Tag Archives: TNS

Saturday 28th March 2026 – YET ANOTHER EVENING …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Saturday 21st March 2026 — I HAD NOTHING ON …

… the dictaphone from last night. And, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, that’s something that fills me full of dismay. So boring is my life these days, compared to how it used to be, that the only excitement that I seem to have is whatever goes on during the night. And so a night with nowhere to go is really depressing.

Not that it was particularly early. As usual, things seemed to drag on and on, and it was about 23:15 when I was ready to crawl into my stinking pit, having moved all of the rubbish off the bed.

Once in bed, I fell asleep quite quickly and there I stayed until a mega-coughing fit awoke me. I’ve no idea what time it was because I was too depressed to check. But there I lay, in that kind of no-man’s land between sleeping, being awake, and dozing off, all the way through until the alarm went off at 06:29.

And once again, I had a real battle with myself to leave the bed at that moment. It’s becoming harder and harder to force myself right out of bed these days.

In the bathroom, I had a wash, and then I washed my undies ready for next time. In the kitchen, I made my hot lemon, ginger and honey drink and took my medication, and then I came back in here.

With no dictaphone notes to transcribe, I had a look at the highlights from last night’s football. Llanelli went down to Cardiff Metro, as expected, but the TNS v Colwyn Bay game had a very unexpected result.

Colwyn Bay have NEVER beaten TNS, and as the match was bing played at TNS’s ground, no-one expected any difference. Colwyn Bay did, however, take the lead, but we all expected it to be just delaying the inevitable.

However, regular readers of this rubbish will recall that the other day, I mentioned TNS’s rather … errr … pedestrian defence and how a quick ball over the top and a couple of rapid wingers rushing on could create havoc. Sure enough, a long clearance out of Colwyn Bay’s defence, right over the top of the TNS defence, saw the ex-Greenock Morton striker Jordan Davies rush on after it.

A panic-stricken TNS ‘keeper rushed right off his line to try to clear, but missed the ball and scythed down Davies. Result — a red card and a free kick.

Later on, Colwyn Bay scored a second, and although TNS hit the woodwork twice, the score finished 0-2 in favour of Colwyn Bay. You can SEE THE HIGHLIGHTS HERE

Isabelle the Nurse turned up, full of good humour as usual. This time, she managed to avoid hurting my foot, which was good news, and she soon left. I reminded her before she went that she might probably find me in bed tomorrow when she calls;

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

Having told us yesterday about how well the Greeks were being treated by the Ottomans, he goes on today to tell us about some of the atrocities that they committed. It should be said, however, that most of them were committed after a rebellion or something like that.

There was however the terrible tax on children. Every year, the Ottomans would come to each Greek town or island to select a number of children, and carry them back to their cities. The boys, they would train them as Janissaries, the elite formations of the Ottoman army. The fate of the girls needs no description.

On another subject, he tells us that a convent was opened in Athens by a nun called Philothee Benizelou. Our author informs us that "she has left a most uncomplimentary description of the Athenians of her day, with whom she had some pecuniary difficulties and upon whom she showers a string of abusive epithets in the best classical style"

A woman after my own heart. My next task will be to find a copy of her writings.

Back in here, I had thing to do, and then I made a start on trying to make the new computer work.

First thing was to further dismantle the old computer. I removed the graphics card (complete with HDMI port) and then went to install it in the new one. That was not as easy as it might have been either — it needed some adjustment to the case to make it fit because the face of the graphics card covers two whole bays.

Having done that, I was still no further on, so I carried on my unplugging one by one everything that I’d plugged in yesterday. And it was after I’d removed one bar of additional RAM that the machine suddenly sprung into life. So there’s a short-circuit in one of the bars of RAM then.

So once, the computer was up and running, it now became necessary to install my suite of preferred programs, and as usual, that takes a very long time.

While it was doing its stuff, I was busy tidying up all of the bits and pieces and putting them away. Then, I had endless hours of fun trying to put the box and packaging up onto the top shelf of the unit by the door. And that wasn’t as easy as it might have been either, at least, for me.

Round about 16:00, I knocked off … "for the moment" – ed … and went into the kitchen.

A few weeks ago, I’d talked about making a trifle for a pudding. I’d found a recipe for making vegan jelly, involving agar-agar and fruit juice, so armed with a carton of grape juice, some agar-agar, some sugar, and a pear, I set to work.

And do you know what? It’s set to perfection!

Tomorrow, I’m going to make some really thick custard to pour all over it, and when it’s all cooled, I’ll whip up some vegan topping to pour all over it. It should be wonderful.

We had football on the internet later – Y Bala v Hwlffordd. Y Bala are next-to-bottom and ripe for relegation whilst Hwlffordd are seventh and pushing for the European play-offs. But Hwlffordd were absolutely awful today, the worst that I have ever seen them play. And while Y Bala were very … errr … agricultural, they played with a fire and an enthusiasm that I haven’t seen for ages, and their 1-0 victory, their first home win in 142 days, was well-earned.

Tea tonight was a burger on a bap with a baked potato and veg in butter, followed by vegan cheesecake. And it was a lovely tea. I enjoyed every mouthful of it. It will set me up nicely for my lie-in tomorrow, I hope.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about writing in the best classical style … "well, one of us has" – ed … I’m reminded of a family who sent their son to one of the best European schools in Brussels so that he could have a good multicultural and classical education.
One of the family’s neighbours asked them "and how is his education going?"
"It’s wonderful" said the boy’s mother. "In no time at all, he could write home asking for money in seventeen different languages."

Tuesday 3rd March 2026 – I DON’T KNOW …

… how I’m going to start today’s entry, because, after racking my brains for long enough, I can’t think of anything important or significant that happened.

TNS won … "yet again" – ed … the JD Cymru League championship, but that’s anything but important or significant. In fact, it’s quite usual. It’s long been suggested that it’s a waste of time playing a season’s worth of football. The Football Association of Wales should give all of the trophies to TNS and relegate the newly-promoted sides before a ball has been kicked. That’s usually how it all ends up.

Not necessarily this year though. While newly-promoted Llanelli have already been relegated, the other promoted side, Colwyn Bay, buoyed by some of the biggest crowds that the league has seen, have recruited a good squad of players and are currently in sixth place.

Y Barri lifted the League Cup against TNS the other day, and in the Welsh Cup, TNS were surprisingly eliminated a while back, and this weekend, we have the not-to-be-missed semi-finals with the unlikely pairings of second-tier Y Rhyl against Caernarfon and third-tier Dinas Bangor against Y Fflint. I don’t think that in all the long history of the competition, there have ever been four clubs from the North Wales coast all together in the semis.

While it’s probably too much to hope for, a final between Y Rhyl and Dinas Bangor would certainly be a match to remember, with old rivalries and battles going back almost 150 years, as regular readers of this rubbish in one of its previous guises will recall when we were on the terraces at the old Farrar Road Stadium for a match between the two clubs.

But anyway, I digress … "again" – ed …

Last night, I raced through everything that I needed to do and, quite surprisingly, finished fairly early. I was actually in bed at 22:20, and it’s been a long time since I’ve been in bed before my curfew time of 22:30.

However, regular readers of this rubbish will recall what happens next at times like these when I’ve had an early night. That’s right – and at 02:10 too. I tried my best to go back to sleep – tried for hours – and I thought that I would never manage it too. However, at some point, I must have done because the alarm awoke me at 06:29.

And I’m glad that I did too, because I had a special visitor during the night, but more of that anon.

For a change, I was up and about without too much effort and headed into the bathroom for a scrub-up, following which I went into the kitchen for my hot drink and medication.

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

I’d been round at Zero’s house last night, talking to her parents, going over old times again. Their house and their lifestyle were still the same as they always were. We were sitting there, discussing things, and they announced out of the blue that they were going to go out for a meal that evening. I gathered that I wasn’t included in that, but it didn’t bother me at all. However, they asked me if I’d stay behind and keep an eye on Zero. I thought that I may as well do that, so I then had to find some food to eat. They gave me the number of the local chip shop so I tried to telephone it, but for some reason, it wasn’t connecting, so Zero’s father came over and, as usual, over-complicated the affair. Eventually, I managed to get through, and I asked them what vegan or vegetarian options they had. After a lengthy discussion, they didn’t really have anything, so I asked them if they could just send a large bag of chips down and I would make do with that during the evening. Zero asked me if I would be staying there while her parents went out, so I told her that I would, and then her parents made ready to leave.

So welcome back, Zero. I thought that you had deserted me for ever, as TOTGA and Castor seem to have done and the Vanilla Queen did quite a few years ago.

However, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I’m not in control of whatever happens in my dreams, so just in case anyone is reading this, in real life I would never ever have been left without food when visiting Zero’s parents, that’s for sure.

Isabelle the Nurse breezed in after her week’s break. She was in an incredible rush, with a pile of blood tests to perform, which is quite usual after her break. She didn’t hang around long and was soon off on her travels. I could push on and make my breakfast and read some more of ESSAYS ON THE LATIN ORIENT by William A Miller.

Today, for some reason, we are discussing the Theodosian Walls of Constantinople, and this has led me off on a tangent … "as usual" – ed … to examine the entire walled defences of the city and the giant cannon that the Turks used to try to breach them during the siege of 1453. I’m not quite sure how I arrived at this stage, but it’s not surprising.

After breakfast, I came back in here and revised my Welsh and then went to the lesson. And, as seems to be usual these days, it all passed very well.

Our classmate from Dubai was there today. We asked her how things were, and she simply couldn’t understand why we were concerned. There had been maybe six, maybe eight rockets that had landed, and no-one was taking any notice of them. The horse racing at the weekend went on as usual and the Emir, the Crown Prince and a group of about twenty sheikhs went for a walk around the city.

She said that there has been no sign whatever of any of the “panic” reported in the Western Press. As far as she’s concerned, it’s the usual “horror story” in the Press, designed to drum up hatred with no foundation whatever in fact.

