes, only 46 minutes. We’re losing our touch.

There had been a few other interruptions too. There was my 16:15 mid-afternoon pause and after that I had a few things to do.

First was to make some pizza dough. That was absolutely excellent and it rose up like a train. Once it had proofed I divided it into three balls – two into the freezer and a third ready to use

Next was some date bread. I’d bought a pile of dates for Christmas and hadn’t even opened them so I must use them soon. I found a date bread recipe that is quite similar to an oil cake, so seeing as I can make one of those, then why not?

I then rolled out the lump of dough on the table and put it in the pizza tray ready for later.

After I’d finished with Rosemary I dashed into the kitchen to check the date bread and it was perfect. I’ll tell you all tomorrow how it tastes. And I assembled quickly the pizza and bunged it in the oven.

30 minutes later I had the best pizza that I have ever made. Really and honestly. If I could make them as good as this every time I wouldn’t be bothered by anyone or anything.

But seeing as we have been talking about rhythms … "well, one of us has" – ed … I was once asked "what name is given to people who practise the rhythm method of birth control?"
"I don’t know" I replied. "What name is given to people who practise the rhythm method of birth control?"
"We call them ‘parents’."

Friday 17th January 2025 – YET ANOTHER DAY …

… when I haven’t advanced anywhere near as far as I would have liked. Whatever happened to that spurt of energy and enthusiasm that I had when the dialysis first started?

After I’d finished my notes I’d tried to be ready for bed quickly but, as usual, a concert on the playlist came round to disrupt me. It was another Lindisfarne concert and, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I can’t ignore a Lindisfarne concert.

Consequently it was quite late yet again when I crawled into my nice fresh bed, still clean from Wednesday night when it was so delicious.

Being left alone with my thoughts is not a good idea for my long-term wellbeing but in the short-term I’ll just have to clutch the memories as they go flying past, and live out in my imagination how I would have liked things to have been – carpe diem and all of that – instead of how things did – and didn’t – turn out. That’s the big advantage of having a shocking memory but a vivid imagination. I can do this kind of thing with ease.

Eventually I managed to fall asleep and while it wasn’t as static as the previous night, I didn’t move around very much. But once more, we had a phantom alarm call at 06:25 this morning. I wish that I knew what was going on.

After that though I did manage to go back to sleep and was well away when the alarm went off at 07:00.

It was another struggle to haul myself to my feet, but it has to be done and I staggered off into the bathroom to sort myself out for the day.

Into the kitchen for the medication and then back in here to sort out the stuff on the dictaphone. And here we go. What’s been on my mind finally penetrated the subconscious last night. I wondered when it would. We were all at some kind of dance and I ended up dancing with Moonchild (who made her first appearance in my dreams). While we were dancing the music suddenly changed to a very slow dance so I took her in my arms and held her. We had this slow dance and there I was, with Moonchild in my hands. There was also something about going into the kitchen because the pots needed filling with raisins and we weren’t sure how to do it. A girl and I had done it at the start. We figured out that 100 pots at just under 500 grammes would be sufficient but for some reason everyone seemed to be doubting that.

Yes, so there was Moonchild, DANCING IN THE SHALLOWS OF A RIVER … PLAYING HIDE AND SEEK WITH THE GHOSTS OF DAWN, WAITING FOR A SMILE FROM A SUN CHILD and making her debut in my nocturnal rambles as I held her tightly in a dance.

Except that she has been here before, but a long time ago and I’d almost forgotten all about it. But whether or not she should appear at this moment, it’s difficult to say. You might say that I have “mixed emotions”, and that’s certainly true, but not in the sense that they usually mean.

But what the hell is happening here? Why has all of this suddenly appeared these last few days?

Isabelle the nurse came to sort out my legs. Once more she was in something of a rush and didn’t stay long. I could press on, make my breakfast and read MY BOOK.

Shame as it is to say it, I’ve become depressed with the author’s continual insults and vitriol that he’s heaping onto his colleagues. I really don’t know how his book ended up in print without the publisher having to take on some hefty legal insurance. Today he writes that a contemporary "again shows himself a most troublesome witness. Unfortunately this meritorious geologist, who laboured hard to elucidate the geographical questions connected with the ancient history of East Kent, was a bad writer"

He’s also criticising a couple of his contemporaries for their remarks. One author, he says, "quotes no authority and gives no reasons" for his conjectures and another author "also without giving either authority or reason" posts a certain position with which he disagrees.

