Tag Archives: trefynnon

Sunday 30th August 2026 – SUNDAY IS A ..

… Day of Rest, and nothing goes to prove it more than today because despite the stuff that’s piling up to be done, I have emulated my namesake, the mathematician, and done three-fifths of five-eighths of … errr … nothing.

Last night, I was in bed by about 22:00 and it wasn’t long before I was fast asleep. It wasn’t quite as simple as that, though. I was awake about three or four times at least during the night. But what a long night it was. In bed at 22:00 and when the nurse arrived at about 08:30, I was still in bed, fast asleep after the latest awakening.

He sorted out my legs and feet and then disappeared. And I went back to sleep.

It was 22:16 when I finally made it into the kitchen for breakfast – porridge, juice, the morning medication, black coffee and the last two of the homemade croissants. It was all delicious too. You can’t get better than that. And while I was eating, I was reading some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a couple of days ago I said that "We’ve not had any outright vulgar abuse or “language lower than Billingsgate” but I’m expecting it to arrive sometime soon, and I’ll keep you posted." and I wasn’t wrong.

Today we had "From no part of a church had the old spirit further departed than from the monuments of the dead – no wonder then that they were the first to yield to the new corruptions ; that the arched and fretted canopy soon made way for the heathen column and entablature, and that the attitude of prayer was gradually changed for that of strife and debate, and attendant angels made way for the demons of a fallen superstition."

That was followed shortly by "When sacrilege had devastated the abodes of ancient piety and munificence, had levelled our most glorious temples with the ground, or at best substituted a single half-starved curate for the princely abbot and his monastic choir, and when the revenues which had been disposed in hospitality and pious works were scattered among the basest flatterers of an ungodly king ;".

But seriously, if you want to talk about “a single half-starved curate”, it’s not the Renaissance period where you need to be. Look at the condition of the clergy in the seventh and eighth centuries, where there wasn’t just abject poverty amongst the rural clergy, worse than anything that you had in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, they also ran the very real risk of being cloven in twain by a dissenting nobleman or invading army.

Back in here, I had yesterday’s notes to type up. And that took so much longer, as firstly, one of my friends from Germany wanted a video chat, and that ended up in a very Rosemary-esque conversation, and then another one of my friends from Germany wanted a chat too.

Once the notes were on line, there were the dictaphone notes to transcribe. And WOW!

We were on holiday again, a group of us. It was a terrible place where we were living because people had all brought their family and friends. Some of these friends were spongers who wouldn’t do a thing for themselves and expected everyone else to chip in and do things for them, yet we were all supposed to be on holiday ourselves. Then there was a question of copying a lot of text for labels or something, so we had to rush and find a newsagent’s so that we could get a telephone directory and cut the things out, but there was nothing. In the end, one of my father’s friends went into the newsagents across the road to buy a paper. Then he found that he didn’t have any money so I said that I’d lend him 25p, but he just wandered off, so I bought the paper anyway. However, before I could get out of the premises, another group of two old women, and also two young boys were having a big problem because they had booked a cottage on the edge of town but had come out without the address. They had flown all the way here and didn’t have the address at all. They could describe the house and I knew that I had seen it because there was a Mark IV Cortina outside at one time, so I thought that I’d help them look. Then, I bumped into two girls while I was escorting these guys, and they tagged along for some reason too. Somewhere along the line, the friend of one of these girls disappeared, leaving just one, me and these two boys. We went into endless places where we thought that we would have a good view to see over whether we could see the house, but we couldn’t. And on one occasion, we had to hide because someone had let a giraffe out and it was banging on the doors and windows with its neck. As we were leaving one house, this girl and I and these two boys bumped into two ladies whom I used to take in the taxis years ago, so this girl and I stopped to talk to them. We were chatting away, and then, for some reason, I put my arm around this girl and she didn’t move at all. That took me by surprise because I’m not used to girls who let me put my arms around them, so I was wondering what was going to happen next.

So here I am, and I’ve Got The Girl at last. So what happened to my family? Why didn’t they come along and throw the spanner into the works as they always seem to do?

The start of the dream, though, is very much like several other dreams that we’ve had over time, with family chaos and all that kind of thing. And we even have a MkIV Cortina thrown in for good measure. But who were the two women who used to be my passengers on the taxis? And how come I recognised them? And what were they doing in an Alpine skiing resort?

This dream continued on much later, and I was back at home and everyone was making a huge row and noise. I’d actually built a proper water heater that would work off solar power, and when I tried it, it had actually heated water for me, which was nice. So once the ‘phone was free, I tried to telephone this girl. It took me a couple of goes because I didn’t quite work out what her number was. In the end, it was the first five letters of her family name, which were G-R-A-N-D. I finally spoke to her, despite all the interruptions that were still going on. In the end, I asked her if I could call her tonight, so she replied “round about 18:30 would be fine,” so I hoped that everyone had quietened down and gone by then.

So even though there was a good couple of hours between these two dreams, the second carries on from the first, and I still Get The Girl, if only everyone would shut up and go.

Nerina had to go to New York, and so I decided that I’d pack my suitcase and accompany her as far as I could in case I had the opportunity to stow away. We went all the way to Paris and then all the way to Charles de Gaulle Airport, but for some reason, that was in New York. We were wandering around the airport trying to find her ‘plane, so in the end I put her on it. But something happened and everyone had to leave the ‘plane, and for ages when they announced the delay. So we took a Metro into the city, and in the Metro, Nerina began to make a nuisance of herself by stopping and interviewing people if their papers weren’t in order or there was something else about them, and she’d have them sit and wait while she went to interview some more people. I thought that this was going to get really out of hand in a minute or two, so I made a discreet exit. Later on, we caught up with each other again. She said that she had been so realistic that she had lunch with another police officer, and it was only later that they worked out that she wasn’t. I asked her if she was given five years, but she said no, she was just told to clear off, to which I thought that she was extremely lucky. We ended up back at the airport, but not until I’d been trying to take some photos of things like the Eiffel Tower, which, in New York, of course, doesn’t exist, and a few other things. Eventually, we found our way back to the airport on one of these silly metro things. We arrived at her ‘plane and they were loading again. I went on with her and my suitcase, hoping that sooner or later there would be a spare seat. However, there wasn’t, so the captain announced that he was closing the doors, so I jumped off. I caught this strange metro system thing to New York City. It was basically like a locomotive engine pulling a load of open carriages behind it, and you had to jump on it as it went past. I came into the city and went and did some more sightseeing and photographing. We went down past a little church that was in a discreet back alley, and I realised that that’s where I store some of my cars. Then I had a think about how I could catch up with Nerina. I thought that maybe there would be a spare seat on an aeroplane sometime going that way, so we had a panic-stricken run to the airport metro, and I jumped aboard. However, I couldn’t find a seat on this Metro. I found a seat, but it belonged to a young boy who was talking to his mother next door, so I had to move. And when we came into the airport, I thought that I’d have to go up to one of the companies that flew to the USA to see whether there was a spare seat on a plane that I could buy

This is a lovely definition of “chaos”, isn’t it? Nerina and I can’t make up our minds whether we’re in Paris or New York, Nerina pretending to be a police officer, weird metro systems and even a place in New York where I have some old cars stored. This makes no sense at all … "nothing new here then" – ed … Still, it must mean something to someone somewhere.

