Tag Archives: strawberry moose

Wednesday 8th April 2026 – AND YET ANOTHER …

… night when I’m going to bed without any tea, apart, of course, from my wonderful chocolate cake and my delicious home-made ice cream.

Another early night is on the cards … "he hopes" – ed … and a better sleep tonight than I had last night … "ditto" – ed …

Yesterday, I’d finished my cake round about 20:00, and I came straight back in here and began to write out my notes. By the time I’d finished, done everything else that I needed to do and crawled into bed, it was a mere 21:45, and that’s good going.

Once in bed, I went to sleep quickly and there I lay, flat out, until all of … errr … 22:57. That’s what I call a long sleep!

After that, we had a continual bout of tossing and turning, dozing off, waking up and all that kind of thing until the alarm went off at 06:29. At that point, I must have been asleep but nevertheless, it was a huge disappointment, last night, except for the fact that I didn’t have to leave the bed for once during the night.

When the alarm went off, for some strange reason, it didn’t take as long as usual to rise up from the bed and head off into the bathroom to sort myself out. And then into the kitchen for my hot drink and medication.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out what had gone on during the night, and I was astonished that there had been so much.

This dream involved a couple of kids, about eleven or twelve years old. They were being compared against other people but that’s really all that I remember about this dream at the moment. It’s one of these that evaporated as soon as I reached for the dictaphone.

This is another one of those dreams that seems to have no meaning at all. But wouldn’t it have been nice to have remembered the rest of it to find out to what it relates?

There was something about a rock group remixing some of its songs. They’d gone back into a previous album, selected a song and they wanted to put snippets of this into appropriate places on their new album so they sent a copy of their album and a copy of the track from the previous album. They put it in one big black plastic bag inside another and took it round to the guy’s house in Flag Lane who was going to remix it. But when they came to play back the result a few days later, it had all the wrong soundbytes in from a completely different song so they wanted it doing again. They had to threaten this guy in Flag Lane – it wasn’t Flag Lane, it was Wistaston Road – they had to threaten this guy in Wistaston Road with legal action for breaching the copyright in order for him to redo the task, this time with the correct song sliced up and pasted in.

There’s an interesting story about the Flag Lane – Wistaston Road area of Crewe but the World is not yet ready to hear it. And there is a recording studio involved in it somewhere too. However, it had nothing whatever to do with the subject of this dream.

Later on, there was something going on in a bakery. There were a few people there, and there was a guy there who was moving all of the stuff around. He picked up several large trays at the time and hoisted them over his shoulder. But one tray began to slide off and I immediately reached out to grab it as it fell, and I ended up grabbing the hoof of STRAWBERRY MOOSE instead.

This actually did happen last night too. I remember the tray of bread starting to fall and I did reach out to grab it. Then I awoke and found that I was actually holding a hoof of His Nibs. How bizarre!

There had also been a lot of discussion about the prefix “an-” and what it actually meant. It occurs quite regularly in Welsh in words such as anrhegion and we had to try to work out its meaning and think of other words that began with it. In the end, after a lot of calculating around and trying to work out things, we came to the conclusion that it actually meant “to” and that was what it was supposed to mean.

When I was dreaming this, I was actually in Flag Lane looking down the slope towards the traffic lights on Wistaston Road. That was bizarre too.

However, “an” as a prefix actually means the negative of a word that doesn’t have it, i.e. – onest = honest, anonest = dishonest, gwybodus = knowledgeable, anwybodus = ignorant. The exercises with prefixes and so on are things that we have to do regularly in our Welsh course.

There was another short dream about my class at school, and it really was my class at school. We were in one of the new laboratories, working on some kind of project for our school exam. However, it just seemed to fade away at that point. I remember that there was one of the girls there, holding some chemical product in some kind of large eye-glass … "he means “watch glass”" – ed … but that’s about everything.

This is happening far too often these days, dreams evaporating while I’m reaching for the dictaphone. And it’s getting on my nerves. I would love to know how they all end.

I was working in an Italian restaurant somewhere in Birmingham and I had to tell them that I was going to have to leave because my full-time job had transferred me to Shrewsbury. We’d set the restaurant out for the night but it started really slowly and we didn’t have a client for quite some time. I remember someone walking up to the restaurant – he looked very official – and he looked at me and my colleague who were waiting outside, shook his head and walked away again. Some people then turned up and went inside and went to sit in the garden to have their meal, which I thought was strange because it was cold. But we were talking about lights and light fittings. Someone in the area was making something out of lights and had used over three hundred tacks to hold the lights in. I said that if I’d put up the fairy lights that were in the back of the restaurant and in the garden, I’d have probably used about half a dozen. Then I noticed that in the annexe across the road, a girl walked in. I went in with the menus to see her, and it was someone whom I knew from years ago, but I couldn’t think of her name, but she looked a lot better now than she did back in those days. I asked her how she was, and she replied that she was alright. I replied, jokingly, “yes, I know that, but how are you really?” because I seem to remember that she was ill at one time. I gave her the menu but she didn’t seem to want it. She just wrote down what she wanted, and things for three other people too. I asked “don’t they have any choice?”, and she smiled. I took the order over to the restaurant. They were having an argument in the kitchen about the lack of business and how they were going to have to close. I gave them the receipt and said “well, here’s another thirty quid’s worth for you for tonight”.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that one winter when I was looking for work, I went down to London and ended up living in Wandsworth where I worked in the day driving a school bus for the local council and in the evenings and weekends in an Italian restaurant. That work in the restaurant was probably the hardest work that I have ever done, but I enjoyed it immensely and I’d do it again if I had the chance.

As for the girl in the story, I do know who she is but I just can’t think of her name. And she certainly did look better than she did when I knew her for real.

The nurse turned up as usual and we had a little chat, but he didn’t stay long and was soon off on his rounds. I could make breakfast and carry on reading THE CELT THE ROMAN and THE SAXON by Thomas Wright.

Today, we’ve been discussing the campaign of Suetonius Paulinus in North Wales, followed by the revolt of Boudicca and its consequent suppression. One thing that stands out from this is that the brutality and cruelty committed by both sides were appalling, and with the savage treatment of the locals by the Romans, it’s no wonder that they were quite often in rebellion.

Back in here, there were things to do and then later on, I attacked this confounded radio programme.

What with one thing or another, I lost count of how many blind alleys I’d run up while I was trying my best to track down the music that I need. Eventually though, with what I already had on hand and what I’d managed to find, I ended up with just about enough music to make a programme. I’m not very happy with it, but there’s no other choice.

Anyway, all the music is remixed, re-edited, paired and segued, and I’ve even begun to write the notes for it. I could actually have finished the notes except that later in the afternoon, I crashed out. And it was a major one too – I was away with the fairies – although not in any fashion that would have excited comment from the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine – for about two hours. I was totally wasted and that’s another reason why I’m off to bed with no tea.

And that means “right now” because I’ve had enough for today. As I said just now, my chocolate cake and ice cream was delicious and just the job to round off a day of hard work. Tomorrow, I have dialysis, and I wish that I hadn’t. But there’s nothing that I can do about it.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about a bakery … "well, one of us has" – ed … I once knew a girl who worked in a bakery.
"What was she like?" asked a friend of mine.
"At first, I thought she was well-bred" I replied. "But once I’d known her for a while, I came to the conclusion that she was half-baked."

Monday 9th March 2026 – WHATEVER COULD HAVE …

… gone wrong at dialysis today did in fact go wrong. And in spades too! I tell you, I’m totally fed up with all of this, and for two pins, I’d pack it all in and do something else with my time than keep on putting up with it.

In fact, things started to go wrong last night when I fell asleep … errr … riding the porcelain horse before going to bed. As if I don’t have enough trouble trying to be in bed at some reasonable time, last night ended up being completely unreasonable.

As seems to be the case these days, I was asleep quite quickly. However, at some point in the morning before the alarm went off, I awoke. I’ve no idea what time it must have been, because regardless, I had absolutely no intention of leaving the bed at that moment. Not even the combined efforts of Kate Bush and Jenny Agutter could have tempted me out of bed this morning.

In fact, I must have gone back to sleep at some point because the alarm at 06:29 awoke me from my slumbers. And once again, we had a real struggle to rise from our comfy bed and face the World.

After a good wash and shave (not that there’s much point in the latter these days seeing as Emilie the Cute Consultant is keeping her distance), I headed off into the kitchen for my morning hot drink and medication.