And that’s all that I’m going to say about it.

When the lesson had finished, my faithful cleaner put in an appearance and shooed me into the shower as usual. And while I was showering, she changed the bedclothes so I now have my nice, clean bed for tonight. And that means a clothes-washing session on Friday.

After she had left, I had a little relax for a while and then attacked the radio programme that I’d begun yesterday. By the time that I’d finished, all of the music had been paired and segued, and some of the notes had been written.

Then, it was a mad dash into the kitchen for tea. I’d planned some pasta, a vegan burger and some ratatouille, but then I remembered that I had some crusty spinach things from ages ago, and I thought that a handful of those would be nice with ratatouille, so I bunged a few in the air fryer.

That was when I discovered that I had no ratatouille. You really can’t make it up, can you?

Back in here, I was in time for the football – Connah’s Quay Nomads v TNS – and if TNS win, they win the Championship.

Unfortunately, Connah’s Quay never looked like scoring, and as the match dragged on, it became more and more obvious that TNS would pull something extra out of the bag. Sure enough, with just a few minutes to go, they won a penalty, one that I considered was rather harsh. However, TNS tucked it away to go into the lead.

Surprisingly, the Nomads went straight from the restart and scored an equaliser, but that wasn’t the end of the story. I’ve lost count of the number of times the Nomads have conceded a goal right at the death and today was no exception. Just ninety seconds to the end too.

The after-match celebrations and speeches went on for so long that it was almost 23:15 when it was all over, far too late to begin to write my notes, so I went to bed instead. The notes can wait until morning.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about Zero … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of my friends asked me if, in the dream, her parents wanted me to babysit her
"You don’t mention the word ‘babysit’ to Zero" I explained.
"Why not?" I was asked
"The first time that I did" I replied "it took two weeks for the swellings to go down and another week before the bruises faded.".
In her youth, she was a fiery, feisty creature.

Saturday 28th February 2026 – I HAVE JUST …

… watched one of the best football matches that I have ever seen.

Of course, watching a good match is always quite enjoyable, but when it involves TNS not only being beaten but also royally stuffed by a real Welsh football team, and in a Cup Final too, that really is the icing on the cake.

It’s a match to which I’ve been looking forward all weekend, and so last night, I decided to have an early night so that I would really be in the best of form to watch it.

Of course, what I decide to do and what actually happens are not the same thing, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. And so none of my faithful readers will be in the least surprised to hear that it was 23:50 when I finally made it into bed.

Yes, it was that late. I really don’t know where the time goes these days. No matter what I try to do, it’s very rare that I can beat my curfew time of 22:30.

Once in bed, though, I was asleep quite quickly, and that’s the last thing that I remember until the alarm went off at 06:29. It was another night when I don’t believe that I moved a muscle at all.

As seems to be the case these days, I struggled to make it into the bathroom, but I finally managed it and had a good wash, a change of clothes and a handwashing session. I need to keep on top of my socks and undies, otherwise I’ll run out of stock.

In the kitchen, I made my hot drink and took my medication, including the Vitamin B12 and Vitamin D supplements that the people at dialysis are insisting that I take. It’s only once a month, and I usually always forget to take them.

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

One of my neighbours had a car parked on their property for a couple of months and I had my eye on it. Then, they announced that they were selling it but the price that they wanted for it was way out of my pocket and way out of what I thought it was worth, so I was rather disappointed with them about this. But we ended up walking into Crewe, walking down Delamere Street towards the post office one early Saturday morning. I had a letter to write and I needed a stamped envelope, so I thought that I’d go into the post office to buy one, but I suspected that if the post office were open at this time, there would be quite a queue inside. So we went and opened the door, and there was really a queue, quite a long one in there in fact, and they were all at one counter because there was just one counter open. Someone was arguing with someone about small change, saying that they’d had to go all the way to Chester this morning to fetch some small change, so they are rather careful about how they give it out. Eventually, the queue divided into two as another window opened. There was a young girl who went up to the window and handed over a ring. She asked if she could change this engagement ring for a single person’s ring. A couple of people felt sorry for her, but I seemed to remember that this girl had been engaged three or four times before, but it had all broken off, so I wondered what was happening now with this latest one. Then she explained that she’d like to have the money back, and have it back quickly, because everyone will remember what happened when she used a cheque last time she had to buy something. I for one didn’t know what she meant, but I imagined that one or two other people in this queue must have known or something like that.

In the past, I would always have been interested in cars parked up for ages in neighbours’ gardens, but these days, there’s not a car being made anywhere in the World that is of any interest to me.

The story about the Post Office is perfectly true, though. Go in there at any normally busy time, and there would only be one window open of the five or six available. And I know who the girl was too. She was a colleague of Nerina’s when Nerina worked at Crewe before she moved to Stockport, who was also in the same school year as my brother.

Interestingly, going to Chester for small change was an interesting point. When I had my taxis, we had the contract for the local McDonald’s. They could only ever use approved products supplied by the franchise and never buy anything in a local shop. There are several occasions when we had to run to the Wrexham outlet for a bag of lettuce or to the Chester one for some cartons of milk, that kind of thing. I remember once, the Saturday before Christmas, having to go to Wrexham for lettuce, taking Nerina with me, dropping her off at a supermarket there to do our Christmas shopping while I went to pick up the lettuce.

That was the kind of pressure under which we were living. We never had five minutes to ourselves to relax. No wonder our marriage didn’t last.

The nurse turned up as usual to sort out my feet and legs, and we had a chat about Welsh football. I’m not quite sure why because it’s a very specialised subject.

After he left, I made breakfast and began my new book, ESSAYS ON THE LATIN ORIENT by William A. Miller, having finished the previous one about plants at Calleva Atrebates.

This book goes back to 1921 and refers to the history of Greece under the Roman and then the Byzantine Empire, something about which I really ought to know much more.

Everyone knows about the “Franks” — the crusaders who passed through there on their way to the Holy Land and who seemed to spend more time fighting the Byzantines as they crossed that empire than they ever did fighting the Saracens to free the Holy Land — but that’s about the extent of my knowledge. I really ought to be doing better than that.

Back in here, I had something of a footfest with the highlights of last night’s matches in Wales. They were quite entertaining, but there was nothing remarkable about any of them.

In fact, it was quite a leisurely late morning, with the monotony being broken by a series of ‘phone calls about a missing letter. I posted it (or, rather, my faithful cleaner did) on the 12th February, but it’s still not been received and the action to which it refers took place today. I had to find a copy of the letter and e-mail it.

This afternoon, after my disgusting drink break, I attacked yet another pile of radio notes, as I said yesterday that I would. And now they are edited and the two halves of the programme have been prepared. The joining track has been chosen and remixed etc, and the notes are written ready for typing. This means that I can have a complete day off tomorrow. Won’t that be nice?

Round about 17:30, I went and prepared tea because there won’t be much time later. We had the football match to watch instead.

It was the League Cup Final with TNS, odds-on favourites to win (as usual), against rank outsiders Y Barri.

Usually, games involving TNS, the only full-time club in the league with a squad that cost a fortune, involve a backs-to-the-wall approach with the opposition penned back in their own penalty area with piles of desperate defending. However, I’ve noticed a weakness in TNS’s defence, and that is that they are very susceptible to the ball “over the top” with a quick forward rushing onto the ball. And Y Barri have the two quickest forwards in the league in Ieuan Owen and Ollie Hulbert

Y Barri took the game to TNS right from the start and actually had TNS pinned in their own penalty area for long periods of the game. And when the TNS goalkeeper couldn’t hang on to the ball from a cross into the penalty area, Ieuan Owen was the first to reach the loose ball, and that was Y Barri 1-0 up.

As the second half wore on, you could see that Y Barri were tiring rapidly, and it was a question of whether they could hang on. But as we entered injury time, we had Ieuan Owen reacting first to a loose ball about twenty-five yards out of the TNS goal, and what followed was the best goal that you are ever likely to see at this level of football. HOW ABOUT THIS?

That wasn’t all the excitement either. The match finished in a good old-fashioned brawl involving just about every one of the twenty-two players, all of the staff and all of the substitutes on the bench.

After that, I went and had the tea that I’d prepared – baked potato, vegan salad and one of those breadcrumbed quorn fillets that I like, followed by ginger cake and home-made ice cream

Now though, I’m off to bed, hoping for a good lie-in tomorrow. I certainly deserve it, but we shall have to see about that.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my new book … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of my friends asked me what book I was reading at the moment.
"It’s called ‘Essays on the Latin Orient’" I replied.
"Oh yes" she said. "Weren’t they promoted to League One a couple of seasons ago?"

Saturday 7th February 2026 – I HAVE SEEN …

… one of the worst games of football this afternoon that I have ever seen in my life.

When you have the leader of the league against the third-placed team, you expect some kind of tense, thrilling contest. But not today, unfortunately. It was one of those games that is best forgotten.

Just like last night, in fact. That is best forgotten too. Having been endlessly sidetracked when writing my notes, and having fallen asleep yet again in my chair, it was almost midnight by the time that I’d finished everything and crawled under the covers.

And there I lay, without moving, until all of … errr … 04:30 when I awoke. Mind you, I didn’t manage to go back to sleep again and I finally awoke at about 06:25, a couple of minutes before the alarm. There wasn’t even enough time to check whether it was worth making an early start.

It was quite difficult to haul myself out of bed, as you might expect, but eventually I staggered off into the bathroom for a wash, a change of clothes and a handwashing session so that my socks and undies will be ready for next time.

In the kitchen, I made my hot drink and took my medication, and then came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

I was back playing bass guitar last night in my apartment. I’d been cleaning a few things and was cleaning the case in which the bass guitar lives when something made me stop and take it out. There was a “Man” record playing on the playlist, 7171-551 so I began to play along with it. then the next one came along, and the next one came along and so on. I hadn’t realised at that point that I had an audience. My cleaner was at the door and she was watching. After a while, she came in and said a few words of encouragement but I wasn’t particularly happy, it having been so long since I’d played. I didn’t think that I was particularly good but I did carry on. And once more, I was up on the stage. There was a young country-and-western or folk singer or something like that playing acoustic guitar, and I ended up accompanying him. On one of the songs, I played this really melodic bass guitar solo in the middle of it and it sounded really, really good.