Did I type out this dream about being in New York and reading about this murder of this musician? … "No, you didn’t" – ed … So I went out to look at his house. It was in terrible condition. The driveway was all blocked over with rubble and that kind of thing. There was a whole forest of pine trees that were overhanging – they were growing up the side of his house but were bent over with the wind and were covering his house and preventing the sunshine from reaching it. While I was there, the courts took an order against the occupants of that particular street to clear all these pine trees out. While I was talking to them, I said that I would do it. It would give me an excuse to stay in the USA. But it really wasn’t half a difficult job because it wasn’t just cutting down the trees. They were growing out of rocks, all that kind of thing. In the end I had a friend of mine from South Carolina come to help me. We slept in his bus and did the job as well as we could, and we ended up with this huge pile of trees. I asked the local residents if they wanted to take them away, but they didn’t. In the end, we had a huge load of firewood for burning through the winter. I gave them my bill, which was for $8500. While I was waiting for payment, I awoke. It has to be said that Nerina was there at some time. She didn’t really like what I was doing, and I was taking the opportunity to sort through some of my boxes that I’d brought with me with piles and piles of old paperwork in them. I found some of our earliest petrol receipts too, and a lot of stuff ended up in the bin. Nerina said that she wished that I had never started to look through these boxes. I replied that it was my intention to look through all of them in the end and throw out all of the rubbish and keep the correct receipts and sort them.

So my friend from South Carolina, doing an impossible job, Nerina appearing, finding the oldest receipts from my taxi business years ago (and I knew that they were the oldest because there was a receipt for fuel for the old Mark II Cortina that I had as a runabout)

But I can still picture the scene in my imagination, and it really was a mess, this house and the trees.

And my vote for my favourite one? Has to be number three, doesn’t it?

After all of that, there was more football from Friday – Trefynnon v Caernarfon.

Trefynnon are another newly promoted side, but again with no points at all. They can score goals, but they can’t keep them out. And Caernarfon are a team with bags of experience in the league, in the cup and in European competition.

This was a match where skill was impossible. The pitch at Halkyn Road is a disgrace, and if it’s cut up as badly as it looks on a screen after just three matches played, what’s it going to be like in March after a wet North Walian winter? “Hoof and Run” and “slog it out in midfield” were how this game worked.

But at least we had goals, and plenty of them. And Trefynnon gave Caernarfon a good run for their money, even though the score finished 5-3 in favour of the Cofis.

But right now, it’s bedtime, ready … "I don’t think" – ed … for dialysis tomorrow afternoon.

And as an aside, another artificial intelligence websearcher has used my website as a reference tool yet again.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about spanners and the USA … "well, one of us has" – ed … on one Fourth of July in the USA, I was handed a parcel that had been wrapped in paper tied with a ribbon that had the stars of the American flag on it, with a note – "if you’re working today, this should help you dismantle that car"
"Where did you get this?" I asked the messenger.
"Doctor Spooner gave it to me" he replied
"And what is it?" I asked
"Seeing as it’s Independence Day today, it’s probably his interpretation of ‘The Star-Bangled Spanner’."

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Sunday 23rd August 2026 – ONE THING ABOUT …

… yesterday that I forgot to mention was that when I awoke at 20:30 from crashing out, it wasn’t just the tiredness that I’d noticed. I was freezing cold and all the hairs on my arms were standing up. It was 22°C in here too, so it wasn’t actually the cold that was making me feel like that, but something else.

As usual, the answer to something like that is to go to bed. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, bed is my medication that cures everything. And you know that I’m ill if I’m prepared to miss a live football match in favour of bed.

So I ended up in bed at about 20:30 last night and I was asleep even before my head touched the pillow. But, as usual, not for long. I was awake at 00:30 and awake again at 02:00.

As well as that, I awoke a third time. I’ve no idea what time that might have been, but I couldn’t go back to sleep at all, so at 04:05 I was at my desk working on the computer.

No point in lazing around in bed when you can be working, and I had my notes from yesterday to write, so I dashed them off, put them online, and I was back in bed by about 05:30. I reckoned then that I’d stay in bed until the nurse arrived.

When he turned up, I was fast asleep in bed, so he awoke me and did the necessary with my legs and feet. After he left, I thought that I’d get up in five minutes and go for breakfast.

When I finally awoke, sorted myself out in the bathroom and went into the kitchen, it was 10:10. So much for my early start. I made my breakfast, and while I was eating, I was reading some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

It now looks as if he’s summing up, and as he begins to discuss Gothic architecture on the continent, he reminds us that "England, with less of gigantic grandeur in particular buildings, and less of rapid development in styles, gives to all a harmony and purity which is peculiarly her own, and in the course of her slower progress, calls forth forms of beauty unknown to other lands."

All that I can say about this is that anyone who has viewed anything at all of the Gothic architecture on the continent will be wondering what on earth Mr (or the Reverend) Freeman was smoking when he was writing his jingoistic prose.

Back in here, the first thing that I did was to transcribe the dictaphone notes from last night. That was a very painful exercise because I can’t believe how much I was coughing during the night, all of it recorded on the dictaphone.

This is another dream about roaming around in London. I wanted to buy a guitar for a friend of mine, but I didn’t really know where to go, so I went down to London and had a good wander around in the usual streets, in Oxford Street and so on to try to see if there was anything there. All I could see is the cheap kind of rubbish and crowds of people. I kept meeting crowds of people whom I knew too. Then I began to walk down to Tin Pan Alley, but I was almost knocked over by a taxi. Who should be driving that taxi but Emilie the Cute Consultant. I asked her if she could do me a favour, but she said that she couldn’t because she was too busy working – she had to go back to Crewe shortly. I said “yes, that’s the favour. You couldn’t run me to Crewe, could you?”. She replied that she couldn’t, so I was rather disappointed. However, she said that she’d have a talk with me very soon. I suppose that that cheered me up somewhat, and I carried on towards Tin Pan Alley with these crowds of people.

It seems that “in my dreams” is the only chance I have of seeing Emilie the Cute Consultant, even if she does turn me down. And she’ll “have a talk with me very soon”. That’s the line most people use when they are giving someone the brush-off.