And then a couple of pages later he devotes several thousand words to a section of the Kent coast without himself quoting one single reference to back up his comments.

So I despair.

Back in here I had a few things to do and all of that took me much longer than I was anticipating. It’s one of those things that the more you do, the more you have to do and the more you end up doing.

As a result, I was late going for my lunch today and had hardly made it back to my desk when my cleaner came to do her stuff.

Eventually I could press on and finish selecting the music for the next radio programme. That’s all remixed, edited, paired off and segued, and I’ve even written some of the notes. But I wanted to be much farther down the line than this.

What finally held me up was that Rosemary called for a chat. Not that I’ve any objection to speaking to friends – quite the reverse in fact; but there we were. And it was only a small chat today – one hour and eighteen minutes. We’re losing our touch.

Tonight’s tea was different than usual. We had salad and chips of course but I’d found some strange things in the freezer that I’d bought in NOZ ages ago and needed to be eaten. So I had half a packet of those tonight and they weren’t bad at all. I wished now that I’d bought a few more packets.

But this leads me on to the next thing – that there is stuff in the freezer that I don’t know that I have and was probably brought down from Mount Ararat when Moses docked his Ark there. One day I’ll have to make an inventory.

But not right now though because I’m off to bed. My two left-over pies are freezing in the icebox in the fridge and they’ll go into the freezer tomorrow, and then there’s all the washing to do. I’ll be glad to get to dialysis for the rest.

But while we’re on the subject of mixed emotions … "well, one of us is" – ed … I was talking to someone whoe mother-in-law had recently died.
"What happened?" I asked
"She was driving along the A259 near Folkestone" he said "when the cliff collapsed and the road, the car and the mother-in-law crashed down into the sea. She was buried under hundreds of tonnes of rubble"
"How do you feel about that?" I asked
"I have mixed emotions" he replied
"Why is that?"
"She was driving my Vintage Bentley at the time"

Wednesday 8th January 2025 – I HAVE DONE …

… something today that I haven’t done several months – namely, I have crashed out this afternoon.

And crashed out royally too. It was one of those really deep ones where it was as if time and space all stood still as I plunged into the abyss. And there I stayed for a good 40 minutes. I’ve no idea what’s going on but there have also been one or two other signs that the dramatic effects of the first few sessions of dialysis are now tailing off and I’m regressing.

That’s pretty bad news, as far as I am concerned. I really had hoped that this dialysis would have solved many of my problems, but apparently not. What wouldn’t I give to be back fully fit and healthy again? Even the really sad me who had to live at Liz and Terry’s for four months when I was totally unable to fend for myself would be an improvement.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment I had another long, late night as This two-hour Lindisfarne concert went on. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … Lindisfarne holds a special place in my heart – and for many reasons too, and I’ll always listen to one of their concerts

That’s another thing. I’ve noticed that over this last couple of days I’ve become very nostalgic for a period that lasted between 1978 and 1979 and for something that I let slip through my fingers. I’ve no idea why that might be either because apart from a fleeting moment in 1994, neither this period nor this opportunity has never entered my head on any kind of scale before.

Looking back, there were several opportunities, nailed-on positive opportunities, that I didn’t see or recognise until it was far too late. It all just goes to prove the old saying that "nostalgia ain’t what it used to be".

Once Lindisfarne finished, round about 00:45, I took myself off reluctantly to bed for a good sleep over what was left of the night.

During the night though, I awoke once, in some kind of panic in case I’d missed the alarm. But reassuring myself that it was 05:20, I managed to go back to sleep.

When the alarm went off at 07:00, I struggled out of bed and had to wait a good few minutes before I could drag myself to my feet and stagger into the bathroom.

