Tag Archives: shower

… clean me … "well, clean anyway" – ed … tonight, going to sleep in a nice clean bed tonight. It’s Tuesday, so that’s shower day, and while I was hosing myself down, my faithful cleaner gave my bed a good going over and changed the bedding.

Actually, it’s quite nice to be in that position, because these days, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, showering is something that I find extremely difficult these days. And so I’m only allowed to have a shower when she’s here to watch over me. I’m not allowed to have one when I’m on my own in case I fall.

But anyway, be that as it may, last night, having abandoned my notes halfway through, it was still after 22:30 when I went to bed. I awoke twice during the night, but I have no idea what time it was – I couldn’t be bothered to look. And in any case, I was back asleep quickly enough.

When the alarm went off at 06:29, I was definitely asleep. And I was certainly in no mood to leave the bed. It was quite a struggle to coax myself out of bed and sit on the edge, never mind stand up and go to the bathroom.

Eventually, though, I made it into the bathroom and managed to organise myself into something like, ready to face the day, and then I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out what had gone on during the night.

I had a huge, blazing row with one of my friends last night. We’d all been away and were due to come home. I’d spent all afternoon and evening servicing the van, and all through the night we’d been packing everything away. Early in the morning, we set off for home again. We arrived back home in the early evening, and I reckoned that I’d been working for about thirty hours without a break, so whilst everyone was gathered in the living room, I excused myself and said that I was going straight to bed. I went into my bedroom, and it was untidy with all kinds of stuff everywhere, but then I thought “it’s my room, so what does it matter?”. I made a little space, but before I could go to bed, three or four people came up to chat. That was really the last thing that I wanted. They wouldn’t go, and they were there for most of the evening, so it was now almost forty hours without any sleep. Eventually, they left and I was just now going to bed when my friend turned up. He asked me “have you seen such-and-such”? Well, of course I hadn’t – I’ve been ill in bed, so I went to bed. And after wrestling with a pile of frozen food that needed to be put away, he just lay on the bed next to me, talking. I told him to go about three or four times, but he wouldn’t. In the end, I picked up a couple of jars that he was carrying and threw them at the door, and in the end, he got the message, and I tried to go to sleep. However, my friend went to the police and explained that I’d attacked him. This led to all kinds of complications, and he came back. I asked him to go, but he said no, the police said that he could stay if he liked. Just then, the woman who was in charge of the whole outfit turned up, so I asked her if she could make him leave. However, she wanted to know note-by-note exactly what had happened.

This dream does have some kind of basis in fact – not about the van and not about wanting to go to bed, but about a former friend and a friendship that came to a shuddering halt. Although, as usual, it’s one of those stories that the World is not yet ready to hear.

But being out and about with no sleep is not unusual. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall Back about fifteen years ago, I was in Cambridge. I had to drive to Gloucestershire to pick up a trailer, then to North Lancashire to pick up a mini digger, and then all the way down to central France – a working “day” of thirty-five hours with the only sleep being the couple of hours on the cross-Channel ferry. I couldn’t do it now.

The nurse turned up as usual and sorted out my legs and feet. While he was working, he was chatting about Welsh football, which I thought was rather strange.

After he left, I could make my breakfast and read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

Actually, I didn’t read that much of it today. He started to talk about the Batalha Monastery in Portugal, and that was something of which I knew nothing at all. Consequently, I set off to find out about it. Apparently its construction was ordered by King John I of Portugal as fulfilment of a vow that he had made before a battle in which his small army decisively defeated a very much larger Castilian and French army and assured Portugal’s independence.

Back in here, I began the knotty problem of this soundtrack, where I had to dispose of about one and a half minutes of something, but I know not what, in order to make enough room for a decent introduction.

By the time that I’d finished, I’d actually disposed of two and a half minutes, which makes it even better. But it didn’t ‘arf take some time to do. I managed to save some time by trimming out some of the applause. That involved trying to mate the “before the trim” endings with the “after the trim” starting points, and that took a great deal of time and effort, and yet it still didn’t take out enough.

The next step, therefore, was to listen to the long and pointless guitar and bass at the start of one of the tracks. With a constant beat running through it, I could take out a lot of that and simply mate up the beats. But when you have a choice of ten beats, it’s not that easy. And, after about an hour and a half and once you do find the correct beat, that’s when you find that the drummer’s timing at the “after the trim” point isn’t the same as at the “before the trim” point, so they don’t overlap. And that’s when it really does become difficult because the two parts don’t overlay.

Eventually, though, after much binding in the marsh, I managed to solve the problem to some kind of suitable degree, using an awful lot of “Silence” mode. And when I played it back just now, you couldn’t hear the join.

By now, my cleaner was here doing her stuff. She organised the bathroom for me and I went for my shower. While I was in there, she was tidying up my bedroom and changing the bedding.

Once more, I was able to go into the shower, shower and come out without help again. That’s definite progress, right enough.

After my cleaner left, I began to think about what I needed to write for the introduction for the programme, and by the time that I was ready to knock off, all of the notes had been written – all three minutes and four seconds worth of them. There will still be some editing to do, I reckon.

Tea tonight was non-existent. I wasn’t in the mood, so I simply had a handful of biscuits, and now I’m thinking of going to bed, ready to begin the next radio programme tomorrow.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about silence … "well, one of us has" – ed … a woman in church whispered to her husband "I’ve just broken wind silently. It’s one of those “silent but deadly” ones. What do you think I should do?"

"If I were you" said her husband, "the first thing that I would do would be to switch your hearing aid back on."

Tuesday 18th August 2026 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… day this has been. If I were to think about it, I would say that this has been one of the worst days so far.

It started off badly yesterday evening when I fell asleep while trying to write up my notes and had to haul myself physically into bed. And during the night it didn’t get any better.

As usual, I was asleep fairly quickly too, but also, as usual, not for long. I was soon awake again thanks to yet another enormous coughing fit and I couldn’t go back to sleep. I kept on seeing a vision of a phantom hand creeping around the open door of the bedroom heading for my throat, and then realising that it was mine!

At some point, I must have gone off to sleep because I awoke with Seren’s alarm going off, and then all three of us had to stay marooned until we were rescued (this is what I mean about hallucinations and everything like that creeping into my dreams).

I was with another group of people, and it was near Christmas, so we had come away to a city for a city break for a few days. We’d had a good walk around and seen everything, but all down the side of one street, under a scaffolding, was a huge, long row of people, probably two thousand people, all queuing there for something. The queue began in the square at the bottom of the hill but went all the way back up. Some guy from Brittany Ferries had rung me, but I wasn’t there to answer it, so he left a message for me to call him again, which I forgot. He rang me eventually, and he wanted to know what we were going to do about this five-thousand-pound bill. I asked, “what five-thousand-pound bill?” It turned out that someone, whose name he gave me, had bought a ticket to go to the Isles of Scilly for five thousand pounds, and that just didn’t sound right at all. I thought that the Scilly Isles weren’t that far away – it’s not going to cost anything like that, so what’s the going on? The guy who came to see me, a nice young lad whose birthday was roughly the same as mine, told me that they don’t know but they want to deal with this matter urgently. So standing in the street leaning against the wall of a shop, we talked about it, and in the end, we all went down the hill to the centre and back up … fell asleep here … so we all went down into town but couldn’t find a Royal Bank of Scotland, so we came back up again and it was there on the left, so we went into it. A woman came to see the three of us, but just then, the alarm went off.

The alarm going off just there wiped our dream completely, and I was really disappointed in that.

There were a few other bits and pieces that I subsequently remembered, such as my chat with that guy taking place over the ‘phone at my place, but the volume on the turntable was such that no one could hear a word, so we met in town, and all those people were queuing, but there was absolutely no indication of what they were queuing for, not like in Poland when I was there with my coach in the days of the Communists and the long queues of people outside the shops.

After sorting myself out in the bathroom, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to see if there was anything else on it but there wasn’t. That one dream was it today.

While I was waiting for the nurse, I was sorting out a free kick in my mind, but further play was impossible once the Nurse turned up. He sorted out my legs and feet, and, at the same time, we discussed my spell at dialysis yesterday. He didn’t offer any useful suggestion about how to improve them, which is unfortunate, seeing as before being an itinerant nurse, he was a nurse in the dialysis centre of St Malo.

After he’d left, I turned to making my breakfast of porridge, toast and coffee. Well, it should have been toast, but I’d forgotten to take the bread out of the freezer so I have to toast some rye bread instead.

While I was eating, I was reading some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

We should have been reading more of the book, but I was side-tracked once more by some interesting information that came out in one of his paragraphs, and I was off doing some research into the matter, that is, when I wasn’t falling asleep.

