Tag Archives: vegan cheese sauce

Tuesday 14th April 2026 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

… the dictaphone this morning.

Mind you, that’s not a surprise, because if you don’t go to sleep, you can’t have a dream. It was a really miserable night last night, lying there with my head under the pillow trying desperately to go to sleep and not managing a single moment.

The only highlight was a trip down the corridor, which seems to be happening almost every night these days. But, at least, it’s keeping my weight down, which is good news.

What made matters worse was that it was an early night too. Even though making and eating my meal had taken some time, I still managed to have everything done and dusted and to be in bed just a little after 22:00, so I was hoping to have some sleep to match. However, it was not to be.

When the alarm went off at 06:29, I was wide-awake already. However, as you might expect, it took me a good while to summon up the courage to leave the bed. However, I found to my surprise that when I finally made it into the kitchen after my sojourn in the bathroom, it was actually quite early.

After I’d had my medication and my hot drink, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone, and that was when I found that it was blank today. So instead, I found plenty of other things to keep me busy.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up as usual, in “full chat” mode after her week off. She told me about everything that she had done, although she hadn’t made any hot cross buns, despite me giving her the recipe just after Easter.

After she left, I could make breakfast and read some more of THE CELT, THE ROMAN and THE SAXON by Thomas Wright.

I really think that I’m going to have to stop criticising his hasty “speculations and conclusions” because it’s driving me berserk. His faith in “the works of Richard of Cirencester” has led to him planting fictitious towns and camps all over England, Wales and Scotland, and, as usual, making a mess of the ones that were known to historians in those days.

But not only that, he tells us that "If the traveller had taken the western road from Deva, at the end of the first stage, he would have reached the town of Condate, supposed to be Kinderton in Cheshire."

Deva is, of course, Chester, and Kinderton is just a stone’s throw south of Middlewich in Cheshire, where, just on the northern edge of the town a mile or so away, a Roman fort was first identified in the mid-eighteenth century and excavated about thirty or so years ago.

However, you wouldn’t be taking the western road from Deva – you’d be travelling eastwards towards Middlewich.

But while I was doing some idle research into nothing in particular, I came across THIS GUY. I know that it’s hard to stop laughing, but really we should feel sorry for people with ethnic names who have been caught out by the rapid spread of globalisation. There isn’t really anything funny about it, as we would find out if it were us.

Back in here, there were more things to do and then, regrettably, I had a little doze for a while. That’s not surprising either, after a night with no sleep.

When I awoke, it was a mad dash to sort myself out for my Welsh class as I was running late. And the lesson was not as successful as some have been just recently. I can’t think quickly enough these days so my conversation is rather stilted. Mind you, I can read and understand quite quickly, so I did well in that bit.

At the end of my lesson, I made myself ready for my weekly shower, and when my cleaner came, she shooed me underneath it. And although I was in no mood for a shower, I did feel better afterwards.

After she left, I began to look for the music for my next two radio programmes. And although I now have what I need, it all took an age to find and to reformat. I’ll start on the next radio programme tomorrow.

Actually, though, I could have been ready much earlier, but once more, I fell asleep in my chair, this time for about half an hour.

While I was having a doze in the late afternoon, I was with a girl and another couple. We ended up sitting at a table in a crowded bar somewhere, although I was set back somewhat from the edge. There ended up being a question about separating my girlfriend and me from the others and so I suggested pam lai lansio roced rhyngom ni? – “why not launch a rocket between us?” But there was then some commotion going on at the bar so I turned my attention to over there, but then I awoke with yet another coughing fit.

What a shame that I awoke, because I would have loved to know what else was likely to happen, what with me actually being with a girl just then.

But dreaming in Welsh? That’s the effect of today’s lesson, I reckon. This course must really be getting to me and there’s still two years to go at least, and more if I want to push on into higher education.

Once I’d come round into the Land of the Living, I went to make tea. A plate of pasta and vegetables, all mixed up in a vegan cheese sauce. And it was delicious. There was more on the plate than I had expected, so I decided to forego my chocolate cake and home-made ice cream.

But I’m not going to forego my bed, because now that I’ve finished my notes, I’ll tidy up, finish off and go to bed.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about showering … "well, one of us has" – ed … when we were on THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR, one of the passengers, whenever he was on board the ship, he carried a bar of soap with him.
"Why do you do that?" I asked.
"It’s in case we have a shipwreck" he replied.
"How will the bar of soap help?"
"Well, if the ship sinks, I can get washed ashore."

Tuesday 31st March 2026 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… day it’s been today. And I don’t mean just this last twenty-one hours, but all twenty-four hours since 21:45 last night.

With having tea – the other half of Sunday’s pizza – already prepared, it didn’t take too long to eat and to come back in here. With not very much to write last night, I’d soon finished. It didn’t take long to do the stats and the backing-up either, or to sort myself out ready for bed. As a result, at 21:45, I was crawling into bed under the covers.

And how much sleep do you think that I had?

One of the side effects of one of the medicaments prescribed by Emilie the Cute Consultant is “insomnia”. Ad as I have enough trouble sleeping already, it doesn’t take much more for me to have what the French call a nuit blanche – a night where you don’t go to sleep at all.

So there I was, head tucked under the quilt, tossing and turning, doing in-bed physiotherapy and all kinds of things, but sleep just never came and I lay there awake all night.

When the alarm went off, I managed to haul myself out of bed, but it took a good while for me to find the strength, courage and energy to stagger off into the bathroom.

In the kitchen, I made my hot drink and took my medication and then came back in here to see if there was anything on the dictaphone. And, to my surprise, there was too. I must have gone to sleep at some point during the night.

There was something about the Royal Navy last night. It was supposed to be fitting out a ship but for some reason, the finishing time was being delayed for an hour here and an hour there and an hour something else and no-one was actually catching up with it. Then there was an explosion in Portsmouth harbour as one of the British battleships spontaneously combusted. It threw metal and everything all over the town. Everyone on board, including a load of sea cadets, were killed. That wasn’t the only catastrophe that happened to the Royal Navy. There were two ships on blockade duty off the coast of Belgium, and they somehow managed to collide with each other.

What the boat is doing being fitted out in my dreams, I don’t know. But the story of the exploding battleship reminds me of THE MONT BLANC – an ammunition ship that exploded in Halifax harbour after a collision, taking half of the town and half of its population with it in its way to the hereafter.

Whether that’s the reference to the collision or not, I wouldn’t know, but ships on blockade duty colliding with each other was a regular occurrence.

I was living in a small village where the highlights of the occasion were things like people ringing up the police saying that someone’s goat is free, things like that. And if you were to go into the police station, you would usually find the police officers asleep, slumped over the desk. Where we were living, there was something about someone with some kind of music list and when I was twelve, I reported it to the police for some kind of reason that wasn’t clear. I don’t really know what happened after that.

This sounds like several villages in which I’ve lived at one time or another, although I wouldn’t be the type of person to report anyone to the police.

But it does remind me of a sign that I saw once in Fredericton, New Brunswick, that read “on this day in” … (some year or other) “nothing happened”.

Isabelle the Nurse breezed in, all happy and relaxed after her week’s rest, much of which was spent with her daughter in Paris. I told her about my encounters with Emilie the Cute Consultant and the pills that she’s prescribed for me. She asked about the cough, so I explained that they were trying to sort out a thoracic scan and an appointment with a lung specialist.

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

Today, we’ve been working through the story of Anna Komnena, daughter of the Byzantine Emperor Alexios Komnenos. She wrote a biography of her father, which is said to be a fascinating eyewitness account of the Byzantine Emperor and the goings-on therein during the period 1081 – 1108.

There’s a translation of this into English, dated 1928 and I’ve actually found a copy to download. It will make interesting reading if ever I have the time to read it.

But that’s Miller’s book finished, and I certainly did learn a lot, which is the whole point of reading. Tomorrow we start a new book.

Back in here, I started a couple of things, but the next thing that I knew, it was 11:20. I’d fallen asleep in my chair for about two hours, and I can’t say that I’m at all surprised.

It comes as no surprise either for me to say that after that, I just couldn’t concentrate on anything. Most of my effort went on trying to stay awake.

However, I remixed the soundtrack for the concert that I’m preparing for the radio, and it’s a much better mix than the one that I prepared yesterday. It’s even a couple of minutes longer too, which means that I don’t have to write as much text.

Anyway, the text is all written for it now and I just need to find the time somehow to dictate it. There’s quite a bit building up in the pipeline right now that needs dictating.

There were the usual interruptions too. My faithful cleaner turned up to do her stuff and she chased me into the shower for a good scrub. While I was in there, she changed the bedding so the nice, clean me is going to have a good sleep in a nice, clean bed, if this insomnia has worn off. Which, judging by however many times I’ve almost fallen asleep this evening, it probably has.

There was still some time left at the end of the day, so I tried to prepare the next radio programme but my heart and my head just weren’t in it at all. I managed to make a few notes, but that’s about all. I shall have to do better than this tomorrow.

Tea tonight was a gorgeous bowl full of pasta and veg in a vegan cheese sauce, followed by more trifle. It’s beginning to break up now, the trifle, but it’s still delicious.

And that reminds me, I have to cover the chocolate cake with chocolate sauce.

But that’s tomorrow because right now, I’m off to bed, hoping for a better night than last night.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about ships and collisions at sea … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of my friends was telling me about a ship carrying blue paint that collided with a ship carrying red paint.
"Really?" I asked. "What happened?"
"The survivors were marooned."

Wednesday 25th March 2025 – IT HAS BEEN …

… a strange kind of day today — neither one thing nor another. I’m not quite sure why but if ever there was a day of two halves, this was it.

Take last night, for instance. Even though I was late … "yet again" – ed … finishing off everything that needed finishing, I wasn’t in the least bit tired and I ended up sitting around for a while listening to a concert by Renaissance. As a result, I was quite late going to bed, and it was all my fault.

Not being tired, it took me a while to go to sleep but apart from one moment, more of which anon, I slept right through until just a couple of minutes before the alarm — 06:24 if I remember correctly. Not that there was any prospect of me claiming an early start by sliding my feet onto the floor before the alarm went off — that four minutes in bed was valuable.

Even so, when the alarm went off, it took me a good few minutes to raise myself from the Dead and head off into the bathroom. And then into the kitchen for my hot drink and medication.

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

There had been a dance at an army camp and plenty of male and female soldiers had attended. During the evening, a couple of males and a couple of females had made themselves into couples. At the end of the dance, when everyone was due to go home, one of the female soldiers remarked that there would be a bed empty in her hut because one of the female soldiers isn’t there this weekend. One of these ad-hoc couples decided that they would take advantage of this so they followed everyone else back to the various dormitories. They worked out which one was their hut, and they went in. But there were a couple of other women in there, including one who looked after the section’s lion, which was their mascot from Ethiopia and looked after by them, so this was a strange sight of a woman and a lion, another lion, another woman, a third woman and then this couple who were in this other woman’s bed. At some point, I was summoned to do something with the hot water firing. I thought that this was a surprise because it’s not really my job. However, it was explained to me that the person whose job it was usually was missing. So I was called out and came down and went to fix it, and then I began to ask about the whereabouts of this other guy, and so a search began. When they opened the door of this women’s dormitory and found him there with this woman and this lion in this room, and all these other women, the service went totally berserk.

This is another dream that has absolutely no connection at all with anything that has happened in the real World just recently, as far as I can tell. What on earth a woman would be doing in a dormitory with a lion is something that totally baffles me.