After a good scrub, it was into the kitchen for the medication and I’m becoming fed up of this too. I can never remember the days when I don’t take something and I’m becoming so confused by it all. Basically, today I take everything except the Vitamin D supplement – I think.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was back in the Dark Ages. We were travelling on foot through some kind of woodland at the edge of a forest when a tribe of dark-skinned Neanderthal men sprang up in front of us. They were extremely threatening so we had to defend ourselves. It ended up in some kind of fight as a Wold West film might have done where we managed to repel the attackers and restore peace for the moment. That was the key for us to move quite rapidly off elsewhere but we had someone who was wounded and someone who had died so we had to think about what we were going to do with them. We couldn’t just leave them behind while we made good our escape. That wouldn’t be right at all.

This reminds me of the topics that I’ve been reading over the last few days and that’s probably the source of this dream. There’s also a considerable amount of the LORD OF THE RINGS in here too, with everything going on at the edge of the woodland, like the battle between the Riders of Rohan and the Orcs of the White Hand.

And then I was with VBH, my very first Cortina … "actually it wasn’t, but it was my first MkIII" – ed …. I’d been driving around in it for a while and suddenly realised that there was no MoT on it. I came home, parked up and crawled underneath it to look at the underside. The front and the centre section underneath were in really good condition but the rear passenger side quarter was eroded away and needed to be welded before it went. I thought “that’s another job that’s going to add to the list. While I was underneath it some people game and knocked at the door. They were talking about me and talking about my taxi business so I wondered who they are. They rattled the door really hard so I stood up, shouted at them and told them not to make so much noise. They announced themselves that they were people from the local council and local Tax Office and they wanted to talk to me. So I said “yes” seeing as they wee there, I was there and I couldn’t escape. One or two of the people disappeared and I wondered where they went but the others stayed. A girl who seemed to be in charge took out a large sheaf of paper and began to write a couple of notes that I couldn’t read from where I was, and began to ask me one or two basic questions so I answered them. Then she asked “you don’t have to go anywhere, do you?”. I replied “no. I’m staying here. I’m going to enjoy this” which gave some kind of bewildered look on her face.

No MoT? Crawling under a car? Needing welding? We’ve been there a thousand times, in dreams as well as in real life. At one stage that was the sum total of my life. Not to mention the local Council, the Tax Office, the Police and everyone else after my hide back in those days. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I’m a different person today than I was back then

But strangely enough, I have a little skill that not many people know – I can read upside-down just as well as I can read right-side up. And that has confused so many people who have had their written notes in front of them when they have wanted to interview me for something or other.

The nurse was early today and he talked about the town’s triathlon. He’s not entering it but the heart specialist who saw me a few months ago – he’s going to turn out. That should be interesting.

After he left, I made breakfast and then carried on with my DNA study.

We’ve been side-tracked now and I’m crawling over a collection of skeletons exhumed from early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries. Almost all the males in there are of Anglo-Saxon descent and 82% of them are buried with weapons, indicating warriors. The females are almost all native British people.

The reviewer tells us, rather naively, that the Anglo-Saxons must have married local native women. But the complete absence of local native male British skeletons tells us a rather different, more depressing and sad story. The DNA of early Anglo-Saxon but indigenous people, born and bred in Britain, contains mostly male Anglo-Saxon DNA and mostly female British DNA. However the available evidence (or lack thereof) that I’ve quoted is suggestive and I bet that “marriage” had absolutely nothing whatever to do with the interbreeding between the two nations.

When we were in Iceland, we were told that Icelandic DNA is made up of 80% of the male DNA coming from The Scandinavian coast, and 80% of the female DNA coming from Ireland, meaning that boatloads of Norse voyagers on their way to populate Iceland in the 10th Century stopped at Ireland to pick up some females. I hardly think that “marriage” would apply to those circumstances either.

Back in here I’ve had a very slow start back to work and have spent most of the rest of the day editing the radio notes that I dictated before Christmas and assembling the programme. I’ve chosen the 11th track and written the notes ready to dictate on Saturday night. But in the meantime, I have another programme to write and dictate for Saturday night too and I mustn’t start slacking.

There were several interruptions this afternoon too. There was lunch of course with a slice of flapjack and there was Christmas cake break

Of course there was the shower. My cleaner came in to do her stuff this afternoon and that includes helping me in and out of the shower. It might only be once a week, but it’s beautiful to be under the hot water like that. Just wait until I have that walk-in shower downstairs.