Anyone who has heard my mobile ‘phone ring will immediately recognise the opening bars of “7171-551”, played by the Welsh rock group “Man” when they had the legendary ex-Quicksilver Messenger Service guitarist John Cipollina amongst their numbers. It’s said to be (although this is disputed) the ‘phone number of Mike Nesmith of the Monkees, and it’s also my mobile ‘phone ringtone.

But it’s true – I haven’t played guitar for almost two years since I had the implant fitted in my arm. It’s really painful to bend my wrist as I should. As well as that, I can’t stand up to play, and the guitars are too heavy for me anyway.

Did I dictate that dream about the private investigator who had a lot of work on his hands and was finding it very difficult to keep up and organise? … "no you didn’t" – ed …. I was spending a lot of time with him for different reasons. He had an assistant, a young guy. Every now and again, he’d give this young guy tasks to do which had come in which were fairly simple, straightforward etc. This private investigator had to take a few days off and went to Norway in the middle of winter where he sat, sorted out all his paperwork and then came back again. One of the jobs that he had to do was to drive two different Lotus vehicles because someone was alleging that they were the same car and they needed a report to say so. His young assistant chose to do that job so I said that I’d go with him. We set out and met the woman concerned and began to walk with her. We were walking through Chester and came past this music shop where this young boy nipped off to have a play on a guitar. We carried on walking and she said that she thought that he wasn’t the brightest spark in the box. I replied “no, but he’s nice enough”. He caught up with us and we arrived at this place, and she sent him to build some kind of seating area out of metal framework and OSB. When he’d done it, I went back to have a look and I noticed that he had small pieces of wood left over so I told him to use some of the OSB to fill in the gaps so that people would sit down there comfortably to watch this particular trial, but it turned out that he didn’t have enough wood to do that.

The private detective reminded me of Robert Mitchum, who played Philip Marlowe in the film FAREWELL MY LOVELY, one of the best films that I have seen for quite a while.

The street in Chester where the music shop was – I can see it now. It’s Frodsham Street, the street that leads from Foregate Street up to the bypass and then Brook Street. Of course, the rest of it is quite meaningless.

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

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

Isabelle the Nurse turned up to sort out my feet and legs, and after she left, I could make my breakfast and read some more of Mortimer Wheeler’s MAIDEN CASTLE .

And he’s not above taking a few pot shots at his colleagues, although not in the same subtle manner as James Curle. Re-examining the work of one of his predecessors who had examined the site at the end of the nineteenth century, he says that "Cunnington … found his black and white mosaic (apparently in situ) and a ‘mass of masonry’, 9 ft. by 6 ft. If the latter existed otherwise than in his imagination, it may have supported the cult-statue or altar, but no trace of the mass survived in I934"

He also talks about the pagan temple dating from the last quarter of the fourth century AD at Maiden Castle and examples at other hillforts, and speculates that there was a revival of paganism amongst the native population towards the end of the Roman occupation. He seems not to have considered the possibility that during this period, the Romans had been recruiting auxiliaries from beyond the boundary of the Empire who still adhered to their old pagan cults and had not yet adopted Christianity. And despite what Bede told us back in the eighth century, there is clear evidence that Saxon invaders were settled in parts of England as early as 368 AD, so it may equally well have been that the “Romano-Celtic” temples were built by or for these “foreigners”.

Back in here, there were the highlights of last night’s football, and that took me up to a disgusting drink break. Then I made a start on the radio notes that I need to finish, although I didn’t go very far because there was football on the internet – a game between TNS in first place and Penybont in third place.

And as I said just now, it was an appalling game. Penybont have been out of sorts since before Christmas and have not been doing very well. But today, they were the worst that I have ever seen.

Their manager said before Christmas that they need to strengthen the squad in the winter transfer window, but instead, they sold their two best players and recruited poorly to replace them. The fire has definitely gone out in their team. No team in third position in the league should EVER lose 6-0, no matter what the circumstances. And had it not been for an inspired display by their goalkeeper Luke Armstrong, the result could have been much worse

The thing, though, is that after a few really excellent games that have been a credit to the league, I was bound to come unstuck at some point. Who would have thought that it would have been at this game, though?

The rest of the afternoon was spent finishing writing the notes for that radio programme, and then I edited the notes that I’d dictated previously for another one.

Tea tonight was a vegan burger on a bap with salad and baked potato, followed by fruitcake and soya dessert. And delicious it was too.

Right now, though, I’m off to bed, hoping for a really decent sleep and a lie-in, but we shall see how things unfold.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the imagination … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of my brother at one of his many jobs.
The boss asked him "what are you doing?"
"I’m working" he replied.
"You’re only pretending to work!" roared the boss
"Well, you’re only pretending to pay us" replied my brother
He didn’t last long in that job.

Friday 28th November 2025 – THERE’S NO DOUBT …

… about it – I really am ill.

Today has been a pretty miserable day as far as I am concerned. And it should have started so well too.

Having raced through everything last night, my notes were online quite early and I was looking forward to a nice, early night and a really good sleep. However, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed …. it’s really pointless going to bed early, because all it means is that I awaken correspondingly early the following morning.

Like 04:05 this morning, for example.

At about 05:20, I’d given up all hope of going back to sleep and had risen from the Dead. I took full advantage of the early start by dictating the radio notes that I had rewritten the other day, so they were ready for editing.

Next stop was to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I’d been out with some friends last night, and we’d been to rescue a car that belonged to one of them. When I went to pick it up, they asked me if I would drive it back. It was a Morris marina, and I couldn’t get the hang of the gearbox. It felt ever so tight to me. However, I managed to move it in some fashion and came into the city centre. I put the indicator on to turn left, but people stopped for me as if I wanted to go up into the church precinct. In the end, I had no choice but to go up into the church. We stopped there and waited for the traffic to die down, then we climbed into the car again, with me struggling with the gearbox to leave. I ended up being stuck behind an old, dirty bus and I suddenly realised that I was in an old, dirty bus too. I had to pull out from behind this bus without hitting it and somehow make my way forward. I pulled out and had to wait for a gap in the traffic. Just as I was about to pull out, a car suddenly appeared. I saw it over my shoulder and the guy with me said to his wife “did you see that? He actually used his shoulder”. He was quite impressed by that. So we set off, but then we had to go to a DIY shop for some DIY stuff for my house. They all set off running but I knew that it was miles away so I ran a lot slower to conserve my strength. But there was an incredibly steep descent and I could have jumped into the bus and let it roll down to the bottom of the hill but I thought that it would be most unsafe so I carried on running. Eventually, I arrived at this DIY place and found that they had all purchased everything and it was all stacked. However, they looked exhausted so and they asked about when we were going to load it. I replied “you need to take a break first because you aren’t going to load anything like that in that condition”. The guy in the shop said that as it was all on a pallet already, he could take it with a fork-lift truck and drop it down at the side of our vehicle.

The part about looking over my shoulder relates to the time when I was chauffeuring in Brussels. I had a General from the Finnish Army in my car and he asked me if I had been a motor-cyclist. I asked him why, and he replied "you’re always looking over your shoulder when you drive, just like a motorcyclist does. "

The friend was, by the way, related to one of the young ladies who come to see me during the night and it’s a disaster that she never put in an appearance. And we had a Marina estate once when I had my taxis. We were going to use it for parcels but, as always, I was overtaken by events.

One thing though was that I never drove “dirty old buses”. I was quite selective about whom I drove for and restricted my activities to Shearings and to a local firm with an excellent reputation.

By now though, I was wishing that I had stayed in bed because I was beginning to feel awful, nauseous and totally exhausted. Nevertheless, I went for a good wash and to make my hot ginger, honey and lemon drink for my medication.

Back in here, I could no longer concentrate on anything, and it was a very weary, depressive me that crawled into the kitchen when Isabelle the Nurse came round. She gave me my injection and sorted out my feet, and when I told her how ill I was feeling, she suggested that I go back to bed.

Strangely enough, that was my opinion too, but first I made breakfast and read some more of ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN.

As usual, I was sidetracked by the Iter Britanniarum as I followed the routes of some of these roads. Interestingly, he talks about a Roman agger or embankment that carried a road that crossed over the River Hodder in Lancashire. I had a quick look on an online aerial map and noticed a LOVELY CURVED EMBANKMENT NOW OVERGROWN WITH TREES, THAT COULD EASILY BE AN AGGER leading to the river, and if you zoom in to the river really closely, you can see what looks like a paved ford under the water.

There’s also talk about a Roman fort at Caersws in mid-Wales “in a bend of the River Severn with three concentric defensive rings” and, allowing for modern erosion by the river, I FOUND THIS.

A little earlier, I’d mentioned going back to bed but I couldn’t even go that far. I staggered onto my office chair in the bedroom and promptly fell asleep again.

When I awoke, over an hour later, I was still feeling ill but I pushed on and edited the radio notes that I’d dictated earlier. So that programme is ready to be assembled now.

The taxi came early to take me to the Centre de Ré-education so I had to wait around for a while when I arrived.

My first session was with the relief physiotherapist as mine was on a training day. She exercised my arms and legs for a half-hour period that passed surprisingly quickly.

The second session was with the occupational therapist but he didn’t really offer a great deal of help and we were finished after fifteen minutes.

After waiting around for a while, I saw Elise the Dishy Doctor. I poured out my tale of woe, and we decided, after a lengthy discussion, to suspend all of the activities at the Centre de Ré-education until the doctors at dialysis decide that I’m fit enough to restart, whenever that may be.