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

I was driving somewhere down the Devon and Cornwall peninsula on the coast. As I came round a corner, I could see, way out to sea, three enormous freighters or passenger liners heading out towards the Atlantic. I decided to chase them for a minute and look for a car park somewhere where I could take some photos of them. The first car park that I found, the view wasn’t particularly good. I had to climb up onto a rather large rock where the view was slightly better, but I still couldn’t take a really good photo of these ships – or not as good as I might have had from the vehicle a few miles back. Suddenly, I heard a voice behind me saying “it’s Mr Hall, isn’t it?”. I turned round, and there were two people whom I knew from university. They came over for a chat, and I fell off this rock, but I managed in the end to pick myself up. It turns out that they were staying in the hotel that was behind me. They were telling me about a whole series of new rules at university that basically cut down a lot of the jokes and a lot of the fun that we used to have there. I told them about the ships, and they said that there was a really good viewpoint inside the hotel, so I followed them in. We were talking about luggage labels – how it seems that if you go to an airport and you already have a luggage label on your suitcase, every other airport to which you go for the rest of your life with that suitcase, the suitcase will have a label from the landing crew, but it wouldn’t necessarily have a label if there wasn’t one in the first place. We were talking about good ways to dispose of a body, which was to put it into a suitcase and send it off on a flight somewhere. We went in, but I couldn’t find a way in to this viewpoint. It was one of these traditional hotels with lots of people walking around and very small rooms, but they showed me the way in, which I hadn’t realised was an access, which was through a staff door, and then you could open another set of doors once inside there, and there was a hidden corridor that went all the way down alongside the rooms. I was thinking that if I go down there, at long last I may have a photo of these ships, and that was what I was hoping for in the beginning.

The last time that I was driving down there was back in the 1980s when I took a coach tour that way, but I can’t remember seeing any ships.

The hotel reminds me of where we used to stay when we went to the university for meetings, and the idea that they would change all of the rules to stop people having fun is about par from the course. Even STRAWBERRY MOOSE ended up being expelled after he taunted a British government minister.

The thing about luggage labels seems to have come out of nowhere, though.

There was also something about a Dutch rock musician who had died. He had this Gibson SG guitar, but there was some kind of issue with it, but that’s really all that I remember of that particular dream.

As this dream didn’t really end, I can’t really say anything about this.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up as usual, with a big cheesy grin on her face as it’s her last day before her week’s rest. She even had time for a little chat before leaving to finish off her round.

Once she’d gone, I could make breakfast and read some more of ESSAYS ON THE LATIN ORIENT by William A Miller.

Today, we’re discussing the Frankish Duke of Athens and his successors. The first Duke seems to have been able to build up a prosperous territory out of the ruins of the conquest, but as usual, it seems that his heirs went about and managed to undo everything that he had created.

Back in here, I had a radio programme to review and then to send off ready for broadcast this weekend, and after a few more tasks that needed attention, I spent the rest of the morning revising my Welsh ready for tomorrow and checking over the homework that I then sent off for marking.

At 12:00, I knocked off and went to sort myself out for dialysis. my faithful cleaner turned up as usual to sort out the anaesthetic and we discussed my idea of moving all of the medication – to such an extent that I forgot my disgusting drink before leaving.

The taxi turned up early for me, and we had to go off to Sartilly to pick up another passenger. We arrived at dialysis early, 13:40 to be precise, and I staggered off to my bed and waited to be seen.

And waited … and waited … and waited …

Sometimes I find it difficult to understand what goes through the head of the planning department at the dialysis centre. Who in their right minds would put two trainee nurses in a room of eight patients without the guiding hand of someone more experienced?

It was 14:50 when I was finally plugged in, in total agony with one of the pins. And I wasn’t the only one who suffered this afternoon either. And at least I was left pretty much alone after that.

The doctor came to see me and asked if he could do anything for me. "How about making me better?" I asked. He didn’t stay long after that.

As I mentioned the other day, they have decreased my dry weight and are taking out the excess water bit by bit. At least, that was the plan. But today, they took out a whopping 2,000 grammes. I’m not sure if that’s all of it, but I’m now down to below my ideal non-active weight. Since I’ve been having dialysis, I’ve lost 8,000 grammes in total, but much of that is down to not eating so much.

When my session of three and a half hours was over, I waited to be unplugged. And waited … and waited … and waited, while the two nurses cleaned up the empty machines from the other people who had left.

Eventually, one of them wandered over. "Has it finished already?" she asked.

"Yes, and for quite a while too" I replied.

"But surely … ohhh! It’s only three and a half hours, not four!" and she carried on cleaning the other machines.

Eventually, I was unplugged, and as I was preparing to leave, she suddenly remembered that she should have taken a blood sample. So here we go again.

It was 19:00 when I was finally ready to leave and 19:10 when the taxi arrived. “That’s what time it was booked for” said the driver, and I could believe him.

Consequently, it was 19:50 when I returned home, having left at 12:50 for a session of three and a half hours. And I bet that the senior doctor, who follows these pages and tries to pull me up if I say anything bad about the service, will have “missed” this entry and nothing will happen about it. But it’s really getting on my nerves.

Tea tonight was the rest of last night’s pizza with birthday cake and home-made ice cream for pudding. And now I’m off to bed, hoping for a better day tomorrow.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about ships … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of my friends told me that in the High Arctic, they once encountered a ghost ship.
"How did you know that it was a ghost ship?" I asked
"There was only a skeleton crew on board"

Thursday 18th December 2025 – FOR THE THIRD …

… time in three days, I’ve woken up at some ungodly hour in the morning. Once more, I didn’t look to see what time it was but the good thing about this one this time was that after an hour or so, I managed to go back to sleep.

In fact, yesterday evening was a carbon copy of the previous evening. Despite a good start to writing the notes, I dillied and dallied trying to find the motivation to work, and by the time that I’d finished everything, I was exhausted and crashed out once more on my chair here in the office.

Consequently, by the time that I’d sorted myself out in the bathroom and come back in here, it was after 23:30 and I slid gratefully into bed, ready for a good sleep. So much for wishful thinking.

As I mentioned earlier, I’d woken at some point but eventually managed to go back to sleep until the alarm went off.

And here, I was a miserable failure. When the first alarm sounded, I awoke quite quickly, but I must have immediately gone back to sleep because when the second one rang, I was still under the covers in bed.

Eventually, I managed to drag myself into the bathroom for a good wash and brush-up, and even a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant at dialysis later. And then into the kitchen for the hot ginger, honey and lemon drink and the medication.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. We were at work, preparing for the Christmas holidays so everything was rather relaxed and we were light-heartedly fooling around a little. Someone had found some kind of airgun that would plant some kind of object onto clothes, etc. They were using it to shoot at things, people, etc. It was one of my sisters, in fact. She and her friend went upstairs to another office. I’d been taking no real attention to this while it had been going on but later on, I happened to look at one of the feet of STRAWBERRY MOOSE and found that he had one of these embedded in his feet. I said that I’d have a word with her about it. I went to find the ‘phone sheet with people’s names on it but there was so much rubbish, with papers and newspapers all over my desk and the more that I looked, the worse it was becoming, as I couldn’t find this piece of paper anywhere. One of the women told me – she said “you’d better watch out because the deputy headmaster is in there with them now”. I carried on searching anyway and I was coming across tonnes of papers that I never knew that I had that I could do with taking home and sorting. Then someone knocked on my window and made a gesture as if they were going. I thought “well, it’s still a couple of days yet to the holidays, so they can’t be going yet, surely?”. However, a minute or two later when I looked, she was quite a way off down the road, so maybe she had had permission to finish so much earlier; I don’t know.

So I’m back at work then. I thought that I’d retired a week or two ago. But it seems that I’m becoming confused, what with the office and the deputy headmaster. Still, it’s quite easy for me to become confused at the best of times. It’s also nice to see His Nibs making an appearance, even if he has just been shot in the hoof.

The nurse turned up as usual and sorted out my feet. He didn’t stay long so I could concentrate on making breakfast and read some more of Thomas Codrington’s ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN.

Our author is still struggling with his siting of several Roman camps on Iter XII of the Itinerarium Provinciarum Antoni Augusti. He states quite categorically that "no traces of Roman stations are known at Loughor, Neath, or near Cowbridge". Although he notes that the distance given from Burrium (modern-day Usk) to Gobannium corresponds with the distance to Abergavenny, "The indications of a Roman road on to Abergavenny are only a few short lengths of boundary along the present road, and no Roman remains are known at Abergavenny. "

Modern research has revealed some quite substantial Roman remains at “Loughor, Neath, or near Cowbridge” that leave no doubt that these were major Roman camps, and construction work in modern times has revealed substantial remains of a large Roman settlement underneath what is today the town centre of Abergavenny.

After breakfast, I came back in here to start work. There were some things to do, and then I carried on with the next radio programme. I don’t know where this fit of energy has come from, but I managed to choose the rest of the tracks, edit, pair and segue everything, and then write the notes for most of it.

It’s a shame that there aren’t many more days like this. I could certainly do with them.

My faithful cleaner turned up to apply my anaesthetic, and just after she left, the taxi turned up, twenty-five minutes early. It was a struggle to reach the car, what with the howling gale raging all around outside and I needed help to walk to the road And being early away didn’t help much because we had two other people to pick up.

We were the same time as usual arriving at dialysis and I was seen quite quickly. Once I was plugged in, I was left pretty much alone, which suits me fine. I checked on the news and then revised my Welsh, even though we don’t have a lesson for three weeks.

One of my favourite drivers, the chatty one from the other day, brought me home, but via a circuitous route to pick up and drop off someone else along the way.