Rosemary rang me today too. Just a brief ‘phone call this afternoon – only one hour and twenty-five minutes. We’re definitely losing our touch. She had plenty of news to tell me, which is nice. They were inches deep in frost in the Auvergne last weekend and heavy snow is forecast any day soon.

To be honest, I miss the weeks of all of that hard winter weather, half a metre of snow that would fall overnight and a couple of weeks of temperature round about minus 18°C

Tea tonight was a leftover curry with naan bread, rice and veg followed by chocolate cake and soya dessert. Totally delicious as it usually is.

Ordinarily right now it would be bedtime but just this minute onto the playlist has come another one of my favourite concerts.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’m a really big fan of Southern Rock with its lead guitar solos that can sometimes last several weeks. One of the more underrated Southern Rock bands, apart from Widespread Panic whom I saw in South Carolina with my little Mexican friend in 2005, is the Marshall Tucker Band and their concert from Boston in 1976 has just come round.

So that’s me lost to the World for 75 minutes while I lose myself in the music. And it’s a good job that I have the music because otherwise I would have been lost a long time ago. And I bet that many of you wish that I would get lost now.

But going back to the story of the people knocking on our door, regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I come from a big family. My mother told me once "one day, someone came knocking unexpectedly on our door"
"Who was it?" I asked
"It was someone collecting for the local kids’ orphanage" she said
"So what did you do?" I asked
"I gave them two of mine" she replied.

Friday 3rd January 2025 – MY CHOCOLATE CAKE …

… is exquisite. What makes it, in my opinion, is the coconut oil. It’s based on a simple oilcake recipe but I substituted some of the oil for some coconut oil and that gives it a certain something that you can’t describe, but it’s there all the same. It’s one of the best cakes that I have ever made.

And while we’re on the subject of things being there … "well, one of us is" – ed … I was still there at 01:00 this morning.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I mentioned something about going to bed, and that was true at the time, but just as I was planning on switching off the computer, a concert from a folk festival in 2017 came onto the playlist and, strange as it may seem, I had never heard it before.

It was one from that batch that I’d had sent to me a year ago and it had never previously come up on the playlist but now that it was finally there, I stayed up and had a good listen to it.

It was about 01:20 when I finally made it into bed, and once there, I fell asleep quite quickly. And that was all that I remember of the night. The next thing that entered my mind was the alarm call this morning.

When that went off, it took a minute or two to gather my wits – they seem to travel about much more than I do – and then I wandered off into the bathroom for a good wash.

Isabelle the Nurse was late this morning so I had a listen to the dictaphone but to mu surprise and disappointment, there was nothing at all on there. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … wandering around in the subconscious late at night is the only fun that I seem to have these days.

When Isabelle the Nurse arrived, she told me that she couldn’t hang around. Her oppo had arranged several blood tests for her back at the ran … errr … office for 08:45 and it was now already 08:42.

She did have time to tell me that it was minus 3°C outside this morning and although snow had been forecast, none had (as yet) arrived.

After she left, I made breakfast and had a read of MY BOOK.

Our author is now discussing Caesar’s second invasion and at the moment we are still in mid-Channel awaiting the turn of the wind and tide so he can bring himself and his army to the shore.

As yet, there is nothing controversial about what he has been saying. He’s been discussing the beam and draught of Caesar’s ships, how they have been built by the sailors with a beach landing in mind rather than their sailing characteristics.

That’s a fact that it’s impossible to prove or disprove, and in any case, as he’s said on several occasions that Cicero’s younger brother was sailing with the invasion, it’s very likely that he’s quoting from the letters that the younger Cicero sent to his elder brother as well as the usual source, Book IV of THE GALLIC WARS by Caesar himself

And that reminds me – I must brush up my Latin. I’m really dismayed about how much I have forgotten since my school days. Puer amat mensam and all that

Back in here afterwards, I began to turn the place upside down to find this missing letter with the notice that I had to pay. I looked absolutely everywhere and, after about three hours, I finally found it.

It was exactly where it should be and ought to have been, and where I’d looked at least three times yesterday and three times this morning. I have no idea at all as to why I couldn’t see it before.