In the meantime, she gave me a prescription for twenty-five sessions of physiotherapy at my own pace in some local cabinet. However, as my faithful cleaner said later, finding one that has a vacancy is going to be a real challenge.

The final session was this standing upright in this frame thing but I abandoned that after twenty minutes and went to look for my taxi home.

My cleaner helped me into the apartment and then I collapsed into a chair in the kitchen. After she left, I came back in here and, once installed in my comfortable chair, I crashed out again – until, would you believe, 19:45.

For tea tonight, I made a batch of hummus and ate it with some crackers while I watched the football – TNS v Caernarfon. TNS had the lion’s share of the game, of course but the Cofis kept them out for eighty-two minutes.

Two late goals, one of them with the very last kick of the game, gave TNS another win, and once again, the Cofis played the match without any great sense of urgency going forward. They really are going to have to play better than this if they want to make their mark.

So right now, I’m off to bed. Totally exhausted, but relieved to some extent that I’m only out for two afternoons next week. This is some kind of progress.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the Finnish General … "well, one of us has" – ed … when I went round to his apartment once, he had a large stuffed black bear in his hallway.
He told me a story about it that I could easily believe to be true and underlines the misunderstanding when two foreigners are conversing in a third, foreign language.
He was holding a cocktail party and one of his guests, an Italian lady, asked him about the bear, and the conversation continued in English.
"I shot it myself" he replied.
"So is it the complete bear there? "
"Oh no. It’s just the fur "
"So what did you do with the bear itself? "
"We ate it"
And so she went round this cocktail party with stories of the General dragging the dead bear into a clearing in the forest and then sitting around a campfire eating it raw while it was still warm and fresh.

Saturday 22nd November 2025 – AS I HAVE …

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

And that, dear reader, explains why I was sitting at my desk working at 03:30 this morning.

Last night, I’d hit the hay at about 19:30 or thereabouts after my totally exhausting day at the Centre de Ré-education. Having a day like that after two days of chemotherapy is not doing me any good at all, and as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed …. it’s pointless giving me all of these exercises to make me better if the effort is going to kill me.

Surprisingly, considering how dead I was feeling earlier, it took an age for me to go off to sleep. But once I’d gone, I stayed gone and an earthquake wouldn’t have awoken me. But at 02:27 we had another one of these “sitting bolt upright” awakenings that I sometimes have.

Despite all that I tried, I couldn’t go back to sleep so after an hour or so, I raised myself from the Dead.

We started off with a foot-fest. There had been some matches in the Welsh Cup last night and the highlights were now online.

And how I laughed as TNS – perennial winners of just about everything – were leading 1-0 against Cardiff Metropolitan with just five minutes to go, only to concede two quickfire goals and go out of the competition.

It was even funnier later when Connah’s Quay – perennial runners-up – playing away at second-tier Llandudno, went down and out 2-1.

What with other results today, we have to go back to 2002-03 to find a Welsh Cup winner who is still in the competition.

After the football, I made a start on last night’s blog entry. I was so exhausted last night that there was no possibility of me doing anything. Eventually, the entry went online and then I had to do the stats and the statistics that I also hadn’t done yesterday.

There was some stuff on the dictaphone from the night too. I was in the north of Scotland somewhere. There was a kind of canal that had been dug artificially from the sea. There was a ferry boat, one of these small, flat ferry things moored at the ferry terminal along this canal that sailed out across to an island just across a short length of sea. I was there in BILL BADGER, my old A60 van waiting to be loaded on, and a tractor appeared. He had something in the bucket at the front and something in the tri-point hitch at the back. The ferry guy told him that if he wanted to cross over to the island, he’d have to hire a trailer in order to take his things onto the ferry. They couldn’t go like that. He said that he would have to go back to pick up a trailer as he only lives at the top of the hill. The ferry guy said something like “it will be in the next price band” when he comes back so “to tell whoever was here that it’s agreed to pay twenty-five bob to go across”, which was presumably the fare for the current price band where we were. Then I was beckoned onto the ferry. There was a weird chiming noise in the distance, and the ferry guy said that that was the local church bells ringing the time. Then, there was an even weirder one almost straight away. He pointed to some tower on the horizon and said “that’s the town clock, that one is that’s striking now”.

Several ferries of that nature have had the pleasure of my presence. Mainly up in Scotland (and mainly in Bill Badger) but more than just a few around the coast of Nova Scotia.

Later on, I was with my niece’s youngest daughter and someone else. We were in my apartment in Granville. We decided that we’d go out for a meal so I collected my crutches and we set out towards the town. We hadn’t gone too far when I realised that I’d left my sac banane behind with my wallet in it so my niece’s daughter volunteered to run back. But then she pointed out the fact that I was in fact wearing it so we carried on downtown and came across a canal again where there was a boat heading up the canal from the sea. We came into the centre and came into a restaurant. It was 22:00 now and we weren’t sure whether it was still serving, but they ushered us to a table. It was an extremely posh affair and we were surrounded by waiters. I said to my niece’s daughter “we’re actually outnumbered here” to which she laughed. They kept on insisting that we had wines and that kind of thing whereas sparkling water was fine for me. Eventually, they poured a sparkling water for me and left the menus. I had the vegan menu, so there was a kind of stuffed tomato that looked nice. For the main course, I was hoping to have a salad. There were pages and pages and pages of different types of lettuce and different types of dressing. I asked the others what they were having, and they made some kind of suggestion but it didn’t ring any bells with me. The third person with us stood up and went over to a different table. She looked at it and came back, saying “that’s a lovely table over there”. My niece’s daughter said “well, we’re here now”. But the other person replied “but I want to go to sit at that table” but my niece’s daughter ignored her and so did I. We carried on looking through the menu and there were still these pages and pages and pages of different lettuces and different dressings, and I couldn’t really find anything else.

There’s no chance of me being in another restaurant. The last time that I was in one was an absolute disaster and I shan’t be doing that again. Besides, my appetite is all to pot these days. However, who was the third person? That’s a big mystery.

After a visit to the bathroom, I went into the kitchen to make my hot lemon, ginger and honey drink and to take my medication.

Back in here later, I sat down in my chair and that was the last thing that I remember until the nurse came at 08:30. Not that that is any surprise. It was an early start.

The nurse gave me a lecture this morning. I mentioned my ongoing dispute about the hours that they expect me to be available for treatment and he was most unhappy. He thinks that I should be grateful for all of the effort that everyone is making towards my eventual recovery and accept everything with a smile.

But that’s the difference between me and the medical profession. They want me to spend all of my life having treatment and I want some quality of life.

Once he’d gone, I could make breakfast. That included the two croissants left over from the last batch that I made and, warmed in the microwave, they were just as delicious.

While I was eating, I was reading some more of MY ARMY LIFE by Frances Carrington, or Mrs Grummond as she was at the time.

Some of the things that she writes are appalling, and I shudder to think what today’s World would make of them. The female Afro-Caribbean servant of one of the officers’ wives had been scared almost to death by an attack on the fort by the Native Americans and was refusing to go outside. The solution proposed by the officer’s wife was "to flail Laura into subordination by the help of a trunk strap.".

She asked the author to go to help her, and she did! And judging by the style of her writing and her description, she quite enjoyed it too.

Mrs Grummond told us at one stage that her "father was a slave-owner, but one of the better kind.". If the treatment of Laura is an example of the treatment meted out by one of the “better kind”, what on earth must the treatment have been that was meted out by one of the bad kind?

After the breakfast; I had a job to do. I sorted out all of the dry fruit that I need for my Christmas Cake, weighed it, chopped it into smaller amounts and mixed it in a large glass bowl. Having done that, I made a marinade of rum essence, brandy essence, lemon juice, orange essence and vanilla essence in water, added it all over the mix and stirred it well in.

It’s now in the fridge, all soaking in, and it’ll stay there like that for at least a week.

This afternoon I made a start on writing the notes for the radio programme that I’ve been preparing. It was a slow, laborious effort and I’ll have to finish it tomorrow.

We broke off for the football – Caerfyrddin v Colwyn Bay in the Welsh Cup.

Caerfyrddin are in the second tier and Colwyn Bay are in the Premier League, but with all of the cup upsets this weekend, a shock result might have been on the cards. However, Colwyn Bay ran out 3–1 winners without too much difficulty. They were always one pace ahead of the home side.

Tea tonight was two taco rolls with cheese, tomato and mushrooms followed by ginger cake and chocolate soya sauce. And now I’m off to bed, cough and all, because my cough has suddenly come back.

But seeing as we have been talking about the football on Friday night … "well, one of us has" – ed … the grandstand at Maesddu for the Llandudno v Connah’s Quay game was full to capacity, except for one empty seat.
"What’s with the empty seat?" asked one of the stewards
"I bought it for the wife" said the man sitting next to it "but unfortunately, she died."
"Well, couldn’t you offer it to one of your friends?" asked the steward.
"I did, but they couldn’t come" he replied. "They are all at the funeral."

Saturday 8th November 2025 – MY CANADIAN VISITORS …

… finally struggled into Granville at about 21:30 this evening, bringing tale after tale of woe about their disastrous journey from Toronto.

They are here until Monday afternoon when they will be returning to Paris ready to fly out again, hoping for much better luck this time.

So all of that journey just to spend less than forty-eight hours with me. If you want an example of a real “flying visit”, you need look no further than this.

And I was ready to see them too. I’d made a determined effort to go to bed early, however, once more, I failed miserably. It was 23:20 when I finally crawled into bed. And there I stayed, fast asleep, until all of … errr … 04:20.

By about 05:20, I’d given up all hope of going back to sleep and so I raised myself from the Dead and began work.

Well, not exactly work. There were the highlights of last night’s matches in the JD Cymru League. Llansawel, third from bottom, beat Y Bala 2-0.

However, I’m still laughing about the result at Park Hall. Adam Roscrow, unwanted at TNS for over two years, scored a goal with just seconds to go on the clock, a goal for his new club, mid-table Cardiff Metropolitan that beat runaway leader TNS 3-2, their first defeat in I don’t know how many games.