The howling gale had increased in intensity while I’d been away so I was dropped off at the back door. The car can pull up right to the door there, so there’s much less distance to walk in the wind and I feel much more secure if I’m dropped there.

My cleaner helped me in and sorted me out, and then after she had left, I made tea. It was a mushroom risotto made with all fresh ingredients, and I should really have enjoyed it but about half of it ended up in the waste bin. I really was in no mood, and I don’t know why.

The fruitcake and soya dessert were delicious though.

So having fallen asleep three times already while typing out my notes, I’m off to bed to see what happens tonight.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the Roman remains in Abergavenny … "well, one of us has" – ed … I read an article that claims that Abergavenny museum "has a stunning array of Roman urns"
When I mentioned it to someone today, they asked me "what’s a Roman urn?"
Without thinking, I replied "about ten denarii a week."

Wednesday 5th November 2025 – THIS EVENING …

… despite making for myself an even smaller portion of food than normal, I left an even larger proportion of it on the plate last night.

One of the things that might have contributed to that was that I didn’t have my breakfast until 13:00 today.

This morning, I was at dialysis and so last night, I tried my best to rush through everything that needed doing. Not that I managed it particularly, though. It was just after 22:30 that I posted my notes, and what with one thing and another … "and until you make a start, you have no idea how many other things there are" – ed … it was almost 23:00 when I finally crawled into bed.

That didn’t help much either. Although I fell asleep quite quickly, whenever I have to set an alarm especially early, I always seem to have a bad night, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. Last night was no exception. I was tossing and turning all the way through.

When the alarm went off at 06:00 however, I was fast asleep, and it took quite some effort to extricate myself from my nice, warm bed.

After I’d sorted myself out in the bathroom, I went into the living room to sort myself out. My faithful cleaner (bless her!) staggered into the living room just before 07:00 to apply my anaesthetic and it’s just as well that she did, because the taxi turned up at 07:10 instead of 07:30.

Not that I’m complaining though, because the sooner we start, the sooner we finish.

There was someone else to pick up along the way but even so, we were still early. I was connected up quite quickly too, and then left to my own devices for most of the morning.

They unplugged me quite quickly once the session finished and, even better, the taxi was waiting for me. It was one of the very pleasant drivers who brought me home so we had a very interesting and enjoyable drive.

My faithful cleaner helped me in and presented me with the first of the parcels that I am expecting. This one is the heated lightbulb to replace the one that has blown in the bathroom. Many people, I know, don’t approve of these on-line retailers but unfortunately I don’t have any other choice. I can’t send my cleaner running around from shop to shop.

Once I’d recovered my strength, I made breakfast. I certainly needed it too because it’s been a long time since I’ve eaten anything.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And to my surprise I found that I must have travelled miles. There had been a football match taking place on a field somewhere. Everywhere was dry and most of the grass had died. There was plenty of dust floating around. One particular side had several new players, and as each of those players ran out to take the field, they had something significant with them. Then, once three new players had joined the team, the match began. A few minutes later, a fourth new player came to join in. he had something that was like a kind of roller but it was a pointed shape rather than an elongated, long shape. It only had one handle to it and the thing rotated in this handle. This guy ran onto the field through this dust bowl and onto the pitch with this machine. Everyone welcomed him. The game stopped for someone to take a throw-in, and it was on the team that the new people had joined. The guy was about to take the throw-in when he saw someone else come along to join in the game. He was there thinking “should I throw the ball to them or not? They don’t look as if they are ready, but if they are coming onto the field of play, then they ought to be”.

This doesn’t seem to relate to anything that I recall, but football is certainly on my mind at the moment, what with one thing and another. This half-roller thing is quite interesting though, and I wonder what it’s all about

Going back to that dream was something about me being sure that I was spotted by some people in a mini-submarine so I retreated inside the armoured safety zone with a very small bottle of beer and some liquorice sweets to await the arrival of my father. When he arrived, we had a look around but couldn’t see anything so I stayed on and drew a few more feats to keep me company.

This dream seems to be the second part of a dream to which the first part is missing. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed …. I wonder how many other dreams that I’ve had that have been missed. And I really would like some liquorice sweets right now. I’m a big fan of liquorice.

Later on, I pulled up on the Knutsford Services in a van. Seeing as I was still wearing my PSV badge, I thought that I’d try my look and claim for a free cup of tea. However, the woman on the till looked at how I was dressed and didn’t think at all that I qualified so she called the manageress over. The manageress took me to her office and began to interrogate me. I gave her a load of non-committal answers and in the end, she asked if I would take her out to see the vehicle that I had. I wasn’t intending to let her see the van so I stalled for time. When it reached the end of her shift, she had to go home but she was going to take me with her. I had to sit in her car while she drove home, but for some reason, there were three or four of us in this car. However, she left the car first and left me with the other two people. I drove the other two people home, which left me with the car. Then I had to think about how I was going to go back up to rescue my van. I thought that I could find a willing co-driver so I went round to a house in Shavington. It turned out that this girl also worked at the motorway services and she had heard all about what had gone on. She thought that it was funny and gave me something of a lecture. I decided in the end that what I was going to do was to go to hitchhike back up the motorway and bring the van back myself.

The house in Shavington is situated on Main Road, near to what used to be Warner’s shop, and I’ve no idea who used to live there when we lived in Shavington. However, I like this idea of ending up with someone else’s car without having to do much for it.

I was in Mexico on the border with the USA on a piece of land owned by one of the railway companies. It was rather high up in the mountains and on a steep slope, so the best that the crew could do for me was to anchor in the bay and hope that I could make my way out to the ship. They had three Ottoman destroyers from the Merchant Navy and they took their position out towards the sea that left my boat (… incoherent …) but we couldn’t move this guy, me (… fell asleep here …)

This is another dream of which I have absolutely no recollection whatever. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed …. even though I’m asleep when I’m dictating, usually there is something that triggers off a memory when I’m transcribing the dictaphone notes. But not in this case.

Finally, I was in Montréal last night, at the railway station, although it was nothing like any railway station in Montréal that I know. I wanted to catch a train to go across the town. I knew that the local services all departed from round about Platform Thirty-Three so I hobbled over on my crutches to the platform, which was crowded with commuters. As the train pulled in, everyone swarmed towards it. Of course, I was near the back. As soon as about fifty people had boarded, the doors closed regardless and the train moved off, leaving us standing on the platform. The next train was in ten minutes, which was a big express thing that was coming through, so I waited at the platform for ten minutes. The train pulled in, but once again, despite trying to run, I wasn’t quick enough to board it so I walked outside the station to see if there was a timetable where I could have a better idea of where and when the trains were going, and I met someone whom I knew. We had a chat about Canada, tourism and travel. He asked about a tower in the city, so I told him that it used to be occupied. He said that he knew that, but who lived there?. I replied that it was the watchman for the city, and if he saw any evil people heading towards the city, he’d blow a horn. The guy realised that he had heard stories like this before, so I explained that that was quite common, and many watchmen were killed in mid-horn blast by the enemy. We had quite an interesting chat. Then he asked me about photography. I told him that for years, I used to photograph everywhere where I went, but I’m not able to do it now, basically because I can’t go anywhere and secondly, because I can’t hold a camera. By this time, we had another girl with us. She said that she used to come with me on occasions. I said “I know”. I used to share my passenger seat with this girl Laura, or STRAWBERRY MOOSE, or anyone else who wanted to go. He asked me why I was on my own at the moment. I replied that STRAWBERRY MOOSE was back at home guarding the apartment.

Who is this Laura? I’m sure that I don’t know anyone of that name.

As for being killed in mid-horn blast, the most famous is the watchman of Kraków who was killed on the tower of St Mary’s Church in 1241 while blowing the alarm to warn of the Mongol siege of the city.

And Montréal again. I’m becoming all nostalgic for Montréal and Canada, although I doubt that I shall ever return there. I can’t even return to my apartment just upstairs in this building.

After that, I regrettably crashed out for half an hour. It was a tough start to the day with dialysis and all of that. And I have to do it again on Friday too!

The first meeting of this year’s Cymru Leagues Supporters’ Panel took place in the early evening. We discussed the interaction between the clubs and the supporters, whether it was adequate, whether it needed improving and what more can be done.

It remains to be seen whether anything will come of it, though. In the past, I had the impression that the Football Association of Wales had its own ideas and would carry them through, regardless of the input of the fans. I hope that by now, things will have changed. I shall certainly do my best to ensure that they do.

When the meeting finished, I went to make more croissants. Now I have six apple croissants and six plain ones. They will be in the freezer tonight to keep for over the weekend when my guests arrive.

And seeing as we have been talking about my guests … "well, one of us has" – ed … they tell me that they are excited to see me. I can’t think why. The only people who are usually excited to see me are bailiffs and the Crown Prosecution Service.

A little earlier, I mentioned tea. I had rice, veg and some of that lentil chili that I made yesterday. It was a small portion, but a good deal of it ended up in the waste bin. However, my plan for a high calorie, high carbohydrate dessert seems to be working and although it’s not healthy, it will keep me going.

Right now, though, I’m off to bed. And I need it too because despite crashing out, I’m exhausted.