That’s another one of these mysteries – why I can’t see something that must be there, no matter how many times I look. Sometimes I really do wonder what on earth is going on inside my head.

By now my cleaner had arrived to do her stuff so I had missed my lunch, which serves me right. She brought the cold weather with her into the apartment and froze me to death. It really is wicked outside today, apparently.

Later on in the afternoon Rosemary rang me. It was just a short chat, one hour and forty minutes, and it would have lasted longer had someone not rung the doorbell. It was one of those calls where no-one responded to the interphone, and that was a shame because Rosemary and I could have gone on much longer than that.

And I must admit, that I had something of a laugh to myself. When I was round there three or four years ago she was “don’t leave the door open – that stray white cat might come in and I don’t want that”.

Eighteen months ago it was “that stray white cat is actually quite friendly and sweet”

On the ‘phone six months ago it was “this cute white cat is lovely, curled up in front of my fire”

Today it was “I was thinking of going away for a couple of weeks but I changed my mind because Myrtille would be cold and lonely”.

That’s right – I never met anyone who won a fight with a cat.

Tea tonight was falafel and chips with a vegan salad, followed by chocolate cake and soya dessert. My cleaner had bought some mushrooms and tomatoes for me, but I ought to have asked her to buy a lettuce too. I would usually send off an order to LeClerc today for delivery but I have enough frozen food to last another week and I can survive on what else I have.

The chips were cooked to perfection in the air fryer which is certainly doing its stuff. Rosemary told me that in her air fryer last weekend she cooked a chicken quite successfully and she’s quite pleased with hers too.

In other news, Seàn sent me a report yesterday about new DNA techniques that can probe deeper into ancient bones to establish a much greater DNA profile.

That’s of great interest to me because of what happened in Greenland. The last written record from the Norse colony in Greenland was of a marriage that took place in 1408 at the old church at Hvalsey which regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we VISITED IN 2019 on our way across the Atlantic on THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR when we sailed the North-West Passage.

After that, there is silence and when the Bishop of Norway’s envoy went there in the 16th Century he found no trace of any survivors.

What happened to the people is a complete mystery and there have been several theories. James Enterline wrote A BOOK in which he suggested that the Norse went west onto the mainland of North America, and regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we went to THE UNIVERSITY OF LAVAL in Québec to check on some of his sources.

For what it’s worth, I’m waiting to see if any bones of any Inuit in Greenland will turn up some Nordic DNA. I find it hard to believe that there was no “interaction” between the Inuit and the Norse as the ice drove the Inuit south into the path of the Nordic colonists. If the Inuit, who were much better-adapted to the climate than the Norse, overwhelmed the latter, they must have taken a few female prisoners. We saw what Samuel Hearne had to say about the Northern people’s handling of female captives. The editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine would also have had something to say on the matter.

So now it’s bedtime. Tomorrow it’s Dialysis Day and I’m not looking forward to that at all. But we’ll see what happens on Monday. That’s going to be complicated.

However, with all of this stuff written in Latin that I seem to be finding, I wish that I had paid more attention to my Latin lessons at school .I mentioned to a friend that I was going to look for a Latin teacher.
She asked "Will you be looking for a native speaker?"
And so, smiling, I replied "if I do, you can learn with me. Then we can both go together on holiday somewhere in Latin America"

Sunday 22nd December 2024 – I SOMETIMES WONDER …

… where I’d be now if I head my head switched on all the time, instead of just occasionally in the odd, rare flashing moments of inspiration.

But when it does happen, it reminds me of Kenneth Williams who once famously said "sometimes I’m taken aback by my own brilliance".

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that for a number of weeks now I’ve been having a really hard time in the kitchen, as standing on my feet for several hours is killing me completely.

So this morning, as Isabelle the nurse was oiling my legs and fitting my compression socks and I had my leg resting on the stool for the electronic drum kit, I suddenly thought “stool”.

For weeks now I’ve wanted one of these screw stools, where the seat is adjustable for height, so I could sit in the kitchen at the right height when I’m working and just swivel round to reach for what I needed. And there this morning, I thought “drum stool”.