The army dance is interesting too, but that doesn’t seem to fit in with anything either. As for me being in the army, that would be most unlikely too. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … that if a war were to break out and conscription came into force, I would be heading for the nearest Merchant Marine office.

Then there was a dream about a group of people who had let themselves go in their lives. The first one was a graphic artist from Italy who had settled into the UK to do some kind of graphic work, but had lost his job and was content to sit around all day on benefits rather than go out to try to find a job to better his position.

As I was starting to dictate this, I was overwhelmed by the most enormous coughing fit, one of the biggest that I’ve had and which awoke me, as I mentioned earlier. When it calmed down, I found that I had forgotten everything else that I needed to know about it and so that was that.

Almost immediately that I had finished transcribing the dictaphone notes, the nurse turned up. He didn’t have a lot to say for himself today and was soon gone on his travels. I could make my breakfast, cutting the bread with my new bread knife that arrived yesterday, and it isn’t ‘arf sharp. I hope that my cleaner can find some of those vegetable knives if they are as sharp as the bread knife is.

While I was eating, I was reading some more of ESSAYS ON THE LATIN ORIENT by William A Miller.

Today, we’re discussing Bosnia and Herzegovina, and I can understand why there is so much fighting over the possession of these territories even today. Their history is so convoluted – at some time in the past, almost every power of any importance in the Balkans and in Italy has had possession of this area at some point. Numerous battles have been fought across the area as other powers have tried to take control.

Back in here, I had a few things to do and then an e-mail to write. That actually took longer than it ought.

When I’d dealt with that, I began to write the notes for another radio programme. However, the time seemed to evaporate and what should have taken about three hours at most ended up taking over five, and I’ve no idea why.

My faithful cleaner turned up to interrupt me at one point. She’d brought the rest of the medication that had to be ordered. I mentioned the side effects of the medication that Emilie the Cute Consultant had prescribed, and her response was “serve you right”. It’s nice to know that you have loyal friends.

Something strange happened after all of this. From going along, bright and cheerful, I suddenly became overwhelmed with fatigue and found myself slumped over the desk in one of these trances that I used to have quite regularly.

In fact, had Rosemary not ‘phoned me up for a chat, I would probably still be there now. Even so, over an hour crashed out like that is some going.

Rosemary and I just had a short chat today — a mere one hour and twenty-four minutes. We’re obviously losing our touch these days.

After she’d hung up, I attacked one of the radio notes that i’d dictated a while back. I’d hoped to have had these all edited, the two halves of the programme prepared, the extra track chosen and the notes written , with plenty of time to spare afterwards, but what with one thing and another … "and until you make a start, you have no idea just how many other things there are" – ed … I’d barely finished preparing the two halves.

That filled me full of dismay because the time is just melting away between my fingers and I can’t stop it.

Tea tonight was pasta and vegetables in a vegan cheese sauce followed by more delicious trifle. It was quite nice, except for the fact that some of the pasta ended up in the bin as I couldn’t eat it. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … my taste buds are definitely changing.

But right now, I shall be changing, into my night clothes to go to bed, ready for dialysis tomorrow … "I don’t think" – ed …

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the woman and the lion … "well, one of us has" – ed … she was walking with the lion down Hoole Lane in Chester not so long ago.
A policeman stopped her and demanded "where do you think you are going with that lion?"
"Where do you think?" she asked. "I’m taking him to Chester Zoo"
A couple of days later, the same policeman stopped the same woman with the same lion in Sealand Road
"I thought you said that you were taking that lion to Chester Zoo?"
"And so I did!" she retorted "but he didn’t think much of it so we’re going to watch Chester City play Scarborough Athletic."

Tuesday 17th March 2026 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… twenty-four hours I have had. It has been without doubt one of the worst twenty-four hours of my life, and I don’t ever want to go through another period quite like it ever again, although I know that I probably shall.

You might think that it all started very well, with actually being in bed … "for once" – ed … at 21:48, and that won’t ever happen again unless I’m ill, but what happened is that I was in such misery with the constant coughing fits and the electric shocks running though the sole of my right foot that I scrambled through everything as quickly as I possibly could.

Once in bed, though, it was a constant battle all the way through the night of falling asleep and then being awoken by either a coughing fit or a stabbing pain. It was absolutely awful.

When the alarm went off, I’d already been awake for about fifteen minutes, but even so, I was in no state to haul myself out of bed, so tired was I. I missed the second alarm and in the end, it was rather late when I finally managed to crawl into the bathroom.

After a wash, I went into the kitchen for my hot drink and medication, and all the time I was thinking “I wonder how long before I find myself back in bed again” – that is, if the coughing and the pain in the foot would let me.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And I was surprised to find so much on there.

One of the Greek islands is in danger of being overrun by the Turks, but the Greeks were trying to make some kind of heroic defence out of it. They had a leader who was in charge of their army on his visit to Kyiv in 1903, but I wasn’t particularly impressed by him, every 25th December, I think. He was the person who wore a stained tattoo and was danger, so he had quite a cult following. One day, while there were the two operations going on, the Turks were searching for him, he came to stay at my lodgings in Canterbury for … fell asleep here …

Going back to the dream about the Greek hero, when they were hot on his pursuit, they were marvelling at how small the windows were in his house etc., because it showed that he wasn’t very big himself, yet he managed to lead the Greeks on all kinds of standard adventures in the fourteenth century against the Ottomans, all kinds of hit-and-run adventures until the latter part of the thirteenth century and his name of Letterman or whatever it was, was quite clearly due to his ability in handling his fleet of boats

The Greeks kept up a resistance until the 1450s, when they were finally all overwhelmed by the Ottomans. The Ottomans made some kind of saint out of it, but the Greeks wanted to convert a cave into somewhere holy, called the Twelve something-or-other, but the Ottomans turned down their request to make monuments to any of their soldiers.

These first three need no explanation. They clearly relate to the book, ESSAYS ON THE LATIN ORIENT by William A Miller that I’ve been reading quite recently. It’s obviously getting to me, all of this.

There was some strange dream about someone who had bought a Volkswagen LT flatbed, and on top of the flatbed he’d put a wooden pickup body. There was some complication about the insurance, so he went off to his insurance broker and his broker rang up their office. The guy who was answering was totally surprised and wondered why he hadn’t taken off the flatbed and bolted the pickup body straight to the chassis. That would have been a much easier way of going about it. But he recommended that the guy take the vehicle to a vehicle inspection site, and if they pass it as safe, then there would be no problems with it.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I worked for two years in an insurance company in Chester after leaving school. I worked in the section dealing with commercial garage insurance, and so I’m quite used to dealing with strange quotations for unusual vehicles and equipment. However, I can’t recall anything like this.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up as usual after her week’s break, and I’m afraid that I horrified her by talking about suicide. I was serious too, but that was the state in which I was this morning – in total and complete agony – and I couldn’t see a solution. You’ve no idea of the amount of pain in which I was and the discomfort with not having had a decent sleep.

She urged me to talk to them at Avranches and to insist that they do something. I’ve tried all of that, of course, and so I don’t think that doing it again will help all that much, but we can try, I suppose.

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

Today, we’re discussing the events on the island of Lesbos, and I do have to say that these Lesbians seem to be everywhere. But Lesbos is another one of these islands where the constant bickering between the Genoese, the Venetians and every other occidental power leave the door wide-open for the Turks to creep in.

Back in here, I had things to do. And then I was able to carry on with the radio programme that I’d started over the weekend. Trying to assemble a concert out of a recording on a fire-damaged and smoke-covered tape is not an easy task, especially when there are holes in it everywhere, but I’ve done the best that I can.

The quality is quite poor, and ordinarily I wouldn’t broadcast anything as bad as this, but its value is in its rarity. It’s never been played on air before, and it’s a recording of a landmark event that led to a very famous rock song being written about it, so it’s worth listening to just for that.

My faithful cleaner turned up as usual to do her stuff, and she shooed me under the shower as usual. And for the first time in a long, long while, I actually felt like a human being afterwards.

After the shower, we had a good chat, as we sometimes do. The good news is that there are some expensive kitchen knives on offer in the local supermarket, with a massive reduction if you have so many vouchers. My kitchen knives are rubbish after nine years of constant use so I need to replace them, and my cleaner has a whole raft of vouchers that she isn’t going to use.

So next time she passes the supermarket … I just hope that they have some left.

After she left, I finished off that radio programme and the notes, which are now ready for dictation. And then, dear reader, I had a little … errr … relax.

While I’d been asleep during the late afternoon, my assistant and I had detained someone for questioning about a pretty innocuous incident, and we’d brought him to my office. I’d asked him several quite simple questions, but to my surprise, he’d refused to answer, even after I’d asked him several times. Consequently, after an hour or so, and as I had better things to do, I decided to leave him. My assistant had plenty of paperwork to do, mostly about other matters, so I left her in my office to supervise him, although not to talk to him, as she did her paperwork. Every now and again, I’d go back into my office for different reasons and also to check up on whether he was willing to answer, but he wasn’t so I ignored him each time. When it came round to 16:00, I typed out a formal order of detention, which was crazy when you consider what a simple matter it was, and took it into my office, where I pinned it up on the wall. I’d explained previously to my assistant to let me know when she wanted to leave to go home so that we could take our interviewee down to the cells for the night. However, she showed no signs of wanting to leave, looking for all kinds of jobs to do, even checking that the recycling system for the bins was working efficiently. Eventually, it came up to my usual time for going home, my assistant still showed no sign of wanting to leave, and so I was obliged to stay on.

This is yet another dream that relates to absolutely nothing at all. I wonder what was going through my head while I was dreaming this.

For almost two hours, I was away with the fairies … "although not in any way that would incite comment from the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine" – ed … but when I awoke, I was feeling so much better, which was good news.

Before tea, there was enough time to choose some music, from which I’ll select several for the following radio programme. I edited and remixed it all and even chose four of the tracks to include, which I paired and segued. I’ll do the rest tomorrow and write all the notes.

And no Welsh class today? No, our teacher has gone to a funeral.

Tea tonight was a lasagna from out of the freezer with vegetables in a cheese sauce, followed by another slice of my vegan cheesecake. And I didn’t enjoy the lasagna as much as I was hoping to. I think that my taste buds are changing yet again.

So right now, I’m off to bed, with a busy day ahead of me. I hope that I can have a good night’s sleep tonight, because I need it.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about feeling like a human being … "well, one of us has" – ed … I remember fifty or so years ago when I played in a rock band and we were performing in a pub in Runcorn.
The guitarist – singer whom we had began to sing "Sometimes, I feel like a motherless child …"
And a voice from out in front shouted "well, you’re not going to find a motherless child in here tonight, dear!"

Monday 27th October 2025 – IN A CHANGE …

… from the usual programme these days, when the alarm went off this morning at 06:29, I was fast asleep in bed.

Not that it’s any surprise because, what with one thing and another … "and once you make a start, you have no idea how many other things there are" – ed … it was 00:50 when I finally crawled into bed. And it’s a long time since I have been that late going to bed, that’s for sure

Whatever these other things were, I really have no idea because I wasn’t doing anything that I don’t normally do. It’s true that I was late back from tea, but not all that late I just seem to have run out of time here and there for no good reason.