Back in here, there were the usual things to do and then I attacked the rest of the notes from yesterday. Being so tired didn’t help, as I was constantly falling asleep – at one point slamming my face really hard into the desk. A job of maybe forty-five minutes turned into one of well over two hours, and not even the midday disgusting drink and medication could improve matters.

My cleaner came round as usual to do her stuff and she chased me under the shower again. I managed to climb into the shower and climb out unaided too. At least I’m getting better in that respect.

After the shower, we concentrated on the medication, ready to make a new order. Last month’s supply is running out and I’ll be stuck if we don’t order any sometime soon.

When the cleaner left, I started on the next radio programme. This isn’t going to be a complicated one, but I made it so because of all of this tiredness where I was dropping off to sleep all the time. At some point, my wanderings took me to Sandbach and Middlewich before I could shake myself awake again.

Anyway, I’ve done as much as I want to today, even though it’s early. I’m not making myself any food tonight, just going to bed and hoping that I can sleep all of this off by tomorrow, although that’s going to be unlikely.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about sleeping … "well, one of us has" – ed … I remember talking to an old colleague of mine once.

"You know" he said. "There’s nothing nicer than falling asleep after a hard day’s work, and then waking up and kissing the lips of the gorgeous person next to you"
"And what happens when you do?" I enquired
"Well, I’m having to find a different way home now. They aren’t going to let me back on my bus again"

Tuesday 11th August 2026 – FOR A LITTLE …

… while, things seemed to be going better today than they had been yesterday, not that that was ever likely to be difficult.

So having abandoned my notes last night, I was in bed by 22:00 or thereabouts, but it took an absolute age to go off to sleep, despite how tired I was feeling. And once I was finally asleep, it wasn’t for long. I’ve no idea what time I awoke, but the car park light was still on, so it was before 02:30.

Once awake, I lay there in a daze, drifting in and out of sleep from time to time and not being absolutely sure of which was which.

When the alarm went off, I was on my way to pick up an old American schoolbus so that I could start doing my round of delivering alcohol now that Prohibition has ended. But I didn’t get very far into that before the alarm awoke me.

A friend of mine, Rhys, who is a regular reader of this rubbish, actually owns an old school bus that he is slowly converting into a mobile home. And appropriately, his “day job” is driving a school bus for his local education authority in South Carolina, not that Prohibition figures all that much in whatever he does.

At that moment, I was feeling rather wretched, and as usual, it took me a while to summon up the energy to leave the bed and head into the bathroom. And having spent a lot of time sorting myself out in the bathroom, I came back in here to see what else might be on the dictaphone.

Some friends from school and I had decided that we’d go out for a Christmas meal, so someone had booked eight or nine places at this kind-of restaurant place. I remember going there last year for a Christmas meal, and it wasn’t very satisfactory, mainly because the menu wasn’t properly prepared and there were bits here, bits there and bits somewhere else, so I thought that this evening, I’d go to have a look at the menu. One of my friends came in with me, and there was another one waiting by the door for someone else. So we went to look at this menu, and sure enough, the twenty-second of the month, the menu still hadn’t been properly prepared. I was having to try to argue with the staff about whether “this” would be available on Christmas Day or whether “that” would be available and what other options they would have for someone whose diet is pretty restricting. But this restaurant was one of these ones that was always in the dark and gloomy, and it’s very upmarket with a pub bar right in the centre of the room. They are trying their best to run it as a pub and restaurant, but it’s going to be difficult to try to combine the two.

Where this restaurant is situated, I have no idea. It doesn’t ring any kind of bell with me. However, I have been to plenty of pubs and restaurants where hasty recruiting, crammed venues and an excess of clients, followed by a “certain group” of kids from our school who were determined to spike the enjoyment of as many people as possible, led to unsatisfactory Christmas meals.

Isabelle the Nurse zoomed in, and I told her about the confusion yesterday at the dialysis centre. She was frankly appalled by the laxity over the question of my weight. But then again, she’s a former accident and emergency nurse, so the rules about recording medication, etc., are obviously much more strict there.

After she left, I could make my breakfast and read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

Well, once more, I actually didn’t. I was again caught short and ended up reading page after page of research. Not that it brought me much nearer what I was hoping to find, but I hoped that I’d be making progress somehow, somewhere.

Back in here, there were the usual things that needed doing, and they took some time today. And then, when they were out of the way, I could start to make my plans for this radio programme.

One thing that I needed was some music, so I had to search in all the likely and then the unlikely places on the internet until I found it. And that took hours. Not in the least because between about 11:50 and 13:00, I crashed out completely and definitively.

Even worse, ten minutes later, I crashed out again, and my face slammed right into the keyboard and my desk. And how that hurt! But at least the flow of adrenaline that resulted from the crash seemed to awaken me, and I carried on from there.

One thing that I learned was that either yesterday or the day before, not once but twice, my web pages have been used as a reference to answer a question in ChatGPT. I forget now how many times that has happened, but it seems that my tactic of introducing well-known but long-forgotten facts from old books into the internet seems to be paying off.

At 14:00 I had a visitor. Madame la Présidente of the Residents’ Committee came to see me. Apparently she’s put her apartment up for sale and is moving to St Nazaire to be near her family. That’s a shame because she’s actually quite nice and I can’t ever thank her enough for tipping me the wink about this apartment coming up for sale. I was really grateful for her help.

She brought me some pineapple, which was nice of her, and she stayed for about an hour or so while we chatted about her move, life in this building, the new occupiers we’ve had these last few months, etc.

After she left, my faithful cleaner came down to do her stuff. First thing that she did, though, was to chase me into the shower. Showering these days is much easier than it used to be. Once she’s organised the fittings, etc., I can go in and come out of the shower on my own. I’ve managed that now for the last three or four showers.

Interestingly, the other times that I’ve come out of the shower, I’ve had to come out backwards. Today, though, without even thinking about it, I came out forwards and even dried myself standing up, without having to sit on a chair.

After my cleaner left, I went into the kitchen to make two bread rolls and then came back in here to carry on.

At teatime today, I had the other half of my broccoli stalk soup from last week, with those tiny pasta elbows and my two piping hot fresh bread rolls. And as usual, it was absolutely delicious. I really shall have to make some more at some point, although I need to start eating the florets. I seem to have gathered quite a mountain of those over a period of time.

Having been given some pineapple earlier, for pudding I had pineapple with homemade ice cream. And that was what I call ‘really delicious’ too. I’m hoping that it will be just as nice tomorrow evening when I can have a second helping.

After tea, I washed up and then came back in here to do some more work, and then I began to write my notes. I’d done about half an hour, I suppose, and then the next thing that I remember was that it was 22:15. I’d crashed out in my chair yet again.

When I looked at what I had written, it seemed to degenerate towards the end, and I was typing all kinds of nonsense that bore no resemblance to what had gone on. It was full of spelling mistakes and typing errors too. That was when I decided to delete whatever didn’t look right, post the rest online and then clear off to bed.

Falling asleep on the porcelain horse didn’t help much either, so it was quite late when I finally crawled into bed – much later than I’d been hoping. I’ll never catch up on my beauty sleep like this.

One interesting thing, though, was that regular readers of this rubbish will recall a few days ago that I wrote about menthol and eucalyptus. While I was rummaging around in the drawers in the kitchen earlier today, I came across a couple of packets of menthol and eucalyptus sweets that I bought years ago from LIDL.

When I went to bed tonight, I opened a packet and took a couple with me to bed. Once I was in bed, I put one of the sweets in my mouth and sucked it for what seemed like ages. And to my surprise, my coughing immediately subsided. This is something worth knowing and remembering.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about artificial intelligence and ChatGPT … "well, one of us has" – ed … I’ve been confusing my own chatbot again. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … these chatbots have absolutely no sense of humour.
Last night, I asked my chatbot "what’s the difference between Nigel Garbage and Count Binface?"
My chatbot then set out to give me a huge list of differences, supported by evidence and links.
"No" I replied. "one is a comedy figure, a parody of a politician who has turned politics into a comedy show, who isn’t to be taken seriously and shouldn’t be allowed to stand for Parliament."
"And the other?" asked my chatbot.
"Oh, he’s a man disguised as a dustbin."

Tuesday 4th August 2026 – I HAVE HAD …

… a much better day today than any other day in the very recent past. I’m not sure why, though, because it isn’t as if I’ve had any more sleep than usual.

