Tag Archives: welsh

Tuesday 16th December 2025 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… night that was!

The last thing that you expect when you go to bed at 23:30 is to be wide awake again at 02:45, with no possibility whatsoever of going back to sleep.

It wasn’t as if I hadn’t been tired on Monday evening. I was in fact in something of a state when I was typing out my notes and I fell asleep three or four times—on one occasion almost falling off my chair. I was desperate to go to bed.

When I finally did make it into bed, I was asleep quite quickly, but not for long. What was even worse was that it wasn’t a drowsy me lying there in bed but a wide-awake, fully alert me … "within certain limits, of course" – ed … I was even contemplating leaving the bed, but much as I like having these early starts, 02:45 is something of an exaggeration.

So I lay there, watching the clock go round – 03:30, 04:00, 04:30, 05:00 – resolving that at 05:30 I would leave the bed and start to do some work. However, the next thing that I remember was the alarm going off at 06:29, so at some point between 05:00 and 05:30 I must have fallen asleep again.

You’ve no idea just how difficult it was to haul myself out of bed at that point. I would have given all that I own, and more besides, to have been able to crawl back in under the covers. But that’s not getting the baby bathed, so in the end I summoned up the strength …

… Or, at least I thought I had, but I couldn’t pull myself up off the bed into an upright position this morning. I mentioned the other day that I noticed yet another problem with my leg, and here we are again this morning. This is going to turn out to be something serious.

Eventually, I made it into the bathroom and had a good scrub and then into the kitchen for my medication and hot ginger, honey and lemon drink. But while I was taking the meds, I was thinking, which I know is dangerous. I’m going to keep a note of when I have these really bad nights and compare them with my dialysis sessions to see whether there is any connection.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night, not that there had been much time to go anywhere. We were in the USA last night at the house of some people. There was an American football game on, so we were watching it half-heartedly, although there was one of the classic comedy films on the other channel. I would have much rather watched that, but “when in Rome” and all that. The conversation began to become rather political and began to become somewhat extreme. After a couple of people had left, I said to one of the girls who was staying behind “I hope that those people aren’t going to get into trouble for what they have been saying. I don’t really want that to happen”. She said something like “things aren’t as bad as the media make out”. Then I was looking at some stuff from the university. It turned out that there had been a scandal about the production of some of the documents, so I actually tracked my way down into the university’s intranet system using my old identity and password to find out what was happening. The first thing that I’d noticed was that the system had changed dramatically. It was no longer the free-for-all that it used to be, but it was very closely structured, and there was very little on there that was not to do with studying. The one particular chat group on there was discussing this situation but very obliquely. No-one seemed to be getting down to the serious issues that had taken place, despite how hard I looked, so I posted one or two messages on there, but no-one seemed to respond. Eventually, I found out that it seemed to have been, in the view of one or two people, more of an administrative issue than a question of personal incompetence or something. But then we were deciding that those of us who were remaining were going to paint some furniture. I had a paintbrush in my hand to paint some kind of primer on the wood. When it had all been primed, I went to wash the paintbrush to put on the top coat, but the two sinks in the kitchen were full of dirty water and full of dirty crockery. In the end, I rinsed out the brush in the dirty water. One of the other girls came in. She looked at what I was doing and said “don’t go busting a gut, Eric, will you?”.

Leaving aside my current health situation, there are other reasons too why I won’t be going to the USA any time soon, so this dream is unlikely to repeat itself in real life. However, it’s usually quite true that the media quite often exaggerate and blow up out of all proportion many of the events that take place in the World, but nevertheless, there’s an undercurrent of suppression, oppression and unpleasantness currently unfolding in the Western World and I’m glad that I shan’t be around to see it unfold. I feel sorry for those people younger than me who will have to live through it when it reaches its climax.

As for the dirty sink, that’s just how my style of living used to be before I cleaned up my act – and cleaned up my kitchen.

Another thing that I’d discovered was that in my rush to go to bed last night, I’d forgotten to note the statistics.

The nurse turned up as usual, a big smile on his face. He certainly seems to be a lot happier since he went on his holidays back in the summer. He sorted out my legs, and then I could push on, make breakfast and read some more of Thomas Codrington’s ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN.