Surprisingly, after that ridiculously early start, I wasn’t at all tired. I could have stayed up for much longer than I did but there’s no point in pushing your luck for no good reason. However, I didn’t go to sleep all that quickly last night … "he means ‘this morning’" – ed …

When the alarm went off, I was absolutely out of it and it took a good few minutes to work out what was going on. However, I did manage to be sitting on the edge of the bed when the second alarm went off, so I can’t complain about that.

In the bathroom, I had a good wash and shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant at dialysis, and then I went into the kitchen for the medication. While I was at it, I cut the new loaf in half, wrapped them and put them into the stock in the freezer.

The bread was followed by the croissants. When the current half-loaf that I am toasting is finished, I’ll resurrect the croissants and see how they have come out. If they are inedible, I’ll abandon the project. If however they are worth eating, I’ll send my faithful cleaner off to Leclerc for some more puff pastry and make some more for my guests next weekend.

No sooner had I come back in here when the nurse arrived – ridiculously early again. He’s off on his week’s break this evening so I imagine that he wants to finish his rounds as early as possible.

After he left, I made breakfast and then came back in here to transcribe the dictaphone notes. And I was surprised that there were some, considering how deeply I must have slept. There was a group of us who set off on a kind of hike. It had been part of some kind of exercise where everyone had to walk around or run around this circuit. It was extremely complicated, with climbing exercises, running exercises and all kinds of different things. The first part of this, or should I say, the first one of this, went OK. I wax one of the people who had to wait on a street corner for the parties to arrive. When this had happened in the previous version of this, it was someone else who was doing it and I was one of the people who was running, so I had a good idea of what to do. However, it was in darkness – it was pitch-black. You couldn’t see anything and you were really doing this kind of thing by intuition. It didn’t seem to work very well. The next time, we set off. There was about eight of us in this group, but I didn’t really fit in with the others but I went with them all the same. Coming across a field, we were all carrying wire baskets full of fruit and vegetables. And coming across the field, there was one of the songs by Man being played, and I was singing it. They were all wondering what it was. We were going past some kind of courtyard with all these old buildings in it. We were walking through this courtyard and there were all lights on in the odd individual buildings. Someone made some kind of comment, and I pointed to the doorway right at the very end of the row on one side of this courtyard, and I said that they were the most famous toilets in rock music. When we reached the end of this courtyard, we had to climb out and onto the street. This involved going through some large kind of wire – metal grilled compound or something. We had to put down our baskets to climb up, pick up our baskets. I was the last one out, and I realised that someone had my basket and left theirs behind, so we had to sort out the baskets. Then we came to the city walls, which were the big city walls with a tiny gap in between them – two concentric walls. I again had to pass my basket up to the people who were up on top of the walls. Then I had to hoist myself up in a most undignified way by leaping up, catching the sides with my elbows and using my feet to walk the lower part of my body up, hooking it over the top of the walls and then somehow pulling the upper half of my body up. There were some other people sitting on the walls, a group of girls. They were impressed, so I smiled at them but the other guys with me made some kind of ribald comments. Then we were talking about the next stage of the journey. Some guy seemed to be extremely cocky about it so I said to one of the others “wait until we are further on. It’s his daughter who is doing the sentry duty on the street corner and she won’t take any nonsense from him”.

This is reminiscent of the dream that I had several days ago when I was crawling underneath fences and through hedges. And the … errr … restrooms reminded me of those in the woodworking block at Grammar School.

The rest of it, though, is quite meaningless as far as I can tell, and I’ve no idea why we would be walking around carrying those wire supermarket shopping baskets.

With all of that out of the way, I set out to pay a couple of bills. However, I’ll be badgered if I can’t find them. I had them in my hand a few days ago and put them somewhere, but wherever I might have put them, I don’t have an idea.

Instead, I tried to contact the tax office for a duplicate or to see if they would accept a payment on-line, but trying to contact them is impossible. Despite there being a helpline number, all it does is route you to a series of recorded messages and is of nu use whatsoever.

The bank was even worse, because they aren’t open today, recovering from having to work on Saturday mornings. I shall have to contact them again.

As for the hospital at Rennes, I needed to contact them too. They have given me an appointment for chemotherapy on Wednesday 12th November, but that’s no good because the follow-up will be on the Thursday and I’m in dialysis.

Eventually I managed to speak to them and they changed it to Tuesday 18th November. I believe that, barring accidents, that will be the last chemotherapy until I’ve had my six-monthly check-up in Paris in February.

All of that, would you believe, took me up to midday when my faithful cleaner arrived. She sorted out my anaesthetic and then left me to await the taxi.

For a change, it was bang on time so I braved the howling gale to go outside while I waited for the driver to bring the car round. Being new, he didn’t know where to park so he had ended up on the public car park.

There was another passenger in the car, a lively old woman, and we had an exciting chat all the way to Avranches. Bizarrely, she has exactly the same illness that I have, with very similar symptoms.

Being early leaving, I was early arriving and to my surprise, I only had to wait ten minutes before I was coupled up. That is the first for quite a while.

They left me pretty much alone today, although the doctor came to see me. Not Emilie the Cute Consultant, even though she was there and talked to everyone else but me. She clearly doesn’t love me any more.

Instead, I had the chef de service. I’m obviously being watched quite closely these days. But he brought me some good news. Firstly, I can abandon another one of my pills for a while and see how I get on.

Secondly, he plans to try a few sessions of just three hours instead of three and a half if the liquid level will permit it. The machine is limited to about 850 millilitres per hour.

The taxi arrived for me just a couple of minutes after I had finished, and wasn’t it nice to be back home early? Even if it was well dark by then.

There was even time for half an hour of relaxing before I went for tea.

Tonight, I had mashed potatoes and vegan sausage with vegetables in a cheese sauce. And that made a nice change, even if it did taste of salt … "there wasn’t even a grain of salt added" – ed …

So now, I’m off to bed. There’s a day off tomorrow as my Welsh class is on half-term. I shall ring up the bank and then crack on with a radio programme or two, to see how far I can go.

But seeing as we have been talking about medieval city walls … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of the time a friend of mine went to see the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem
"How did you get on?" I asked her.
"Actually, it was quite embarrassing" she replied. "Thousands and thousands of people there, and I was the only one who had brought a harpoon."

Thursday 2nd October 2025 – IT’S BEEN ANOTHER …

… one of these miserable sessions at dialysis today, where nothing whatever seems to have gone my way.

The only bright spark of the afternoon there was the interaction with some of the nurses. We had a good laugh at times, although I imagine that if the doctor in charge of the service were to overhear it, he would put a stop to it in an instant.

But after the events of yesterday, I needed a good cheering-up. My depression went on and on, culminating in forgetting to switch on the water AGAIN last night, meaning that I had no hot water today.

It was probably due to the fact that I had yet another late night when I failed to concentrate on anything, and finished hours later than I would have liked. I crawled into bed at about 23:30, and at least, I was asleep quite quickly.

The night though was another one of these turbulent ones where I’m tossing and turning, trying to make myself comfortable. And although I had had some amount of sleep, at about 05:50 I gave up the struggle. By 06:00 I was up and about.

After a wash and shave (in lukewarm water) I went for breakfast. And then I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone. And what a task that was!

There was a group of prisoners in a prisoner-of-war camp who decided that they were going to escape. They had thought of a foolproof plan and were making their preparations before leaving. The first thing that they had done was that they had arranged to have six cups of coffee each to take with them. They were busy sorting out these cups onto some kind of trolley that they could pull along behind them. They were discussing their route. The obvious route was to head for Switzerland, but one of the people planned to head for the interior first – the interior of Germany, and make his way round in some kind of arc. They were discussing various towns that they would pass through on the way. There was some guy there with his wife, and they were planning on escaping. When they were out of the prison, the wife fell into the River Rhine or one of the rivers that pass into Switzerland. It was ice-cold and she was in danger of freezing. A barge was going past so she put out her hand and caught hold of a trailing rope from the barge and allowed herself to be pulled on down the river. That way, she managed to cross into Switzerland, although her husband was miles behind, trying to make his way down to the Swiss border on foot.

Part of this relates to the story of Edouard Izac, a lieutenant in the American Navy in World War I. He was captured when his ship was torpedoed and was taken to Germany. He escaped from a prisoner-of-war camp and although he was only eighteen miles from the Swiss border, he took a circuitous route of almost ten times that in order to throw his pursuers off the scent.

As for the rest of it, I’ve no idea at all.

Then there were two athletes, male athletes, who were caught in a wave of a German advance. Rather than be taken prisoner, they linked their arms between each other’s elbow joints and, hanging on to their necks, they counted to three and suddenly wound and moved their bodies, thus breaking their necks.

We discussed the “Fetterman massacre” a few weeks ago. The opinion of the fort’s medical officer was that the two officers had linked arms and shot each other, presumably to avoid capture and torture by the Native Americans.

There was then a story about a guy and an associate of his who were tramping miles across the country accompanied by two cats. They came to a big girder bridge across a river. They had to toss these cats onto the bridge and then leap onto the bridge themselves in order to cross. Instead of crossing, they went to the bridge-keeper’s office. The bridge-keeper was discussing various criminal matters with various different people, about robberies and crimes and everything that was due to take place, as if he was some kind of organiser. The guy in this dream went over to him and was talking about his plan to kill some businessman by looping two chains around his door. When the guy opened the door and subsequently closed it, the chains would pull in really tightly and break his spine. The bridge-keeper warned him about doing this and didn’t recommend it at all. But early next morning at the house of this wealthy guy, he came out of his door and then went and slammed it, and you could hear the groan from outside. A couple of hours later, his wife awoke and went downstairs. She couldn’t find her husband so she called the police. The police found the guy who had climbed onto the bridge. He was sitting in his car, naked. The Police Inspector interrogated him but extracted no particular information so he had a Constable sit behind him in the car, armed with a shotgun. The guy in the front seat said that he was nervous about the shotgun, but the Inspector told him that he could be even more nervous if he knows that it’s loaded.

What I shall do with this dream is to leave you lot to interpret it.

From there, it went on back to my house. I was in my bedroom, somehow confined there and wasn’t allowed out. I heard the front door open and it was the nurse apparently who came in. When I was finally allowed out of my bedroom, he was giving Nerina an injection for something or other and a series of tablets. I wondered why this had taken place. Then he gave me my injection. Nerina was there with some kind of machine that had a recoil starter. She was pulling on this starter, but it was very, very difficult to start. She had to cut part of the cowling away to reach the choke, which was one of these flip-chokes that you work with your thumb. Eventually she managed to cut the piece away and it was quite a neat job. I could see these thousands of tiny, tiny LED lights around this machine so I asked her what they were for. She told me that they were for Carnaval. I asked her if we were going to have a float at Carnaval then.

It won’t be long before we shall be preparing for Carnaval, assuming that the current mayor doesn’t ban it and he doesn’t want to redevelop the funfair site or the workshop where they build the floats. Anything is possible around here at the moment. And it’s nice to see Nerina back, although why she would confine me to my room I have no idea at all.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up and sorted me out, and then I could press on with breakfast and BATTLES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

The British, having captured Philadelphia, have now abandoned it and are retreating to New York. That was a mystifying decision, because the only way to defeat an army is to bring it to battle. Retreating like this and abandoning posts that the enemy would like to occupy is a pointless exercise. They may just as well have stayed in New York in the first place.

After breakfast, I came back in here and carried on sorting out the hard drive, making sure that the directories run how they should and linking files to programmes. But I was interrupted by the charity shop that took away the unwanted furniture. They were only here ten minutes yet in that time they must have worked like heroes.