But seeing as we have been talking about the watchman in Kraków … "well, one of us has" – ed … an American tourist in Kraków one afternoon asked a local "when did the Mongol hordes shoot the watchman in the church tower? "
"1241" replied the local
"Damn!" said the American, looking at his watch. "We just missed it!"

Saturday 27th September 2025 – THIS HEALTH ISSUE …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Saturday 13th September 2025 – JUST BEFORE MIDNIGHT …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sunday 3rd August 2025 – I HAVE DONE …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wednesday 30th July 2025 – AT LONG LAST …

… after several days of prevarication, I’ve finally come around to putting a photo of the bedroom online. The blue is rather bright, I agree, but there’s a huge difference between what I saw on a computer screen when I chose the colour and what the colour turned out to be in real life.

It’s complicated when I can’t go out myself to choose anything and have to rely on other people and the internet, but in those circumstances, we have to take what we can obtain. I’m sure that STRAWBERRY MOOSE and I, and the eventual cat of course, shall be very happy in there.

And in answer to the obvious questions that are bound to follow, yes I do have a sea view. If I go to the window and look to the right, I can see over the wall and over the clifftop to the sea. When the weather is really good, I can even see Jersey, even if it is 50 or so kilometres away.

You can also see the lovely granite walls that we have in this building, one metre twenty centimetres thick of granite – the legendary Grès de Chausey, built in 1668. Grès de Chausey was also used to build Mont St Michel down the bay from here.

With walls like this, I can play music as loud as I like and no-one can hear me.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … this building is part of the Patrimoine de France – the equivalent of a listed building in the UK. In theory, we can’t even knock a nail into the wall without asking permission.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment, I’ve had a horrible day. Just like the Wednesday a week after the last chemotherapy, I’ve had a major relapse.

There were all the signs of that last night. Once more, I had a major wave of tiredness wash over me as I was writing my notes, and it was all that I could do to keep awake to finish the evening’s work.

Nevertheless, it was quite late by the time that I finally crawled into bed, relieved that I was to be there, and it didn’t take very long at all to go off to sleep.

What I didn’t anticipate though, although I should have done so, was that I would be awake at 03:20. Not just awake either, but totally unable to go back to sleep despite my best efforts.

In the end, a few minutes after 05:00, I finally gave up the struggle and crawled out of bed into the bathroom for a wash, followed by a trip 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 in view of the short night that it was, I was surprised to find something on it. I was back in medieval times. A few of us were associated with some kind of trade or brotherhood and were busy organising things for some kind of event. At that moment, the archbishop came in and he asked the person in charge of our party what we were doing. He replied that he was preparing things ready for the start of the hunt. The minister was outraged “having a hunt on a festival day? Don’t tell me that you are hunting on a festival day”. The boss had to deny it with some kind of stammer and embarrassment. Then we could continue our own preparations for celebrating this day by having sport and some kind of athletics competition followed by of course the dialysis for the day.

It’s no surprise that we have gone back into medieval times with the amount of medieval information that I’ve been reading just recently, especially with regard to the jousting tournaments. And involving dialysis too – there’s no surprise about that either. Just wait until I begin to dream about chemotherapy.

There were a few things to do this morning, such as finishing off sending the radio programmes for the month of August. And then Isabelle the nurse turned up. She gave me the injection, sorted out my legs, and then disappeared into the blue yonder.

However, I have heard on the grapevine that there’s some kind of issue regarding this nursing practice. I shall have to keep my ears open for more news.

Once she’d gone, I could make my breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK. Not that I managed to go very far as the kitchen fitter turned up. However, he had all of the keys and everything that he needed, so he simply stayed downstairs and attacked the remaining work.

There were a few things of interest in the book that are worthy of note. Our author tells us that there "was sometime a large and most sumptuous house built by Charles Brandon, late Duke of Suffolk" that went through several ownership changes and eventually a merchant "pulled it down, sold the lead, stone, iron etc and in place thereof built many small cottages of great rents, to the increasing of beggars in that borough."

That was a fate that befell many large houses in urban areas in the 1960s and 1970s, with the same consequences.

One question that has also been answered today was "why are the effigies of some medieval knights shown on their tombs with their legs crossed?". Stow tells us that of the eleven tombs that he has noticed in the Temple Church in London, "eight of them are images of armed knights, five lying cross-legged as men vowed to the Holy Land, against the infidel and the unbelieving Jews."

So in other words, a cross-legged statue or effigy lying on a tomb is of a medieval knight who has taken the Oath of the Crusade

Something else that I’ve learned are the rules of running a brothel or “stew house”, which I’m sure will come in useful one of these days. Stow tells us, inter alia that "no stew-holder is to receive a woman of religion or another man’s wife.".

Even more interestingly, "no single woman to take money to lie with any man, but that she lie with him all night until the morrow."

Running a brothel back in those days was apparently a respectable business. "William Walworth, then mayor of London" was the keeper of one such place, so Stow tells us.

Not so respectable, apparently, for the women who worked there. Stow says that "these single women were forbidden the rites of the Church so long as they continued that sinful life and were excluded from Christian burial if they were not reconciled before their death, and therefore there was a plot of ground called ‘The Single Woman’s Churchyard’ appointed for them far from the parish church."

There’s no doubt whatever that I’m learning a lot by reading this book, which is just as well because that’s why I’m reading it (and all the others like it).

After breakfast, I was going to make a start sorting out more things to take downstairs but there really wasn’t much point with the kitchen fitter being there, so instead I came back in here to prepare for my Welsh discussion group.

There were only three of us there today and it was awful. I couldn’t remember anything, not even the basics. I seem to have gone completely to pot. Mind you, I put it down to the ill-health that was starting to overwhelm me because by now, I could feel myself sliding down into the hole.

After the meeting, it was time for my disgusting drink break and, girding up my loins, I had another one of these extremely disgusting pea and mint ones. And if anything, it tasted worse today than last time. Just two more of those to take and I won’t be ordering any more of this variety.

Next to arrive was my cleaner, who came to do her stuff. And that included supervising me having a shower. By now though, I really was feeling terrible and I had never felt less like doing anything in my whole life. However, I forced myself and I suppose that I was glad that I had. But I was ruined afterwards.

Back in here, once my cleaner had changed the plasters on my arm, I crashed out. That was no surprise either.

One of these high energy drinks brought me round half an hour later which was just as well because Rosemary rang up for a chat. Just a short one today – a mere sixty-five minutes.

There was time afterwards to write the notes for the next radio programme and then I went to make tea.

There was a large curry in the freezer so I defrosted it and ate half of it with some rice and veg. The other half will do for tomorrow. My imagination has run aground.

The kitchen fitter came up to give me his final account and I paid him. His bill might sound expensive but it includes all of the stuff for the shower and also, he’s done a great deal of work that was never included in his original quote. Not only that, I’m well-pleased with what he has done.

There are one or two small jobs that he hasn’t done, and something that needs some repositioning, but I can sort that out.

The situation is that the plumber will be here on Monday to fit the shower, and we’ll see how far he intends to go with the finishing of the bathroom. Whatever he leaves unfinished, I’ll contact the kitchen fitter who says that he’ll find some time to finish everything off.

Right now though, I’m even more impressed with my little apartment than I was with my galvanised steel dustbin.

Right now though, I’m off to bed ready for dialysis tomorrow … "I don’t think" – ed … I hope that they have changed the mattress on my bed otherwise there will be a row.

But seeing as we have been talking about the Patrimoine de France … "well, one of us has" – ed … Liz once told me that she thought that it was quite appropriate that I lived in a historic building.
"why is that?" I asked, bitterly regretting ten seconds later having done so
"Well" she replied "You’re something of an ancient ruin yourself."

Monday 30th June 2025 – WE ARE NOW …

… alone, STRAWBERRY MOOSE and me.

At lunchtime, The Hound of the Baskervilles dragged his master off into the sunset and the last that I heard, they were sitting in a hotel in Le Mans eating plastic pizza, ready to go for a blast down the Mulsanne Straight first thing tomorrow morning.

It’ll take me a while now to adapt to the quiet in the apartment and my accustomed solitude.

There was plenty of solitude in my bedroom last night, although I didn’t notice it. By the time that I’d finished my notes and gone through the usual routine, it was 22:30 when I finally crawled into bed, dead to the World, and I remember nothing whatsoever after that.

It was about 06:15 when I awoke this morning, with no memory of anything that might (or might not) have occurred during the night. There was nothing on the dictaphone either, so I took advantage of the situation by reviewing the radio programme for the coming weekend and sending it off.

Round about 07:00 everyone else began to stir so I went to join them in the living room after having had a good wash and shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon.

We sat around chatting and drinking coffee for a while until the nurse came to see me. It’s the last day of his round today – tomorrow Isabelle the Nurse begins her round so he reminded me to tell her about the injections that start tomorrow. I can tell that he was pleased that he doesn’t have to do them.

The Hound of the Baskervilles dragged his master off for walkies and I stayed around to sort out a few things. When they returned, we had breakfast and then my friend packed away all of his gear into the car ready to leave.