We’re poring over Devon at the moment, and he’s making a couple of assumptions about certain Roman forts that he believes to be there, namely Leucarum. and Moridunum, but modern thought is that these places are in South-West Wales, at Llwchwr and Caerfyrddin respectively.

Back in here, I revised my Welsh and then went to the lesson, once I’d remembered to plug in my webcam. We had an informal Christmas party today as we were doing some work, and the atmosphere was quite relaxed. In fact, it was another lesson in which I did very well and it goes to show the benefit of taking some time to revise. Now, if only what I had learned would succeed in staying in my head…

After the lesson, my cleaner put her sooty foot in the door and organised the shower for me. So while she was cleaning the apartment, I was stuck underneath the shower having a good hose down. But it’s certainly true that I’m not as well as I have been. I had one or two uncomfortable moments under there this afternoon.

After she left, I began to choose the music for the next radio programme. And now, that’s all chosen, remixed, edited, paired and segued. That took until about 17:30 or thereabouts, and at that point I couldn’t keep on going any longer. I decided to close my eyes and relax for five minutes.

The next thing that I recalled, it was 19:20. My new office chair is certainly comfortable, and I’m glad about that.

While I was asleep, I was on a coach trip. I’d ushered everyone on board and was looking for a friend of mine, but couldn’t see her. Instead, I found an empty seat so I asked if it would be OK if I were to sit there. It was a young blonde-haired girl and she said “yes”, so I sat down and we drove off. leter on, we came to some kind of halt where a couple of people alighted from the coach. I went round to look at a cylinder head that I was bringing with me, went in to fetch a can of oil, and then squirted some more oil onto the valve gear I then put the oil back. i was going to fetch a cup of coffee so I asked the girl, who was sitting in her seat, if she’d like a coffee. Se siad “yes”, and after much debate, she decided that she would like it with sugar but no milk, and in a large cup. I went and found the coffee, but the coffee was cold so I asked one of the guys behind the till whether there was any objection if I were to make a coffee because I’d missed the coffee from earlier. He asked me whether I could do it from an urn with a spout or would I like him to do it? I said that he could do it. In the meantime, I’d organised two large fibre cups and . One of them already had somehow some coffee in it, but it was cold. I explained that the coffee was cold because I was doing other things, so he went off to make some

Whatever this is all about, I really don’t know. It doesn’t seem to relate to anything at all.

Tea tonight was mashed potato, veg and one of these strange, spicy burgers that I bought a while ago, followed by fruitcake and soya dessert. It seems that I have no trouble eating mashed potato so I had a 5 kg sack delivered the other day. As long as I can eat that with plenty of vegan butter, I’ll be doing OK, I reckon.

But now, I’m off to bed, ready to recover after that wicked night last night. But we shall see how it works out. Things never seem to go to plan when I’m talking about sleeping.

But before we go, seeing as we have been talking about Welsh and that untidy kitchen … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of a friend of mine from Chester who married a Welsh girl.
He told her "the secret of a happy marriage and a happy home life is to have a happy husband. And what makes me happy is coming home to a kiss and a cuddle, my slippers waiting by the fireside, a hot mug of coffee and a nice tidy house instead of this mess in which we seem to be living right now."
For the first two days, he didn’t see any improvement. However, on the third day, things were a little different. The swelling began to go down and he could open his right eye a little.

0

Monday 15th December 2025 – AFTER YESTERDAY’S NICE …

… lie-in, it was back to the daily grind and an 06:29 start this morning. And that’s what I call disappointing because I enjoyed myself yesterday, even if Isabelle the Nurse didn’t bring me coffee in bed.

To make matters worse, it wasn’t an early night last night either. I’m still stuck in this dilatory, time-wasting mood where I just can’t seem to advance at all. By the time that I’d finished everything that needed finishing, it was 23:30 and I still wasn’t in bed.

Once in bed, though, I slept flat-out until the alarm went off and I could have gone back to bed to do it all again afterwards. It took me a good few minutes to summon up the energy to leave the bed and toddle off into the bathroom, where I even had a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant.