However, being in London yet again would seem to be significant. This is the third or fourth time just recently that I’ve been here during the night. I expect that I’ll find out what it’s all about in due course

We were going off on another adventure, but this time, it was in my old J4 van. There were quite a few of us, including some people whom I didn’t know, and the van was quite loaded. The front of it was full of rubbish so we had to take all of it out and put it in the rubbish bin. That was when we found that this pile of oil had seeped onto the passenger seat so we were there scrubbing it, and the guy who was sitting there was rather disappointed. He was hoping not to get his clothes dirty. In the end, we managed to have it looking something like so we went to wash our hands. I couldn’t find the swarfega for ages, but eventually, when that guy had begun to wash his hands with fairy liquid or something, I produced the Swarfega and gave my hands a good wash with it and showed him the difference between my hands and his.

The J4 had long-gone by the time that I moved into Gainsborough Road, but this was where all of the action was taking place last night.

The guy sitting in the oily seat reminds me of that photo that was doing the rounds a few years ago – the old American politician sitting in his seat that was photoshopped into thousands of other photos all around the World.

After all of that, there was the football to watch. We started off with Penybont against Llandudno.

Whether or not you think that Llandudno’s position, for a newly promoted club, up near the top of the league is a false position, they certainly haven’t come into this league, as some newly promoted clubs have, simply to make up the numbers. They took the game to Penybont just as much as Penybont took the game to them, and in fact, from the kick-off, it took Penybont five minutes and fifty-five seconds to get into Llandudno’s half of the field.

In fact, the first Penybont goal was a marvellous overhead bicycle kick of the kind that was unstoppable, and had I been refereeing, or anyone else for that matter, their second goal would have been disallowed for a blatant foul on a defender

And this is the first game in which I’ve seen a club penalised under this new five-second rule for throw-ins, goal kicks and the like.

The 2-1 scoreline in favour of Penybont was about fair, but they can feel relieved now, just as Llandudno can feel disappointed.

Afterwards, we had Stranraer throw away a 2-goal lead to draw 2-2 against Stirling Albion. Stranraer had the Binos all over the place in the first half, and in the second half, the situation was reversed. Never was there a “Game of Two Halves” to match this one.

The next match was Greenock Morton v Arbroath. Although Arbroath won this game 2-1, this is the best I’ve seen Morton play since Ian Murray took over. And they finally managed to score a goal after about ten games of trying, and it had to be a sixteen-year-old schoolboy playing as an emergency full-back who scored it too, not one of the established professionals.

Finally, the fourth match was Trefynnon v Barry Town. This is the fourth game that Trefynnon has lost – this time it was 3-1. However, they played much better in this game and even took the lead. And had they scored the penalty that they were awarded when the score was 1-1, it all might have been so different.

They kept on playing and going on the attack as long as they possibly could, but the desire to score an equaliser when they were 2-1 down cost them dearly. Having committed everyone to the attack, they were torn open at the attack by a breakaway, and Barry scored their third goal with practically the last kick of the game.

But I’ll tell you something for nothing, and that is that the field microphone was placed right by the Barry dugout, and we had someone from their bench bellowing out instructions to his players in the loudest voice I have ever heard and using the most disgraceful language that would have been out of order even in the fo’c’sle of a Greenland whaler. It really was a disgrace, and the club should be ashamed of their employee.

Apart from that, though, we had two Cymru Premier matches today that were played with a lot of skill, not like some of the midfield mauls that we saw last weekend.

So no food tonight again. I’ve written my notes and when I’ve done what else needs doing, I’m off to bed ready to Fight the Good Fight at dialysis tomorrow … "I don’t think" – ed …

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about Greenland whalers … "well, one of us has" – ed … a couple of years ago, a crew member was washed overboard in the Davis Strait and was lost.
A year later, his wife had a visit from the Nova Scotia lifeboat crew. "We have some bad news for you, and some better news" said the skipper.
"Oh" says the woman. "Tell me the bad news."
"A body has been discovered in the sea near Luneburg" replies the skipper. "we can’t ask you to identify him because his body was all covered in lobsters and crabs, but by the clothing, we reckon that he’s your husband."
"So what’s the better news"
"We’ll pull him up again tomorrow and see what the catch is like then."

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Sunday 16th August 2026 – IT HAS NOT …

… been a very auspicious day today. It’s been a day full of tiredness and weariness, and I’ve crashed out I don’t know how many times as yet.

It all started to go wrong last night, as I said yesterday. I was hit with an enormous wave of fatigue and ended up going to bed long before I’d finished what I needed to do. I was asleep quite quickly too.

During the night, I awoke at some point, and I’ve no idea when because I didn’t look. But it was due once more to another one of these mega-coughing fits. The coughing is now back, and back in spades too, unfortunately.

It was another one of these mornings where I was drifting in and out of sleep and not being able to identify which was the real bit and which one was the phantom bit or the sleep bit. That’s happened a few times now, and it’s really unsettling, especially when I’m stuck somewhere in that glorious half-world in between waking up and being asleep.

One thing is certain, though, and that is at some point (maybe the fourth or fifth attempt) I did manage to go to sleep because I awoke properly and correctly. I stayed awake and eventually looked at the time. It was 07:33.

Sunday is, of course, my Day of Rest which usually starts with no alarm and a lie-in, having my feet and legs dealt with by the nurses while I’m still in bed. However, today, I simply couldn’t stay lying in bed. By 08:00 I was up and about, sitting at the computer working.

The nurse was surprised to see me up, which was no surprise really. After his three-week holiday he would probably be expecting to find me in bed. We had a little chat about his holiday, but he wasn’t very forthcoming. He dealt with my legs and feet and then cleared off on his round.

After he left, I made my croissants. I’d used the last of the previous batch last week, so I wanted some more. And while they were a-doing in the oven, I made my porridge and coffee.

The croissants were excellent – the best that I have ever made. They looked wonderful and had puffed up correctly, which made a nice change from the flat ones that I always seemed to have.

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

He’s continuing to keep himself out of mischief, although his jingoistic beating of the English drum is becoming rather tiresome. And he’s still hung up on the religious side of the fence. I don’t believe that in four hundred pages so far, there’s been one mention of an English secular building.

And “English” too. He’s not mentioned one building in Wales or Scotland either to date.

Back in here, I had a few things to do, such as to finish off transcribing the dictaphone notes. And they weren’t much use tonight.

I dreamed that I was doing something with this dinosaur exhibition. We were planning to move away from Granville at the end of their period and relocate somewhere else. They had a huge list of places to where they could relocate, and they asked me if I would check out one or two of them in Northern France. This was another one of these long, complicated dreams and it seems to have all evaporated from my mind

This relates to a discussion that we were having with Madame Dinosaur in the taxi on our way to Avranches yesterday about the potential sites that they have all over Europe for their exhibition and the difficulty at times of finding a dialysis centre, especially abroad.

There were a few other things to do, and then I continued writing the notes from yesterday. That took much longer than it ought to have done too, mainly because of the waves of fatigue that were sweeping over me again. At one point, I went to fetch an energy drink, but even drinking that didn’t make things any easier.