My faithful cleaner came along as usual to deal with the anaesthetic cream, and then I had to wait (and wait and wait) for the taxi. If that wasn’t enough, there was someone else to pick up so we were hours late arriving.

One thing that they had asked me to do on Monday was to conserve one day’s output of … errr … liquid waste and take it in a plastic bottle so that the laboratory could examine the contents. That was embarrassing.

And I also have to say that I was surprised about how little there was. And that’s probably why my weight had almost gone off the scale today and why they said that I had to stay for four hours. What with being so late arriving, that was horrendous news.

“Never mind” said one of the nurses. “You can sleep here with us tonight.”

“You know what” I replied. “That’s the best proposition that I’ve had for quite some considerable time.”

There were cramps, low blood pressure ringing the alarm, all kinds of things. A patient had a funny turn in her bed, and another one collapsed when he stood up. It was all go this afternoon.

The dietician came to see me too and had another little moan about my diet. It’s not doing her much good though because I’m not changing, even if my appetite has plummeted dramatically.

The taxi was waiting when I finished, but even so, I was hours late coming home. Especially as we had to go via his office to pick up some papers.

Tea was late tonight – bangers and mash with cheese sauce and veg – and no washing-up as I have no hot water. That’s a horrible task awaiting me in the morning, assuming that I switch the water on again tonight. I hate waking up to washing-up in the sink waiting to be done.

But now I’m off to bed, ready for the Centre de Ré-education tomorrow. But not looking forward to it. I have a pain in the neck and in the shoulders and I’m not feeling too well at all. I wish that I could have a good night’s sleep.

But before I go, seeing as I have been talking about my … errr … liquid output … “well, one of us has” – ed … my cleaner saw me pick up the bottle and put it in a plastic bag
“What are you doing with that?” she asked.
“Nothing really” I replied. “I’m just taking the p***.”

Thursday 27th February 2025 – ANOTHER PAINFUL SESSION …

… in the dialysis centre today. And not just because of the needles either but because the stabbing pain in my foot started up again mid-session.

"Would you like a doliprane?" aske the nurse. Had it not been one of my favourite nurses I would have shown her where to put the doliprane, but I managed to restrain myself. I’m becoming quite good at that.

Not so good at going to bed though. Just as I was about to hit the hay a concert of 10,000 Maniacs that I’d done in the good old “Radio Anglais” days came around on the playlist. So that was me, well-gone for ninety-five minutes. Yes, there are many things more interesting than sleeping.

As it happened I didn’t go straight to sleep either. I tossed and turned for quite a while and at one stage thought that I wasn’t going to manage to drop off at all. But when the alarm went off I was definitely asleep, even though it had been a turbulent night.

At that moment I was discussing Tranmere Rovers with a friend of mine. I’d heard that Tranmere had signed a new goalkeeper and I asked him about it. He came out with a name but I couldn’t find it. I wondered whether it might have been someone with a similar name. We had a team-sheet for one of their next game and looked at the changes in the squad over the last week. There must have been about fifty new players signed. “This is surprising”. He asked about one or two. I said that it seems to be that they are going for quantity not quality and that is quite probably the wrong way round. We were chatting about that when the alarm went off.

That’s a familiar story. During the close season almost two years ago, in the run-up to the European matches Connah’s Quay Nomads had enough players to be able to put out two completely different teams each half in a warm-up game against Stranraer. However, as events subsequently proved, quantity is no substitute for quality and if they had signed five really decent players for the budget of ten run-of-the-mill ones, they would have done so much better.

In the bathroom I had a good wash and scrub up, followed by a shave. And then into the kitchen for the medication, remembering not to take the medication that I’m not supposed to take on Dialysis Day.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night. That’s twice during the night that I’ve reached for the dictaphone and the dream has evaporated right out from underneath me. But for the second one I have the image of a very small girl still engraved in my mind but I don’t know what she was doing or where she fitted in to this but she was there impressed on my mind even though the rest of the dream and the one before it have totally disappeared.

That’s becoming a rather far-too-familiar tale of woe these days and I wish that it wasn’t. I put it down to old age myself. It’s really sad how my memory is deteriorating.

Later on, a local farmer in Sandbach had written to the local Country magazine to write about the projects for his farm and what he was planning to do on increasing his investment etc in order to reap greater dividends. He explained that it was necessary to do that to keep ahead of the programme and to keep his agriculture on the move. In actual fact he’d been reading dozens of these farming magazines and decided to make a change in the way he operates his cattle and try something to be done in a different way. This was going to require a lot of investments and he was making a start on doing it right now.

It wasn’t actually Sandbach but Shavington. I can still see the place where it all happened … "your memory’s not that bad then" – ed … and it was by the Sugar Loaf in Crewe Road where I used to catch the bus to go to school. Not that I caught the bus for all that long because once I had built a decent(ish) pushbike I used to cycle to school

Finally I was going somewhere in a car. There was a long queue of traffic going through a tunnel. We were having to wait in this queue, and then a few vehicles in front began to move but the one immediately in front of me didn’t move. I had a look and there were two people beneath it. I wondered what they were doing. Someone behind me klaxoned so I explained to him. Then these two people began to push their car out of the way, apologised and said that their car won’t start. I replied “it’s not any problem” and carried on. A little further on I came across a couple of older motorcyclists. One of them, the woman, was telling me that now that they had retired they had bought a motorcycle to travel about but I watched the man try to climb on but he couldn’t lift his leg high enough to climb up onto the motorbike. He was there for about 10 minutes making an effort.

So after the previous night, there I was last night going for a ride in a car. Without Zero unfortunately. It would be too much, I suppose, to expect her to come along twice in succession but I can live in hope. However that “couldn’t get his leg over” is very reminiscent of the famous moment between “Johnners” and “Aggers” LIVE ON THE BBC.

Isabelle the Nurse breezed in and breezed out again in a flurry, stopping just about long enough to read my health card as tomorrow is her last day in this month and so she’ll be very busy. And then she’s Carnavalling.

After she left I made breakfast and read more of MY BOOK. We’ve been discussing Civil War military emplacements today, not that there are so many still extant. Tomorrow we’ll be starting on the earliest traces of industry and regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we’ve discussed this before. I’m interested to see what is his opinion of the wiping out of the industrial base upon the arrival of the Saxons.

Next stop was back in the bathroom where I went one better than David Crosby, presumably because I’d had the ‘flu for Christmas and I’m paranoid when I look in the mirror and see a police car. However, I didn’t give in an inch to fear and sorted out the sheep-shearer.

Back in here I carried on with my proto-Woodstock programme and wrote a few more notes but it’s not going as quickly as I would like. I shall have to finish it tomorrow regardless otherwise I’ll be doing it for ever and I have other things to do.

My cleaner turned up to fit my anaesthetic patches and then I tidied up the kitchen while I waited for the taxi to arrive.

Today we had another new driver and I had to help her find a way out of here. It’s more complicated than usual today as all of the motor homes arrive ready for Carnaval. She was late arriving but she had her foot down for much of the way. It’s much easier now that yet another radar has gone up in flames. That’s three now in the area.

Last in at the hospital though, so last to be connected up. Despite all of the people milling around in there today, no-one came to disturb me except to bring me the coffee, and that suits me fine. I revised my Welsh and then chopped up a sound-track of a Canadian group who had appeared once at a Hawkfest

Unplugging me was about as painful as plugging me in, and the nurse reckons that I ought to try the anaesthetic cream for once and see what good that does. It has to be worth a try. I can’t go on like this.

One of my favourite drivers came to pick me up to take me home – the Belgian girl with the twins. We had a good chat on the way home but of course, late in means late out. It was a very weary me who struggled up the Twenty-Five Steps.

Tea tonight was steamed veg, vegan sausage and vegan cheese sauce. No pudding though because I’m still not hungry. My appetite has really diminished just now. All of the stuff that I didn’t eat at Christmas and said that I’d eat on my birthday will still be there next year, I reckon. I’m not sure if I will be.

So I’m off to bed now, ready for a work-in tomorrow and I shall keep at it until I’m finished. There’s a football match tomorrow night but I’m going to miss it and watch it at dialysis on Saturday – I may as well make good use of the time.

But seeing as we have been talking about old age and memory … "well, one of us has" – ed … I told my cleaner the other day "two things happen to you when you reach my age"
"What are they?" she asked
"The first one is that you forget absolutely everything"
"What’s the second thing?" she asked.
"I don’t know" I replied. "I’ve forgotten"

Thursday 30th January 2025 – ANOTHER FOUR HOURS …

… coupled up to the machine, and I’m not sure which hurt the most – the pain in my arm once the anaesthetic wore off or the stabbing pain in my heel that arrived mid-session. It was another one of those days.

And can you guess the medical staff’s reaction to both? Of course you can. "Would you like a Doliprane, Mr Hall?". Yes, this whole country seems to float on a lake of Doliprane.

But seeing as we are talking about floating … "well, one of us is" – ed … I don’t know what I was floating on the other night when I managed a fairly early night but I wish that it had come back to float me off last night.

Even though I’d finished at a not-unreasonable time it was still a good while later when I could manage to find the courage to rise up and go to bed. It was probably only the hope that in bed would be the only way that I would be able to see Moonchild again, or one of the other Fearsome Foursome, that drove me on.

Once in bed though, I didn’t hang around and was soon asleep. And there I stayed until the alarm went off in the morning at 07:00.

It goes without saying that I wasn’t in any kind of mood to raise myself from the Dead but I did manage to beat the second alarm into the bathroom where I had a good wash and scrub up. While I was there I also applied plenty of deodorant and had a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon.

In the kitchen I had the morning’s medication, remembering not to take the medication that I’m not supposed to take on Dialysis Day. But the bad news is that I’ve run out of my anti-cancer portable chemotherapy stuff that’s been keeping me alive for the last couple of years. I hope that there was a bottle in the last batch of medication that my faithful cleaner brought me. If not, I’ll be pushing up the daisies much quicker than even I think.

Thinking about it though, I should have asked for a new prescription when I was in Paris just now (they can’t prescribe it in Avranches) but I was hoping that I’d manage to see my consultant when I was there. But with the results not being anything like ready (they had hardly finished all the tests) I’m having to go back some time soon.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And I’ve no idea of anything at all about anything out of this. We had another phantom alarm at 02:50. It sounded so real that I did actually rise up and begin to leave the bed. But I’d been in some kind of folk group and had been playing an instrument and it had been the case of hitting my knees with my hand in the rhythm of the music, something like that. Anyway they stood me up and took me and we just – Rick – and at that traffic lights that was that hippo that was Rod Wayne’s and at that meeting I had to drive all the way back to Crewe when I could be posting but then having to think about disposing of her. Where will I dispose of her and then I said “if you are going to take me to this troublesome bear-y and dispose of Linda at the end of the programme so that we could have a little life? We had a girls’ school at first and looked after it. It was a very shabby and run-down area (…fell asleep here …)

Apart from the fact that none of it makes any sense … "so what in your dreams actually does?" – ed … I can’t remember a single moment of it. However, the utter gibberish and falling asleep indicate that I must have been really tired while all of that was going on.

Isabelle the Nurse is counting down the moments until her ski holiday. She’s promised to show me the photos but that’s no good at all. I need to see the real snow, and feel in under my skis. It’s probably a dozen years since I’ve last been skiing and how I really used to enjoy it.