Sure enough, when I had a look at my stool I found that the seat was adjustable for height. Not as much as I would like, but it made a real difference. For much of the day I’ve been working in the kitchen and being quite comfortable about it, because I’ve been sitting down and that makes quite a difference.

But returning to last night, after I’d finished my notes and everything that I had to do, I dictated the radio notes that I’d written last week and then went to bed. it was 23:40 which meant that although it was later than my ideal time of 23:00, the alarm was set for 08:00 so I was due for a decent, long sleep.

Or so I thought.

It might have been that I was asleep quite quickly, but it didn’t stay like that. It was another night of fitful sleep, tossing and turning and drenched in sweat like a few nights have been after the dialysis.. By 07:40 I decided to call it a day and when the alarm went off at 08:00 I was already up and about

Isabelle the nurse was early to day. There are no blood tests to perform as the laboratory is closed on Sundays. She did what we had to and we talked about the storm, the train cancellations and the cancellation of the Christmas parade.

The storm – yes. It’s a permanent fixture now. We have another one blowing like a hurricane. All trains along the coastal line between Caen, Granville and Rennes are cancelled and as I said just now, the Christmas parade is cancelled too.

After she left I made breakfast and then read MY NEW BOOK.

We’re discussing Palaeolithic, Stone Age Britain at the moment and in particular, the religious element.

The author, Thomas Rice Holmes, is struck with the idea that the Ancient Briton worshipped his weapons and prayed to his God to bless them. However, I have another theory.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I’m a great believer in the existence of the sixth sense. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a few months ago we discussed how it was possible to stare at someone from a window, and after a while they would suddenly turn round and look up at you. Did anyone try it?

So what I’m thinking about this devotion or prayer is that it isn’t devotion or prayer at all. It’s ancient, prehistoric man concentrating hard on his weapon and transferring some of his mysticism and will to it so that when he would throw it, it would travel straight and true in accordance with its owner’s wishes.

Of course, that’s not so far removed from praying, but I think that it’s important to identify it correctly. But what do I know anyway?

There’s an interesting quote in the book that certainly struck a chord with me. He quotes an unknown author who once said "as I moved from place to place, I somehow seemed to know less and less, and I cannot say what would have been the result" That is something to which I can really relate.

But while we’re on the subject of Thomas Rice Holmes … "well, one of us is" – ed … I had a look on the internet to see what was known about him. I mentioned the other day his love of polemic and light-hearted “frank exchanges of views”, and someone called Bill Thayer, a commentator on ancient texts, notes that amongst Rice Holmes and his contemporaries, there was "a flurry of argument and counter-argument"

It looks as if I’m going to be in for a bumpy ride.

After reading my book, I started work, armed with my revolving stool.

First thing was to make some dough. If I’m having soup at lunchtime, I’m having fresh bread so I want to make a bap. One thing about the air fryer is that you can cook small amounts of bread so 100 grams of flour made a lovely bread mix, which I left to fester.

And then, people, I marzipanned my Christmas cake. The marzipan rolled out nicely and with some of the jam that my friends in Macon gave me last time I was there, it stuck a treat to the Christmas cake. Then the cake went back into the fridge to cool down

Back in here, I listened to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. Someone came round to the house for a taxi. While he was waiting for a taxi to pull up, he began to nibble away at all my cheese on the kitchen worktop. After a couple of minutes I told him that if he doesn’t stop I’m going to charge him for it. He carried on nibbling so I had a look at the shopping list and said “right, that’s £1:60 for the cheese”. He replied “oh no, it’s £0:60”. I insisted on £1:60 and if he didn’t like it he could clear off. He cleared off, uttering all kinds of threats like dancing up and down on the vehicles, making a noise, slitting the tyres etc. I told him that anyone who does anything to any of my vehicles would need a very good doctor. Then he left. When I came back in the girl on the radio said “you’d better go to see your brother in law. His car’s on fire”. Just then a car pulled up. Two passengers, a very young girl and a woman alighted and so did my youngest sister’s husband. I had a look underneath it. It looked clean and tidy, and I couldn’t see anything. A asked “are you sure that this car has caught fire?”. He replied “the little girl is”. I replied “I can’t see anything at all under here that shows any sign of flames”.