Believe it or not, by the time that I made it into bed last night, it was after midnight. Long after midnight too. I mustn’t ‘arf ‘ave been letting it all hang out last night. But once in bed, I was asleep quite quickly, lying in the position that seems to ease my coughing.

However, round about 03:30, I was awoken yet again by one of these phantom alarm calls that I’ve been having just recently. And once more, it seemed so real that I almost climbed out of bed with it at that point. Although it was fairly cool in here, I was drenched in sweat for some reason. That’s not easily explained.

Once I’d realised that the alarm call was a phantom call and there was no alarm going off anywhere else … "and just who else would have a BILLY COTTON alarm call?" – ed … I tried to go back to sleep, but without much avail at first.

During the period in which I was awake, I checked the time a few times. I saw 05:20, and then the next thing that I remember was 05:50. Then 06:09 and I thought that I’d get up in a few seconds once I’d relaxed, but the alarm going off at 06:29 scuppered that idea.

As usual, it took me a few minutes to summon up the energy and the motivation to go into the bathroom … "but not as much as usual, surprisingly" – ed … but once I’d finished, I came back in here to find out where I’d been during the night.

Seren and I were doing something around the house when Nerina turned up. We decided to show her what we’d been doing, which was to build a game something like Snakes and Ladders where you advance down a street towards the town centre or you are derailed up side streets and sent backwards. We developed some kind of kiddies’ slide to slide the die down to tell us the number, but for some reason, I couldn’t fit underneath the bar so I had to stand and watch. Then, the coin or admission token didn’t work very well and we needed to give it quite a bit of force to make it move, and then the water in the watermill would come over and … fell asleep here …

Surprisingly, this would not be the first dice game that I invented. After Roxanne had been to see the film “Jumanji”, I invented a game called “Jumanji”. Our floor where we lived, throughout all the apartment, was tiled. We chose six of her favourite stuffed toys and numbered them from one to six. We put them at the start line by the French windows in the living room and we then threw a die. If the die came up with, say, a “four”, we’d move stuffed toy number four forward one tile, and so on. The first stuffed toy to reach the window in Roxane’s room was the winner.

Interestingly, the two cats played too. Each would have his or her turn “throwing” (or batting around the room) the die, and when we eventually found it, the number on the upper face would tell us which stuffed toy to move.

It was all totally anarchic.

As for the rest of the dream, it deteriorates into the usual nonsense.

Did I finish that dictation from the previous one about the die? It would slide down a kiddies’ slide thing and tell us the number but we’d made it a bit more complicated than it should be and the first two occasions that we tried it, the die shot off the end and disappeared off up the far end of the kitchen

“We’d made it a bit more complicated than it should be”… "nothing new there, then." – ed …

But it seems that at some point, I stepped back into that first dream and even managed to present us with a different ending.

Isabelle the Nurse came round as usual. I told her about Monday at dialysis and she told me to “take it easy” this morning. Chance would be a fine thing.

After she’d left, I made breakfast and while I was eating, I was reading some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

Today, I’ve not really found any controversy in anything that he’s written. But that might be because I was side-tracked quite a few times. There were several occasions where I’d skipped into the situation of the church at Barthomley, Heighley Castle near Keele and the old racecourse at Woore.

And on a few other occasions, I was off with the Black Prince on his chevauchée around Western France during the opening days of the Hundred Years War.

Back in here, there were a few things to do, as usual, and then I made another start on the radio notes. They weren’t easy either because a lot of the artists and albums are new to my programmes so I have to prepare their notes right from the very beginning.

There were several interruptions too, such as the disgusting drink break and the arrival of my faithful cleaner to do her stuff. And while she was at it, she chased me under the shower and I was able to have a good scrub-up and make myself look pretty.

One more, I needed no help to go into the shower and none for helping out either, so I was in the bathroom all on my own. It meant that I could even go into the shower as nature intended.

Once all of the notes were completed … "as indeed they were" – ed … I could make a start on the next radio programme.

This one is going to be a concert so it’s much easier to work. But where editing the sounds and the tracks of the concerts might sometimes be difficult, I managed to do that before I knocked off for tea. So “press on boldly” tomorrow to write the notes.

Tea tonight was a taco roll with rice and veg, and I made a different filling tonight. Apart from the usual tomato, mushrooms, onions and garlic, we had lentils, spinach and bulgur. And it was totally delicious. It made a nice change, and there’s still some left for next week.

So now that everything is finished, I’ll be going to bed ready for a good day’s work tomorrow.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about mushrooms … "well, one of us has" – ed … A lady wanted to make steak and mushrooms for a dinner she was giving, but when she saw the price of mushrooms, she abandoned the idea.
Her husband told her "go and pick some in the field, from down by the river. I’ve seen all kinds of animals eating them so they must be okay"
She goes down to the river and picks a basketful and hands them to the cook to prepare the meal. When the cook thinks that the meal is ready, she gives some of it to Rover the Dog. Then she dishes up the food to the guests and the host and hostess.
Half an hour later she goes back into the dining room. "I’m afraid Rover the dog is dead, ma’am."
"Ohh God, no!" she exclaims. "Did he have any of that meal we ate?"
"Yes ma’am, he did."
So in a wild panic she calls the emergency services and a fleet of ambulances takes the guests to hospital to have their stomachs pumped.
A couple of hours later, still feeling weak and groggy, they go back to the host and hostess’s house. There, they are met by the cook.
"I was telling you about Rover when you all dashed off like that" she said. "And do you know what? The car that hit him never even stopped."

Tuesday 28th July 2026 – MY CLEANER IS …

… a heroine, I’ll tell you that.

Leclerc’s drive-in didn’t have in stock the vegan cream cheese that I love when I made my order last Friday, and so I asked her if, when she goes to the Leclerc supermarket the next time, she can look out for a couple of packs.

While I was looking for an old, empty pack for her to photograph, I came across a really ancient empty pack of vegan Boursin spreading cheese that I had bought one Christmas a long time ago and thought was wonderful, so, even though it was years ago that I’d bought it and hadn’t seen it in the supermarket since, I asked her to keep an eye out for that too, just in case.

And so, just after 14:00, she came into the apartment to do her stuff, not only carrying two packs of vegan cream cheese, not only carrying two packs of vegan Boursin but also a pack of another type of vegan spreading cheese made by the same company that made the vegan Boursin.

For the next few weeks, on Friday nights as I’m watching the football and eating my savoury biscuits, I shall be regaling myself with the toppings that I’ll be spreading on them.

It’s a pity that I couldn’t regale myself with anything during the night, because it was a long, hard slog. Totally exhausted and falling asleep before I’d even hit the pillow, it was 21:45 when I finally crawled into bed. And how much was I needing that?

However, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s pointless going to bed early, because all it means is that I wake up correspondingly early the following morning. Like 01:23, for example.

That really put the tin hat on just about everything. Having this awful cough come back is one thing – disturbing me and waking me up is another.

So I lay there, coughing my insides out, slowly looking at the day beginning to dawn, and then I must have gone off to sleep because the next thing that I remember was the alarm going off at 06:29.

There have been days when I simply haven’t felt like getting up at all, and this wasn’t far short of one of those. And although I felt dreadful, little by little I began to feel a bit more human. It took me a very long time, though, to make it into the bathroom.

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

We were at the beginning of World War II, and the Germans were invading Belgium. In the absence of any news, they asked me if I would take a patrol of people under cover and survey the battlefield and where all the German troops are. It sounded like a complicated, difficult and almost impossible task. There was a German prisoner at Headquarters so I asked for him to come along too, for no other reason than if there was going to be a disaster, there wouldn’t have been anyone better-suited to share it with us. We had to dress in uniform and then with overalls on top, like we were from a tank or something. Then we were studying maps of what we knew so far. I was in charge of the fire-watching in the cathedral. For me, it was in the crypt underneath, so I wanted to spray the materials and everything like that with water so it wouldn’t catch alight. But one of the things was that they had a rare set of encyclopaedias going back to the end of the eighteenth century and I didn’t want that to become wet or to catch fire, so people were laughing and joking with me about the possible consequences thereof. In the end, we set out on this mission and we arrived eventually at a café that was still in Belgian hands, and everyone there was having a drink or a moan or a chat. I happened to mention to the landlady that we were looking to connect up to the German forces, and we noticed a couple of ears pricking up at one of the tables and the two men sitting there left rather hurriedly

Just recently, I’ve spent a lot of time in various crypts, reading the current breakfast-time book. But I can’t recall fire ever having been an issue with any of them.

The ending of this dream, however, reminds me of the Hobbits in the bar at Bree and the stranger there, as recorded in LORD OF THE RINGS

Apart from that, nothing else seems to ring a bell, although it would be the kind of thing that would make an interesting book.