In the kitchen, I made myself a hot ginger, lemon and honey drink to take with my medication, and then I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone. I was back on the taxis again and I was trying to make myself better organized, so I began to do some kind of tidying up of the yard. We had a crashed Ford Cortina down there and I wanted that brought round to somewhere else so that it would be easier for me to take parts from it. For some reason, no-one was particularly interested in helping me. We had a couple of other newer vehicles, one of which was a Cavalier diesel. The carpets in the front were rather worn, so I ordered a new front half section. I wanted to fit that in at some time but the car was out working, so it wasn’t possible right at that particular moment, so I decided to go back outside again. Nerina was there and she said that she’d come with me. She was working for me, but she was making it quite clear without any subtlety at all that she was interested in entering a relationship with me. I was rather cautious because this was the kind of thing that could lead to a disaster at some point, so I was very noncommittal. We went outside, and I said to Nerina “I’ll tell you something – that if we do ever get together, I’ve decided something extremely important” but she took no notice. I must have said it four times as we walked down to the bottom of the garden but she took no notice at all. Down at the bottom of the garden, the crashed Cortina had gone. I asked Nerina about it, and she said that she’d lent it to another taxi driver who was just starting up in business. I wasn’t really pleased about that because I didn’t want my crashed cars to be going around on the road, least of all with someone else not associated with me. I asked her how much she’d agreed for a rental. She replied “nothing at all”. I thought that that was an absurd situation, with one of my crashed cars being driven around by another taxi operator, and at the same time, we’re not taking anything out of it except the hassle of losing whatever good reputation we would otherwise have.

This taxi-driving is rapidly becoming an obsession with me, isn’t it? But it’s true to say that there were one or two crashed Cortinas around where I was. We’d pick them up for peanuts, some for even nothing at all, and then I’d break them for the spare parts. I still have a few bits and pieces lying around on the farm, including an engine that I rebuilt but which threw a con-rod on its first time out. There’s also a matching 2000cc engine and auto gearbox for a Cortina 2000E. The big ends have gone in the engine, and so the car (also down on the farm) has a 1600cc manual set-up in it right now. But the car, the engine and the auto box, all with matching numbers, are probably worth a fortune these days – but not as much as the 2000E estate that’s in my barn down there.

Isabelle the Nurse came along as usual, and I told her how disappointed I was about the lack of coffee yesterday morning. In reply, she told me to clear off.

After she left, I made my breakfast and read some more of Thomas Codrington’s ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN.

Our author seems to have become sidetracked just now. We’ve been having an exploration of the Iron Age hillforts in Dorset, such as Maiden Castle and the Badbury Ring. Interestingly, though, he makes reference to an Iron Age barrow and how the Roman road-builders put their road right through it. So much for respecting the culture of the original inhabitants, hey?

After breakfast, I had a few things to do and then I began to work on my Welsh homework. And this batch is difficult because it concerns the part of the course that I missed when I was at Rennes the other week. I won’t be doing much celebrating when this lot comes back.

My cleaner was late arriving to apply my anaesthetic but it didn’t matter too much, because the taxi was late arriving. And then we had to go back to the Centre Normandy because the driver had forgotten his telephone. As a result, we were late arriving at dialysis and, as usual, I was last to be coupled up

The doctor came to see how I was, and I took the opportunity to talk to him as to why the latest medication isn’t on the list of long-term medication. He assured me that it was, and he even showed me a duplicate where it was clearly so labelled. So, what are they playing at in the pharmacy?

After that, everyone left me alone, except Julie the Cook, who showed me some photos of her latest creations. I shall miss her when she’s gone.

Having had on the outward trip the guy who thinks that he runs the show, on the way back, I had my favourite Belgian taxi driver. She wasn’t very happy, as she had just witnessed a serious accident on the motorway and she needed to talk. And so we talked all the way home, but you could tell that this was preying on her mind.

My faithful cleaner was waiting to escort me into the building, and I noticed that there were now lights on in my old apartment. Someone has finally moved in.

Tea was the other half of last night’s pizza, and once it had been warmed up, it tasted even nicer than yesterday. The fruitcake and the last of the chocolate soya dessert were nice too.