When I’d finished it and posted it on line, I started to enjoy my footfest. The first match was Stranraer v Spartans in the fourth tier of Scottish football. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I have a soft spot for Stranraer FC ever since I caught a game of theirs in the late 1970s when I saw the floodlights on in the ground when I was on a ferry coming back from Larne in Northern Ireland and managed to watch the game.

This was an entertaining game, one that Spartans should have won. But they missed – I don’t know how many sitters they missed – and Stranraer made the most of one of the few chances that came their way, winning 1-0.

The next game was the end of the Cambian United v Y Fflint game that I’d part-watched yesterday. This was a very equal match that Y Fflint didn’t deserve to lose, but when the side from the Rhondda Valley won a penalty in the eighty-fifth minute, then that was that.

After that, it was the turn of Llandudno v Trefynnon. Llandudno, a newly-promoted team this season, were leading the league, mainly because they’d played a couple of teams that were not expected to figure highly in the League’s championship order, and Holywell were one of the newly-promoted teams that were having a wretched time of it right now.

This was one of those games where, again, not much skill was involved. But it was played at a hundred miles per hour from one end to the other, and I was totally exhausted just watching it. Llandudno opened the scoring, and Trefynnon equalised, but as it was coming up to half-time, Trefynnon had a player sent off.

They held out until almost the final whistle, conceding two goals in quick succession, but a 3-1 victory was rather flattering to Llandudno, even if one of the goals was scored by this site’s hero, veteran striker Mark Cadwallader.

There were plenty of other things to do later, but I didn’t feel much like doing them. Not even making bread. I’ll pull half a frozen loaf out of the freezer when I need it. Instead, I did some things that I enjoy doing, which is nice for once.

There was no tea tonight either. I had half a dozen biscuits and the last of those pineapple chunks with a citron sorbet. And how nice was that?

So now that I’ve written my notes, I’m off to bed, hoping for a decent sleep for once and that the decision to deprive myself of two means, tonight and last night, goes towards doing something about this weight.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about dinosaurs … "well, one of us has" – ed … we were outside the exposition when a dinosaur wearing a crown came out.
"Come and visit our prectacle" it said. "It’s wonderful, magnificent, brilliant, superb, excellent, exciting …"
As Madame Dinosaur was stading next to us, I turned to her and asked "What kind of dinosaur is that?"
"That? It’s a Thesaurus rex"

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Monday 10th August 2026 – DON’T BE SURPRISED …

… if I fail to complete today’s notes before I’m forced to retire early to bed.

This afternoon, I have been to dialysis, as you might expect, and the nurse who dealt with me is one of the longest-serving nurses there. But she’s one of these “minimalist” people who does as little as she possibly can while still completing her assigned tasks. It’s quite true that her approach can save an awful lot of time, and for that, it should be applauded. However, it also leaves room for some glaring errors, and we’ve had one of those today.

And for a change, my luck was well and truly in, so I’m not complaining in the least. Far from it.

Last night was difficult, though. I was hours late finishing off what needed finishing, and it was well after midnight when I finished letting it all hang out and crawled into bed.

For some reason, it was really difficult to go to sleep, and when I finally did, it wasn’t for long, because at about 01:20, I was wide awake again. And there I was for a few hours too before I finally managed to go off to sleep.

When I awoke next time, I wondered what time it was. I thought that I’d better go and have a look, but just at that moment, the alarm beat me to it. It took a few minutes as usual to bring myself round into the Land of the Living, and then I headed off to the bathroom for a good scrub-up and even a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant today. I have to do my best to look pretty, even if I don’t feel like it.

Back in here, I had the dictaphone notes to transcribe so that I could find out what’s been going on during the night.

We were doing some renovation work on a hospital. The original builder had not done a very good job at all. There were quite a few early mediaeval pieces of sculpture on show, and when we measured the dates with the periods, it seemed that there was plenty of ancient British craftsmanship going on between 375 AD and 450 AD. But when we wanted to know where this had come from, we saw that a message was posted on his page saying that it just came from various research following an investigation of the WORKS OF BEDE, which was no help at all. But then we were there in the afternoon, trying to take this wheel off this Land Rover, and he drove by, extremely closely, missing him by a couple of millimetres, I should think. We wondered if we should report him for the harassment of our diggings first.

You can see in this dream the influence of Charles Freeman’s book that we are currently reading and also my theory of ethnic cleansing by the Anglo-Saxons – about 450 AD was when the Anglo-Saxons began to arrive en masse.

There was something else about a film that we had been making, an old man and me. After a lot of time, expense and money, the film was about to see the light of day. The old man had now retired into the countryside, so I remember asking him if he was going to come up to London for the premiere or whether he was going to wait until it reached the local cinema near where he lives. He expressed some doubt or opinion as to whether the film would last until it reached any kind of cinema near him

There have been several films like that where they have underperformed so dramatically that they have been taken off general release before they have gone very far around the circuit. Probably the most famous of these is Stanley Kubrick’s A CLOCKWORK ORANGE.

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

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

There was a third thing about a girl who was playing football. She was right-back for some kind of team, but every time the ball came down the left flank, she would naturally gravitate towards the centre of the penalty are, which meant that out on the right wing where she had been, it was an undefended zone and the team was being cut to shreds through there

This dream is very reminiscent of a football match that I saw at the Stade Louis Dior in Granville. In this case, it was a male left-back who was being drawn inside, and just as I was discussing this with another spectator, a beautiful crossfield ball found the unmarked right-winger, who just cut inside and scored a simple goal.

Isabelle the Nurse came as usual, and she noticed my three new herb plants, now in jars of water. She was pleased that I was taking good care of them

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

Well, in theory I could, but I was sidetracked up yet another blind alley, looking up obscure architectural terms. Some kind of glossary and maybe even pictures would have been a really great help with this book.

Right at the very beginning of the book, he told us "The present work is not illustrated ; there was at one time an intention of adding engravings, but the idea was relinquished, as to illustrate it completely was altogether out of the question, and a partial and inadequate illustration seemed even more objectionable than none at all …. But, though a complete illustration of the work would have been highly desirable, the way in which the subject is here treated renders its loss less objectionable than it would be in a treatise of detail, or a record of existing specimens."

All I can say on this subject is "you speak for yourself, Mr Freeman. You’re the author, but I’m the reader. A five-minute sketch of, say, a polygonal abacus or a vaulted clerestory would save me hours of research".

Back in here, there were the usual things to do, including checking the radio programme that will be broadcast this week and sending it off.

And once it had gone, I began to research the next radio programme. This is going to be another difficult one to complete as, once more, I don’t have all the music that I would like to use, and again, it’s all quite obscure stuff that might take me a week or two to find.

Round about 11:40, I’d finished the first part of it, and so, as a reward, I curled up on my chair for a relax. It’s a good job that I have an alarm set for midday on dialysis days, otherwise I would still be relaxing now.