There had been another one of these parties at someone’s house miles away, and as I was on my travels, I decided that I’d pass by there. However, I was on my old red 50cc moped so it took me quite a while to get there. The people there weren’t really having too much of a good time – it was a very relaxed kind of social gathering – and I didn’t know anyone there. There was just me in my car? Then the hostess came along to collect details of when people were leaving. Most people were leaving on Friday but others would be leaving on the Sunday, so I told her that I’d be leaving on the Sunday evening and she made a note of that. The reason was that the car in which I was, the Land Rover, had been left at Berchtesgarten by someone else who wasn’t there. Anyway, I set off and … fell asleep here …

There have been a few of these “party” dreams just recently. However, unsociable creature that I am, I wouldn’t be going to all that many in real life.

“Then the hostess came along to collect details of when people were leaving” – just as a nurse does at dialysis so that she can ring up the taxi companies. It’s an everyday routine there.

As for Berchtesgarten and the Land Rover, I have no idea how they came to figure in this at all. It’s a shame that I fell asleep just as it was becoming interesting.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up as usual to soothe my fevered brow and to sort out my legs and feet. We chatted about the fire yesterday, La Havaudière and other fires, and then she pushed off.

Once she’d gone, I could read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

We’ve now moved on from the Arabic (with the usual derogatory comments) to discussing his evidently favourite period – the Gothic period. And we’re not even a dozen lines in when we have "the forms that had their root in an age of persecution joyfully surrender their supremacy to those which breathed the spirit of a Church triumphant alike over heathendom without, and secular oppression within. We shall see how they built who bore alike the spear and the crozier in her holy cause ; when ” the praises of GOD were in their mouth and a two-edged sword in their hands."

Bearing a spear and a “two-edged sword in their hands” is hardly a Christian attitude, what with “thou shalt not kill” and all of that. But when we have ministers of the church married two or three or even more times after various divorces, you have to understand that the Christian religion has very little whatever to do with the words of Jesus.

Back in here, I had a few more things to do, and then I wrote out my notes from yesterday. And that took longer than it ought to have done too, due to me drifting in and out of sleep for most of the morning.

After I had finished and everything was on-line, I relaxed in my chair for a while, and the next thing that I remembered was that it was now 13:05. I must have been asleep for an age.

Once I’d recovered my enthusiasm and energy, I went to sort out the bathroom. And when my cleaner arrived, bearing gifts as I mentioned earlier, she chased me under the shower. And actually, now that I can go in and come out of the shower all on my own, today I had my first-ever shower in the altogether. And that was nice too.

After she left, I had a second disgusting drink and then started to track down the music that I need for this next radio programme. And this will be difficult as the search motor that I use is currently offline.

Rosemary rang me for a chat in the middle of it all. Just a mere fifty-five minutes today – we’re obviously losing our touch.

For tea tonight, I lengthened the leftovers from the taco roll stuffing from last week and made another taco roll with rice and veg. And that was really nice too. I seem to be eating much better these days. Mind you, a few weeks ago, I wasn’t eating anything at all.

So right now I’m off to bed, hoping for a better sleep than yesterday.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the lack of Christianity in the church these days … "well, one of us has" – ed … an old man walked into a church wearing tatty, threadbare clothes. The preacher was outraged and told the man "before you come into this church again, have a good talk with God and ask him what attire you should be wearing to come into this church!"
Next week, the old man was back, still in the same threadbare clothes.
"I thought I told you to have a good talk with God about your attire before you came back!"
"I did," he replied "but God said that he didn’t have a clue. He’s never been in this place before."

Tuesday 21st July 2026 – THE ALARM DIDN’T

… go off this morning. Mind you, there was a good reason for that. I’d switched it off because a few minutes before it was due, I was sitting on the edge of the bed with my feet on the floor. I wasn’t doing any more than that, but it was enough to claim an “early start”.

Thinking about it, though, it’s not really all that much of an early start. When you go to bed at about 20:30, being up just before 06:29 means something not far short of ten hours in bed.

And 20:30 it was when I went to bed last night. I’d hardly begun the notes from yesterday too but this wave of fatigue that turned up simply overwhelmed me and there was no escape.

When the alarm sounded, I reluctantly threw off the covers and picked up the ‘phone in order to switch off the alarm, only to find that the time actually was only 01:30 and the phone’s alarm wasn’t sounding at all

There have been a few times just recently when I’ve been awoken by a phantom alarm call. Yet it sounds so realistic so I really don’t know what to make of it.

One thing was for certain though, and that was that I couldn’t go back to sleep. I lay there for a few hours silently wishing that I could fall into the arms of Morpheus but with no success. Eventually, though, I managed to slide into that state of flux where I’m half asleep and half awake, although not always at the same time.

When I finally awoke, it was 06:09, so I decided that I’d give myself a couple of minutes and then leave the bed. Unfortunately it was rather more than a couple of minutes, but I still managed to beat the alarm this morning.

After a trip to the bathroom to sort myself out, I came back in here to listen to whatever else was on the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

It was getting close to Christmas Eve and I’d gone somewhere to spend Christmas. There was a whole group of us, including several people whom I knew from the EU. We were having something of a good time but it was getting late so I thought that I’d better start to make tea. I selected a few things here and there and made a start. In the meantime, there was an enormous row in the living room between a couple. The husband shouted out “right, well, I’ll go and make tea then!” He came into the kitchen, saw me cooking and just threw my stuff onto the floor. We had a huge row about that, which, shall we say, was “inconclusive”. I walked out of the kitchen, and I was just so angry that I couldn’t calm down for ten minutes. In the end, I went for a walk around. In the square or centre of one of these arcades where two big roads crossed, there was some kind of entertainment. People were doing magic and such. There was a huge crowd watching them. As I walked around the edge of the crowd, I noticed that one of them was a petite girl in a dark blue raincoat. I went over to her to chat and then I asked her if she would like to come for a walk. We had a good walk around and then she had to go. I went back reluctantly to where we were staying. That guy and his wife had gone but there was still some food left, and one or two of my friends had bought pizzas so we had a little bit of a picnic. But I remembered that girl saying that she’d meet me again at 21:00 somewhere on the south side of this crowd. About 20:30 I walked off. I was hanging around for a while there and then we both spotted each other. She’d changed her clothes so it was confusing. We went for a drive in the car, my old Zephyr 6, and I apologised to her for being dressed like this, telling her that I should have been dressed more regally, which made her laugh. In the end, I drove her home and gave her a kiss. I explained that I was having to go home, which was 500 miles but I’d still like to see her. She replied “why not come to see me on Sunday?” and she mentioned a time.

So where was my family last night? In the past, just as I was always about to Get the Girl, my family would turn up and throw a spanner in the works. But not last night. In fact it all seems to have worked in my favour for once.

The idea of this big group of people is nothing new either. When I first joined the EU, we newcomers were put in a group together. and a bunch of us would go out and do things like ice skating, playing tennis and the like. Gradually, though, we all paired off and I spent a pleasant few months in the company of a Greek girl, which was nice.

The disastrous kitchen scene has no parallel in real life but I can see why it was so upsetting.

The story about “hanging around” refers to an incident involving the Co-op in Denver Avenue, Crewe, something that might become clear to you all in due course, and I did once have a Zephyr 6, one of the big MkIV models.

There’s probably a load more mileage in that dream too.

The nurse turned up today, later than usual, and chatted away about nothing in particular as he dealt with my legs and feet. After he left, I could push on and make breakfast.

While I was eating, I was reading some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

We’re still in Romanesque Norman Northern France and Britain, but today he’s avoiding controversy. That’s partly because I’ve not read much of the book today. He’s mentioned quite a list of obscure examples of this period of construction so I’ve been looking them up and finding out what I can about them.

Back in here afterwards, I started on the notes from yesterday and they are all online now. It was perfectly timed, because it was just about the correct moment for a disgusting drink break and the midday medication.

My faithful cleaner turned up as usual after lunch, and she shooed me into the shower. And today, I climbed in on my own and climbed out too. I’m getting much better at this.

After she left, I made a start on tracking down some music that I need for the next radio programme. There will be some really obscure stuff on there too so it took ages to get as far as I have done today, and there’s still plenty to go.

Tea tonight was a taco roll with rice and veg. and I found to my dismay that the stuffing that I’d taken out of the freezer for the taco roll wasn’t stuffing at all, so I had to make some more. And it really was nice too, lentils, tomatoes, mushrooms, onion and garlic in a spicy tomato sauce.