After she left I made my breakfast and then began to read my new book.

To most of you, it’s probably not very exciting. And it’s not a book either. In 1936 an archaeologist named William Jones Varley excavated an Iron-Age Hillfort at Eddisbury in Cheshire. Although he had made a couple of initial reports, he died in 1970 with his in-depth report unfinished.

In 2006 when his wife died, a box in her caravan was examined and found to contain some very rusty pieces of iron which, judging by the quality of the ironwork and welding, were believed to relate to the Iron Age.

These were passed to a group of researchers who, comparing the pieces with Jones’s written notes, believe that these pieces of ironwork are the pivot points of the gates of Eddisbury Hillfort.

They published their own report a few years later after an extensive examination of the pieces and a re-examination of the site, and I’ve managed to lay my hands on a copy. So far I’m on about page 26 and no-one has managed to insult or abuse anyone else, even if the authors do disagree with some of Jones’s conclusions, so it makes some nice, calm reading

Back in here I had things to do, such as to finish off the missing notes from the next radio programme. So that’s all done now and it’s ready to be dictated on Saturday night.

The rest of the morning was spent on this question of backing-up that’s going to be the bane of my life over the next few weeks because there isn’t enough room on the USB key that hangs on my keyring.

“So why not use a portable drive like I used to in the olden days?” The question that I need to ask before that is “can I make a portable drive work with one hand?”. Remember that when I’m in the Dialysis Centre I had pipes and tubes going into one arm and the arm is clamped into a mould to hold it still, clamped to my leg

My cleaner was rather late coming to fit my patches, so as you might have expected, the taxi was rather early. He didn’t like having to wait for me, which was no surprise seeing as he had someone else in the car with him.

It was a slinet drive down to Avranches and we were really early there so I had to wait 20 minutes. Still, the earlier we start, the earlier we finish I suppose.

My bed was down in the far corner today which is always something of a struggle, especially when there’s almost 5kg of water to remove today

In the end, they agreed that they would only remove 4.5 kg. What they are going to do with this excess water, now that they are already on the maximum (1.1kg/hour at a maximum of four hours), I really don’t know. And neither, I suspect, do they

Once I was comfortable I began the back-up but then had one of those dramatic crash-outs that I used to have in the bad old days. But there I was a little later, being shaken awake by none other than Emilie the Cute Consultant.

"Mr Hall!" she said. "I thought that you were having a crisis!". She obviously doesn’t know about these diabetic comas.

And you should be even more proud of me that you were a few days ago. It took a great, immense effort but I managed to avoid saying "next time you want to awaken me, don’t shake me. Just roll over and give me a gentle nudge."

Before I was plugged in, I reminded the nurses that I needed a prescription of all of my other medication. They’d printed it off on Monday but there was no doctor there to sign it. Anyway, while she was hovering over me, I reminded Emilie the Cute Consultant that I needed it.

Ten minutes later one of the nurses came back waving a prescription signed by one of the doctors, and five minutes later Emilie the Cute Consultant came in carrying one too.

"Ohhh" she said. "I see that you already have one" and began to turn on her heel.

"In fact, I’d rather have yours" I replied. "It has your nice handwriting and signature on it" and she blushed again.

Once more, I was the last to leave. I hadn’t lost all of the liquid, which is no surprise. But it’s not going to help. What’s the betting that within a year I’ll be permanently coupled up to a dialysis machine?

The taxi was waiting for me when I came out. There was another lady to travel with me who lived in Avranches but this time we went up the old road that is probably one of the steepest roads that I have ever travelled. And then I had a lovely view of the old city walls and castle on the way past after we’d dropped her off.

She had mobility problems so I’d sat in the back of the car … "as if you don’t!" – ed … and after she left, I didn’t have the energy to move into the front. It was a very quiet and subdued drive home.

My cleaner was waiting for me and she watched as I climbed all 25 steps to my door – the stair handrails are now fixed.

We had a little chat and she promised to have the prescription framed, with Emilie the Cute Consultant’s signature in full view

After gathering my breath and having my protein drink, I made tea. Steamed vegetables and vegan sausage in a vegan cheese sauce. It was absolutely delicious. And my apple cake and caramel soya dessert was magnificent. The cake is as good as I thought it would be.

Bedtime now, and more work to do tomorrow. It’s a never-ending cycle, isn’t it? One of these days it will stop, but only when I’m pushing up the daisies.

But going back a little, seeing as we have been talking about archaeologists … "well, one of us has" – ed … have you ever noticed how so many of the people on the site are female?
On day I was passing an archaeological site and noticed this so I asked the team leader.
"We always engage women when we can" he replied. "And usually married women"
"Why’s that?" I asked
"Because they are so good at it" he explained. "There is nothing like a married woman for digging up all the past"

Thursday 19th December 2027 – I CAME BACK …

… from Dialysis in an ambulance this evening!

But don’t worry. There’s no reason to be upset or concerned. With these new Social Security arrangements, I was having to wait half an hour for the other patient from Granville to finish his dialysis session and then we could come home together in the same taxi.

However there was an ambulance that had come to drop off someone at the hospital across the road and was going back empty, so would I like to thumb a lift?

If it means coming home half an hour earlier than I otherwise would, then it’s no problem to me and I clambered aboard.

Still a big problem though going to bed early. Once more, it was round about 23:30 by the time that I’d finished my notes and done everything that I needed to do. And that included taking the Christmas cake out of the oven, wrapping it in baking paper and tinfoil and putting it in the fridge.

Marzipanning and icing over the weekend, I reckon. And then we’ll see where we are. I need to make some mince pies too one way or another. I have several jars of mincemeat thanks to Liz who brought some over when she came here last year but I need to keep an eye out on when anyone else is coming over because at some point I’ll run out of stock and I can’t find the ingredients to make my own.

So there I was, in bed late again last night, and I fell asleep quite quickly. I remember nothing, nothing at all, until the alarm went off at 07:00.

It was even more of a struggle than usual to haul myself out of my stinking pit but I wandered off eventually to the bathroom where I did some washing and had a good clean-up and shave ready for this afternoon.

In the kitchen I prepared a drink to wash down my medication, remembering not to take the medication that I’m not supposed to take on Dialysis Day, and then came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out what I’d been doing during the night.

I was in hospital, but I’d been recruited for the Secret Service and was supposed to wander around and make little enquiries, find out who was doing what and what information there might be that was being leaked to a foreign power. In the end I spent a lot of time there. But my room-mate was extremely difficult and seemed to think that I needed organising, taking in charge. Everything that I did in my personal life, he was there making comments and observations. For example, when it came to my slippers, he told me not to wear my slippers any more. I asked why and he told me that they were rather large, I might slip and trip over. I ought to find some slip-on slippers my own size. That’s OK, but I have trouble putting them on and taking them off. I can manage with the ones that I have, whether I’m wearing socks or whether I’m wearing these bandages that I used to have. I had to try to explain to him without going into any great detail exactly why I was doing the kind of things that I was

And there’s more truth in that dream than I would ever care to admit.

Isabelle the nurse was in a rush once more today. It can’t be easy for her having to do all of the blood tests and injections for her little circuit of patients, bearing in mind that she has a partner who, for reasons known only to himself, fails to produce “the touch” that makes it all look so easy and makes it feel so painless for the patients.

It seems to me that she’s ready for her seven days off after just the first day of being back on duty.

After she left, I made my breakfast and had a look at my archaeology reports on this abandoned Gallo-Roman farm. They’ve now uncovered several buildings that belong to the period in France called Antiquité Tardive – “Late Antiquity”.

That’s roughly corresponding to what the British call “The Dark Ages” , the period following the collapse of the Roman Empire in England, and the absence of any written record of contemporary events, until the renaissance of English culture under Alfred the Great and the monks of Jarrow.

In France though, there was no such period. Orderly, civilised life went on for the most part and the religious institutions and the court of the Merovingian Kings as well as several writers such as Gregory of Tours kept contemporary records, although it’s fair to say that there’s nothing like as much as I would like there to be.

Anyway, they are cracking on with this excavation, discovering building after building, trench after trench and road after road, not to mention the countless post holes that they have found in the ground.

Back in here I had a few things to do and once more I was overwhelmed by the arrival of my faithful cleaner who came to fit my anaesthetic patches.

It didn’t take long to do that and then I had to loiter around for the arrival of the taxi. It was a chatty driver who picked me up and then we went round to pick up the other passenger who we take, and then rolled off to Avranches.

Once more I was last to be plugged in and once more, one of the pins went in painlessly and the other one hurt like Hades.

It was one of those days where there was a constant stream of visitors. The nurses were checking up on all kinds of things today, and even the dietician came to see me.

With being a vegan I have a low protein count and this dialysis is making things worse so she has now prescribed a food supplement for me. That’s one more medication to add to the list.

She needed to have the prescription signed and so went in search of the doctor. It was Emilie the Cute Consultant on duty today who signed the prescription.

And I remembered that she was going to come to watch the nurses connect me up and use the echograph to see what the problem might be. In fact, the nurses had done all of the preparation, however she never showed up.

"Maybe she’s forgotten you" said a nurse. And that’s put the tin hat on it, hasn’t it? How could anyone forget me? Especially Emilie the Cute Consultant?

Still, my LeClerc order is complete, ready to be sent off tomorrow morning. I did manage to find some time in my busy schedule to do something.

As I aid earlier, I came home in an ambulance tonight. There’s a kind of rumble-seat in the rear of the ambulance and I came home sitting in that. It wasn’t easy though to climb in. First I had to sit on the floor of the vehicle and than haul myself up with my arms and fall into the seat.

That can only mean one thing – my upper body strength must be quite impressive these days.

Back here, I climbed up the first flight of stairs with less difficulty than previously but had to come up in the lift from the half-landing to the next half-landing and walk halfway down again because the handrail outside here still hasn’t been fixed.

Tea tonight was more steamed vegetables with vegan sausage and vegan cheese sauce followed by ginger cake and soya dessert. Lovely as usual.

So now that I’ve finished I’ll think about going to bed ready for a day radioing tomorrow.

What I was wondering about this dietary supplement is whether or not this might be the same supplement that they have tried to give me when I was here in the Summer.
"You have a very low protein count" said the dietician. "It’s probably because you’re a vegan and your diet doesn’t allow you to eat many things high in protein. Take this supplement."
So having accepted the bottle, "excuse me" I said. "You just told me that as I’m a vegan and my diet prevents me from taking many foods, I need a food supplement"
"That’s right" said the dietician, smiling
"So if you know that I’m a vegan and don’t eat many things" I said "what are you doing giving me a food supplement that is milk-based?"

Thursday 12th December 2024 – IT SEEMS TO BE ..

… confirmed that the X-Ray that I’m going to suffer on Monday is in fact on my right foot. I was handed the summons and it definitely says pied droit so there we are.

But having said that, I’m not sure if it is in fact my foot. I know that that sounds strange but I had a colleague once who lost a leg in the war and he still had severe pains in the foot that he no longer had.

In the end, in his case, it turned out to be a trapped nerve and that what makes me suspect that I have something similar going on.

Rosemary came up with a good idea the other day too, and that is that your foot is controlled by the same nerves that control other parts of your body, and it might be something to do with the other part of the body rather than the foot.