In the kitchen, I sorted out a disgusting drink and my midday medication and then began to prepare myself and my things for dialysis. My cleaner came along to fix my anaesthetic, and after a brief chat, she cleared off, so I waited for the taxi.

And waited, and waited.

While I was waiting, I’d had a good sleep, which was nice, hunched up over the table, but I couldn’t stay all afternoon like that. I rang up the taxi depot to find out where my car was, and they replied “another five minutes”. Sure enough, five minutes later, he turned up. Apparently, they had given him a whole host of local work without the slightest of ideas as to how long it takes.

He made good time down to Avranches, but in the car park there was a plant shredder busily shredding away at branches they had cut down. We had to park almost in the road, and so I had an uphill slog of fifty metres on top of the long walk that I usually have to take.

There were no aides infirmières – “nursing assistants” – to help me today, so I had to find my bed all on my own, having first stopped off at the gentleman’s restroom.

With no one about, I weighed myself and then found my bed and sorted myself out. I put my weigh ticket on the temporary table underneath the bombe de froid – “cold spray” – sorted out my computer and climbed into bed.

And this is where it all went wrong. The weight that I’d recorded includes the weight of the clothes, etc. that I’m wearing so usually, the nurse knocks off eight hundred grams for my outfit, telephone, keys, etc. Anyway, she computed her figures into the machine and said “two thousand seven hundred grams to take off today”.

“Get off”, I thought to myself. “It’s never that much!”. I went through all of the calculations that I could, and I couldn’t come up with a figure of two thousand seven hundred grams, but not having the correct information to argue, I left her to it and the machine pumping away almost flat-out at nine hundred grams per hour. And sure enough, it wasn’t long before I was in agony. It’s hard work when the machine is running almost on “max” …. "”Max” in our hero’s case is nine hundred and fifty grams per hour." – ed …

Halfway through the session, I suddenly realised what had happened. I don’t recall her, or anyone else, asking me how much to deduct for my outfit. And when I factored in this eight hundred grams, the figures made much more sense. I still didn’t say anything, though. I’ll have a good head start for Thursday as long as they don’t realise what she has done.

While I was being dialysed, I was watching some more football from the weekend.

The first match was Trefynnon v Connah’s Quay Nomads. Trefynnon, newly promoted and thrashed 6-1 on the opening day of the season, played much better today against a team tipped to be up there in the fight for the title this year. They lost 3-1, and it’s true that the Nomads played the better football, but Trefynnon kept on pushing forward and had the Nomads defence in a panic on one or two occasions.

What was interesting about this was the size of the crowd for Trefynnon’s first home game in the Premier League. Once it was announced, hordes of locals began to appear, carrying big, big carpets to be cleaned for less than half a crown.

The second game was Cambrian United v Llansawel. Another new club to the league, the team from the Rhondda Valley impressed me last week in their match against Y Barri, and I was looking to see how they would get on today. I managed to watch about fifteen or twenty minutes of it before it was time to go.

The nurse dealt with me quite quickly, but she couldn’t stay and compress me, so she found some kind of clamps that would do the job too. And they worked. And when I weighed myself, I was indeed eight hundred or so grams under my dry weight. We’ll see how this impacts the Thursday session.

My driver was waiting for me – one of my favourite drivers – and we had a good chat on the way home. My cleaner helped me into the apartment and then pushed a disgusting drink into my hands.

After she left, I made some food – a cheese salad with rice and veg which was delicious – and then came back in here.

Fighting off waves and waves of sleep, I made a start on my notes, but I couldn’t keep going. After half an hour or so, I posted online what I’d written and then went to bed. The draining of this non-existent eight hundred grams has rather flattened me.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about losing weight … "well, one of us has" – ed … I once bought a lovely new dress for Nerina, but it was two sizes to small for her, so I left her a little note – "I’d love to see you in this"
When I came home from work the next day, there was a coffin in the living room with a little note from Nerina that said "Ditto".

0

Sunday 2nd August 2026 – THIS IS WHAT …

… an ideal Sunday is, as far as I’m concerned.

Once I’d cleared up a few outstanding things, I have been footballing for the rest of the day. And not to mention the lie-in this morning … "lie-in?" – ed … I told you not to mention that!

Last night, I was in bed round about 23:00 and asleep quite quickly too. But not for long. I awoke at some point (after 02:30 because the light on the car park was out) and lay awake tossing and turning for a considerable number of hours. When I looked at the time, it was about 05:05, so I thought that I might raise myself from the Dead at some point, but the next time I checked (after it felt as if it had just been a couple of seconds) it was 07:09.

"Right – give me thirty seconds and I’ll be up" I exclaimed. "Just let me close my eyes for another ten seconds or so first!"

And the next thing that I knew, it was 08:15.

"No point in getting up now" I thought. "Isabelle the Nurse will be here very soon." however, it was another good half-hour before she arrived. And that didn’t bother me at all because by that time, I’d gone back to sleep.

She shouted “hello” when she came into the apartment and I vaguely sort-of heard her, but I didn’t react. She came in here and found me still in bed, so she applied the cream and massaged my legs and feet, fitting my compression socks when she finished.

As she was leaving, she shouted “have a good sleep”, and I think that I replied with an incoherent type of grunt.

After she had gone, I climbed out of bed and eventually had enough energy and motivation to head for the bathroom to sort myself out. After that, I went into the kitchen to make breakfast – black coffee, porridge and two home-made croissants, with diluted fruit juice with which to take my medication.

What with one thing or another, it was 09:15 when I started to make breakfast, even having enough time to put Strawberry Moose back on the bed from where he had been during the night.

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

He’s still in deep discussion about Gothic and Romanesque architecture, comparing the differences between them and also the similarities, because there are plenty of similarities. "Still a square abacus, a Romanesque moulding, an intermingled round arch, show that we are hardly yet in the region of pure Gothic. The abaci are intermixed, round, octagonal, and square, the latter seeming to prevail ; and columns of semi-classical character, of which Canterbury affords almost a solitary instance in England, are frequently employed. Lancet windows, of various proportions, but often very short and broad, are most usual ; but circular windows, with or without tracery, and occasionally large pointed windows without tracery, occur. The tooth-moulding is rare, and, when it occurs, is not cut with the same boldness as in England."

Back in here afterwards, after a most enjoyable and relaxing breakfast, I came back in here and after I’d done a few things that needed doing, I made a start on finishing the notes for yesterday. And that took much longer than it ought, because I kept on going through those waves and waves of fatigue that keep on happening. Even after a lie-in this morning, too.

Once I’d finished the notes, I went for a disgusting drink and the midday medication, and then back in here, I started on my little footfest. The first instalment was the remainder of the match between Cardiff Metropolitan and Trefynnon. It was 3-1 when we left it with 17 minutes to go, but in the time remaining, the Met went on to score a further three goals. That was tough on Trefynnon because while they were always second-best in this game, they weren’t five goals worse. But as a newly promoted side, they were just caught on the wrong foot all the time.