It was followed by two slices of my fruit bread, which was also very nice.

So right now, I’m off to bed, much later than I wanted it to be, but nothing unusual there.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the shower … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of the two girls from Crewe, one of whom had just climbed into the shower.
"I forgot to ask you – can you bring me the shampoo" she said
"I’ve already put it in there" replied the other
"I know" she replied "but that’s for dry hair. Mine’s soaking wet now."

Tuesday 14th July – HAPPY QUATORZE JUILLET …

… today’s the anniversary of the day when the French peasants stormed the Bastille, the notorious prison in Paris.

The Bastille was originally a fortress built during the Hundred Years War to protect the eastern approaches of Paris from attacks by the English but later on, it was used as a prison. It was also used as a military storehouse, with a large quantity of gunpowder and weapons kept there. The aim of the attackers was to capture these stores and also release the prisoners there.

In respect of the prisoners, they were somewhat disappointed, for they only found seven, and none of them were of any significance.

In contrast to that, very little of what happened during my night last night was lacking in significance. I’d gone to bed at round about 23:00, and I’d fallen asleep quite quickly. But not for long, though. I was wide awake at 00:20, again at 01:45 and a third time at 03:05.

That last time, I didn’t think that I’d ever go back to sleep afterwards, no matter how I tried, but I must have done at some point because when the alarm went off at 06:29, it rocked me to my foundations.

There was the usual struggle for me to rise to my feet, but eventually, I made it into the bathroom to sort myself out.

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

I dreamed that Seren had to go to dialysis, so she started, and when she arrived there, they asked her about her name and everything, and then they connected her up. After just over three hours, they found that it hadn’t made much difference because the weight still left to remove was almost as much as she started with. And she had a cough, which went right down to her chest, and it was the cough that awoke me, but she was still at dialysis being dialysed when she coughed.

Having to go to dialysis is not something that I would wish on anyone, especially when it fails so spectacularly as it did in the dream.

But the coughing fit is easy to explain. I had a couple of those during the night, although they weren’t as much of a problem as the usual coughing fits are, so I don’t think that they are related.

I went to turn on the desk light so that I could sit and work at the computer, but for some reason, the desk light didn’t come on. I tried by changing the plugs, etc., but it still didn’t work. Then, I noticed that a couple of other things weren’t working either. In the end, I switched on the main bedroom light and that worked so I carried on doing what I was doing. A little later, when there had been no resolution to any of this, I went into the living room. There was my little sister, curled up in a ball on the sofa reading a book. I noticed that her light was off too so I asked her about it. She said that it switched itself off about fifteen minutes ago and hasn’t come back on, so she was just sitting there waiting. I don’t know what happened after that because the dream ended.

It would be interesting to know why, in my room, the power sockets didn’t work but the computer was running and why, in the living room, it was the main lights that had gone out. Still, you don’t expect logic in my dreams, do you?

As for my sister, I’m not sure why she’s there. I’m trying to keep my family away from my subconscious mind.

There was some kind of café last night. The nurse who dealt with me yesterday, she was in charge of it. I was a customer there, but I noticed that the menu was extremely restricted because they were busy preparing all of the machines for the season. Then the place was formally opened by Doctor Amy Nelson, but the dream drifted away again here.

It seems that I’m not having much luck with my dreams – fading away like this. But who is Doctor Amy Nelson when she’s at home, if she ever is?

Isabelle the Nurse is now off on her break so it was her oppo who came round to see me today, telling me about his week’s break, down in Italy and on the Côte d’Azur. On his way back, he stayed in Clermont-Ferrand, and that made me quite jealous and I began to pine for the Auvergne.

After he left, I could make breakfast and read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

And having now left behind the “horrors” of Roman and Asian architecture in order to turn his attention to Byzantium, he’s now reverted to his original target of the “heathens”. "Unfortunately the great majority of those who investigate what is called ” classic ground ” devote their whole attention to the remains of heathen antiquity, to the utter exclusion of monuments which are of the highest importance in architectural history, and which may in many cases have been the actual seat of some of the most renowned fathers of the Church … The associations which bind us to the early Eastern Church, the names of her great Bishops and Doctors, seem to be held as nothing compared with the smallest fragment of worn-out heathendom. This exclusive care for what is pagan is at once a mark of an irreligious tendency, and of a forgetfulness of the real nature and value of art."

It’s rather sad to see this kind of polemic in a book like this. I know that it was written in the 1840s but nevertheless, I was expecting much better.

Back in the bedroom, I had a few things to do, but unfortunately, I crashed out and didn’t come round until about 11:15. And then, it took me a good while before I was ready to start work again.

So once the World had stopped spinning round, I turned my attention to the radio programme that I’d started yesterday. Now all of the music has been chosen, reformatted and re-edited, paired and segued, and I’ve even written the notes for some of it. I’ll push on and finish it tomorrow, if I don’t fall asleep for too long during the day.

There was the odd interruption or two during the afternoon, the most important of which was my faithful cleaner coming round to do her stuff. And while she was at it, she shooed me under the shower for a good scrub-up and hairwash, not that I have very much hair to wash these days.

And once again, not only did I go into the shower without any help, I managed to come out of it too, all alone. That’s definitely progress from my point of view and I shall have to keep on practising.

Tea tonight was a taco roll with the rest of the filling that I’d made last week. There wasn’t much of it, so I had to lengthen it, for which I used some mushrooms, tomato and onion. It was all on a plate with rice and vegetables and it tasted really nice. It’s definitely a meal to remember.

But now, I’m afraid that I’m off to bed, to try to have a decent night’s sleep. It’s cooled down somewhat, so you never know. I might be lucky.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the Bastille … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of my friends asked me "Why did the French storm the Bastille on the fourteenth of July?"
"The answer to that is quite simple" I replied. "Seeing as it was a Bank Holiday and all the shops were likely to be closed, and before the days of football and television, they probably had nothing better to do."

Tuesday 7th July 2026 – AND SO, AFTER …

… all of the problems that I had last night, I was back in bed at 21:45.

But that wasn’t without incident either. Just as I was closing the bedroom window, I came nose-to-nose with a neighbour who stuck her head in the way. She’d seen me as she was walking past and wanted to know how I was, which was nice of her. I told her that I had my good days and my not-so-good days and we had a little chat for several minutes.

It’s nice to chat to people, especially friends and neighbours, but I really was wasted by the time that I crawled into bed afterwards.

For a change, it took a while to drop off, but once I’d gone, I’d gone and that was that. There I stayed, dead to the World, until all of … errr … 03:00 when we had another dramatic awakening.

After that, I couldn’t go back to sleep, and round about 05:30, I was giving serious consideration to leaving the bed and doing some more dictating. However, just at that moment, the bin lorries came to empty the subterranean dustbins that we have here. And as well as emptying, they were cleaning them too, so we had a continual racket going on for over half an hour.

After the noise had died down and the lorries had gone, I looked at the time. It was 06:25, four minutes before the alarm. As I was thinking about maybe I should make an early start, the alarm beat me to it, and so that was that.

Eventually I managed to find the courage and energy to go to sort myself out in the bathroom and then I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out if I had been anywhere during the night.

There were three of us, and we were going around following carpet fitters to see what jobs they did and how much money they earned. We had a whole pile of papers that we’d made up, full of jobs and all that kind of thing, and set out to visit the people concerned who’d had the work done. I was annoyed though because it was not being done in any kind of organised way – it was a case of who we encountered first. I wanted it to be much more organised than that. We’d knocked on a few doors but no-one was in, and although we were joking amongst ourselves, it was very difficult to keep our momentum. Then we knocked on a house, and it was a woman whom we all knew from Crewe. She invited us in and showed us around the work that had been done. It cost £32,000, which I thought was a ridiculous amount but she seemed to be quite happy paying that so I didn’t really say very much. In the end, she paid us for whatever we were doing. Then, there was a whole load of more information through which we had to wade, through which we should have waded right at the beginning, I thought, one of which was to go and stand outside some kind of gents’ public lavatory somewhere. The girl who was in charge nominated me to do that. I said that I’d take the other guy with me but she replied that he was too young and I had to go to do it myself. We all made various jokes and laughed about it but I still thought that we were doing everything the wrong way round. We should stop what we are doing and start again, but do it much more organised

Can you imagine me complaining about someone being disorganised? That would remind most of my acquaintances about an old story involving a pot and a kettle.

But as for the carpet fitters, I read a newspaper article about carpet fitters yesterday at dialysis, but it wasn’t much and I can’t believe that it’s stuck in my mind like this. But where the public lavatory comes in, I’ve no idea.