My cleaner turned up as usual to fit my patches but spent more time saying goodbye to the Hound of the Baskervilles than she did attending to me.

After she left, we did a quick lap around the apartment to make sure that there was nothing left behind, and then we went downstairs to wait for the taxi.

It was my favourite driver today, which was nice, so we said goodbye to everyone and the two of us set off for Avranches.

Just for a change, we were early although it took quite a while to be coupled up. It was Alexi, the baby of the team, who dealt with me today. It’s been a while since I’ve seen her so we had a really good chat to catch up with events.

She told me that she’d just come back from holiday – in Japan – and that her father had bought her an olive tree for the garden at her new house now that she’s finished arranging it.

The bizarre news is that although it’s evident that I have some water retention, the amount of weight to be lost was “nil”. This lack of appetite seems to be having a good effect on my weight.

Alexi set it to 350 grams all the same, but when the doctor came by, he set it to 1kg, so Alexi came back to set it to 1,200. If I can push ahead, I will.

While he was here, I spoke to the doctor about the chemotherapy.

He thinks that fifteen sessions is far too many, so I asked him what he thought about going to the University Hospital at Rennes for the chemotherapy.

They could do the Retuximab at Avranches, but not the overnight chemotherapy. However he seems to know for a fact that they would do it all at Rennes.

The way I see it, it’s four hours in a car to Paris, four hours back that’s killing me off, on top of the treatment itself which is vicious, and the climb up the stairs here which, I hope, will soon be a thing of the past.

The idea about going to Rennes is that it’s only 90 minutes away so it’s far less travelling time. Then, if I’m really feeling dreadful, I can stay for a Wednesday night to recover and then come back on Thursday. And as Avranches is in between Granville and Rennes, I could be thrown out at Avranches for my dialysis on the way past.

That makes much more sense to me.

That’s how the doctor sees it too, and he told me to chat to them at the hospital in Paris about it when I go back for the next session.

Alexi unplugged me and compressed my implant, and when I weighed myself, I was the lowest weight that I have been for several years – only 700 grams above my “non-sporting” target weight and only 5.7 kilos above my athletic weight.

Alexi accompanied me to the taxi to hand the driver my bag, and I was disappointed that I couldn’t persuade her to come home with me to pander to my every whim. "I’ve too much work to do" she said, which I suspected was something of a cop-out.

The driver who brought me home was the one who spends all this time texting on his ‘phone as he drives. He’s going to come a nasty cropper one of these days, and I hope that it’s not when I’m in the car.

My cleaner was waiting for me back here, and she helped me stagger up the stairs into my apartment, and I have never felt less like doing it than today. It took me a whole half-hour to come round afterwards.

Although I wasn’t feeling hungry, I thought that I’d better eat something so I made a handful of pasta with veg and a vegan burger. And it was a struggle to force it all down, even though there wasn’t a lot of it.

So right now, early as it may be, I’m off to bed to sleep the Sleep of the Dead. I need it tonight.

But seeing as we have been talking about losing weight … "well, one of us has" – ed … a girl from Crewe went to the dietician to talk about losing weight.
The dietician told her "it’s not really a problem. Just take three sesame biscuits with a cup of mint tea at mealtimes."
And so the girl goes off home but half an hour later she rings up the dietician
"These sesame biscuits and cup of mint tea" she said. "Do I take them before or after the meals?"

Tuesday 27th May 2025 – MY CLEANER IS …

… a heroine.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’ve been moaning … "surely not!" – ed … about the yeast available for bread-making – how I can no longer find any of the neutral yeast that I like and how all that seems to be available is the smelly stuff.

So there she was in Leclerc this morning browsing around, like you do … "like SOME people do" – ed … and she suddenly came across some packs of six of the small sachets of neutral yeast, put on the shelves totally out of order, miles away from where they were supposed to be.

There were six of the packs altogether, and it goes without saying that there are now none left on the shelves. So what with the coconut oil that she found for me and liberated, and the tahini that she found ditto, she is certainly keeping me going with all kinds of stuff, and that’s something that’s extremely useful. She’s a handy person to have around.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment, last night I tried my best to go to bed early but somehow, once again, despite being in a comfortable position at one time, I managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and it was another night rather later than I liked before I finally crawled into bed.

Despite the pain in my foot, I was asleep quite rapidly, which was no surprise considering how tired I was, and I didn’t move at all until … errr … 05:50 when I had another one of these dramatic awakenings.

There was no possibility of going back to sleep after that and so I seized the opportunity and, in the peace and quiet of the moment, dictated the notes for the two additional tracks for the two programmes for which I had edited the rest of the notes on Sunday. I may as well take advantage of some of these early starts if I can.

When the alarm went off, I was already sitting in the dining area taking my medicine, following which I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. Nerina and I had been apart for a while now. When I met her, she was with someone else. She hadn’t known him long but they were planning to marry. She asked me if I would like to come to the wedding. I thought “why not?” but then I had to find someone else to come with me, and I didn’t think that that was going to be particularly easy. I could think of maybe one or two people who would but I wasn’t all that enthusiastic about inviting anyone

And that’s half the problem these days. I’m not really enthusiastic about anything any more. My idea of a good night is a comfy chair, a good film on the computer and a mug of really hot chocolate. And these days, I can manage the chair but I no longer have the time to watch a film and instead of the hot chocolate that I used to enjoy so much, I now have a disgusting drink break.

Then I had to go outside to fuel up the van. The fuel was in jerry-cans so I began to pour them out. One of them didn’t seem to be open. It seemed to be sealed so I thought “how did I manage to fuel this up?”. I cut a hole in the top and smelled it. It didn’t smell like anything particular so I poured it into the van anyway and it started, so I set out on a drive. I had someone with me but I can’t remember who it was. I was in the North of England and I was going down this narrow, narrow track between all these rocks. Then I came to where there was a dam that was being restored. That was what I had come to see. I stopped the van and took the camera to take a few photos, but the wind was getting up. The water was behind some kind of small retaining wall to my left. Every now and again a gust of wind would bring some water over the top. As I was standing there, the water was coming over the top of this retaining wall quicker and quicker. It was being very difficult to stand there and take photographs because I was being soaked in this water. The dam was a kind-of stepladder arrangement made of old stone and was being covered in earth presumably to reinforce it but the water behind this retaining wall was only – I dunno – twelve feet high and I thought that this doesn’t look right at all

Even now, I can still see the dam. It’s made of large sandstone blocks in the form of a series of steps, and there is a covering of red powdered sandstone being laid over the slope. For some reason though that is not obvious, the drive to the dam and its surroundings reminded me of when STRAWBERRY MOOSE, Strider and I went for a wander around THE OLD IRON MINE IN THE ABANDONED TOWN OF GAGNON in the peri-Arctic tundra of Upper Québec.

Isabelle the Nurse breezed in and didn’t stay for long, just long enough to change my dressing on my leg, deal with the usual treatment and fit the compression socks. She’s told me that she’ll try to be here by about 07:00 next Tuesday when I have to go to Paris.

After she left, I made breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK. We’re still exploring the (civilian) architecture of Rochester Castle, but we have yet to find any more rude doorways, although there are bold mouldings and architraves a-plenty. It must have been an exciting place in the Thirteenth Century.

Back in here I made a start on the Welsh homework that I had missed while I was in hospital and I’d managed to do most of it by the time that I knocked off for a disgusting drink break.

My cleaner breezed in shortly afterwards with my soya yoghurt and with six packs of neutral baking yeast. Now I’m set up for the next couple of months, which is good news. I’m not a big fan of this other yeast that I’ve been having to use.

This afternoon I’ve attacked my Woodstock programme. There are just two groups for whom I need to write notes, and then there’s the summary so it’s not going to take too long.

However, that’s the easy bit. The difficult bit is going to be to decide what to leave in and what to cut out. That will be a decision and a half, and no mistake. And whatever I include or leave out, it will always be the wrong choice. You can’t satisfy everyone all of the time.

There were a couple of ‘phone calls. Firstly, the hospital in Paris rang to see how I was doing. Secondly, a plumber called. He was interested in my project but his idea of a rapid start is in November, which is not much use to me.

Tea tonight was a taco roll followed by my ginger cake. And the cake is wonderful, really spicy just as it ought to be. But I shall be intrigued to see how all of this turns out when I have a real, decent oven to use. I can’t wait for that.

So I’m off to bed at last, tired and weary, and hoping for a better sleep that will last through until the alarm goes off

But seeing as we have been talking about castles … "well, one of us has" – ed … 20-odd years ago I took Roxanne with me to visit an old castle in Belgium
As we climbed the stairs, I said to her "just think. Hundreds and hundreds of years ago there would have been Kings and Queens and Lords and ladies climbing up these very stairs just like we are doing right now."
"Of course there would have been" she replied, shaking her head in bewilderment.
"Aren’t you surprised?" I asked her
"Of course not" she replied. "There would have to have been. They didn’t have lifts in those days."

Wednesday 19th March 2025 – MONDAY THE FIFTH …

… of May is when I’m being summoned to Paris to hear the news about the results of the tests that I had a while back.