Intrigued by this, I had a look to see what I could find, and some reflexologist has posted a map of the foot and which regions of the foot, he thinks, are related to other parts of the body

So I found about one hundred maps of the foot, and about one hundred different plans. So if the reflexologists can’t agree, what chance do I have?

But seriously, if it’s not one thing which me at the moment, it’s another and I’ve no idea when it’s going to end, if it ever will. I seem to be fighting a losing battle.

Going to bed before 23:00 is also a losing battle. I’d finished everything quite early but once more, I was side-tracked by a concert that came round on the playlist so I stopped up to listen to it. And one thing inevitably leads to another, and once you start, you’ll be surprised at how many other things there are.

Once in bed though, I slept the Sleep of the Dead all the way round to about 06:55 this morning. And just as I was wondering what time it might be, BILLY COTTON told me.

In the bathroom I had a good scrub and even a shave to make myself look pretty, and then went into the kitchen to make a drink and take my medication, remembering not to take the medicine that I’m not supposed to take on Dialysis Day.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There was a new female nurse starting to work in a castle. Her job was to look after this tribe of Europeans who were settled near her. She had to go out to inspect the health of one of the leaders of the people, some young guy who was big and powerful. He hadn’t met this girl before. Quite naturally he became attracted to her while she was busy trying to do her job. He was asking her all sorts of questions such as “how long have you worked there? Where did you come from originally?” all of this. She was aware of what he was trying to do and was also very careful not to give any sign of any particular encouragement because that could only lead to complications amongst tribal people like this but she wondered how long it would be before some kind of approach is made.

Some nurse once told me that on average she received about one proposal per patient per week. Proposals of marriage were quite frequent too. It became quite an art to side-step them. I’ve also heard that someone from some medical establishment that I’ve visited (and shall remain nameless for the purpose of this discussion) whose job it is to make home visits to the elderly and infirm has had more than just proposals, which only goes to show that these people aren’t as elderly and infirm as they pretend to be.

Later on, I was back in work again. It was a Thursday and I was finishing at 16:00 because I was driving to Munich in my old Mercedes to go to my birthday party which was on the Saturday. As I was going to be away for a couple of weeks I tidied out my drawers, made sure that there were only about half a dozen files in there that needed work, and everything was all ready with about an hour to go. So I found the “post out” pile and decided to review that. I was reviewing the “post out” and came across a letter where the typing had typed over several lines twice. I took it back to the colleague who had dictated it and explained to her that it couldn’t go out like that. Could she retype it? But the boss was there chatting to her so I had to wait until after he left. When I finished explaining to this girl I walked back to my desk. The boss came up to me and said “I hear that you’re on the move tonight”. I explained to him that I was off to Munich in the old Merc. He said “you should have a good time”. I replied “I know, because it’s not where you are or what you are doing, it’s who you are with that counts”.

It’s quite a change for me to dream that I’ve finished my work. When I was going through that series of dreams about work, it was always about retiring spontaneously leaving a huge pile of work behind. And as for my old Merc, that’s festering down the field back on the farm along with a Ford Cortina and an old diesel Transit for company. The final sentiments of that dream are sentiments with which I concur wholeheartedly. That’s why I’m happiest on my own. Not even Percy Penguin could change that, and how she tried!

The nurse came early again and having ordered twelve boxes of plasters that he wanted, he’s now decided that I don’t need any at all. Judging by the piles of unused medication around here, the Social Security would save a lot of money if they were to dispense it in smaller amounts.

After he left I made my breakfast, and carried on reading ISAAC WELD’S BOOK.

He’s now left the First-Nation and Native American encampments, and his final words on that subject are not too encouraging. "The filthiness and wretchedness of their smoky habitations, the nauseousness of their common food to a person not even of a delicate palate, and their general uncleanliness, would be sufficient, I think, to deter any one from going to live amongst them from choice, supposing even that no other reasons operated against his doing so. I had fully determined in my own mind, when I first came to America, not to leave the continent without spending a considerable time amongst them, in the interior parts of the country, in order to have an opportunity of observing their native manners and customs in their utmost purity ; but the samples I have seen of them during my stay in this part of the country, although it has given me a most favourable opinion of the Indians themselves,, has induced me to relinquish my purpose. Content therefore with what I have seen myself, and with what I have heard from others, if chance should not bring me again into their way in prosecuting my journey into the settled parts of the States, I shall take no further pains to cultivate a more intimate acquaintance with them."

Having said that, however, he’ll probably change his opinion somewhat for on his departure down the Great Lakes, his ship was driven onto the rocks by a storm and he came within an ace of being shipwrecked. Luckily the wind changed round just as the ship was about to break up, so that they could steer it down from the rocks

There’s no doubt that he’s having some serious adventures on his travels.

Back in here I had things to do and was so engrossed that I hadn’t noticed the arrival of my faithful cleaner who had come to fit my anaesthetic patches

After she’d done that, I collected my plastic bottle and waited for the taxi.

It was one of my favourite drivers today. She helped me down past the broken handrail and outside into the car, and then we shot off to pick up our other passenger who comes with us on Thursdays and Saturdays.

The drive down to Avranches was rapid but uneventful, and for a change, I wasn’t last into the ward. In actual fact, I was connected quite early but it was still just as painful as it usually is.

However I went to the bathroom on the way in and on the way out of the smallest room, struggling to open the door, someone outside opened it for me. And it was none other than Emilie the Cute Consultant. Had she known that it was me, she probably would have leaned against it to keep it closed.

According to the nurse who connected me, the doctor wants to discuss the follow-up to the examination that I had the other day in the hospital. However, no-one came to see me. If Emilie the Cute Consultant is the one on duty, she’ll probably leave off talking to me and send an oppo on Saturday.

No-one interrupted me at all today. I could sleep for half an hour (which I seem to be doing every time the machine starts up now), revise my Welsh and carry on with my LeClerc order. In fact I was so engrossed in that that I was taken unawares by the end of the cycle.

Uncoupling me was painful but straightforward, I only had to wait five minutes for the taxi, and it was a quick drive home. Once more, we had another passenger in the back whom I didn’t notice at all until she said “hello”. It’s a good job that I didn’t commit any indiscretion when I climbed in.

Back here my faithful cleaner was waiting and she watched as I climbed up to the lift. I’m going up in the lift from the first half-landing and then coming back down on foot as I can’t do the second flight of stairs with this handrail hanging off.

Tea tonight was steamed veg and vegan sausage in a cheese sauce, all of which was cooked to perfection and was delicious, especially now that I have some cauliflower, broccoli and sprouts. The ginger cake and soya dessert were delicious too. My meals may not be exciting but they really are delicious.

Right now though, I’m off to bed. Tomorrow there ‘s nothing of any importance except the cleaner and in the evening, Connah’s Quay Nomads v Mold Alexandra in the Welsh Cup

But Isaac Weld is still struggling with his ship in the storm. All the masts have been torn away so the ship is powerless.
The captain comes on deck with a pile of planks and says "I’m going to give out two planks to each passenger and you’ll have to do your best to row to the nearest port"
Isaac Weld turns to one of his friends and says "this is going to be quite an oar deal"

Thursday 10th October 2024 – TODAY IT WAS …

… the turn of the dietician to come to bother me and disturb my pleasant … "well, sort-of" – ed … relaxation at the Dialysis Centre.

It’s remarkable (but no surprise really) that the trick cyclist never ever came back to see me for a second time, and I don’t know if this dietician will either after today, even though she promised to bring me a book.

Of course, here in any kind of French institution they don’t know what a vegan is and it’s cuisine à la Tricatel in these establishments so they are in no place to give me any advice about my diet. And in any case, as Kingsley Amis once said, "No pleasure is worth giving up for the sake of two more years in a geriatric home in Weston-super-Mare".

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I’ve no interest whatever in clinging on to life by my fingertips as long as possible just for six more months of agony or whatever. I intend to enjoy myself as much as I possibly can, growing older and riper and more degenerate

You should see the list of foods that she wants me to abandon. And there’s no chance whatever of that.

But last night there was every chance of my being in bed by 23:00 but, loitering around to no useful purpose, I missed it by five minutes. And once I was asleep there I stayed until the alarm went off and that’s something that hasn’t happened for a while.

So at the sound of BILLY COTTON I turned over and made a valiant attempt at leaving the warmth and comfort of my bed and only beat the second alarm by a whisker.

Having washed the clothes under the shower yesterday there was nothing to clean so I had a shave and applied the deodorant in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon, and then came back in here.

There wasn’t much on the dictaphone this morning, as I found when I went to transcribe the notes. Someone came to see me during the night from Ireland and wanted me to leave the bed. They said some kind of motivational phrase, I don’t know what it was now but it referred to one of their towns so I sat upright and began to leave the bed. Then I had a rough idea of the time and thought that it’s not really worth it so I turned over and went back to sleep

So who was that who came to see me? I have a couple of Irish friends of course and one of those could quite happily have come into my bedroom and been quite welcome too but I couldn’t be that lucky

The nurse came to see me, her usual smiling face, and we had a little chat about nothing much. She forgot the prescription for the tubular bandage that my cleaner wants and promised to bring it tomorrow.

After she left I made breakfast and then read MY BOOK. Today we are wandering around the Devil’s Arrows near Boroughbridge. They are some peculiar standing stones embedded in the ground at a certain angle, not perpendicular.

Once more he was lamenting, lamenting the fact that one of them had been uprooted in a futile treasure hunt and then smashed to pieces and hauled away. How much else of the Country’s heritage has disappeared like that?

Back in here, in another fit of wild enthusiasm, I attacked the radio programme that I started yesterday. Now, all of the tracks are sorted and segued and I’ve written half of the notes already. I don’t know what’s come over me right now.

My cleaner came round to fit my anaesthetic patches. We discussed next shower day and she’s going to change the bedding while I’m under the jet. That means that on Saturday morning I’d better shift this backlog of washing in the bathroom so as to make a space to dump the dirty stuff

The taxi was late coming for me – it had been to pick up that British woman about whom I talked the other week. She’s becoming far too friendly for my liking and I’ll have to do something about this

At the clinic they were waiting for me so I didn’t have to wait for too long before I was plugged in

It seems that I now have a hospital appointment for 8th November. It’s for a scan and an electrograph on my foot to find this trapped nerve that I think that I have. Things in this respect are moving fairly quickly which is good news

As I promised yesterday I went to read my course book but I don’t have the new one loaded onto the portable laptop so I contented myself with the last chapter of the previous one. And then I carried on with reading Lewis Carroll’s biography.

There was nothing in there today that would have worried the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine, but there always were plenty of hints, rumour and suspicion about his activities that would have worried the editor had they reached her ears. It’s certainly true that his family destroyed many of the photographs that he took and tore pages out of his diaries before they were passed to his biographers.

One thing that made me laugh about the book was the account by the biographer of his job as curator of the Common Room at the University and especially the Smoking Room "hard by for those who do not despise the harmless but unnecessary weed, "

How times have changed since 1898!

But having posted that on the internet now via the medium of my blog, I wonder how long it will be before someone from Q-Anon or another one of these stupid sites goes around saying that he’s read something about smoking on the internet that the scientists missed, about it being harmless and its safe for everyone to light up again.

The dietician turned up to interrupt me. She gave me many instructions about my diet and so in return I told her about the scandalous meals that I’d been served in her hospital, and that took the wind out of her sails somewhat.