Isabelle the Nurse was her usual cheerful self this morning, so we had a little chat while she sorted me out. And after she left, I could make breakfast.

While I was eating it, I was reading some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

Today, we’ve had the most strange encounter and exchange of viewpoints in his writing. For someone who was going on and on earlier about how much he hated “post and beam” architecture, the simple, massive architecture of the Egyptians and Persians and praising the Greeks for being much more artistic, he tells us that "The Doric column varies in height from four diameters to six and a half, the measurement being taken at the base. The older examples, as the temples of Zeus and Hercules at Agrigentum, are the most massive, having the inter columniations small, and the entablature proportionably heavy. The base is never added ; the post driven into the ground had no means of suggesting such a finish ; and besides this, the omission would seem altogether in the spirit of the style. The capital is equally simple, and is wonderfully effective. It is a simple ovolo under a plain, square, heavy abacus, a genuine tile, without moulding or ornament of any kind, which preserves most strictly the character of a distinct member"

From there, from someone who was most dismissive of Egyptian architecture, we have "The like is the case in the building called the Incantada at Thessalonica, but here the figures, which are of different sexes, and are most assuredly neither Caryatides nor Persians, but represent several mythological personages, are not the supports of the upper entablature, which rests on dwarf pilasters to which the statues are attached. This more closely resembles the mode in which such statues are employed in Egyptian architecture, and, as this building certainly belongs to no period of pure Grecian architecture, they might even have been an imitation of that style."

Mind you, he has his finger on the button elsewhere. It seems that it’s not at all just recently that there has been the controversy over the Elgin Marbles. When describing Greek temples, he tells us "The spaces between them, called metopes, are sometimes left plain, sometimes occupied by compositions of sculpture, such as the famous Elgin marbles, removed by a mistaken and barbarous antiquarianism from the only position in which they could possess value or interest"

Back in here again, I was reading an article about the Society of Saint Pius X, a schismatic breakaway order whose members left the Catholic Church in a dispute over the Church’s use of vernacular languages in its services instead of Latin.

They held a meeting the other day in Switzerland where “the ceremony was translated into six languages”. They obviously have no sense of irony whatsoever.

The morning was spent writing my notes from yesterday and putting them on line. There was a brief interruption when Rosemary rang for a chat. Just a short chat today – a mere fifty-two minutes. We’re obviously losing our touch.

My cleaner stuck her head into the apartment too. In Leclerc’s special offers this week, they had one of these car starter packs, with a built-in battery, jump leads, compressor and the like. I have a solar panel in here that I intend to fit to the window but I need a battery of some description to absorb the load. And so at just 39:95€, I sent her off on a mission and she duly returned with one of the aforementioned.

After I’d had my disgusting drink break, she came back down here to do her stuff. She also chased me under the shower so that now I’m a nice, clean boy … "well, clean, anyway" – ed …

And I surprised her too. Usually, she has to help me into and out of the shower, as I’m not very steady on my feet. These last few weeks, I’ve been managing to go into the shower on my own but today, not only did I go in alone, but I came out alone too. I was quite impressed by this, and so was she. We’re making progress, I reckon.

After she left, I made a start on choosing the music for the next radio programme. By the time that I was ready to knock off, I’d chosen all the music, reformatted and re-edited it and even begun to pair and segue some of it. I’ll finish the rest off tomorrow and write the notes if I can.

Tea tonight was a stir-fry of noodles, beansprouts, chick peas, mushrooms, garlic, onion and vegetables in butter and soy sauce. And delicious it was too.

So right now, having finished my notes, I’ll finish off for the night and go to bed. I have a hospital appointment tomorrow, which I could well do without, so we’ll see how that goes on.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the Elgin Marbles … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone once asked me "why are there pyramids in Egypt?"
And I replied "because they were too big to take to the British Museum."

Tuesday 30th June 2026 – IT’S BEEN A …

… strange day today, and it’s felt like another Sunday, although I don’t know why.

Mind you, I got off to a dreadful start. Late yet again going to bed and although I went to sleep quite quickly, it wasn’t for long. Round about 02:00, I awoke and, despite everything that I tried to do, I couldn’t go back to sleep. It was another night where I watched, through the gaps around the shutters, dawn slowly breaking.

When the alarm went off at 06:29, I was flat out asleep. And although I’ve talked in the past about having difficult starts to the day, I promise you that there has been no start more difficult than this morning’s.

It was after about fifteen minutes sitting on the edge of the bed that I realised that I was never going to be able to stand up. I’d fallen asleep, I don’t know how many times, while I was trying. In the end, I decided that this was pointless, set the alarm for 08:00, climbed back into bed and went back to sleep. I can count on the fingers of one hand how many times I’ve done that in the past.

When the alarm went off, I was actually awake but still in bed. Getting up was a little easier and then I went to sort myself out in the bathroom. Of course, the nurse had to come early today, and he caught me in flagrante delicto in the bathroom. He had to wait a few minutes before I was ready.

After he left, I festered and vegetated for a while, and then I plucked up the energy to make breakfast. While I was eating, I was reading some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

And off we go again. Having moaned at length about simple “post and beam” architecture, he carries on with "Such an one, as we shall hereafter see, is the architecture of Greece ; the earliest form of its column was a post driven into the ground or floor ; consequently a base for it to rest on could have no place until the original type was somewhat obliterated. We consequently find that the simplest and purest of the ancient orders is worked without that feature. Similarly in the Chinese architecture, which reproduces a tent just as the Grecian does a hut, (though an apology is due to the shades of Pericles and Pheidias for mentioning the two in one sentence,) the capital is wanting"

So “post and beam” architecture is no good, but a post without a beam is good if it’s Greek and bad if it’s Chinese.

Meanwhile, in respect of the ruins at Yucatán and other places in Central and South America, "The ruins however do not say much for the state of art among the people, whoever they may have been, to whom they owe their origin. They are essentially barbarous, and like all barbarous structures, seek to supply by cumbrous magnificence and superfluous ornament, the want of the higher beauties of grace and proportion. And we cannot fail to remark, even at the onset, that the same system of ornament which everywhere marks this stage of art is found here in great abundance. The ubiquitous chevron, which we have already seen at Mycense, meets us again at Uxmal and Chichen,"

Again, saying that the Aztec and Inca were barbarous is surely going way over the top.

It doesn’t seem to occur to him at all that the essence of “post and beam” architecture isn’t the art but the engineering. How did they move the big stones? How did they manage to raise the beams up to go on top of the posts? How did they do it so accurately? It’s all very well talking about art and decoration, but a huge part of the architecture is the effort that they put in, with the tools and equipment that they had (it’s easy to be artistic when you have the tools to do the work and the time in which to do it) to build it in the first place.

After another long relax, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone.

There was some kind of investigation going on, and Seren was being interviewed. The name “Daniel” cropped up in the interview so the policeman asked her whether it was Daniel Hobbs or Daniel something else. She said that it was Daniel Hobbs so the policeman or whoever it was said that he was probably the better one of the two because the other one was under investigation for wanting to be with one of the teachers. I thought to myself that if it’s now a crime to want to be with one of the teachers, half of the boys who went to the same school as me would have been in prison a long time ago alongside some blow-up effigies of Miss Beddowes and Miss Leitch.

I’ve long since come to the conclusion that I’m not cut out to live in the modern world. I grew up in the days when boys could chat up girls and girls would either laugh, tell you to clear off or give you a fourpenny one around the lughole. The way things are now, I’d have been locked up a long time ago.

However, as for Miss Leitch and Miss Beddowes at school …

I was in Coventry last night, walking around doing some late-night shopping before Christmas. I’d picked up a few things here and there, but one thing that I’d forgotten to do was to empty my shoulder bag from the last time that I went shopping, so there was already some heavy stuff in it. I fought my way through a few shops and then I thought that I’d go to the pub where we usually go as a crowd. In there were loads of people whom I knew. There was one particular girl who seemed as if she were in charge of it but she and I had a really good rapport there so we’d fool around for a bit. I was standing in the doorway talking to someone and she pushed past me so I went and pushed her. She leaned back against my head as she was pushing and I ended up on the floor, so she complained about it, about my nose sticking in her back. Someone pointed out “well, he’s lying on the floor now. He can’t be doing that. Eventually, I stood up and she fainted. Of course, she had everyone around her trying to revive her. It ended up that she had, in fact, had some problems. Of course, having a crowd around her was something that she always liked so I left them to it and went to see my friend, and we had a chat. Then I went back out to do some more shopping. It was all the way down Earle Street in Crewe. I bought some sweets of the kind that I usually like but for some reason, they tasted horrible today. I went back to the pub where we met but I couldn’t remember which was the door. Eventually, I found it and climbed upstairs to the pub. I showed my friend one or two things that I’d bought but she didn’t seem to be all that interested, so I hung around for a while and then headed off home. I was walking back through Coventry and came past the cathedral in the mist. It was a cold, dark night and it was misty, and I was carrying my shoulder bag with everything in it that I had bought. It was just so heavy that I didn’t think that I was even going to make it home. All of a sudden, I was violently sick with all of these sweets that I’d eaten that had tasted horrible.