Enjoy THE HIGHLIGHTS

After the football, I began to edit the radio notes that I’d dictated a couple of days ago. However, I abandoned the project for the moment when the alarm went off, and went to organise myself in the bathroom.

To accompany the medication today, I made another one of those fiery ginger, lemon and honey drinks. I’m not sure whether it’s doing any good because I can’t feel my throat for a couple of hours.

After the meds, I began to put away the shopping from yesterday. I was certainly feeling so much better than I did yesterday. That’s just as well because I had to totally reorganise the fridge to make enough room for everything.

The nurse caught me unawares, in the middle of reorganising things, so I had to stop what I was doing and let him attend to me. It didn’t take him long, and then I could push on and make breakfast.

The croissants are a little overbaked but the apple turnover things are perfection. They have really turned out well and I’m so impressed with them. Almost as impressed as I was with my stainless steel dustbin, something that regular readers of this rubbish will recall from a previous version.

After breakfast, I carried on with sorting out the shopping, and putting a pile of stuff in the freezer for another time. The place looks a lot tidier now than it did before, that’s for sure. There was some broccoli to blanch for freezing, and I saved the water because tomorrow, I shall be making a broccoli stalk soup.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was with a girl last night, but I don’t know who it was. We were going to find some kind of hotel place where to stay for the night. Something went wrong with the coffee but I’m not sure what it was. They had one of these things where you made coffee by putting the grounds in and pushing down a plunger. Something went wrong with the organisation of this, and we had a coffee that was made with one of these, but it seems to have been made by accident. If anyone had pushed the plunger down, it must have been one of the members of staff, so we had no idea how come this coffee had been made and why it had been made, but it was probably the nicest coffee that I’ve had for ages.

This is something that seems to be happening quite often these days – being with a girl but I don’t know who she is. That’s something of a disaster. Can you imagine not being able to recall who she is? These days, I don’t have enough contact with the female sex so being able to recall who they are is quite important. I ought to be extracting as much amusement and pleasure from my dreams because it’s the best that I can do.

The two navies met each other on a couple of occasions during the American Civil War when they had some kind of naval battle. On one occasion, the Confederate Navy ship was sailing when it was accosted by a Union ship. They had a battle, which the Confederate ship won. The story goes that the German gun shelled the Colwyn Bay bench with ammunition and injured almost everyone on there, although Colwyn Bay deny this. They say that what they did was in turning their weapon and employing it against the Russians in poor South Africa as a way of equalising the staff and maker and shaking the tip and changing money … fell asleep here ….

It seems that there are two threads running through here. One concerning the American Civil War, about which I have been reading so much just recently, and the second being the football, which is a constant theme these days.

Did I tell you that in the last dream, the cannon that scored the fight that smashed the deck of the Federal ship was as straight as anything used in the battle? … "No you didn’t" – ed … They had to have one man organising the gun, two men organising it and shooting it and another team of rangefinders. They had to spot where the shell landed. But the situation diverted towards Mons where they were all used in the English campaign, although only one of them became famous and was in danger of being captured by the Turks so its own sailors blew it up

What the Turks would be doing at Mons is anyone’s guess, but here I am merging two threads again – the Civil War and World War I.

After a disgusting drink break, I began to make everything ready in the kitchen and living room ready for my visitors, and to make sure that we had everything that we needed. It’s becoming quite complicated, all of this entertaining, but I’ll keep on doing it. It’s nice to have company.

Later on, I carried on with the radio programme but I stopped before I finished because we had football on the internet, Connah’s Quay Nomads (fourth in the table) versus Penybont (second).

This was another match that is best forgotten. Two teams with undoubted quality and several internationals on the field should have produced a match of real skill and entertainment but unfortunately, it was nothing like.

Penybont, who had a man sent off close to half-time, were dreadful. They played with no intent or ambition and were swept aside, 4-0, by the Nomads.

In their last three games, they have conceded a total of thirteen goals. That includes conceding three against a side that’s third from bottom. That is just totally unacceptable from a team lying second in the table. There’s something dreadfully wrong here.

Knowing that my visitors were now on their way, I made tea – more couscous and Moroccan bean tajine, but they had nibbled at things on the train and weren’t all that hungry. The chocolate cake and mango sorbet went down well, though.

It’s lovely to see them, even if it’s only for a very short while, and we spent hours chatting about the past. It was long after midnight when they went and as soon as I’ve pressed “send”, I shall be going to bed, long after 01:00.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my visitors being stranded in Paris … "well, one of us has" – ed … they told me that, in order to pass the time, they had been to an art exhibition featuring the works of a French painter who stayed for a while in French Polynesia.
"Gauguin? " I asked
"We don’t think so" they replied. "Once was enough."

Sunday 12th October 2025 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

… the dictaphone again this morning.

But then what do you expect? If you don’t go to bed until 23:30 and you are wide awake again at 01:30, you don’t really have time to go very far.

As you might expect, it was a horrible night last night – one of the worst that I have ever had. Having noted how much better I was feeling over the last couple of evenings, last night saw the collapse and I was back to where I had been earlier last week, struggling desperately (and sometimes unsuccessfully) to stay awake.

It was definitely one of those nights where I could have done with being in bed much earlier but as usual, I couldn’t concentrate on anything and the time simply drifted away to nothing.

Once in bed though, I don’t even remember being awake for a minute. I was out like a light, only to be awoken a couple of hours later by a dreadful attack of cramp in my thighs, an awful cough and a powerful urge to vomit. These sensations kept on coming and going, making things most uncomfortable for me and the pain and inconvenience was such that I abandoned all hope of going back to sleep.

For the last couple of nights, I’d been awake quite early but had gone back to sleep again without very much effort. But I tried – oh, how I tried – this morning and nothing would seem to work … "he was very trying" – ed … . So round about 05:30 I gave up the ghost and left the bed.

After a good wash, I went for the medication, and it was a very leisurely medication too. I wasn’t in any rush at all this morning, what with feeling as ill as I was. In fact, it was quite a struggle to keep the medication down.

Back in here, with nothing on the dictaphone to transcribe, I started my little footfest.

First match up was at the top of the JD Cymru League – TNS, who are leading, against Penybont who are second. It should have had all the air of being an exciting game, but quite frankly, Penybont were abysmal. The TNS attackers were going through the static Penybont defence like a knife through hot butter and the final score – 6-2 to TNS – didn’t do TNS any justice.

If Penybont are serious about mounting a challenge for the title, they are going to have to organise themselves much better and play much better than this.

In the middle of all of this, the nurse turned up. He sorted out my feet and then helped me fit these foot supports that the Centre de Ré-education gave me. But he didn’t really have much of an idea how to fit them, and neither did I, so after he left, I removed them.

After breakfast, which I really didn’t feel like eating, I came back in here to watch the highlights of the rest of the games, not that there was anything of interest to report.

All of this was followed by Stranraer v Queen of the South in the Scottish League Cup, and Stranraer ground out a very respectable draw against a team that is comfortably in mid-table in the league above.

What was interesting ABOUT THIS GAME was that we had another one of these exciting “let’s play it out from the back” moments that so entertain the crowd.

This afternoon, I’ve had a whole raft of exciting things to do, such as to sort out my tax affairs which are proving to be more complicated than I could ever imagine.

There was my Welsh homework to do too, and that’s almost finished. Half an hour on that tomorrow will see it ready to go off.

The printer needed a good overhaul too, as some of the stuff that I’ve been printing just recently isn’t as it is supposed to be. In the end, I changed a couple of ink cartridges and it seems to be working a little better, although the Magenta is still being troublesome.

And that reminds me – I need to order some more ink cartridges.

This afternoon was beautiful and sunny, so seeing as I didn’t have my shower last week and I shan’t be having one for a couple of weeks with all of these medical appointments, my faithful cleaner came down and helped me organise the shower. At least, now I smell nice and sweet for Emilie the Cute Consultant tomorrow, although how long it will last, I really have no idea.

There was bread to make, and pizza to make too. I really didn’t feel like doing anything, but it has to be done. I was in total agony while I was making it, but I forced myself to carry on, and in the end I managed to produce an excellent loaf and an excellent pizza.

In the middle of all of this, Rosemary rang me for a chat. She’s had her car serviced just recently and she didn’t understand a few things on the bill.

It wasn’t one of our usual chats though – my voice was giving out and in the end, I had to terminate the chat as I couldn’t keep on going.

Throughout the whole of the day, I could feel myself becoming worse and worse. By teatime, I was feeling totally dreadful. I don’t think that I’ve ever felt as bad as I was feeling just then. In fact, halfway through my pizza, I just couldn’t go on any longer.

The pizza was abandoned on the table. And even though I hate waking up to dirty dishes all over the kitchen, so was the washing-up. I came back into the bedroom and simply climbed into bed, probably the best decision I had ever made.

But seeing as we have been talking about the difficulties in going to sleep … "well, one of us has" – ed …, apparently one of the best ways to fall asleep is to try counting sheep.
I asked one of my friends if this were true.
He replied "I’m not sure. I tried it the other night, starting off with one sheep. By the time that I had to leave the bed to go to work, I had ten thousand sheep, a huge farm in Australia and I was busy constructing a meat-packing factory"

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."

Wednesday 24th September 2025 – I DON’T KNOW …

… what happened to me this afternoon, but I suddenly went ice-cold, frozen to the marrow in fact, and I had another one of those sessions that I haven’t had for ages when I simply sit and am totally unable to function, rather like a catatonic episode.

It’s surprising really, because it was another night when I had something of a decent sleep. I was in bed by 23:30, which, although it’s later than I would like, is earlier than some have been.

Once in bed, I remember nothing at all until about 06:00 when I awoke. I hadn’t moved an inch during the night, which is quite rare.

No point in going back to sleep at that time so I switched off the alarms and slowly eased myself out of bed and into the bathroom.