The one thing that I miss since I’ve been on this vegan diet is the cheese. I used to love cheese and I could eat tons of it. But not any more, unfortunately. Vegan cheese is a very poor substitute. It’s just over 32 years – October 1992 in fact – since my pancreas gave out. And all the meat in my freezer that I had to give away that night when I came home from the doctor’s!

At the hospital they had given me four options –
1) – transplant. But the transplant was in its infancy and the success rate wasn’t assured.
2) – injections every day. But then I’d lose my professional driving licences
3) – die
4) – try to control it by diet, eliminating all animal fats

So while I went onto this extreme diet overnight, I thought that I may as well go the whole hog too so apart from that evening up on that mountain in Bulgaria with Percy Penguin and a host of other skiers lost in the fog in 1994, not a drop of alcohol has crossed my lips.

And it worked too. I lost 10kg almost immediately and in Brussels a couple of months later I started running again. And as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I was still running up until just two or three years ago.

Later on, I had to go to see a psychiatrist or psychologist or someone or other so I took myself off to his premises. It turned out to be a shop somewhere in the Ardennes and he was the shopkeeper. He was busy serving people so I sat myself down in the corner, took up my laptop and began to work. After a while he finished serving his customers and came over. I put everything away. He asked “you aren’t working today are you?”. I explained that I was always working. He was astonished by that. He said “we aren’t all that enthusiastic about work here in the Ardennes”. I replied “I can see that, looking at some of these dusty shops that need a good clean”. He smiled and just then another customer came in and was waiting to be served. I told him that he had a customer. He replied “so what?”. I asked “aren’t you going to serve her?”. He grudgingly picked himself up and wandered off over there and I took out my laptop again anfd began to work.

Having done that, this dream restarted when he came back and sat down on the bench by me. I said “I hear that you have been having trouble to pee”. I wondered how he’d heard that. I hadn’t said anything to him about that up until that moment just then.

Anyone who wants to go to see a psychiatrist needs his head examined. Quite But here’s another dream into which I stepped back later. What can’t I do that whenever Zero, Castor or TOTGA come around? I can’t imagine wanting to do that with a psychiatrist. I must need my head examining.

And that reminds me – the trick cyclist from the hospital hasn’t been to see me for ages. Has she forgotten me too?

Finally, I was at school and had been into town for lunch. I’d ended up in a big shoe shop, toy shop, department store. The queues were enormous and I had to fight my way around. There were people queueing on the stairs and I had a great deal of difficulty trying to go down them. People were going down either side of these people queueing on the stairs, making things even more difficult. Eventually I could extract myself and head back to school. I heard a voice behind me say “oh there’s someone else late for school. Let’s run and see if we can beat him and he’ll be last”. I made it back to school first and the teacher was already in my classroom teaching so I slunk in and sat at my seat, late again. He was already talking to the kids about the “Dirty Harry”, or was it “The Godfather” films, asking how long this series continued. Someone said “fifteen years” but he replied that in fact it was thirty years, which surprised everyone. Then we began to discuss the plot for another film. I began to dream about Eastwood who had been on a mission somewhere and had met a lonely girl in a bar. He’d spent the evening with her and then gone his separate ways. Next morning he’d looked for her name in the ‘phone book, went to a florist’s and ordered some flowers and sent them to her. Then, as arranged, went round to see her in the afternoon. He had a gold-coloured sports car in which he took off from the side of the kerb on the wrong side of the road and had to weave in through the traffic to do a U-turn and then headed off. He reached the address where there were a few people wandering around. Some woman came up to him and said something about him being in his work clothes. He asked “how do you know?”. She replied “you’ve changed since you were here last night”. He asked the people what was going on. Someone said “it’s a woman”. he worked out that it was the woman whom he’d come to see. “She’d committed suicide last night just after you had gone”. It turned out that she had a gunshot wound in the neck from previously. When he’d given her a playful karate chop he’d missed that gunshot wound by millimetres. He was wondering what on earth had happened that had made her want to commit suicide because she was certainly the kind who was depressed, being lonely in a bar but he thought that his presence would have cheered her up a little

It’s been a long time since I’ve had an epic dream like that. It’s one of these major ones that keep on going and going and it’s a shame that there was no nice young female involved with me appearing in that dream, as there sometimes is. It’s interesting though that there’s a “dream within a dream”. We’ve had a few of those where we’ve managed to move up a level. Not quite the 25th level, about which Dennis Wheatley used to brag, but a step up all the same

And here I am, scriptwriting in the night too. Is there no end to my nocturnal talents?