But having given me her instructions she’s going to order a blood test in four weeks time to see if I’ve been a good boy but Austin Powers KNOWS WHAT THE NEXT STEP WILL BE

Apart from that, no-one bothered me at all – no doctors or anything – until my machine sounded its alarm that the process was complete. Then I was uncoupled and weighed (I’d lost 1.7 kgs today) and then I could clear off

There was another passenger in the taxi back, a crabby old woman who was busy expressing an opinion that all foreigners should clear off back to where they came from, so I said “bonjour” to her in a perfect simulated English accent and that shut her up.

My cleaner was waiting for me and watched me as I climbed the stairs. And today, I managed five stairs without having to lift my leg up with my hand. Still a long way from when I could stagger up all 25 unaided, but if it keeps on improving like this, I might start to go back to the shops on Friday morning

Tea tonight was steamed veg and vegan sausage in a vegan cheese sauce, followed by apple cake and soya dessert. There’s no doubt that although my meals are plain, they are very very tasty and I’m not going to give them up without a fight.

So right now I’m going to bed as I have bread to bake in the morning. But before I go I’ll tell you about an incident that took place at the Dialysis Clinic today.
A nurse going past looked at me, stopped, and said "don’t you have such beautiful blue eyes?"
"Thank you" I replied
"Did your father have them?" she asked "or was it your mother?"
"Knowing our family" I replied "it was probably the milkman."

Thursday 8th August 2024 – I’VE NO IDEA …

… why but I’m absolutely whacked this afternoon. Anyone would think that I haven’t slept for a month

At least, that’s what it feels like. It’s not true of course because I managed a couple of hours last night where I was away with the fairies

Just a couple of hours mind you. I had another late night. Before going to bed I stumbled across the report with a difference of a football match in Scotland.

There’s a guy who goes around all the Scottish and Irish football grounds and broadcasts commentaries from within the huddled masses on the terraces, giving marks out of ten for the quality of the meat pies and the public conveniences as well. A proper football report.

For a while now I’ve been following his exploits because he’s doing exactly what I would have done, and have done too in better times, and I can enjoy vicariously the excitement of being swept up in a passionate crowd.

Last night I caught him at Palmerston Park, Dumfries for Queen of the South v Arbroath so I stayed up to watch the kippers be well and truly smoked by the home team.

It’s years since I’ve stood on the terraces there at Palmerston Park. 1977 or 1978 if I remember correctly. The height of the “troubles” and I was the only one who would take a British-registered van to Northern Ireland (where I was once arrested by an Army patrol, but that’s another story).

And on the way back once, seeing the crowds swarming across the river, I followed them.

It was on one of those trips that I had that classic encounter that I’m sure that I’ve mentioned before – the young girl from school who was serving in that pub at Galgate where I stopped for a pint on the way home.

One thing led to another and a few weeks later I’d lured her back to my lair and my old black cat Tuppence, the most anti-social cat you can imagine (like her owner), went and sat on her knee.

"Even my cat likes her!" I thought to myself, and invited her back to my lair for another encounter

"Yes, but you’ll have to get rid of that cat! I hate cats!" she said.

Of course it goes without saying that I kept my cat for another twelve or so years. She knew what she was doing – driving away all the competition for my affection.

Of course, with Nerina she didn’t stand a chance. Nerina loved cats and as soon as she came into my house it was "ohhh! A cat!" and she had Tuppence in her arms before Tuppence had time to think.

Yes, I had so much affection from my cats that the first thing that I’ll do when I’m downstairs is to have a female cat come to live with me.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment I went to bed late last night after the football and was awoken again at some silly hour of the morning and I’ve no idea why.

Nevertheless I stayed in bed until the alarm went off and then I had a very unsteady lurch into the bathroom to sort myself out.

Given the rather difficult night, I wasn’t surprised – just disappointed – to find that there was nothing from the night on the dictaphone. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the only excitement that I seem to have these days is whatever goes on during the night.

The nurse was in chat mode this morning and we had a good discussion about my neighbour, who apparently is destined for a Home near Bayeux. It did make me wonder where they would send me if I had to go into a Home. Presumably one where the jackets do up at the back.

After she left I had breakfast and carried on reading my book about Montana at the turn of the Twentieth Century. We’re reading about the trip “Judge Woody” made to arrive in the Territory and I suppose that tomorrow we’ll find out more about the early days of Law Enforcement and Justice.

It was another slow start to the morning, and then once I started work I was busy.

First task is to go through another batch of concerts and try to date them. There’s a wiki on line called SETLIST where people who have been to concerts publish the setlist that was played. By comparing that with the setlist performed in the concert that I have, I can match them up.

However, not every setlist is published and of those that are, I’m convinced that one or two are wrong.

Having dealt with a batch of those, I then attacked the special project on which I’m working for the radio. I gave that a couple of hours of my time.

There was more that I could have done but regrettably, I was away with the fairies for a couple of hours late this afternoon.

Well-away too. I felt dreadful when I awoke and I have to do better than this

My cleaner came round to drop off more medication and we had an interesting chat for half an hour about kitchens and buying and selling apartments. But no news about she downstairs in my apartment.

Tea tonight was the last slice of lasagne with veg and vegan cheese sauce – only really to make more room in the freezer because tomorrow I have an order that I want to sent to LeClerc and I need the space.

So having done that I’ll unwind a little before going to bed and hope that nothing comes along to deflect me from an early night

But on-line shopping. There’s an interesting phenomenon. I was once talking to my friend Josée in Montréal. I told her that shipping in North American was really borjing
"Why is that?" she asked
"Well" I replied. "In North America, when you’ve seen one bunch of shops you’ve seen a mall"

Thursday 27th June 2024 – JUST FOR A …

… change, especially given how things have been just recently, I’ve actually had a day at home.

The word “quiet” was going to figure in there somewhere but Hurricane Cleaner has blown through here on a couple of occasions leaving a wake of desolation in her trail, and that has blown away any cobwebs that were hanging around anywhere.

But at least I now have some brazil nuts. She actually managed to find them in the loose “weigh it yourself” products in LeClerc. But what a price! Cheaper than ordering them on-line when the postage is taken into account, but nevertheless …

And nevertheless, last night was yet another in a long, long line of late nights. Robinson Crusoe may well have been the inventor of the five-day week, with all of his work being finished by Friday, but I wish that I could invent something that would finish all of my work by 22:30. Wouldn’t that be nice?

But once again, once in bed I didn’t need much rocking and ended up with another one of these really deep sleeps. One where I don’t move a muscle for the entire night, and how rare is that?

In fact, looking at the miserable collection of dreams that I’ve been having and all of these really deep sleeps, has someone slipped a sleeping pill in amongst all of this medication?

There better hadn’t be. The only fun that I have these days takes place during the hours of darkness when I’m off on a nocturnal ramble and I’d hate all of that to be suppressed.

Just imagine not ever getting into mischief, being up to no good, and not having close encounters of the third kind with Zero, TOTGA and Castor. Things are bad enough as they are without losing all of that.

When the alarm went off I staggered out of bed and wandered off to the bathroom for a wash and brush up. Then back in here I transcribed the dictaphone notes from the night, such wretched affairs that they were. There was a girl in the sick bay reading something like “Pride and Prejudice” with a portable lamp to light up what she was doing and a hair dryer working to keep her warm. She was tucked up in bed like that. The Inspecting Officer who happened to come by the hospital at one particular moment caught her at it. There was going to be absolutely a fearful row. He confiscated the hurricane lamp but it didn’t make any difference and she continued to read.

That was the best that I could do, and it doesn’t have any significance as far as I’m concerned. Living as we did in the wilds of rural Flintshire, Shropshire and Cheshire in the 1950s before the widespread introduction of electricity, we had a hurricane lamp, an old pump-action Tilley lamp that was real fun to work when you were a small child. I wouldn’t have liked to have taken it to bed though as it fizzled and popped away. However, the Tilley lamp and the “Aladdin” paraffin stove for heat on which you could boil a kettle or even some food in a saucepan if you were desperate were our friends when there was one of the frequent power cuts when we were small.

When the nurse came I asked her if she’s enjoyed her swim. She’d been to see “Coldplay” in Lyon at the weekend but the Saturday performance was devastated by a flood. However, her tickets were for Sunday so she was safe.

She told me how much she enjoyed it as she sorted out my legs. For a change we had quite a chat. She mustn’t be busy today.

After she left I made myself breakfast and by the time that I’d finished I was surprised to see that it was 10:00. That chat must have gone on longer than I thought.

Most of the day has been spent editing the radio notes that I dictated the other day. Two more radio programmes have now been completed and I would have finished the last one of the backlog that I dictated had I not wandered off a couple of times with the fairies.

You’ve no idea – or maybe you have, I dunno – how fed up I am of all of this crashing out all over the place. I would give all that I own, and much more besides, to be able to keep on going for 16 hours every day without falling asleep. It’s really going beyond a joke

However, it’s not all doom and gloom, during one of my spells of being away with the aforementioned, I actually went off on a little voyage. While I was asleep in the afternoon there was all kinds of stuff about flowers, the beautiful snapdragon types and that kind of thing. And then I was walking through someone’s garden but it was all fenced in and I couldn’t find my way out. I eventually came across a sign that said “we operate an ‘open door policy’ and by the sign I eventually find a well-disguised type of door that I could open and this took me to a little path that led to the road. The owners of this garden, two women, were in the neighbouring one doing some weeding and I was worried in case they saw me, but they seemed to take no notice of me;

Now that’s more like the kind of dream that I used to have. It was much more picturesque and I actually felt involved deeply in it rather than just having some kind of passing interest. I really need a few more dreams like this.

As I mentioned earlier, the cleaner came by a couple of times.

Firstly, she brought some stuff that the nurse wanted. Later she came past with some stuff that had been ordered earlier from the Chemist’s which had now been delivered.

Finally she came in waving a brown paper bag. “Peace In Our Time” I immediately thought, remembering a famous photograph, but it was actually a bag of brazil nuts.

They are an essential ingredient in some of my baking. Their selenium content is very important so I grind them up in my whizzer and add them to my fruit buns and flapjacks, that kind of thing. I’d run out of my stock and couldn’t find any more so I asked my cleaner to keep an eye open for some.

And now, we’re back in business, and that’s good news. I shall just have to go and lie down in a darkened room when she gives me the bill for the month.

She also came up with an idea about my bank card. One of the smaller supermarkets which she uses has a “home delivery” service where you pay for your goods when they are delivered. The guy brings his card reader to your door.

With it being the end of the month, she needs a lot of stuff delivering so she’s going to arrange to have it delivered to me, I’ll pay with my card which should then activate it and she’ll knock the total off her bill.

That seems like a very eminently suitable solution, but it’s too simple to actually work. We’re bound to encounter a pitfall somewhere along the way "The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men gang aft agley an’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain for promis’d joy" as Robbie Burns was apt to say at moments like this.

Tea tonight was one of the best of a long line of good meals. Steamed vegetables and falafel balls smothered in a nice vegan cheese sauce. Just one of the many meals that I could eat time and time again, with the broccoli and sprouts cooked to perfection.

But now for once I’m going to try to go to bed early.

But this story about the home delivery reminds me of one of my many visits to one of the hundreds of hospitals that I’ve visited over the past few years.
As I was wheeled past one bed I heard a patient mutter "The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men gang aft agley an’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain for promis’d joy"
At the next bed, that patient was muttering "O, wad some Power the giftie gie us to see oursels as others see us"
At a third bed a patient was muttering "Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim’rous beastie, O, what a panic’s in thy breastie! "
"What is this place?" I asked. "The lunatic asylum?"
"No" replied the attendant. "It’s the Burns Unit"

Thursday 23rd May 2024 – I’VE NO IDEA …

.. what I’ve done to myself, but I have aches in places I didn’t even realise that I had places.