After a good wash and after the medication, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night, but there was nothing on it at all. That’s disappointing in some sense, because the only excitement that I have these days is what happens during the night when I’m asleep. On the other hand, nothing on the dictaphone means that I must have had an undisturbed night.

Yesterday, there had been a full programme of football in the JD Cymru League, including a live match, and I hadn’t seen any of the games. I’d deliberately kept myself from looking at the scores so that I could enjoy the games this morning.

The live game was Hwlffordd v Y Barri so I watched that first. I didn’t get very far because the nurse put in an appearance.

He was disappointed that my guests had gone, but he gave me my injection and then sorted out my legs, forgetting to put away the oil afterwards. It drives me berserk, that does.

Once he had left, I could make breakfast – porridge and toast with coffee. And I do have to say that my bread is excellent these days, since I bought that scientific measuring gauge for the water. To think of all those years that I have been producing failures, all due to the measuring gauge on the water jug that I was using being incorrect.

Back in here, I resumed watching Hwlffordd v Y Barri. It sounds like an interesting and exciting game, finishing 3-2 in favour of Y Barri, but it really wasn’t. It had its moments, but the rest of it wasn’t a really good advert for the league, despite what Steve Jenkins, manager of Y Barri, said after the game.

The defeat for Hwlffordd has rooted them in the basement of the league along with Llanelli and Cardiff Metro.

It’s hard to believe that just two months ago, the club was competing in European Club Competition. It had just about the meanest back lines in Wales last season but the club sold the goalkeeper and three of the four defenders, and failed to replace them. It was odds-on that they were going to struggle in the league this season without adequate replacements, but what do I know? The chairman obviously knows best.

Their plight is worsened by Llanelli having their first win of the season last night, away at Llansawel. They are now on four points, with Hwlffordd and Cardiff Metropolitan on five, so things are looking interesting down in the basement.

While I was at it, I watched the highlights of all the other games and there were no real surprises in the results, although Y Fflint could leave Park Hall with their heads held up, having gone toe to toe with perennial champions TNS until the final ten minutes.

After a disgusting drink break, my faithful cleaner arrived and she organised a shower for me. After all, it’s been a long time since I’ve had one, what with chemotherapy etc.

And while I was showering, she changed the bedding. Even better, when we were unpacking a few weeks ago, we came across a brand-new quilt cover and pillows, with matching new sheet. So I’m going to be in unashamed luxury tonight.

Once she’d left, I had some bills to pay and then I went for my mid-afternoon disgusting drink break. That was when I had my catatonic episode, sitting at the kitchen table. And I was there like that for well over an hour.

There was still time to carry on with another radio programme that I’d started the other week. I need to motivate myself much better than I am doing these days, because I’m really struggling to exert myself right now.

Tea tonight was lovely. There was some boiled potato and veg left over from the vegan pie meal on Monday, so I fried it in oil and butter, and with a vegan sausage cooking in the air fryer, I ended up with a lovely dish of bubble and squeak. It’s been years since I’ve eaten one of the “great peasant dishes of the world”, as Howard Hillman once described it.

But now, tiredness and my lovely new bed are calling, so I’m going, and if I wake up tomorrow, which is doubtful the way that I’m feeling right now, I’ll see you all tomorrow.

But seeing as we have been talking about bubble and squeak, one of the “great peasant dishes of the world”, another one of the “great peasant dishes of the world” is toad in the hole, made of sausages in a suet or batter pudding.
When there were three of us, impoverished as we were, living in an apartment in Crewe, we would often eat that when the money ran out.
But one day, just as we had finished cooking the dish, another group of starving friends turned up.
"What did you do?" asked my girlfriend when I told her later.
"There wasn’t much that we could do" I replied. "We all just ended up with more hole and less toad."

Tuesday 26th August 2025 – HOW LONG IS IT …

… since I’ve felt as ill as I have today?

And how long is it since I’ve been to bed well before 23:00 (21:56 was when last night’s notes were published) and slept right through until the alarm sounded at 06:29?

Yes, it has been a day of all kinds of records, some of them unwelcome, and I hope that things improve quite rapidly as I can’t go on like this.

Last night, though, I was in all kinds of states. I was feeling nauseous, my head was spinning round and I was absolutely flat-out tired. I dashed through my notes and staggered through my preparations for the night, and then fell into bed.

During the night, I remember nothing at all, and no-one was more surprised than me to still be asleep when the alarm went off. It’s been an age since that has happened. It took me a while to stagger to my feet too – for two pins I’d have gone back to bed – and even longer to go to sort myself out in the bathroom.

Once I was ready, which took a lot longer than it ought, I went into the kitchen to take my morning medication. I must try to return to my old routine now that everything is calming down. I’ve forgotten the medication more times than I care to remember just recently.

There was a task that remained uncompleted from when I was taken ill at dialysis yesterday. I was in the middle of splitting a music soundtrack, and I’d only completed “less than half” of it. There’s no time like the present so I had a good go at that to finish it off.

The nurse interrupted me with his visit, and I do have to say that since he’s come back from his holiday, he’s become quite likeable as he was when I first met him. He was disappointed that the Hound of the Baskervilles has left though.

Breakfast was next, and it was nice to have an unhurried, leisurely meal looking out of the window at the World as it walked by. Much as I liked the view from upstairs, outside here on the ground floor is much more animated.

Back in here, I can’t remember what I did next. It wasn’t to go through my usual routine of seeing what had gone on during the night and transcribing the dictaphone notes, that’s for sure. It was probably something to do with trying to find some of the things that I need that have been put into boxes, there to remain, probably forever.

There were a few people online with whom I wanted to chat, so that passed some time as well.

After lunch, I had a foot-fest. There had been a whole series of matches in the J D Cymru League yesterday and I had purposefully refrained from reading about them because the live match would have been when I was on my way home, so I wanted to watch it all in one go as if it were a live game.

So this afternoon I had Connah’s Quay Nomads v Y Fflint from yesterday afternoon. And having watched Llanelli throw away a 2-goal lead to go down 4-2 to Llansawel the other day, this time it was the turn of Y Fflint to throw away a 2-goal lead, to go down 3-2.

For the first half, Connah’s Quay were awful and Y Fflint made it look easy. But at half-time, the Nomads made no fewer than four substitutions, the first time that I have ever seen so many changes at half-time by one club. It obviously worked, because they stormed away throughout the second half.

There were also all of the highlights of the other matches, including Colwyn Bay’s impressive 1-1 draw against perennial champions TNS. After four matches, Caernarfon are currently leading the table, and it’s been a very long time since that has happened.

What with one thing and another, I’d almost forgotten the dictaphone notes. They were next on the list and the massive “War And Peace” from the previous night is now online. I’ve no idea what must have been going on during the other night, but there are tons of stuff, and it’s well-worth a read.

Having done that, I could then turn my attention to last night’s notes. At some point during the night I dreamed that my cleaner came down with a whole load of stuff that had been sitting around and about the apartment, and threatened me under pain of dire retribution to start to move anything around. However, I was in bed at the time and certainly didn’t feel like getting up so I didn’t say anything. I just left her to go about doing it. But after a good half-hour or so, I had a look at the time. It was 02:26 so it must have been a dream that I had had, probably because I couldn’t see any changes to any of the piles in here. So now I have to try to go back to sleep and hope that I can manage it before all my staff desert it all for the goldfields.

Firstly, I can’t remember awakening at 02:26. And then we’ve had dreams within dreams before now, and I always find them to be an interesting phenomenon. Finally, the incident about the staff deserting for the goldfields reminds me of a VERY AMUSING INCIDENT ONCE WHEN I WAS IN LABRADOR. Who will ever forget "Gold Strike at Bear Creek"?

Later on, we’d moved into some new digs. I was sitting there, comfortably thinking that when we all go out on Tuesday, I would go and buy a motorbike for myself. That way, I could travel to and from work and everywhere I want to go much more easily. Of course, my brother thought that the idea was silly. He said that it would be two weeks before I fell off it, or something like that. However, I decided that that was what I would do. In the end, I ended up having a discussion with the landlady of where we were staying. She talked about different things, and I happened to mention that I might go back on the buses. She said that that was a huge jump up from driving a car. Did I think that I’d be safe? Did I think that I wouldn’t have any problems? Etc. I told her that I used to drive for Shearings, which lit up her eyes. She said “ohh, well you’ll probably remember me then”. Just as she was about to say why, the alarm went off.

Apart from my family sticking the oar in, imagine these days still being asleep when the alarm went off. Had I been awake, I would have missed this little voyage.

All through the day, I had been feeling nauseous, my head had been spinning and by the late afternoon, my vision had become blurred and I could hardly see what I was doing. I couldn’t find the force to stand up and I wasn’t feeling at all hungry, even though I’d eaten nothing since breakfast.

However, I forced myself into the kitchen, later than usual, and made a bowl of pasta and vegetables with one of the vegan burgers that I have. I didn’t feel like eating it but if I don’t make an effort, I’m going to be seriously ill one of these days … "as if you aren’t already" – ed …

Standing up afterwards, my head was spinning around and I could barely find the energy to stay standing upright, crutches or not.

But now that I’ve finished my notes, I’m off to bed, horribly late.

But seeing as we have been talking about the saloon in CARRY ON COWBOY … "well, one of us has" – ed … in the same saloon, the local preacher came in to preach to the cowboys about the evils of the demon drink.
"Would you like a whisky first?" asked the bartender.
"No evil liquor should ever touch my lips" roared the preacher. "I would rather spend the night in a brothel with a woman of ill-repute!"
At that, several cowboys dashed up to the bar and handed back their whiskies to the bartender.
"Why are you doing this?" asked the aforementioned.
"Well" replied the cowboys "we didn’t realise that we had a choice."

Sunday 10th August 2025 – HA HA HA HA!

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall the Welsh football club TNS. Created out of what used in the good old days to be Oswestry Town FC, and bankrolled to an enormous degree by its extremely wealthy chairman, in the last ten or so years the club has won just about every trophy or prize the Welsh domestic league can offer.