The next game was the remainder of the game between Llandudno and Fflint. When we left this game, it was 2-1 to Fflint. However, Llandudno brought on their Dad’s Army of veteran strikers Marc Williams and Mark Cadwallader, both of whom have figured in these pages over a period of many years.

These two turned the game on its head. Each of them scored a goal to give Llandudno a 3-2 victory. This was, by the way, the best match that I have seen so far from the Cymru Premier League’s matches.

Finally, there was the live game – Connah’s Quay Nomads v Caernarfon Town. The Nomads took the lead in this game but not long afterwards, the Cofis equalised with a penalty after a Nomads player handled the ball in the penalty area.

In the second half, the game swung from one way to another with no one really having the better of it, but a snap shot by Zack Clark from the edge of the area towards the end of the game proved to be the decisive difference.

From what I’ve seen so far, Caernarfon and Connah’s Quay looked to be technically the best teams, but the most exciting teams to date are Cardiff Metropolitan, Flint and Llandudno. I’m looking forward to seeing many more matches involving those three teams.

I had no meal tonight – just a handful of crackers and biscuits, and now I’m off to bed.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about football … "well, one of us has" – ed … a little old lady went into the bank in Liverpool carrying two sacks. One was full of £10 notes, and she put it on the counter.
"Where did you get all this money?" asked the bank clerk.
"I live next door to Anfield" she replied. "At half-time, loads of people come into my garden and pee behind my hedge. I’m so fed up of it that recently, I’ve been appearing, brandishing my secateurs while they are “busy” and demanding £10 … or else …"
"So what’s in the other sack?"
"I’m on my way to the pet food manufacturer. Not everyone has got £10."

0

Saturday 1st August 2026 – YET ANOTHER DAY …

… where I’ve imitated my namesake the mathematician and done three-fifths of five-eighths of … errr … nothing whatsoever. And it wasn’t for the want of trying either. It was just that the opportunity wasn’t there.

After the football last night, it ended up being a very late night by the time that I was in bed. And although I managed to go to sleep quite quickly, I did manage to sleep until all of about … errr … 01:20. After that, I stayed awake for almost all the rest of the night.

When I looked at the time at one point, it was 05:50, and I was toying with the idea of leaving the bed. However, wiser councils prevailed. I turned over onto my face and went back to sleep. And there I lay until the alarm went off at 06:29.

From that point of waking up to the moment of being dressed and in the kitchen is but a moment, but in real life as it is today, it’s a whole eternity away and I wasn’t prepared for it at all. It was a desperate battle to fight my way into the bathroom to organise myself and to have a good shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant today.

Back in here, I listened to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night

There was something going on with the clubs in the Cymru Premier League. There had been a few additions, and everyone wanted to know their names, their nicknames, how they played, all that kind of thing, so I decided that if I were to do some research on the matter, what I would do would be to do it properly and completely, and whatever I, or the other person writing it from the other end, didn’t want in the statistics, I’d pass them on to anyone else who wanted them so that they would have the same kind of start that we did last season

Yes, the Welsh Premier League is up and running already, with this new TELEVISION COMPANY that I mentioned yesterday. And there has indeed been a pile of new players coming into the league, from England, Scotland, and even places like Zambia and New Zealand. Finding out about them has been interesting to say the least.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up as usual, except that she was rather later than usual. As she was sorting out my feet and legs, she explained that when visiting one of her patients in town earlier, her car was hemmed in by a selfish driver, and judging by this number plate, he was a tourist. To get back behind the driving seat, she had to climb in through the back door and then over the back of the front seats.

She was quite indignant about that.

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

Today, he’s been steering clear of controversy as far as the “Mohammedans” go. But while he’s been talking about the overwhelming superiority of Gothic architecture, he notes here that "The finest of our Romanesque naves, those of Ely and Peterborough, are actually later in date than the advanced Transition of Canterbury choir, and but very little earlier than the pure Lancet architecture of the eastern chapels at Winchester. It is manifest then that, in some cases at least, the decaying style was retained in deliberate preference to the new."

After breakfast and having sorted myself out, I came back to the office and began to complete the notes from yesterday. With the usual waves of fatigue coming along to swamp me as I wrote, it took much longer than it should have done. It wasn’t until about 11:30 that it finally made its way on line. So if you missed Friday’s blog, you can FIND IT HERE.

Once I’d done that, there were a few other things that needed doing, and then, for about fifteen minutes, I had a little sleep. And you’ve no idea how much I enjoyed that. In fact, had I not decided to set the alarm for midday on a dialysis day, I probably would still be asleep right now.

However, I went into the dining area once the alarm had sounded and began to sort out what I need for this afternoon and for a disgusting drink and the midday medication. My faithful cleaner also turned up to apply the anaesthetic to my arm.

After she left, I went for a stroll … errrr … down the corridor, and it’s a good job that I did too because my taxi was hours early today … "about fifteen minutes actually" – ed … It was one of my favourite drivers too, so we had a good chat on the way to pick up Madame Dinosaur.

When we arrived at the site of the exposition and she had to go onto the site for her passenger, she asked me, rather nervously, "there aren’t any dinosaurs loose and wandering around in there, are there?". I put her mind at rest but I don’t think that she was convinced.

Having had an early start like that, we arrived at dialysis quite early – 13:35, in fact. And in charge of our room today was one of the young and efficient nurses who has been there for quite a while – one of my favourites in fact. And by 14:10, I was up and running. I wasn’t very impressed, though. It seemed that, because I’d left on Thursday with so much water still in me, we were going to have another gruelling session with the machine going flat-out on “max”.

Today, I settled down to watch a couple of football matches on the internet. The first one was Llandudno v Fflint from last night, followed by the live match of Cardiff Metropolitan v Trefynnon. I wasn’t able to see either match to the end because the live match started before the Llandudno game had finished and due to the early start, the Cardiff Metropolitan game hadn’t finished when it was time to be unplugged. And, of course, there were the usual blood pressure alarms that brought the nurses running every time.

Emilie the Cute Consultant was there today too. I caught a glimpse of her in the distance down the corridor. She didn’t come to see me, though, which was a crying shame. She doesn’t love me any more by the looks of things.

It was the “boss” who brought me home tonight. He was ready and waiting for me when I came out of my room and that was nice. We had a good chat all the way home, where my faithful cleaner was awaiting, and she helped me inside the apartment. When I was settled in a chair, she passed me another disgusting drink and then, in the best characteristics of the long-gone and much-missed “News of the Screws”, she “made her excuses and left”.

Once she’d gone, I could turn my attention to tea. Tonight, it was a burger on a bap with vegan salad and baked potato. For some reason, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I usually would do. I hope that my taste buds aren’t changing yet again. That would be a disaster.