Right now though, falling asleep at my desk, I’m going to bed. It’s the last Welsh course of the year tomorrow so I want to be on form for it, although it’s a hopeless task, I reckon.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the pharmacy … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of the time when I came home from work and found Nerina in tears.
"Whatever is the matter, dear?" I asked
"It’s the pharmacist " she said. "You’ve no idea how rude he has been to me today."
So off I went to have a few words with him about it.
"Don’t blame me!" he said. "Your wife asked me how a rectal thermometer worked, and all I did was to tell her! "

0

Tuesday 2nd December 2025 – AS I HAVE …

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

Actually, you have no idea just how tired I was last night. I fell asleep twice … "or was it three times?" – ed … while I was typing out my notes, and in the end I gave up. I left undone a lot of things that I shouldn’t have left undone, and round about 22:20 I crawled into bed.

It didn’t take long to go to sleep, and there I stayed until about … errr … 04:20 when I awoke. I was able at that point to go back to sleep, but when I awoke the next time at 05:13, that was that. By 06:00, I was in the bathroom having a wash.

After the hot ginger, honey and lemon drink and my medication, I came back in here to finish off what I should have finished off last night, like take the stats and back up the computer.

Then it was time to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was back in my office again and it was the final day so I was preparing to retire. I was slowly going through my things, slowly tidying up. But at one point, I was actually in somewhere else trying to clear the floor of all kinds of papers and everything. It was all little notes and stuff that I’d written years ago and it all went into the bin. I couldn’t believe how tidy I’d made the place. I even found an assignment from one of my University courses and when I had a look at it, I found that although it had received a good mark, the page layout and format of the document that I’d sent was awful, and I wondered how on earth I’d managed to miss this when I’d been preparing it. Then I was back in my office and going through my desk. There were tons of stuff, and I couldn’t work out what I needed to take and what I needed to leave behind. People were asking me what I intended to do. I replied that I had a deckchair, a nice garden and two nice cats. I’ll just sit out and enjoy the summer. Two of us, right at that moment, said that I’d picked the best time of the year to leave. Then the boss came round and asked me if I was nearly ready to go. I replied that I was still sorting out my stuff. She said something like “don’t take the toaster” which was the office toaster that was on my desk. I replied “it’s still on my desk, isn’t it?” because I thought that it was a really offensive thing to say. Then I suddenly realised that it was Friday so I rang up Nerina at her place and asked “shouldn’t we be going swimming tonight after work? I haven’t brought anything to wear”. She replied “I’ll get something off one of my brothers, some shorts or something” but I wasn’t too keen on the idea. Then she told me about this plastic underwear that you could buy. I turned up my nose at that. She tried to persuade me but I wasn’t in the mood to be persuaded. In the end, I thought that I’d probably just go home and make some tea for when Nerina comes home. That’s going to be the best solution but she was still trying to persuade me to wear either her brother’s shorts or some of this plastic underwear.

So having spent all those years during the night reaching the final few days at work but never actually finishing, here I am finally about to cross the threshold. That’s twice in a week or two that I’ve done that, after all of these years.

But whatever this is about plastic underwear? I really don’t know. And as if I really would pinch the office toaster … "perish the thought" – ed …

The nurse turned up, his usual cheerful self (at least, these days) and we had a little chat as he sorted out my legs. He’s all inclined not to come on Sundays to give me even more of a rest and relax, but I’m not quite at that stage yet – although if I fall asleep once more while I’m typing these notes, as I just did five minutes ago, I’ll think again.

After he left, I made breakfast and read some more of Thomas Codrington’s ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN.

Not that I managed to go very far today, though. I was side-tracked … "again" – ed … looking for the one of the many towns named Manton that contains some significant Roman remains, and ended up going on a guided tour of Roman villas in England – abandoned, or burnt, or destroyed, or buried.

You’ve no idea just how many there are altogether. They even came across one when they were digging a driveway into the Council offices in Bromley.

After breakfast, I came in here to revise my Welsh and then I went to the lesson. It started off quite well, but it all went pear-shaped when we had a spontaneous test on a subject that had been covered by the class while I was at chemotherapy. That was an embarrassment.

However, I bravely stuck it out until the end of the lesson, but I was glad that it was over.

My faithful cleaner came around later, as usual, and organised the shower for me. And so now, I’m a nice, clean boy again. I can’t wait, though, to have the time to order the handrails for the shower so that I can shower on my own and have more than one per week.

After the shower and I’d dried myself off, the next task was to install the strings of Christmas lights in the windows.

Last year, I was the only person in this whole area who had some pretty coloured lights in the window. And even though I’m not a believer in Christmas or anything like that, it’s still nice to bring some joy and gaiety into a depressing period of the year and it’s a shame that other people don’t make any kind of effort at all.