Some say that it’s a bad thing, that they monopolise the Welsh football system, but as it happens, I’m in two minds. I’ve seen the dramatic improvement in playing standards and in facilities in the Welsh pyramid over that period as other clubs struggle desperately to try to keep pace.

It’s also quite good for the morale when some lesser football team manages to scrape a win against them and their supporters collapse in a delirium of delight.

Last season, TNS became the first ever Welsh domestic club to qualify for the group stages of a European club competition and against all the odds, they managed even to win one of the group games to ensure that they didn’t finish bottom.

However, the success has gone to their heads. With the 5,000,000€ prize money, they have gone out and bought a raft of top-class professionals who really have no place in this league, and they kicked a pile of their journeymen professionals into touch.

Victims of their own hype, they had a dismal pre-season as their new stars struggle to adapt to the physical nature of lower league competition, and having predicted another successful European campaign, they failed embarrassingly to progress beyond the first round of the competitions in which they played.

Today, the JD Cymru League season began, and they were at home to Llansawel, a team that struggled near the bottom all last season and one of the clubs heavily tipped for relegation this season.

And if you want to see how the game progressed, HERE ARE THE HIGHLIGHTS. You don’t need to be a football fan to enjoy them. TNS are in the green and white.

Just two weeks ago, I wrote an article for a football magazine in which I said "having seen TNS’s performances to date, it’s a certainty that several optimistic managers will be searching desperately for some rapid wingers to exploit the cracks over the top and round the sides of the TNS defence". In this game, you have a perfect example of a manager doing just that – and doing it in spades too. THE KEYSTONE COPS have nothing on the TNS defence.

Anyway, retournons à nos moutons as they say around here.

Last night was another … well … not exactly “early” night, but I was in bed by 23:00, having once more dashed through everything at another uncomfortable rate of knots.

It goes without saying that I awoke quite early – at about 04:10 this morning. But this tile I was determined to go back to sleep and to my surprise, I actually succeeded, only to awaken at 06:29 precisely.

That’s the time that the alarm is set to sound on six days of the week. Sunday is a Day of Rest and the alarm is set for 07:59 so in theory I could have tried to go back to sleep yet again, but instead, I decided to raise myself from the Dead.

In the bathroom for a good wash and scrub up, and then into the kitchen for the medication, followed by coming back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

And who had come with me too, because TOTGA appeared in a dream last night. I was in Crewe, sorting out some food, jars of all kinds of things, tomato sauce etc that we’d collected. I was going to put them into Gainsborough Road. However, one of the jars had leaked so I’d had to clean it. My friend told me to knock before I went in, made sure that the tenants knew that I was there etc. I decided in the end that I didn’t really want to go because being inside that house again would dismay me. By this time, TOTGA had appeared and we were due to go back to Normandy, the three of us. First of all, I wanted to telephone an old school friend. TOTGA knew who he was and she said that he hed been ill, he had depression and all of that kind of thing. As I picked up the ‘phone, I suddenly forgot his number, so I just dialled a number at random and then hung up, saying that there was no answer. Then we decided that we’d ring up Rosemary to see if she fancied a quick visit before we went back. I couldn’t think of Rosemary’s ‘phone number then. Eventually, I managed it so I ‘phoned up and we had a chat. I asked her if she fancied a quick visit and she was really surprised. She wondered where we were and what we were doing, so we agreed to go down there. By this time, some people from the street had come past. They recognised me and came for a chat. TOTGA knew who they were because her aunt had a shop in the street and she had served in there on several occasions. They wanted to be introduced to her of course but she was teasing them with little suggestive hints from back from when she was a kid and worked in the shop. They were scratching their heads trying to think who she was. She thought that it was rather amusing so we left it at that. By this time, we were standing on the edge of a river that ran through a little gorge with a stone arch bridge over it in the background. We were all chatting, and then we decided that we’d better shoot off and visit Rosemary quickly otherwise we’ll be going home without seeing her.

It’s been ages since TOTGA has been around during the night. I thought that she had gone for good, just as Castor seems to have done and The Vanilla Queen did quite a while ago. But it really does make a change to see a dream full of nice people and no member of my family coming along to throw a spanner into the works.

Curiously though, when we were moving jars and bottles and so on downstairs, there was one jar where the top had worked loose and the contents had leaked

Later on, I was somewhere in Africa with a group of people in one of our old Fordson E83W vans. I was trying to find some paper on which to write some notes about a job that I had just completed but the only paper in the van was wet, soggy and mainly had other people’s calculations on it. I couldn’t find a big piece at all. By now I was running behind the van that was driving so I made a signal to the driver to stop. I opened the back door and my notebook was in the back. I rescued my notebook and waved on the van to start off again. Once it was going, I closed the door and carried on running behind it.

We did have a couple of E83W vans when we were kids. The first one was one of the early ones, KLG93, which my motor traders’ handbook tells me was registered in October 1937, and one of the last ones, XVT772, registered in January 1957. And you might think that walking behind one would be ridiculous, with an 1172cc side-value engine, a three-speed crash box and a downrated gearing on the rear axle, these vans would struggle to see 35 mph flat out. In fact, I have very vague memories of all of us having to get out and walk behind one once because it didn’t have enough power, fully loaded, to climb Shooter’s Hill in Blackheath, and when I mentioned it to my parents as I grew older, I was told that my memories were correct.

Isabelle the Nurse was back to her usual routine and back on time. We had a brief chat about one of my neighbours who is now in an Old Folks’ Home and she dealt with my legs, and then she cleared off as quickly as she came in.

Once she’d left, I made breakfast and read some more of THE OLD ROAD.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that yesterday, we left our author arguing with the police, having been detained to “help them with their enquiries” and he, in a show of innocence, "of I know not what crime"

Today, however, things become a whole lot clearer. In order to cross a river, "my companion and I clambered down the hill, stole a boat which lay moored to the bank, and with a walking-stick for an oar painfully traversed the river Wey. When we had landed, we heard, from the further bank, a woman, the owner of the boat, protesting with great violence."

Later on, "with Margery Wood it reaches the 700-feet line, runs by what I fear was a private path through a newly-enclosed piece of property. We remembered to spare the garden, but we permitted ourselves a trespass upon this outer hollow trench in the wood which marked our way."

All that I can say is that if those events are samples of his habitual attitude and behaviour, I’m surprised that he hasn’t been arrested a long time before the previous day.

After I had finished breakfast, I came back in here to watch Stranraer lose at home to Edinburgh City, and then I had things to do.

It seems that no-one is interested in the furniture that I have for sale or that I’m trying to give away, so I rekindled my long-dormant on-line auction account. That took much longer than it did in the past, and putting your articles on-line is much more complicated than I remember it.

So after a great deal of huffing and puffing, I managed eventually to list everything that needs selling on. But probably there won’t be anyone from there interested either. It seems that selling on-line isn’t the thing that it was twenty years ago. But then, the internet is nothing like the community that it used to be back in those days either.

After lunch, I had a relax for a while before the TNS v Llansawel game, and then at the final whistle I went to make the bread for next week and the pizza for tonight.

Rosemary rang me for a chat while I was baking, but I couldn’t stay long because there was yet more football. Colwyn Bay, newly promoted to the JD Cymru Premier League, were at home to Connah’s Quay Nomads in front of a massive crown of over 1500 people.

Last time Colwyn Bay were in the JD Cymru Premier League, they didn’t last long. This time though, they have signed a whole raft of experienced players and they looked a much more formidable outfit. They went toe-to-toe with the Nomads for the entire 90 minutes and the 1-1 scoreline was quite a fair reflection of the game.

Almost immediately after the final whistle, the telephone rang. It was one of my former girlfriends from school years ago, with whom I’m still in touch. She’ll be in France in late September, so would I like a visit?

Now that’s a silly question. I don’t have enough visits, and so anyone can visit me at any time they like. If she would like to come, she’d be more than welcome, and so would anyone else (except of course, my immediate family)

Tonight’s pizza was excellent and I shall have to make more like that. There’s already been an order from my fiend from Munich when he arrives here next weekend.

That’s right, next weekend. That’s when my house move begins. Just four more climbs back up the stairs. I can’t wait for the torment to be over.

But right now, it’s over for tonight because I’m off to bed.

But seeing as we have been talking about TNS’s laughable performance against Llansawel this afternoon … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of a boxing match that I saw years ago where one of the contestants had been very quickly and very badly beaten.
The commentator was doing his best to console him, saying "Never mind. If you hadn’t been there, it wouldn’t have been much of a fight."

Sunday 29th June 2025 – EVEN THOUGH IT’S …

… still quite early, I’m going to write up my notes and go to bed. I’ve had a really tiring day today.

Not that you would think so after last night. I sprinted through my notes, my statistics and my back-up and was in bed by 22:45 which made a lovely change. And there I lay, fast asleep, until about 06:20 – one of the longest and deepest sleeps that I have had for a while.

By about 06:30 I was at my desk working, feeling much better than I have done since the chemotherapy and that was at least some kind of good news.

The first thing that I did was to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. We had to go to inspect some kind of shopping mall in a town centre. We went to have a look at it, but the inspection had to take place on the roof. We climbed up onto the roof and were walking around inspecting it. It was the first time that we had been on the roof of this place. You could see for miles and miles, with all of the plants and greenery in the distance and the hills and their outlines on the horizon. It was a wonderful view that I’d never seen before. There were some trees or little shrubs that were growing on the top. Someone broke off one of the berries, the little berries that were really hard, and tried to eat it. They said that they were some kind of stupefiants. This whole place was covered in stupefiants. We couldn’t believe it at first but this person was totally convinced of it. As we walked along, we found that what we were supposed to be doing was checking the roof of this because the shopping mall had come back into use after a while of being closed. Some big store had taken it over. The reason why they wanted a shopping mall outside was because they could have a really big opening party. So we walked along the roof and we worked out that where the biggest tree was growing was where this shop’s unit was. So someone walked along with a kind-of ball on a chain rather like a medieval military one-handed flail, and was banging on the side of this shopping mall until someone down below told him that we had reached the correct place. That was when we stopped

Even now, I can still see the view from on top of this roof. It reminded me vaguely in some ways of the view from the top of Mount Royal at the back of Montréal looking towards the Appalachian Mountains and the US border to the south. But as for anything in the actual dream itself, there is no significance at all.