Obviously it can’t be all that serious if they are letting me wait six weeks to hear the news. France is not like the UK where they give you fictitious appointments two years hence and hope that you die before you have to attend and find out that the appointment didn’t really exist in the first place.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall me mentioning how horrified and disappointed the professor at Leuven was when she told me at my cancer consultation nine years ago that she couldn’t find me a hospital bed for four … days.

And so May the Fourth be with STRAWBERRY MOOSE and I’ll hit the road the next day, presumably after having the dialysis in the morning instead of the afternoon.

But if they are talking about me having dialysis while I’m there, it means that I’ll be there for the Thursday at least.

One thing that will be certain, and that is that I’ll be in bed early when I’m there. I might not even leave it for the whole day. That has to be an improvement on how things are around here just now. It was another 00:30 retirement last night. I’m not sure how many of those there have been just recently but it looks as if 00:30 has become the new 23:00 these days

Once in bed, I was asleep quite quickly again and although I have a vague memory of something happening in the middle of the night, I didn’t move until I awoke at about 06:00.

Lying there festering for a while I thought "I may as well raise myself from the Dead rather than loiter around here" but the next thing that I knew, the alarm was ringing. I’d apparently gone back to sleep.

After I’d sorted myself out in the bathroom I went into the kitchen for the medication and found water all over the floor again. But there will be more news about this later.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I started out with Laurence and Roxanne. We’d gone to some kind of informal concert where everyone would be sitting around the entertainers rather than sitting formally in a theatre or something. We turned up and Roxanne went to sit down at the front with all the other children. I found a seat and Laurence came to sit down next to me. I put my arm around her but as soon as I did that she stood up and went to sort something out for Roxanne. She then came back and I went to put my arm around her again but then she stood up to do something else. It went on like this for half an hour until finally she came to sit down. She explained to me that she wasn’t very happy about me putting my arm around her. I couldn’t understand why because that was what I normally did but she was quite adamant that she wasn’t happy about it. I was beginning to think that for all the good that i’m doing here I may as well go outside and go for a walk on my own to settle down a little and calm down before something that went on that I might well regret in the future.

Amongst her other accomplishments, Roxanne was learning to play the harp during her Wednesday afternoon school music session. When we were out in Pionsat at the chateau once we saw an advert for a harp concert. We wandered off to find some tickets but it was completely sold out, much to Roxanne’s dismay. However, we saw a woman struggling to take a giant harp out of her car. “Clearly the harpist” I thought, and so did Roxanne. She told me how disappointed she was about not seeing her play so I told her not to tell me, but to go and tell the woman. So off she went, eight years old, and was chatting away to this woman for about ten minutes. When she came back, she was clutching three complimentary tickets in her sweaty little mitt.

Laurence used to say things like “I ought to change my name to ‘pense-à-tout‘” – ‘think of everything’ – “because no-one else ever remembers anything”. My answer to that was “and Roxanne ought to change her name to ‘reponse-à-tout‘” – “an answer for everything”.

Later on I was at a rock festival last night with Paul Rodgers of Free and some and some singer, I can’t remember. We’d formed a group for the occasion and had rehearsed fifteen songs. When it came to the night it was our turn to go on stage and make everyone listen. I had a little problem with my drum kit at the time so the guitarist simply began to play something to quieten down the audience. After I’d fetched my bass guitar and plugged it in I worked out what key we were in and played in accordance with that and It went much better. But there were only three railway stations, those on the Wirral that need to be changes in any question at all …fell asleep here …

Leaving aside the obvious point that Paul Rodgers was the singer of Free – it was David Kossof who was the guitarist – and what I would be doing with a drum kit, that’s another mystery. However that dream petered out into Heaven alone knows what before it became interesting.

Today’s issue with the nurse was that he objects to having to be here before the taxi comes at 08:30 to take me for the eye examination. I ought to book his friend for a precise time to take me in time for the appointment. But leaving aside the fact that it wasn’t me who booked this taxi but the dialysis centre, regular readers of this rubbish will recall his friend’s attitude to problems – “lie through your teeth”. That’s not the service that I want.

Breakfast was next – no book again today due to the lack of a power lead for the computer – so I was back in here quite quickly. I took advantage of the extra time by looking for a computer power transformer and cable (which I don’t have) and then beginning what is going to be a long process of tidying up the place, checking what I have, checking what I need etc for when I finally move downstairs, whenever that might be.

Today has been spent working on a radio programme. I’ve had to skip two programmes because they relate to concerts and I can fit those in whenever I have some free time … "when is that?" – ed … Consequently I’ve been working on 23rd January 2026, if that’s not too far ahead.

By the time I knocked off today I’d hunted down some tracks that I needed that I didn’t have, converted, reformatted and remixed them, paired them and segued them and written all of the text ready to dictate on Saturday night.

That was despite the disgusting drink break, the midday medication, my cleaner being here and not forgetting my wonderful shower. But how I’m looking forward to being downstairs when I can have a shower whenever I like – once the bathroom is converted.

But I mentioned the water all over the floor earlier. My cleaner noticed that the handle on my water jug is broken and there’s a crack down the back of the jug. So that’s something else to replace. I’d better spend Thursday afternoon going through Amazon seeing what I need for the new apartment and send off an order for bits and pieces like that.

Something else that happened today concerns the project in the UK about which I spoke towards the end of last year. It’s well under way and my friend who is in charge of things sent me the first photo of what has been going on and how it is going to look when it’s complete. And I’m impressed with this, that’s for sure.

If it carries on like this, I shall be well-pleased, even if it has cost me an arm and a leg to have it done.

Tea tonight was of course a left-over curry with naan and as usual, it really was delicious. The naan wasn’t as good as last eek’s though – that really was exceptional

Tomorrow I have the optician. With dialysis apparently, it’s important to have the eyes checked every six months or so with all the changes that are going on.

But while we’re on the subject of harps … "well, one of us is" – ed … Roxanne once dressed herself up for a fancy-dress party, so I asked her what her costume was supposed to be
"I’m dressing myself up to be a harp" she replied
"That can’t be a harp costume. It’s far too small" I replied.
She looked at me sternly. "Are you calling me a lyre?"

Thursday 6th March 2025 (cont) – NOW THAT THINGS … .

… are back to normal (well, as normal as things ever could be around here) I can carry on and do what I ought to have been doing, and update everything.

And had I known how things were going to have worked out, still being on my feet (well, OK, on my chair) at 02:00 I would have had an early night instead of being up to all hours watching Stranraer, after several weeks of impressive football, go back to their old, miserable ways and be easily beaten by the bottom club in the league who spent most of the night playing with just ten men.

That was as embarrassing as the defeat aginst Clyde a couple of weeks ago and was really depressing after the last three or four performances.

So anyway I went to bed eventually and had another perspiration-laden night where I was only really half-asleep for most of it.

When the alarm did go off I hauled myself to my feet and headed off to the bathroom for a scrub and even a shave. After all, you never know if Emilie the Cute Consultant is going to be there today.

No medication right now because you also never know if the nurse might actually want to come along and do this blood test this morning and it has to be done à jeun so I listened to the dictaphone instead to find out what had gone on during the night. There I was, lying here asleep and a girl was trying to load some ink or something into my mobile ‘phone so that it could print a document. I tried to pur some fat into it but the fat was in a chip basket thing. Of course, every time you tilted it to pour it the liquid would seep out through the holes so I wasn’t having any success with my cooking last night.

Can you imagine trying to lift molten fat out of a chip pan with the chip basket? I’ve no idea what goes on inside my head at night, but there again, I don’t have all that much more idea about what goes on inside my head when I’m awake.

Later on I was out in North Wales looking for an address. I ended up somewhere beyond Conwy in an area that I didn’t know very well but I couldn’t find it. I ended up on an extremely steep hairpin bend. Trying to walk or cycle up there was extremely complicated. When I reached the top there was a waterfall. The waterfall was where some kind of primitive dam had been that had been broken and the water was cascading over it down into the valley where it joined the main river. There was a main road off there to the right and there was a lot of traffic coming that way so it was complicated to cross the road. I did cross the road but still couldn’t find this address. In the end I saw a map with the shape of where it was and I identified that I should have been four miles beyond Abergele so I had to retrace my steps and try to return across the road on a pushbike was even more complicated with all of the traffic that was coming straight on down the main road. Once or twice someone paused and that was the signal for someone to nip over but I had to wait for a while and found myself in the end with about a dozen vehicles on the central reservation waiting for a gap in the downhill traffic again. Once we set off there were all these vehicles passing so closely and I was then freewheeling down the hill listening to the news about a bicycle race. There were two people in the middle of the road, a man and a woman with bikes and they didn’t seem to be paying any attention to me as I came hurtling down and I missed the woman by a matter of millimetres.

As it happens, I recognise this road too. It’s out of Llangollen heading down into mid-Wales and I was there 20-odd years ago with Nicole when we came to pick up the old LDV. The dam is very much how I would have imagined one of the “Dambusters” dams to have been after it had been blown up. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we WENT FOR A LOOK AROUND the dams few years ago on our way to Colditz and STRAWBERRY MOOSE‘s famous escape attempt.