As I was transcribing this dream, a lot came back to me that I hadn’t written. For example, at 21:00 on a winter evening in December, there were still several refugee children, aged three or four or even younger, begging in the streets. What I showed my friend was a kit or accessory of some kind that plugs into a mobile ‘phone. It needed soldering and had a price tag of £12:99 but I told her that I’d paid a “couple of quid” for it. And the ruined, bombed-out cathedral was at the end of a park, with a small park on the right and a lake on the left. It’s nothing like that at all in real life. And even though it’s a midwinter night, there are hordes of people sitting all over it.

But it was definitely Earle Street in Crewe. I can still see the “Cheese Hall” pub on the corner by the market hall. Heading back up to Market Street, there used to be Tiko’s bakery and café, then the Britannia Building Society and then the Army and Navy Stores. The door upstairs to the pub (that doesn’t exist in real life) was somewhere in between those three and whatever else might have been there.

There were a few things to do, and they took an Age as well, but I was eventually able to start work on the next radio programme.

The arrival of my cleaner interrupted me, though. She organised the bathroom and then chased me under the shower. And one thing that she noticed was that it seemed to be much easier for me to go into the shower and an awful lot easier for me to come out of it. She thinks that I’m improving, although I’m not sure why.

There was a break then for a disgusting drink and the midday medication (hours late) during which we had a chat, and then after she left, I came back in here to find a nice, clean bed waiting for me, complete with my galaxy and asteroid quilt cover and pillow cases that I bought for myself at Christmas.

So now all of the music for the radio programme has been chosen, remixed and re-edited and in some cases reformatted, paired and segued. I’ll write the notes tomorrow if I’m feeling better.

But right now, I’m off to bed. A nice, clean me … "well, clean anyway" – ed … in nice, clean bedclothes in a nice, clean bed. What more could I want, except maybe Jenny Agutter and Kate Bush to share it with me?

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about dreams again … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of my friends asked me "weren’t you worried when that long dream started, in case it turned out to be another one of those nightmares like the other night?"
"To be honest" I replied "I hadn’t been so worried since I was in the Gentleman’s rest-room on Crewe bus station, standing next to Shakin’ Stevens."

Tuesday 23rd June 2026 – IT HAS BEEN …

… slightly cooler today than yesterday. In fact, the temperature barely struggled up to 41.5°C, according to the thermometer sender outside, and that’s impressive. Inside my room, with the windows wide open and the fan going full-tilt, it was barely 29°C at one point.

Yes, we’ve had worse than that.

Not that any of it did me much good.

As I mentioned in my last post, I was in bed just after 20:00, hoping for an early night and a good sleep, but some hopes!

It was too hot to sleep without the fan and too noisy to sleep with the fan, and so in the end, after much binding in the marsh, I decided that the coolness was the way to go. I lay awake all night, and I mean “all night”, too, listening to the fan and watching the light coming round the edges of the shutters, changing from light to dark and then slowly back to light again.

At round about 02:00, I had another mega-coughing fit which led to several bouts of vomiting, so many that in fact I lost count. It’s becoming really bad, this. Let’s see what the doctor’s prescription can do about this later.

When the alarm went off, I went in search of my clothes that had somehow become scattered around the apartment and then went to start work, such as I felt like doing.

There was no need to check the dictaphone for dreams. If you can’t go to sleep, you can’t dream. And it was probably the effect of this new family who appeared from nowhere working on my farm and driving my old Kubota B-1220 tractor that put me off everything.

Never mind, though, there were still plenty of other things to do to take me up to Isabelle the Nurse’s arrival time so I wasn’t bored.

When she turned up, she insisted on treating me in my bedroom which was the wrong thing to do. And she appeared in her short skirt and tee-shirt in concession to the weather, which was already at 30°C outside.

She talked about nothing very much, and after she left, I began to think about breakfast but instead saw this lovely, long, comfortable bed. That decided it for me – I switched the alarm on for 11:15 and hit the hay.

And dream? Didn’t I just dream. Hordes of hallucinations fleeting across my brain from right to left, far too many to notice and to record. From just trying to save one, I ended up with none at all and that was rather desperate.

For some reason, I was up at about 11:00 and at that point began to make a very desultory start on yesterday’s notes. Here and there, doing bits and pieces while I could in between bouts of falling asleep. But eventually, it was the sleep that won.

My faithful cleaner awoke me when she arrived. It’s shower day today of course, and I can’t postpone it yet again. I’ll be picked up on radar everywhere I go, so I reluctantly headed that way. And it was much less difficult than I imagined and I felt like a new man afterwards.

She helped me out and I dried myself and found some new clothes to wear. This is more like it.

After she left, I carried on with yesterday’s notes and now they are on line, at long last.

But then I had some very bad news from Canada.

My faithful sidekick Cujo the Killer Cat crossed the Rainbow Bridge last night. She was adopted as a tiny kitten twenty-odd years ago and even when I last saw her, three or so years ago, she was in the best of health, teaching the new kitten to hunt and catch mice.

However, her age finally caught up with her yesterday, and that was a real shame. She might have been quite violent and aggressive with the local wildlife, but I always found her cute and sweet.

Once I’d digested the news, I went back to bed for a couple of hours. I was that tired again. This has been a horrible day all together.

But now I’m awake again, but not for long. I’ll sort out my evening medication and then I’m going back to bed, and I don’t care. I’ve had no food either but I’d rather be asleep than eating anything. If I have a good sleep tonight, I’ll feel so much better.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about showers … "well, one of us has" – ed … I once sent Nerina to a health farm for a week, where she had one of these super-duper showers.
The next day, she rang me to tell me about it. "You, know, it was amazing. I’m feeling a new woman after that."
"Feeling a new woman?" I mused. "It’s funny you should mention that …"

Tuesday 9th June 2026 – WHAT A DIFFERENCE …

… we have made to this apartment today. My faithful cleaner and I have been through the apartment like a dose of salts. Tonnes of stuff has gone down to the rubbish bins and there is actually a lot of unused space on the shelves now.

This is what I’ve been hoping to do for quite a while, and I’m glad that we managed to do it today.

Yesterday was an exciting evening too. I finished everything that I needed to do by 23:00 but organising myself for bed took much longer and I bet that it can’t have been much earlier than midnight before I climbed into bed.

For a change, I was asleep quite quickly, but I awoke at 04:00. Try as I might, I could not go back to sleep, and just when I was thinking of getting out of bed, the alarm rang. It was 06:29.

First thing that I did was to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. However, to my dismay, there was nothing on it. Instead, I found plenty of things to do in order to pass the time, including an interesting chat with a chatbot, would you believe, about the Oregon and California Trail and the fate of the Donner Party

Isabelle the Nurse turned up this morning. She was quite late, which is no surprise for her first day back. Of the two nurses in this practice, she’s the one with the “touch” for blood tests and injections, so anyone who needs one of those and it’s “the other one” on duty will usually wait until she starts her week.

After she left, I made breakfast and then carried on with Vera Evison’s book AN ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY AT HOLBOROUGH, KENT while I was eating.

The book didn’t last long – only 87 or so pages – and so when I’d finished, I turned to the next one. EBURACUM OR YORK UNDER THE ROMANS by C Wellbeloved.

It was written in 1842 so the introduction goes on for ever, it’s full of flowery prose and phrases along the lines of “would the gentle reader please excuse any faults that he has found …?”

Up to now I’ve not found any worth mentioning, so I came back in here to revise my Welsh.

At 11:00 I went for my lesson and it all passed quite well, even if the tutor didn’t send us the coursework until five minutes before the start of the lesson so we couldn’t review it.

At the end of the lesson, I sorted out the bathroom and some clean clothes, and when my faithful cleaner arrived, she shooed me under the shower.

The shower was really hot today and I enjoyed every minute of it. In fact, I wanted to stay in it for much longer. And this was also the second time that I managed to go into and come out of the shower without the help of my crutches.