There was also some kind of dream that involved some kind of panic. All of a sudden, instructions were given out to these people that they had to go home. They had to take a main-line train, not a branch line train nor a tram nor anything like that, and they should run now. So all these people began to run. As they ran past where we were standing, we could see that they were all small elves of the kind who would be working in Santa’s grotto. We were wondering what this was all about because we had heard nothing about this other than what had been said just now in the street.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a few years ago a couple of us from the radio visited Santa’s grotto to interview the elves. And had they been warned in advance, I’m sure that they would all have run away in a panic.

People began to move around in the living room at about 07:45 so I went for a good wash and scrub up ready to join them and have a coffee.

The nurse turned up to do his stuff and after he left, the Hound of the Baskervilles dragged his master off for walkies and I went to watch the football.

First match was the highlights of a friendly between Ayr United and TNS. And I have a feeling that it’s going to be a long, cold autumn in Europe for TNS, the way that their full-backs were torn to shreds by the Ayr United wingers. Anyone from a JD Cymru League who saw that game will dash out immediately to try to sign two speedy wingers before the transfer window closes.

The second game was Stranraer in a friendly against Irvine Meadow FC. Packed with trialisis, the Stranraer team ran out 4–2 winners quite comfortably although with the gulf in league positions, it was only to be expected.

What was worrying about this was, despite a new central defence, the ease in which the Irvine attackers were winning the ball in the air. "Here we go again!" I thought.

When the Hound of the Baskervilles and his master came back, my faithful cleaner descended with a cake. It’s my friend’s birthday so we thought that we’d give him a little celebration.

Although I was feeling a little better, I didn’t feel like much breakfast but I forced some down and after a rest, we went out for a drive.

Our route took us past the nuclear waste disposal place at Cap de la Hague and then down to the port to see the famous revolving lifeboat house that we had visited FIVE YEARS AGO. We found a place that sold fish and chips so my friend had fish and chips and I had some chips.

On the way back, we passed by Dielette and its ferry terminal and then the failed nuclear reactor at Flamanville, passing by some beautiful coves and bays. The sun came up as the day drew on and we had a lovely time.

Unfortunately, my little renaissance couldn’t keep going and I began to fade away quite rapidly. It took an age to haul myself up the stairs into here, and then I couldn’t bring myself to eat anything. And if I’m off my food, regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I really am ill.

So I’ll finish my notes, back up, do the statistics and then go to bed, to see if I feel any better in the morning.

But seeing as we have been driving past the Cap de le Hague nuclear waste plant and the failed Flamanville reactor … "well, one of us has" – ed … at the little beachside café they asked my friend what he would like to eat.
"I’ll have fish and chips" he replied
"We don’t do that here" the cook replied
"Do you have anything similar?" asked my friend
"What we do have around here that is similar" said the cook "is what is called ‘fission chips’. Will that do?"

Sunday 4th May 2025 – HAPPY STAR WARS DAY

May the fourth be with you.

And regular readers of this rubbish will recall exactly how today began. Probably many of the occasional readers will have some kind of idea too because it seems to happen almost every Sunday following a Saturday dialysis.

However, having said that, 02:55 is carrying it rather to extremes.

It can’t be because I went to bed early either. I know that 22:25 is a rather extreme time for hitting the sack these days, but I was so exhausted after yesterday’s dialysis session, light though it might have been, that I simply dashed through everything that I needed to do and just fell into bed.

At 02:55 I was wide-awake and actually thinking about leaving my bed and making a start but even then I realised that doing that was probably going to unnecessary extremes. I made myself comfortable the best that I could and prepared for a very long morning.

At some point though, I did go back to sleep. But not for long because when the alarm went off at 08:00 (it’s lie-in day today) I was back in here having already washed and had my medication.

Although I’d started to transcribe the dictaphone notes, the nurse beat me to it and I had to go to have my legs seen to. He’s definitely not coming tomorrow morning and wants me to go to bed in my socks. My cleaner is outraged but as it happens, I’ll be going to bed fully-clothed tonight. I have a 05:30 start.

After he left, I made breakfast and began to read MY BOOK.

On page 233 he tells us that someone was employed in 1223 to make balistas corneas. A ballista is an ancient type of heavy-duty crossbow used for launching stones and heavy iron objects at buildings and obstructions and regular readers of this rubbish will recall that in one of the ancient hill forts that we visited, a skeleton was found with a ballista bolt, or heavy-duty arrow, embedded in its back.

Consequently, I expected to see the odd page or two about ballistae and their construction, especially in a book about Medieval Military Architecture, but there is not a word. Nevertheless I carried out my own research and I’m now confident that I can build a reasonable ballista, to go with the rest of the Medieval and Roman equipment that I built during my University course in Historical Technology

Back in here, I transcribed the dictaphone notes from last night. I’d been out and about on quite a long walk etc. I’d been out all day and had travelled miles. When I had come back to the hotel in the evening I suddenly remembered or suddenly realised that I only had one of my crutches. I wondered where on Earth I’d left that – the other one – and how far I’d actually walked around my enormous circuit with just one crutch holding me. I asked them at reception and I held up my béquille – my crutch. Someone said “ahhh yes, we have the other one of those”. I thought to myself “have I really gone all day without one of my crutches and done it all with the one in all that distance that I’ve walked?” One guy came back he had a belt with him, a leather belt he handed it to my brother who put it on and was admiring himself I took hold of another waiter and asked him what was happening there The waiter said “that was found at breakfast and we thought that it might have been your brother’s” I said “I didn’t know about that, but what about my béquille that he went to fetch?” The guy replied “I don’t think that there was one. I think that what he was thinking about was that belt”. I had to accept the fact that somewhere I had lost a crutch and I would have to try to organise another one and pretty quickly too because I really couldn’t go anywhere without two crutches. I was surprised that I’d even attempted to go the kind of distance that I did today and only used one of the crutches for at least part of the way

That’s not the first (by any means) dream that I’ve had where I’ve picked up my bed and walked, in a manner of speaking. Wishful thinking, I’m afraid. And once more, someone from my family has put his sooty foot into my dreams.

Back in here there was the football and for the final game of the season, it was another insipid performance from Stranraer as they went down 0-1 against basement club Bonnyrigg Rose Athletic, and it was on their own ground too, not the New Dundas Swamp.

They had only five players on the bench too, mostly youth players, as the injury crisis has ravaged their tiny squad. But that’s a self-inflicted problem.

They need to be thinking about a much improved squad and performance next season, that’s for sure.

There was a ‘phone call after this. A builder whom I had been trying to contact ‘phoned me back. We had a lengthy chat but the big issue with him is that he isn’t an electrician and I can’t find an electrician anywhere right now. There’s no point starting the work if there’s no electrician to do the electrical bits.

After lunch, of leftover pasta and salad, I made a start on editing the radio notes but I knocked off to watch my niece’s youngest daughter graduate from University.

St Francis-Xavier University had begun to stream the Graduation ceremonies during the pandemic and they had kept on going. So I had the pleasant sight of seeing her mount the stage to receive her Degree. I had to wait for ages though, with her name being down at the bottom of the alphabetical list.

Rosemary rang me too and we had a chat – only forty minutes today because it was the Welsh Cup Final between TNS and Connah’s Quay Nomads. There’s no need to ask the score because it’s pretty self-evident, especially when the winners were handed the winning goal on a platter as the opposition defence stood around and watched.

But in an event that can only ever happen in Welsh football, the Nomads took the field with only ten men. They had named the wrong player, an injured defender, in the starting line-up and so were obliged to start the game with (or without) him on the field, and make a substitute for the missing player once the ball had gone out of play.

While all of this was going on, I was making bread and defrosting pizzas. The pizza was excellent as usual and the bread looks wonderful too. I’ll know for sure when I make my sandwiches tomorrow morning.

Right now, though, I’m off to bed ready for my early start tomorrow.

But seeing as we have been talking about Connah’s Quay Nomads just now … "well, one of us has" – ed … regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I have spoken before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … about various Welsh football clubs who have been playing with Martin Bormann and Lord Lucan, or a couple of Easter Island Statues in the centre of their defence
Next time that I need to talk about Connah’s Quay Nomads’ defence, instead of talking about our usual defenders, I shall mention that they are playing with the Invisible Man in central defence, and know that this time I shall be perfectly correct.
Rather like the time that the Invisible Man tried to make an appointment at the dentist’s
"I’m sorry" said the dentist. "I’m rather busy. I can’t see you right now."

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: TNS

Saturday 28th March 2026 – YET ANOTHER EVENING …

Saturday 21st March 2026 — I HAD NOTHING ON …

Tuesday 3rd March 2026 – I DON’T KNOW …

Saturday 28th February 2026 – I HAVE JUST …

Saturday 7th February 2026 – I HAVE SEEN …

Friday 28th November 2025 – THERE’S NO DOUBT …

Saturday 22nd November 2025 – AS I HAVE …

Saturday 8th November 2025 – MY CANADIAN VISITORS …

Sunday 12th October 2025 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

Saturday 27th September 2025 – THIS HEALTH ISSUE …

Wednesday 24th September 2025 – I DON’T KNOW …

Tuesday 26th August 2025 – HOW LONG IS IT …

Sunday 10th August 2025 – HA HA HA HA!

Sunday 29th June 2025 – EVEN THOUGH IT’S …

Sunday 4th May 2025 – HAPPY STAR WARS DAY

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