Incidentally, four miles beyong Abergele up a steep mountainside is one of the Iron Age hillforts to which Arthur Allcroft took us a couple of weeks ago, but there was nothing about any hillforts anywhere last night.

When the nurse did finally turn up he did actually take the blood sample and I knew all about it because, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … he just doesn’t have “the touch”.

After he left I made breakfast and carried on reading MY NEW BOOK. We’re discussing exciting subjects today, such as men marrying their daughters and the young killing off the old folks once they stop being productive and become useless mouths to feed.

He’s actually done some research into this and has found plenty of examples back in history and in more remote parts of the World where those customs were still current when he was researching his book. All I can say is that for someone whose day job was a clerk in London County Council, he had some strange pastimes and hobbies.

However, he has proved a point over which I have been puzzling. If people back in ancient history were so concerned about having useless mouths hanging around eating the produce, the produce must have been so scarce that not even family ties could hold the people together and stop them killing each other. So I remain totally unconvinced by the modern way of thinking that these hillforts were nothing but symbolic. The huge amount of effort that went into the construction of these immense defensive works and the amount of time they had to spend away from the fields or from the hunt, they really must have been scared almost to death by what might have happened had they not spent all that time and effort in their construction.

Back in here later I had a few things to organise and sort out but was interrupted by the telephone. "Is it OK if I come a little earlier, like 12:00?". It was my taxi driver.

What has happened was that last week these new Social Security regulations came into legally-binding force and so this is how it’s going to be from now on – taxis turning up at any time they like if they are obliged to combine trips. Not that I’m complaining because, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed …, it’s a free service and in any case the sooner we arrive, the sooner I can leave and so I sent a message to my cleaner to inform her.

Poor thing, she had to scramble here to fit my anaesthetic patches and was still here when the taxi arrived – at 11:47. The Sécu has instructed that a timespan of 45-minute either side of the booked time is acceptable under these new regulations and by my reckoning the car was actually 43 minutes early. That’s cutting it fine.

We had to pick up someone else on the way of course, someone who had a hospital appointment for an operation. "As we’re so early we may as well drop madame off at the hospital first."
"She’s going to hospital in Rennes"

When I arrived at the dialysis centre I was so early that they hadn’t even finished dealing with the morning’s patients but Julie the Cook saw me and she quickly finished off setting up my machine (patients have their own individual settings) and I was installed and up and running by 13:15.

She tried a new trick this afternoon. While she was setting up the machine she slapped an ice bag on my arm. And that actually might have helped a little – at least until the effect wore off.

Apart from the coffee, no-one bothered me at all until it was time to unplug me. Julie the Cook had gone home a long time before and one of the others came to sort me out. For some reason I was rather unsteady on my feet at first. It can’t have been low blood pressure because that was OK.

So it was 17:30 when I staggered out of the centre and the taxi was already waiting for me. We had someone else with us to drop off along the way but even so I was back at home by 18:15, much to the surprise of my cleaner

That was when I discovered the catastrophe in here, with the big desktop computer spinning around in BIOS mode complaining “I can’t find any disk with an operating system on it”.

Luckily I had a spare 1TB SSD that I’d dismantled from another machine so I formatted that in a disk caddy with the help of the travelling laptop and set about dismantling the big computer. It’s always good to perform a clean installation every couple of years because you’ll be surprised (or maybe you con’t) at the amount of rubbish that accumulates over the passage of time.

While I was doing that, I actually found what I suspect is the fault. There’s an internal power lead with three connectors for disk drives. The one that was connected to the SSD system drive has a crack in it and what seems to have happened is that the crack has allowed the internals to flex and they have shorted out.

No problem. I just disconnected the internal back-up drive and plugged the new SSD System drive into that connector. I’ll have to order a new power lead from somewhere in due course to connect everything back up on a more permanent basis.

While it was sorting itself out I made a quick tea – just like THE CARMICHAELS and "supper waits on the table inside a tin".

Back in here afterwards, I settled down and steeled myself ready for what is going to be a very long night

But while we’re on the subject of Colditz Castle … "well, one of us is" – ed … I’m reminded of that legendary “Two Ronnies” sketch from years ago.
"We’re making a film about prisoners escaping from a camp in Germany"
"What’s it called?"
"The Colditz Story"
"What are you making next?"
"A film about life in a South Wales mining village"
"What’s it called?"
"The Coal Tips Story"
"And after that?"
"We’re doing a film starring Raquel Welch who will be playing the role of an Inuit"
"What’s that called?"
"We haven’t decided yet"

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."

Tuesday 14th January 2025 – I AM TYPING …

… these notes during a pause in the football.

It’s hardly surprising that there’s a pause either because, as the score is proving, trying to play a game of football as banks of fog come rolling from the Dee estuary across the stadium at Cae Castell is producing some extremely unpredictable, and for Y Bala who are defending the river end, some extremely unfortunate moments.

After an hour of playing hide and seek the players have gone off the field in the hope that the fog will roll away. But even if it does, there is no guarantee that it won’t roll back.

It’s ironic that it’s happening to Y Bala. The final round of the first half of the season should have been played weeks ago but their pitch has been alternately under snow, ice and water on so many occasions that after several postponements that led to the postponement of the final round of matches, the game against Caernarfon that we watched on Saturday, was played at a neutral venue, Llandudno’s all-weather stadium

All the final round games were postponed until tonight, but now Y Bala’s vital match against Cei Connah is swathed in fog and all the players are in the dressing room waiting. There’s no guarantee that they will be back out either.

So while I’m waiting for things to happen, after finishing my notes last night I stayed up to listen to yet another concert (I’ve forgotten who it was) and then at about 00:30 I gave it up as a bad job and crawled into my bed. I can’t keep going as I used to.

Once in bed it took a while to go to sleep and there I stayed until about 06:35 when I awoke, once more drenched in sweat. There’s definitely something going on with this dialysis that I don’t understand.

It goes without saying, I suppose, that I went back to sleep again. I was certainly asleep when BILLY COTTON awoke me from the Dead.

Being awake was one thing. Leaving the bed was quite another thing completely. Mind you, I did (just about) beat the second alarm. And then I staggered off to the bedroom

After the bathroom it was the kitchen for the medication. And while I remembered the stuff that I can only take on a non-dialysis day, I forgot my blood-thinning medication. I’m definitely losing my touch, and probably my mind as well.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. Last night I was stacking things inside the van. It was already quite loaded. There was me and there was another person, a girl, helping me. We had some long, thin wooden boxes probably about two metres long, to put in the back. We were carrying them one by one. Someone suggested that we’d advance much quicker if we were to take two or three at a time between the two of us. We tried it with a couple but it was much wore awkward. Positioning them in the van was a problem because the girl with me always wanted to carry them on her left-hand side which meant that she was having to fight with the back door to put them in when she arrived. That was becoming rather difficult. We stacked them inside quite high. There was already a lot of things in there so we thought that we’d better find some way of strapping these in against the side of the wall or the other things that are already in there, strapping them up against them against the side of the wall that way so that they didn’t fall over because if they were to fall they would be quite something of a problem inside and the whole inside was something of a mess.

Whoever the girl was, I have no idea. She was small and lively, but not anyone whom I recognised immediately. However, stacking stuff into vans was the occupation of a lifetime once upon a time and regular readers of this rubbish will recall seeing a few photos of how I used to travel around Europe in the past.

Isabelle the Nurse is on duty for the next seven days. She is much more cheerful and was telling me about the float that she and her friends are building for Carnaval. She’s not telling me what it is though – it’s to be a surprise and won’t be unveiled until the day of the parade.

It’s now been announced that the football match has been postponed, which has now completely upset the timetable for the rest of the season. And I can press on, hours later than I was hoping.

So after Isabelle left I made my breakfast and then read some more of MY BOOK

His polemic by now is raging out of control and he condemns one of his colleagues in a manner that is quite unfitting in a published work, saying that "he blunders in a way which makes me hesitate to accept his statements about archaeological details that I have not myself studied" – a pretty outrageous remark for any academic to make, especially about a colleague.

He goes on to ask "How then would the professor and the doctor explain the fact that in the round barrows of the Yorkshire Wolds there was a reaction in favour of inhumation, seeing that Canon Greenwell 8 found in them 301 interments of unburnt and only 78 of burnt bones ?"

Christianity has been around for 2,000 years, but there are still plenty of Jews about. Protestantism has been around for almost 600 years, but there are still plenty of Catholics about. And going back to the “Dark Ages” of early Medieval times, there are many recorded instances of Christian Princesses being married to heathen Kings.

History shows us that several religions can live perfectly well side-by-side, and there’s no reason to suppose that things were different in Neolithic times. It’s quite possible to have two religions and two forms of dealing with dead bodies living in co-existence.

Back in here I revised for my Welsh lesson and hen went to class. We had, for the first time since I don’t know when, a full house of students and the class moved along smartly. I was once more quite satisfied with my progress, although my lack of memory is greatly hindering my vocabulary.