Back in the kitchen, I made my broccoli stalk soup, remembering to put the little pasta elbows in today. My bread went up like a lift, the best that I’ve ever made, and the soup was totally delicious with a tub of soya yoghurt tipped into it. What a nice lunch that was!

Then it was mince pie time. I have two rolls of puff pastry but I only used one. That made the bases and tops for five pies which is a nice number over Christmas. And in my silicon pie mould, five pies used half a jar of mincemeat. At this rate there will be enough mincemeat in stock for five more years

Football was next, Stranraer against Stirling Albion, who had a friend of mine in goal. And I have never seen so many open goals missed by Stranraer or saved by David Gaston. Some phrase concerning stringed musical instruments and the nether regions of certain ruminant animals sprung to my mind as I watched Stranraer miss open goal after open goal.

They finally managed to score right at the end of the game, only for Stirling to roar upfield and score an equaliser with probably their only shot of the game.

There won’t be another game like that ever again.

Making dough was next. I’ve run out for the pizza and that’s a calamity so I made a 500 gram mix, put two lumps in the freezer and the third lump I used as tonight’s meal.

Next was icing the Christmas cake. And despite it being cold, the icing kept on sliding down the side and I had to keep on spreading it back up. But that icing knife that I bought from Noz is a great tool to have. It made the job much easier than it might have been

While I was assembling the pizza I had the oven on, baking the mince pies. Now they are done and they look delicious. My pizza was delicious too.

You might think that after all of that, with the pudding that’s in the freezer, I’m ready for Christmas. But that’s not so. While I was working this afternoon I kept on thinking, as I was talking to Rosemary (I managed that too) “thers’s something else that I’ve forgotten”.

And now I know what it is. I forgot the hash browns.

So that will be the job tomorrow before I go to the Dialysis Clinic.

As well as all of that and chatting to Rosemary, I’ve been working on some of the radio notes too, and I’m exhausted which is no surprise.

In a few minutes, I’ll be off to bed. And then it’ll start all over again tomorrow. It’s relentless

But while we’re on the subject of football, dreams and psychiatrists … "well, one of us is" – ed … I once went to see a psychiatrist (well, I actually went more than once, but that’s another story)
"Doctor doctor" I said "I’m having these terrible dreams. I’ve seen all these ants playing football in the Ants World Cup. We’ve had a round of thirty-two, then a round of sixteen, then a round of eight, then a round of four. It’s driving me out of my mind, doctor. Please help me"
"Well, never mind" said the doctor. "Take this prescription to the chemist, have it made up and take two of the tablets tonight. I promise you – you’ll sleep like a baby and you won’t have any dreams at all"
"Ohh – I can’t do that tonight doctor" I said
"Why not?"
"Well, they are playing in the final tonight and I don’t want to miss that!"

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: rosemary

Sunday 20th April 2025 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

Saturday 19th April 2025 – THAT WAS EXHAUSTING.

Friday 18th April 2025 – I HAVE HAD …

Wednesday 16th April 2025 – I WAS RIGHT …

Wednesday 9th April 2025 – I HAVE MADE …

Sunday 6th April 2025 – WHEN THE ALARM …

Friday 28th March 2025 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

Tuesday 25th February 2025 – NOW THAT’S WHAT I …

Sunday 23rd February 2025 – I HAVE BEEN …

Wednesday 12th February 2025 – MY JAW HAS …

Sunday 8th February 2025 – WHEN I DON’T …

Friday 17th January 2025 – YET ANOTHER DAY …

Wednesday 8th January 2025 – I HAVE DONE …

Friday 3rd January 2025 – MY CHOCOLATE CAKE …

Sunday 22nd December 2024 – I SOMETIMES WONDER …

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