Once I’d organised myself, I went to join my cleaner in the living room. We attacked the shelving and I sorted out one of the bags and the shopping trolley that we brought in last week. Quite a lot of the stuff went the Way of the West, but everything else was sorted and boxed quite quickly.

We then turned our attention to the bedroom and the cupboards in here have been emptied of much of the stuff they contained and the photography equipment moved to the top shelf over my desk. There are shelves galore free now.

By the time that we finished, I needed an energy drink. I was completely dazed and confused.

After my cleaner finally left – after an hour of overtime, I suppose – I found a few other things to do, including restarting the radio programmes and hunting down some music.

All of that took me up to teatime, which was a taco roll filled with one of the frozen leftovers that my friend cooked, lengthened with mushrooms, tomatoes and tomato sauce with peppers, all on a bed of rice and vegetables. And how nice was that?

Right now, though, later than ever, I’m off to bed. I’ve had a tough day.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about Welsh … "well, one of us has" – ed … I once met a boy from Wales who had been an “unexpected birth”.
"But didn’t your dad use precautions?" I asked.
"Yes" he replied. "He used a Welsh letter"
"What’s a Welsh letter?"
"A French letter with a leek in it."

Tuesday 2nd June 2026 – AS I HAVE …

… said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s pointless going to bed early, because all it means is that I wake up correspondingly early the following day.

And so no-one should be surprised to learn that at 05:50 this morning, I was sitting at my desk working.

Mind you, there was a reason behind it all, as you will find out for yourself if you read on a little further.

But last night, as some of you may have realised if you logged on early, I was simply overwhelmed. Overwhelmed with pain, overwhelmed with discomfort, overwhelmed with everything. In the end, I abandoned my notes and went to bed.

It didn’t take much rocking last night either, and I was soon asleep. But not for long. Round about 03:00 we had one of the fiercest storms that I have known since I’ve been here, and we have had a few.

This storm was wicked. It was lashing down with rain and the howling winds at probably over one hundred kilometres per hour were making mincemeat of the car park. No-one could sleep through this racket.

Round about 04:30, it all calmed down, only to spring up again from a different direction. This was full on to the front of the house and it was so powerful that it blew my windows open. I had to climb out of bed to close them.

After sitting on the bed for fifteen minutes thinking, that was when I decided that there was no point in staying in bed. Instead, I dressed … "at a very leisurely pace" – ed … and began work.

First task was to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

This is another dream that I seem to have forgotten from during the night. I know that I was in it, and there was something about bottling something or putting things in jars and putting them on one side. Out of the stuff that we had made, there were four of these huge flip-top bottles and two ordinary ones. They had to be taken away, stocked and generally looked after. This is where it was all confusing, with us putting them into the van to take them away. There was a lot more to it than this. There were scenes when I was in bed, another scene where I was sulking and the tied cottage that we had, and I wish that I could write more about it.

This is another dream that I would have loved to finish. You can’t leave me on a cliffhanger like this

I went to a rock concert with a friend of mine and one or two of this friend. This was a friend whom I’d had for years and for some reason, he was extremely depressed, something that affected him quite often in the past. It was really going on late, this concert, and at the end of it, the three of us left. My friend turned to me and said “I don’t think that I’ll be having any more Cortinas again. I asked him “why not” and in the end, he explained that in his opinion, they were far out of date now and he needed a new, modern car to keep up and all that stuff. As we walked into town, he made it perfectly clear that he and his friend were going off in one direction and I should go off in the other. It was a cold, rainy thing but I started to walk away. I noticed that it was getting light and the birds were singing. At that moment, I went into Boots the Chemist and wandered around looking at the products for a while. I really wanted some deodorant but instead, I bought a packet of tomatoes and a huge packet of crisps. I paid for them at the checkout, which was quite funny because the cashier lost my bag of tomatoes somewhere on my conveyor belt

There is a story about this going back to about 1974 when I was “sent off” from a pub crawl, but that’s another one that the World is not yet ready to hear.

However, I did have a friend who once was so overwhelmed at work that he took a holiday not knowing where he was going and ended up being lost. And the incident at Boots at Crewe – the interior is very suggestive of a dream I had a couple of weeks ago of a shopping mall in Montréal, but the outside was definitely the Crewe British Home Stores.

When the nurse came, the Hound of the Baskervilles didn’t even lift an eyelid, never mind barking at him. He allowed the nurse to stroke him and then the nurse turned his attention to me. He didn’t actually stroke me but massaged my feet and legs with the cream and put my elastic compression socks on my feet.

Then, after another stroke of the beast, he cleared off on the rest of his rounds and I could make my breakfast.

The next book on the list is RECENT EXCAVATIONS IN ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERIES by T C Lethbridge, an author whom we have encountered before.

He starts off his book by saying "this work is nothing more than a report on certain excavations, and as such, follows the modern pattern of being as colourless as possible. In the last century, a similar work would have included musings on the brevity of life, scraps of poetry and various other frills. Now, archaeology has become so stern a subject that I have not even dared to describe our feelings when a skull at Hollywell Row began to walk away with a young rabbit inside it."

He goes on to add "most readers would surely prefer the older method" and he’s not wrong there, because I know what I would, except when the author goes berserk with his remarks.

Lethbridge also makes the remark that "it would seem probable that male skeletons without weapons in this cemetery and others of the pagan period are those of slaves". Slavery was quite common in those days. These slaves were usually captured in battle or criminal slaves doing penance for their crimes, and, believe it or not, some people actually gave themselves voluntarily into slavery.

That latter phrase is certainly true, whether modern people like to admit it or not. But the life of a peasant in early Mediaeval times was a struggle between life and death, with not much margin between the two. But if your crops failed and your wife and children were starving, what options did you have? The duty of a lord was to feed, clothe and house his slaves, and it was better than starving to death. And let’s face it – the life of an early mediaeval peasant was not much more than that anyway.

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

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

At this point, the Hound of the Baskervilles dragged his master off for walkies and I came in here to go through my Welsh, ready for the lesson. And while I was breakfasting, our tutor had sent us by e-mail a huge pile of work that we were going to be doing during our lesson. I had less than an hour to go through it and that was rather unfair.

The lesson itself passed really well, although one or two of my classmates laughed when I told them about my Welsh-speaking artificial intelligence character. I still think, though, that it’s an excellent idea for someone who is isolated from the mainstream.

Next on the list was my cleaner, who breezed in to do her stuff and to shoo me into the shower. When I came out, I found that I had a nice, clean bed with nice, clean bedding. And so there will be a nice, clean me inside it tonight … "well, clean, anyway" – ed …

While I’d been at my Welsh class, the new battery had arrived and my friend had taken it out to the vehicle. He’d managed to couple it up and when he turned the key to make sure that there was a current passing through to the ignition circuit, the vehicle fired up as if it hadn’t ever been left unattended.

So after I’d come out of the shower and sorted myself out, we went over there for a triumphant drive around the car park.

However, our plans were blighted. The handbrake has seized, with the callipers stuck to the brake discs. That’s a nuisance. So near and yet so far. It seems that every step we take to advance, a new problem comes along to stifle us.

Not everybody agreed with this, of course. We’d attached the Hound of the Baskervilles to a lamppost behind the bus shelter, and when we looked around, we found that there were two schoolgirls making a big fuss of him and he was enjoying every minute of it. The girls told my friend that they thought that he was “magnifique”.

Back in here, I cleaned myself up and began to make the dough for tonight’s pizza. We’d missed out on a pizza on Sunday and I can’t possibly go two weeks without one. And while I was cooking, we were chatting about an electrical company and its website, and I was having a lengthy conversation online with an old schoolfriend from my Shavington days. It’s nice to catch up with friends from years ago.

One of the subjects that we were discussing online was “The Dockers’ Umbrella” – the Liverpool Overhead Railway that ran close to the docks from the latter part of the nineteenth century to December 1956 and so nicknamed because it allegedly sheltered the dock workers from the rain as they went to work.

The pizza tonight was acclaimed by my friend as “the best you have ever made”, and who can argue with that? He did also mention that “you look really tired tonight” and that will be the subject of later discussion.

Back in here afterwards, I had a few things to do, and then I started on my notes. However, after about five minutes, I fell asleep at my desk. When I awoke, I carried on and then fell asleep again. I lost count of how many times I fell asleep whilst trying to bring my notes up-to-date, and in the end, I gave it up as a bad job and hit the hay. There’s always another time to finish them off.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about that electrical website … "well, one of us has" – ed … I told my friend from Shavington that part of the menu on the site was “watch batteries”.
He asked "and what about it?"
I replied "we were there for half an hour looking at them but they didn’t seem to be doing anything."

EPIC HALL

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