At some time during the night I pulled a muscle in my groin in bed.

Usually I don’t mind pulling a muscle in my groin in bed, but only if there’s someone else in there pulling it with me. This time though it happened during the night when I was asleep and I didn’t realise until I had to leap out of bed to switch off the alarm

And then I did! Ohh yes.

And I’ve also done something to my lower back too so sitting down, even in my lovely office chair, is agonising too

When I went to bed last night, earlier than usual for a change, I was in perfect health. Well, as perfect as I can be, I suppose. And for a few hours I had a nice relaxing sleep.

However things went south from there. I was tossing and turning around, obviously far too much at one point.

When the alarm went off Billy Cotton cried his famous cry three times before I could reach the ‘phone to switch him off. Usually I can manage to do it before the first chorus ends but that’s when I don’t have pulled muscles in my body with which I have to contend.

In the bathroom it took me half an hour – yes, half an hour to dress myself. It really was so difficult to pick up my right leg with this agonising pain.

Eventually I managed it though and limped off into the living room to sort out the medication. It’s a day of everything today, even the Vitamin D supplement that I have to take these days with being stuck indoors.

When the nurse came I told her of my predicament and she insisted, absolutely insisted that I take a painkiller. I’m totally opposed to that idea but I could see the logic in her argument today.

However I had a few things to do that needed my attention beforehand

Once I’d organised everything I took a painkiller, with the predictable results. Having crowed yesterday about not crashing out at all, I was away with the fairies. And away for almost 4 hours too. It was 15:06 when I awoke and … errr … somewhat later when I started work.

The cleaner had been in while I’d been asleep and apparently we’d had a chat. I wonder what it was that I’d said. It can’t have been anything offensive because she came back later with other stuff. It seems that one of my neighbours has left me a couple of punnets of soft fruit which is really nice.

First thing that I did was to check the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night. We were having a big discussion about teenagers wasting time. It turned into some kind of battle like a game of football or something. Whichever team I was on, we swept the field and won quite convincingly. This led to me moving into a new apartment. I had some help to do it. Afterwards we were settling down when the ‘phone rang. It was Rosemary so she and I had a good chat. She found out where I was living now, which was just down the road from ETS Elliott School and some of her stuff was there in a box so she wondered if we could go to pick it up at some point at lunchtime. I didn’t see any objection to that except that I wasn’t sure how I was going to carry it away. It would probably need to go into the car which meant coming back from work on the bus or tram, getting into the car, going to the school, getting the things, going back home and then going back to work on the bus or tram again. Certainly in theory it was possible anyway

Time is, after all, only wasted if you actually regret it. And when you are teenage you don’t worry about that

There’s a General Election taking place in the UK. I’ve been an MP for 5 years creaming the money off illicit contracts and tings like that from the NHS over Covid. Of course with the elections coming up there was likely to be a new Party, there’s likely to be a public enquiry which could eventually lead to prosecutions. I would have to admit at some stage or other that I was likely to be prosecuted for some misdeeds with regard to the Covid disaster and the aftermath of it. It was all extremely depressing for me as time passed on the approach to the date

Yes, I’ve caught the General Election fever right enough with all of this. It’ll be like this now for the next few weeks until it’s all over.

I was going somewhere on a train. The train was quite crowded. There was one guy behind me talking to one guy in front of me. Although they were talking quite quietly it was impossible for me to sleep. I had all kinds of dreams and things going through my head relating to the economy and knights in shining armour etc but of course with not being asleep they are only flitting through. In the end there was an incident on board the train. Someone made some kind of remark to me so I replied and mentioned about these two guys talking to each other and said that maybe now they can keep quiet and let everyone else go to sleep. I suddenly realised that not only was I sitting on a set of seats for two in this crowded train I was sitting on the one against the aisle and my feet were across the other one propped up on the back of the seat in front. I had stuff all over where I was sitting on the window ledge and on the tray of someone sitting across the aisle too. I suddenly realised that I’m the last person who ought to be lecturing passengers about their behaviour on this train. As it became more crowded and people were standing I suddenly realised that maybe I’m going to have to change my behaviour and let someone sit alongside me which would of course make the journey much more uncomfortable for me but make it much more comfortable for everyone else. It really did seem strange the way I was reacting when I was being twice as bad as everyone else when it came down to selfishness

And this isn’t like me, is it? I’m not usually the inconsiderate sort. Not these days anyway.

Next step was the radio programme. I’ve chosen all of the music and begun to pair it off. That should keep me out of mischief for the next few days, writing the radio notes for the music that I’ve chosen. There’s some good stuff in this programme.

Tea tonight was, as I said the other day, steamed veg with falafel in a vegan cheese sauce. That’s another one of my favourite meals and it was as delicious as always. That’s another meal I can eat every night of the week.

But seeing as I’m in agony I’m off to bed. Fully dressed because I’m not going through this morning’s pantomime again.

Tonight I feel like the woman who went to the doctor’s about her aches and pains.
"What did he say about the pain in your back?" asked her husband
"He told me to rub in this embrocation three times a day" she replied
"Did he say anything about the pain in your *rs*?"
"Yes" she replied. "He told me that I ought to apply for a divorce"

Thursday 11th April 2024 – I’VE NO IDEA …

… what happened to this morning.

There I was, sitting down at my desk typing out a few notes and the next thing that I knew was that I was flat out asleep the ‘phone was ringing and it was midday already.

A whole morning had passed and I’d been totally out of it. It was just as if someone had flicked a switch at some point earlier in the morning and I’d just switched off completely with no warning.

You’ve no idea whatever just how strange it feels to be in a circumstance like that. All that I can say is that it’s a good job that I can no longer drive.

This morning I knew that things were going to be difficult. I’d been awake since about 06:00 and was actually up early before the alarm went off. It was actually quite a struggle to leave the bed, no matter how it sounds, because I didn’t feel in the least like it.

It had been a late night too. This idea about trying my best to finish everything early isn’t really working and despite the best intentions, and the road to Hell is paved with those, I’m not doing aby good with the plan.

It was probably about 23:30 when I slipped under the covers and so awakening at 06:00 is simply not enough sleep. Heaven alone knows how I managed 30-odd years ago when if I thought I was having half that time in bed I was doing well.

So first thing was to check the blood pressure this morning. It was showing 16.9/11.2, which compares quite miserably with last night’s figure of 14.9/9.3. Something had gone on during the night to upset me, by the looks of things, but we’ll have to wait to find out what.

Instead of worrying about that I went to take my medication, the typical European Medicine Mountain of stuff, and then to rearrange the living room ready for her and also to have a good wash

While she was here she gave me a list of stuff that she needed and then wandered off, and I began to sort myself out. However it was at some point round about here that I disappeared off the face of the earth.

awakening was the thing, because I was totally out of it and it took me a good couple of hours (seriously) to come back onto this planet. It was certainly well after 14:00 when I restarted work.

First thing was to transcribe the dictaphone notes from the night – and from the morning too because there were some of them. But during the night I was back in Outer Space again assembling a rock programme. What I was actually doing was cutting an audio track from an obscure German rock group called Dreadnought, copying out the segments. There were dozens of them, all extremely long so it was a complicated business to do it. I was chatting to one or two people while I was doing it. They were apparently quite impressed and spent some time watching. I found that one of the women there, she knew exactly how to do it. She had a Welsh programme there and she was going through telling me how she did it, in Welsh, which I understood, saying “it wasn’t done in this way – it wasn’t done in this way and it wasn’t done in this way and it wasn’t done in this way but it was done in a way like this”, said in Welsh all the time and I could follow the conversation, I could follow exactly what she’d done. She made it sound really, really interesting. I thought to myself “maybe I ought to investigate things from that point of view and see how they fit with what I’m doing”

Funnily enough, just recently I have been editing a concert sound track by a German space-rock group called Dreadnought, another one of my contacts from one of the various Hawkfests, and it’s really quite interesting. But I wish that I knew in real life which method this woman was using. I’m completely self-taught in respect of my use of a sound-editing programme and can conjure up some surprisingly good results. But there are tons of facilities that I have never used, and some expert advice would really not go amiss

Later on I was back in a dream in Welsh. Our Welsh class had to translate an ancient song. There were two ways to do it, one was a translation after the fashion of Morgannwg … "presumably the poet Lewys Morgannwg" – ed … and the other after the fashion on Cadwaladwr … "presumably Cadwaladr ap Rhys Trefnant" – ed …. The problem was that both translations are rather inflammatory and as a result its use has fallen out of favour but nevertheless that was our task. One girl was already receiving some grief because her translation had come to the notice of the authorities and we were wondering all the way through the rest of this dream how long it will be before our version of the translation comes to the attention of the authorities, and what action they’ll take against us

And that’s the problem with much of Welsh literature of that period. It’s a tale of lament about the oppression of the native people by the wicked English and like many other things, it’s not very appetising to the English palette today.

While many countries have tried hard to come to terms with their past, in England there has never been any kind of attempt at reconciliation. There are a great many scars that have never ever healed.

While I was asleep during the morning there was also a complicated discussion going on about the use of personal pronouns, something else that seems to be quite a touchy subject these days.

As we said the other day, there are a lot of people with nothing better to do so they trawl the internet and places like that trying to find ways in which they might be offended. If you’re born with a certain gender and you don’t like it, then that’s your problem, not everyone else’s

Whoever it was on the phone who awoke me, I have no idea I was in no fit state to answer.

Instead I lowly (as in the next couple of hours) came back round into the Land of the Living and then made a start on the notes for the next radio programme.

Not that I went far because firstly the cleaner descended upon me with some supplies for the nurse, and then the Auvergnats came round to fill me in on their exciting day. Tomorrow they are off down the road to Mont St Michel so I’m being allowed a day of freedom myself. I’ll see them on Saturday for the last time.

But it was nice to chat about all of our old stamping grounds down in the Combrailles and to discuss all of our former partners in crime, most of whom have moved on to pastures new.

And that’s a shame because I really loved my life in the Auvergne. It was just how I imagined rural France to be and I’m glad that I managed to grab hold of one of the last vestiges of it before it disappeared completely

There was definitely something to be said for life down there, but it’s no life for anyone who is not 100% fit.

After they left there wasn’t much time left until teatime – some pasta and veg in a vegan cheese sauce with a couple of the falafel balls that I made the other day. Totally delicious.

So when I’ve finished everything again, my throbbing leg and I are going to bed and if the pain subsides I might even sleep. But it would be nice to have a regular sleep.

And by that I mean one with lots of dreams. Lee Jackson sang "YOU WOULD GIVE A SMALL FORTUNE
TO BE BACK IN YOUR DREAMS"
and he’s not at all wrong, not on my account anyway

It does remind me of the time that Nerina and I chatted about our dreams
Nerina said "I dreamed last night that I’d gone shopping in Asda"
"Really?" I asked. "I dreamed that I was making love to three beautiful, naked women in the park under a glorious warm sun"
"Was I there?" she asked
"Actually no" I replied. "You’d gone shopping in Asda"

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: vegan cheese sauce

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Thursday 11th April 2024 – I’VE NO IDEA …

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