After the lesson it was lunch and a slice of flapjack with fruit, and then a very long and involved video chat with a friend in the UK who is carrying out a special project for me. We ended up discussing his holiday to Canada and, to my surprise, he liked everything that I didn’t and vice versa.

It was a Rosemaryesque conversation that lasted over an hour and it was very pleasant. It’s the only way that I get to see my friends these days and I do miss them all. Anyone else who wants a video chat some time, let me know.

Christmas cake break, very late, was next along with that disgusting protein drink, and then I started to work on the next radio programme. All of the songs are chosen, re-mixed, paired and segued and I’ve even begun to write the notes. That’s a job to be finished tomorrow I hope, in and around the shower I suppose, because it’s shower day tomorrow.

Tea tonight was a very rushed taco roll with rice followed by chocolate cake and chocolate soya dessert. Rushed because there was football on the internet. But I did remember to organise the lentils as well as some split peas that I found.

It’s the last match of the first half of the season as I mentioned earlier, the round having been postponed because of the issues with the pitch and the weather at Y Bala which has seen the Caernarfon game postponed three, or is it four times?

That match was played at Llandudno on Saturday, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, and so the final round, having been postponed while that game was still unplayed, took place tonight.

Both Cei Connah and Y Bala needed to win in order to qualify for the European playoff section of the league, and it was the Nomads who took advantage of the conditions. The first goal was an audacious lob from near the halfway line when a gust of wind lifted the fog briefly and enabled a Nomad to see the Bala keeper off his line.

They scored two more goals while Bala offered nothing whatever at all. It was all one-way traffic. But the match being called off saved Y Bala’s bacon. Some of tonight’s results mean that Cei Connah can’t possibly qualify, but Bala could if they have a good win. So if the match is replayed on Thursday, it might favour Bala.

But before I leave the story of the football match, there was a new recruit to the commentary team this evening.

Please excuse the poor quality but it’s a screenshot taken in the fog and so nothing will ever come out correctly. However it goes to show that gate-crashers can get in anywhere.

That is, except my bed (unless it’s Castor, TOTGA or Zero of course, and maybe Jenny Agutter and Kate Bush) because I’m going to climb into it in a moment, alongside STRAWBERRY MOOSE who keeps me company as much as he possibly can.

Tomorrow I’m radioing again and showering and pie-baking too. Maybe even bread-making. I’m certainly keeping myself busy.

Today, our Welsh class was discussing war. We were being asked about our family in wartime so I told them the story of my great grandfather who, after having long-since retired after his service in India and South Africa, dyed his white hair black, lied about his age and joined the Canadian Army in 1914, and also of my mother who served in the Royal Air Force in World War II.

I didn’t mention my distant great-great-cousin or whatever relation he was who was SENTENCED TO DEATH because, being a devout Quaker, he refusing to fight

One woman, the teacher from Nantwich, told the story of her father who was an Army dentist in Syria and the Western Desert in World War II.
One day he had to examine a group of volunteers to see if they were fit to join the Army and fight. One of them he was obliged to reject because his teeth were rotten.
"Blimey!" exclaimed the unlucky volunteer. "I know that we were expected to kill the enemy, but I didn’t know that we had to eat them afterwards."

Monday 30th December 2024 – REGULAR READERS OF …

… this rubbish will recall that HIS NIBS and I have been to the town of Lech in the Austria Tyrol ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS.

It’s a town that has some kind of significance for me. When Nerina and I were on our way to Italy on our honeymoon to see her family, we passed through Lech. We thought that the place looked lovely but being pushed for time – the story of our lives – we didn’t stop. However we vowed one day to return.

Of course, the lack of time and other factors intervened and then circumstances changed. However, I kept my vow and have been back a few times. I often wonder if she ever went back.

It wouldn’t be a good idea to go back today though. Apparently someone took nine hours just recently to dig his car out of the overnight snow that had fallen. All of that snow would have been great if I had been already there and wasn’t planning on going anywhere. It would have been like that time that I was SNOWED IN IN ANDORRA

However, I’m right here at the moment having a good think about what went on today.

Last night was quite easy. After I’d finished my notes and backed up the computer I loitered around for (quite) a while, and it was about 01:00 when I finally crawled off into my stinking pit.

Once I was in there, that was that. I remember absolutely nothing at all until the alarm went off at 08:00 (I’m still in “holiday” mode here). It was quite painless. No-one was more surprised than me that I’d slept like that.

When the alarm went off though, I was in the middle of a dream about elephants dancing in a circus and someone beating a kind of drum with a hand. Someone had offered to teach me how to dance in time to the music too but unfortunately we never came round to that because the alarm went off and that was that.

It’s just as well too. Seeing me dancing would not be a very pleasant sight and I’m glad that we were spared that.

In the bathroom I’d only just begun to wash myself when the nurse put in his appearance. Nothing else for it – he had to wait for me to finish what I was doing and so, like the White Rabbit, he would lose the time he’d saved.

We had the usual banal questions that so irritate me and then he cleared off. It’s his oppo now for the next seven days so things might be looking up.

Breakfast was next, and I read MY BOOK.

A couple of days ago, I talked about the location of specific Neolithic (or otherwise) stone circles and menhirs … "PERSONShirs" – ed … in Britain and how it looks to me as if succeeding waves of invaders have pushed the previous wave further into the less favourable areas of the British Isles and so on in further waves.

This morning he was discussing these waves of invaders (without mentioning the stone circles etc) and saying "It would be surprising if these conjectures did not attain some measure of truth ; but those who will not accept guesses even from the highest authority without testing them will perceive that they bristle with difficulties"

He seems to think though that new waves of invaders pushed their way through the existing settlers and headed freely and willingly to the less-favourable areas, something that, knowing human nature, I consider most unlikely, and he pours heaps of scorn on a writer who tell us that the latest invaders "were last in the held, were not forced to seek distant abodes, but conquered the best parts of the country which were nearest to the Continent.", a scenario that I consider to be much more likely.

Not two paragraphs further down, he speaks of the Belgae – the final wave that arrived in Britain – and says "The Belgic conquest, which brought Britain into closer connexion with the Continent, gave a powerful impetus to the spread of Late Celtic art.". Now how could they do that if they had pushed through all the others and gone to the more remote parts of the island?

After breakfast, I tidied up. I cut up the cake and the flapjack into individual helpings and put them all in tins and boxes. But I really need to make toom in the fridge. having resolved all of the difficulties about the freezer, it’s the fridge about which I’m worrying these days, wishing that I could make more room in it.

While I was at it, I started to put away the washing up from yesterday, but I need much more time than I had available to do that this morning.

My cleaner turned up to fit my anaesthetic patches, and it’s a good job that she was prompt because my 12:30 taxi turned up this morning at 12:18. There were two passengers already in it – from the Centre de Re-education on their way home to the back of beyond near Rennes, and I was being picked up and dropped off en route

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … whilst I’m not complaining about these new Social Security regulations, I’d love to know what will happen if an infectious disease springs up amongst the clients of a taxi service because of all of this.

Being early to be picked up, I was early to be dropped off too and was actually second to be plugged in, which made a change.

And while I was undergoing treatment I was reading up on the various periods of the Stone Age (Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic) and the change in existence from hunter-gatherer to settled agricultural community. As I said yesterday, the site at Hallstatt begins right at the very, very end of the Neolithic period and takes us through the Copper Age, the Bronze Age and into the Iron Age.

What had piqued my interest was the existence of Hearne’s Copper Indians – still living clearly in the Copper Age from a tools point of view but a Palaeolithic Age from the point of view of hunter-gathering.

But this takes us back to another point I raised from a couple of days ago about the survival of Palaeolithic Communities in isolated upland areas of Britain well into Neolithic times. They did it for the same reason that the Copper Indians had one foot in either of their camps – because that represents the best use of the resources that are readily and locally available.

The doctor, the uncommunicative one, came to see me too. He asked me a few more questions about my foot and later on, handed me a big envelope full of papers to hand in at Paris. Maybe he’s asking them to follow up this issue. I’ll have to have a sneaky look.

Almost-first in means almost-first out so once Alexi had unplugged me, I was out of there like a ferret up a trouser leg and a rather uncommunicative driver brought me home.

My cleaner was astonished to see me home so early, just as I was astonished to be here so early, and having climbed up the steps and used the lift, I was back in the warmth of my apartment. It was freezing outside.

Tea tonight was a stuffed pepper with pasta in tomato sauce followed by ginger cake and soya mince. Tomorrow, I’m having my New Year’s Eve dinner so I shall have to work up an appetite.

But before I do, my dream today made me begin to think of the time at school we were discussing the sexual reproduction of worms.
We were looking at works through a microscope, examining their reproductive organs, and it struck us that something was missing
"There is no testicular substance there" we exclaimed
"Worms are devoid of testicular matter" explained the teacher
"What does that mean?" asked little Johnny at the back of class.
"It means" I shouted "that worms don’t have any balls!"
"Please Sir" asked little Johnny "why don’t worms have balls?"
And the teacher sighed. "Because they can’t dance, you fool!"

EPIC HALL

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

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