… or earlier today if you are reading this on Friday, I shall be hitting the road Jack – or, more likely, Jacques.

Having had a summons from my doctor yesterday to go to the Urgences at the local hospital as soon as possible (or, more likely, as soon as I could spare the time) I had a ‘phone call from the hospital in Paris to the effect of “you need to come to the hospital immediately. We’ve spotted a critical issue with your blood test”.

“Like when?” I asked

“Like this afternoon!”

“That’s out of the question” I replied

So we agreed on tomorrow and he sent me a bon de transport. I then rang up the taxi company and they agreed to pick me up at … gulp … 07:00 so we’ll be in Paris for 11:00 – 11:30.

Consequently I’ve soent much of the day on a paperchase both around here and on-line.

But what a way to finish the week, or spend the weekend. As I said yesterday, they have cut so many bits out of me already that there’s not much left, so I’ve no idea what they are going to do with me.

On the subject of having no idea, I also had no idea about what was going on during the night either. “Lager” was the name of an album by Gigspanner (a group of which I was sent a concert by the people at Shrewsbury and to which I’ve been listening) or one of those groups. When I awoke, it was a name stuck in my head and the music was going round and round in my mind and I couldn’t stop it0 I’ve no idea what’s happening there but certainly the name was meaning something so what was going on?

Then there was the question of a pizza (which I began to dictate in French). One member of the group wanted a pizza although most of the group didn’t but another member of the group would go to fetch it. He went but for some reason he took a fairly long time. He explained that there was a complication outside that had held him up when he’d been leaving and come back. It turned out that a group of people out there weren’t very happy with some of the songs and wanted to discuss it in a confrontational way with members of the group. This also fed over the introduction of the next group – I forgot to mention that the music being played was WE CAN SWING TOGETHER“” and the track afterwards where there was going to be this problem was called something like “The Sea”.

Later on I was back in that dream again. One of the musicians had been out and had been practising one of his songs. There had been some kind of discussion because the words were something like “so I killed my wife” etc and people wanted to know about it. He said that while his wife had died quite early in their marriage it was regarded as an accident. He returned to the dressing room where his current wife was asleep. She was having a dream about something and it suddenly required the injection of a powerful, rocking type of dream and music so her husband went to go but spent most of his time talking to the people who were present and observing it rather than attending to his wife’s wishes wrapping the legs with silicones and stuff and so on.

Back in this dream yet again. I was hungry by now and wanted something to eat. The first thing that I did was to look through the cans that were in the cupboard under the worktop because that’s where there had been some stuff before. All were cans of beer and there were a few chocolate Easter eggs. That was about everything so I asked “what was I going to eat?”. They replied that there was some bread. I replied “I’m glad about that” so “why not make yourself some kind of virtual sandwich and pretend that it has some stuff on it. If you find anything you can fry it using the butter. I thought to myself “this is going to be really complicated, the question of food with this group of people who don’t seem to be willing to take other people’s needs into account.

Back in this dream yet again. This time I’d gone into LIDL for some stuff. I only wanted 2 or 3 things but I noticed when I was in there going around that the line line of people to pass through the checkout was enormous and went more than halfway round the store. I hoped that it would be all clear by the time I begin to line up I don’t want much. What I wanted was the fruit and veg. There were people coming up to me with plenty of fruit and veg – apparently it was the special this week. They had wines and salad and there was something else for one of the women whom we knew, Lady Hamilton or whatever. While dealing with whoever the lady was, what the vegetable was, the clerks at LIDL were fine but they were struggling with the Lord Nelson thing because it had been reduced from full price so the label was no longer valid and they had to type it in by hand but they didn’t know what vegetable it was. In the end they agreed that it was a Washington Artichoke after much looking around. They managed to find it in their database so we could move on. Eventually I reached the till and some young girl there was trying to stop me passing through with certain items but I persisted and in the end managed to pass through. When I was packing up my things I met a boy from school, who was dressed as some kind of medieval knight in artificial armour and carrying a bundle of champagne. I asked him if he was ready for New Year. He replied that he’d dropped his bottle of champagne and had to buy another one. I asked him about the food and everything. He replied “oh I’ll be getting that shortly and we’ll be having a really good feast”. It didn’t look to me as if he was actually going to be ready for anything, dressed as he was like that in this medieval armour

So what that last one was about I really have no idea. Neither do I understand why, during the night, that I’d associate that last dream with the others that occurred beforehand. It seems to have absolutely nothing in common.

But one thing that makes me wonder – why is it that I can step back into dreams like this so easily and not step back into dreams involving Castor, Zero or TOTGA?

The paperchase was paused for a moment so that I could go off to the Centre de Re-education this afternoon. 4 sessions today, and I was totally exhausted too.

Surprisingly, it was the Musculation Doux – the “Gentle Musculation” – that finished me off. Séverine the masseuse and Opéliie the ergotherapist were quite gentle with me, and with the electromassage treatment, I just lay on the bed and thought of England.

Back here, I had my hot chocolate and carried on with the paperchase. I think that I have everything in that respects. If not, it’s too bad now.

Tea was a delicious leftover curry with naan bread and that’s emptied the fridge of everything except half a tin of baked beans.

What I’ll do now is to make my butties and pack my bags ready to leave tomorrow. I’m not sure how long I’ll be away and as usual, the internet connection will be rubbish so you’ll just have to put up with brief notes, which I’ll augment when I return home, whenever that might be.

There’s an emergency, that’s evident, although I don’t feel any worse and I’ve no idea what it is. But without doubt I’ll find out. And so will you in due course too.

But in the meantime, wish me luck.