When I finished tea, I came back in here to carry out a few tasks and then I attacked the notes. However, as usual after a dialysis day, when the machine has been operating at the “max”, I had the typical “wave of fatigue” flooding over me. I was reviewing what I was writing, and there was so much that appeared to be total nonsense, with spelling mistakes, typing faults and heaven knows what else besides … "nothing new here, then" – ed … I decided to call it a day and go to bed. I can finish the notes in the morning.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about doctors … "well, one of us has" – ed … apparently, the reason why Emilie the Cute Consultant had a visitor with her.
"Hello doctor" said the man. "I’ve been stung by a bee"
"No problem" said Emilie the Cute Consultant. "I’ll put some special cream on it"
"Don’t be silly, doctor" replied the man. "That bee will be miles away from here by now."

0

Saturday 18th April 2026 – I HAVE HAD …

… a somewhat better day today. Mind you, that’s not at all difficult because yesterday was pretty awful.

But never mind. After writing my notes and doing everything that I have to do, it was about 21:00 when I finally made it into bed. As usual these days, it took a while to go off to sleep, but once I fell asleep, I remember nothing at all for quite a while.

At some point, and I’ve no idea when, I had to leave the bed, but I was soon back into bed and soon asleep again. At a later moment, I had to go down the corridor again, but I’d only been back in bed fifteen minutes or so afterwards when the alarm went off.

Despite the fact that I’d not long ago been up and about, it was another one of the usual struggles to leave the bed, and I eventually managed to stagger into the bathroom.

Afterwards, I headed into the kitchen for my medication and hot drink and then came back in here to listen to the dictaphone.

Nerina and I had gone on a coach tour and we’d been put into a hotel room like everyone else, and we went to sleep. When I awoke this morning, I noticed that there was a mouse, a crab and two really strange creatures. One was blue and the other was olive green. There was also a huge spider. I managed to deal with the crab straight away and threw it out of the room. The next one was something with a hard shell, so I hit it with a fluorescent lamp tube that was lying around and it shattered the shell, so I threw it out of the bedroom window. The spider – I managed to chase it out of the room and it ran off down the corridor. The mouse was not a mouse – it was the thing that I’d hit with a fluorescent lamp tube. It resembled a mouse of a kind. The two others – they were really gruesome things. The green thing was like a starshell, like a star or something with its tentacles. I managed to catch that at the right time and with the door open, I could flick it outside. But this blue thing was really rapid. Every time I tried to catch it, it ran off down another end of the room. Eventually, Nerina came out of bed and joined in the hunt. We managed to corner it but it still slipped out. In the end, I had the bedroom door open wide and we manoeuvred it over to that side of the room so that when we came close to it, it ran outside the door and off down the corridor so we closed the bedroom door.

These are obviously my brother’s monsters from last night’s notes, following Nerina and me about. But what a hotel in which to stay when it’s infested with things like those. I wonder if any other room had such a collection.

However, reflecting on yesterday, if anyone had asked me even five years ago to go a day without coffee, I would have said that it’s impossible. I used to drink coffee by the bucketful. But ohhh! How times have changed! Needs must when the devil drives and all of that.

This was a dream where I was in Edinburgh, and I was asleep in my car. When I awoke next morning, there had been a couple of stickers stuck on it. I wasn’t sure what they were about, so I didn’t read them at first. Eventually, I managed to tear one off because these stickers were on the inside. It said something about bad parking and how my vehicle would be taken away if it weren’t removed. I then had a look at the other stickers. These were car park receipts with £0:00 in them so I don’t know what this was all about. Anyway, I was trying to make up my mind which car I was in because I couldn’t remember and it wasn’t until the day began to dawn that I realised that I was in a gold-coloured MkIII Cortina saloon and I have no idea what I was doing in there because a gold MkIII saloon is one that I have never owned.

Sleeping in my car is nothing new for me and even Nerina has shared a car with me on occasion. There’s a story about Nerina and me sleeping in the car in Cherbourg, but the World isn’t ready to hear it.

Surprisingly, MkIII Cortinas of all shades and colours have passed through my hands at one time or another, either as taxis or to be broken for spares, except a gold one. Even now, I still have a dark brown one and a bronze one, and I shan’t be letting them go at any price. They are both 2000E models so they are worth a fortune. The bronze one, one of the very few surviving 2000E estates, will fetch a mint of money.

I was planning on moving down to London, and I’d noticed this huge estate on the north-east side which was terrace after terrace after terrace of modern houses so I went along to enquire about one of them. It turned out that many of them were social housing, reserved for undergraduates or pensioners, but there was one part of it where single people could either buy or rent one of these places, so I told him that I may be interested in one of those. We went through all of the procedures and everything, and I ended up signing for one of them. Once the contracts were exchanged, they gave me the address of the property, which was in Onllwyn, which is in North Wales, so I went there to see what it was that I’d bought. It was a small cottage with a very large garden. I thought “never mind. I can do quite a lot with this”.

Leaving aside the fact that Onllwyn is actually in South Wales, in between Neath and the Brecon Beacons, I would love a small cottage with a big vegetable garden, but I need to be fit and healthy to cope with it. The housing estate seems to remind me of the flats in Bartle Road in London near Ladbroke Grove underground station, built on the site of Rillington Place where Christie, the mass murderer, lived.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up as usual and was pleased to see me looking better, just as I was pleased to be feeling better. She sorted me out and then wandered off on her rounds. I made breakfast and read some more of THE CELT, THE ROMAN and THE SAXON by Thomas Wright.

And here we go again. We’re revisiting Roman Roads, passing by briefly on our way to agriculture, and out author tells us "Antiquaries seem often to have been misled by their dissimilitude to the great Roman military roads, to imagine many of these to have been British. It is not very probable that the older inhabitants of the island, such as Caesar found them, divided into separate and hostile tribes, which seem often to have changed their boundaries, as they were pressed forwards by other colonies, should have been great road-makers."

How did he think that the “other colonies” managed to press forwards? And how did he think that products only found in certain places, like the blue stones of Preseli, travelled from one part of the country to the other, such as Stonehenge? It has been recognised for a great many years that there is a whole network of prehistoric trackways across Britain dating back to Neolithic days and even before.

Back in here, I had a few things to do, interrupted by a couple of bouts of falling asleep unfortunately, but then I set about editing one of the radio programmes whose notes I dictated a couple of weeks ago. That programme is now actually complete and ready to be broadcast, although editing out thirty-eight seconds of speech was quite a challenge.

After a disgusting drinks break, I was debating whether or not to start editing the next one in the queue, but my mind was made up for me when Rosemary rang for a chat. I don’t know for how long we were chatting, but it took me right up to the start of the football.

It was the last match of the season for the league, and what a dramatic day it was. Two matches were of major interest, Y Bala v Llansawel and Y Fflint v Cardiff Metropolitan.

The situation was simple – Y Fflint had to equal or better Y Bala’s result, and Llansawel had to beat Y Bala and hope that Llanelli would beat Hwlfordd so that Llansawel would qualify for the European playoffs.

We were watching the Y Fflint v Cardiff Metropolitan game, which I thought was the wrong one, and although it was rather “agricultural”, it had plenty of action. And as goal after goal was scored in both the matches, the pendulum swung from one way to the other – Y Fflint stay up and Y Bala go down, and then a couple of minutes later, Y Bala stay up and Y Fflint go down.

Our game finished in a 2-2 draw, but Y Bala were undone late in the game to go down 2-1 after leading 1-0 at one point, so Y Bala are relegated to the Cymru North next season. Llansawel, even though they won, were forestalled by Hwlffordd hitting Llanelli for six with no reply.

Y Fflint threw everything that they had at the Met and did everything they could to keep the Met out. They finished the game with only nine players, two having been sent off for “denying a goalscoring opportunity”. However, I thought that the first one was rather harsh as there were two other defenders rushing back to cover.

Other good news on the football front is that the five clubs whose Tier One licence application was refused – Colwyn Bay, Y Bala, Trefynnon, Caerau Trelai and Caerfyrddin – have all been successful on appeal. For the latter two, they’ll have to wait another season because they both missed the promotion bus this time around.

So right now, I’m going to bed, early as it may be, and hoping for a nice lie-in tomorrow. Isabelle the Nurse can treat my legs while I’m still in bed.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my old vehicles … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone once said that the group “Queen” had written a song about me.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Well, who else would a Cortina landslide in ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ refer to?"

0

Thursday 9th April 2026 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

… the dictaphone again this morning. But that’s no real surprise.

Last night, I’d finished my chocolate cake and ice cream really early, so I came back in here and didn’t hang about. I raced through my notes and everything else that I needed to do, and I was in bed not many minutes after 21:30. And I didn’t need much rocking either. I was asleep quite quickly.

However, regular readers of this rubbish will recall what usually happens on nights like this. And even so, 00:30 was rather ridiculous. It’s also a fact that I didn’t go back to sleep either. I lay there, curled up under the quilt, trying my best to go back to sleep or, at least, stay nice, warm and comfortable.

Eventually, I said “sod it” and prepared to leave the bed to do some work, but it was 06:20 by then so there wasn’t really much point. Nevertheless, I had my feet on the ground when the alarm went off, so it counts as an early start – only just.

Having my feet on the ground is one thing – having them moving in the direction of the bathroom is quite another thing. And when I was eventually in the bathroom, I forgot to have a shave.

It was late when I finally made it into the kitchen for my medication, and I made an executive decision – that is, a decision where if it’s the wrong one, the person who made it is executed.

The decision was that I wasn’t going to have a hot drink this morning. With dialysis looming this afternoon and not knowing what will happen, I just had a mouthful of cold water to wash down my medication.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone but to my dismay, there was nothing on there from last night. But with a sleep of just about three hours, what was I expecting?

The nurse was early today. He was wondering why I don’t stay in here to have my feet attended to, to which my reply was that I need to eat my breakfast afterwards so I may as well be at the kitchen table.

After he left, I made breakfast and read some more of THE CELT THE ROMAN and THE SAXON by Thomas Wright.

Today we have finally begun to talk about the Celts in the pre-Roman days. But for how long, I don’t know. But he’s another one of these Victorian “experts” who attribute the various hillforts to the Saxons rather than the Neolithic people. He’s not quite so far out with Stonehenge, to which he attributes the Celts rather than, again, the Neolithic people.

In fact, in a most unprofessional manner, he ridicules the early nineteenth-century archaeologist Colt Hoare for daring to suggest that those constructions date to that earlier period.

Back in here, I finished off a few things and then turned my attention to the radio notes. It only took an hour or so to finish them off too. After that, I went to the bathroom for a shave and then came back in here to do one or two other things. That included reading the surprising news that Colwun Bay, Y Bala and Trefynnon have been refused a licence to play in the JD Cymru League next season. The clubs have six days to put right the shortcomings or else they will be in the Cymru North next season.

That would mean that the JD Cymru League would only run with fifteen teams next season instead of sixteen, or even fourteen if Caerau Trelai, currently in fourth position in the Cymru South and who was also refused a licence, finishes the season in one of the promotion places.

My faithful cleaner turned up as usual to apply my anaesthetic, and then I had to wait for the taxi to come for me. It was ten minutes late coming for me but seeing as I was the only passenger today, we soon made up the time and I was even early arriving.

And for a change, I didn’t have to wait too long to be plugged in. But it was one of these connections that seemed to take a lot longer than it ought.

And as for my weight, for the second time in succession, I clocked in at under my dry weight. Nevertheless, I let them take out 500 grammes. I was hoping that they’d take out more but after a discussion with the doctor, 500 grammes was the best that they would do.

They wouldn’t leave me alone either today. The nurses kept on coming by to do this and to do that, almost as if they were keeping a close eye on me. It wasn’t until right near the end that they relaxed their vigilance and I could close my eyes for fifteen minutes.

While I was asleep at dialysis, I was off to Crewe town centre – Boots Corner in Market Street, to be precise. I grabbed hold of a girl – I don’t know if I knew her – and we ran hand-in-hand over to my pushbike which was chained up at the side of Boots. I undid the chain, and then I gave her a “croggy” all the way up Market Street and Edleston Road to Nantwich Road. But then, I ended up making sandwiches, with cheese, lettuce, tomato and a few other salad things.

All of that takes me back many years. It’s been years since I rode a pushbike, and years too since Boots moved from Boots Corner to a modern shop somewhere else in the town.

By the time that I was ready to be unplugged, so was everyone else, so guess who was last. However, at least it was one of my favourite nurses so I didn’t complain.

The taxi driver was waiting for me already when I was ready so I didn’t have to wait, and on weighing myself upon leaving, I was below my ideal non-active weight. At long last. I hope that I can keep it up … "or down" – ed …

When we went outside, I could hear the birds singing. That’s the first time this year. It reminded me of being back in the Auvergne and I felt terribly nostalgic.

We were no earlier arriving back here, and my cleaner helped me back into the apartment. And I needed it too because the wind had sprung up since I’d left.

Once she had left, I had my tea – just chocolate cake and home-made ice cream. I’m determined to keep on with this for as long as I can.

So right now, nice and early, I’m off to bed. And one of these days, I might actually have a good sleep. But probably not tonight, if it’s anything like the last few nights.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the birds singing … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of my friends once asked me if I used to hear them when I lived in Crewe.
"Ohh yes" I replied. "Every evening in Spring, round about 18:00, I’d go outside and listen to them."
"Singing?"
"No. Coughing."

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