Consequently, my faithful cleaner (under my supervision) put up my lights in both the windows, and now it looks as if at least one person in the area is celebrating Christmas instead of the whole area being so miserable about it. At some point, I’ll even organise my Christmas tree.

After my cleaner left, I sorted out the rest of the music that I need for my next radio programme, and I’ll organise that over the rest of the week. And won’t it be nice to have a couple of days when I’m going nowhere, so that I can press on.

Tea tonight was mashed potatoes, veg and vegan sausage, followed by ginger cake and soya dessert. Only small portions, but I managed to eat it all tonight. It’s a meal with foods that are full of carbohydrates and fats so while it’s not a particularly healthy meal, it’s full of energy and proteins so that should help to keep me going while this lack of appetite persists.

And so, on that point, I’m going to be and see how I’ll get on tonight. I could do with another good sleep but, as usual, that’s not particularly likely. We shall see.

But seeing as we have been talking about sticking it out … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of a story that I heard when I was in the High Arctic about two nudists who went on a camping holiday in the north of Greenland.
Freezing and shivering to death inside their tent, they were wondering how long they could stick it out before they ended up being frost-bitten.

0

Monday 1st December 2025 – THERE’S A HOWLING …

… gale blowing outside the building right now. So much so that in fact, coming home from dialysis this evening, I had to come into the building through the back door. It would have been impossible for me to have walked the twenty yards from the street down to the front door.

It’s been blowing up over the last twenty-four hours actually. The wind started to freshen yesterday late evening when I was typing up my notes before I went to bed.

Mind you, it was quite late when I finally retired, having not eaten until late and, as usual these days, being wracked with indiscipline and all of that as I tried to finish off everything that needed finishing. It was actually close to midnight, and I wouldn’t like to speculate which side of midnight it was.

Once in bed though, I remember nothing at all until the alarm went off at 06:29. It was such a deep sleep that I regretted not having gone to bed earlier.

Eventually, I managed to find the energy to leave the bed and stagger off into the bathroom for a good wash, and a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant at dialysis.

In the kitchen, I made myself a drink of hot lemon, ginger and honey to wash down my medication, and then I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone. It was Crewe Carnival, so everyone was lining the streets to watch the parade. I went to take up a position in Mill Street. I could see the carnival on Nantwich Road but it didn’t turn in to Mill Street – it turned into Edleston Road instead. I had to run through one of the side streets onto a balcony overlooking Edleston Road where I could see things passing below. I noticed one or two people, and someone had a big coiled snake that he was carrying – a toy one. I suddenly recognised it as “Hissing Sid”, a snake that I used to keep as a mascot. I shouted down, and the fellow came up and handed it to me. I said something along the lines of “he’s grown somewhat since I last had him”. He replied “yes, we’ve let a piece of hosepipe into the middle”. So possession passed and everyone wandered away. I climbed back into my car, and they were talking on the two-way radio about a back road that I knew over the hills, saying how difficult it was for an ordinary car to pass. I said “I’ve been over those hills three times today already”. They asked me in what car, so I replied “The Ranger”. They answered “that’s a different matter. Anyway, we’ll want you in a few minutes for a job”. So I drove down to the start of these hills ready to drive over and come out on the other side on Nantwich Road near Wells Green, but the wooden gates were locked so I had to find the key for it. As I was looking for the key, a car came round the corner, an old Citroën DS estate with an old woman driving it. She turned into the entry, scraped all the way down my car, didn’t stop, drove through, broke the gates and carried on. I decided to go on foot so I walked over to pick up my crutches, and realised that I was walking without my crutches. I thought “it’s a long way over these hills in the sandy road. If my legs give out again, I won’t make it at all”. I went back to the car, wondering just when they were going to call me up to tell me about this job for which I’m needed.

Now, this is a road over which we have travelled on many, many occasions during the night but surprisingly, only the first or second time that we’ve approached it from this direction. It’s almost always been from the other end.

And I did have a “Hissing Sid” too. He was one of those snake-type draught excluders that everyone was making to keep the draughts from coming under the door, but mine was brown, not green. Apart from that, I’ve no idea if Crewe Carnival is still going, and when it did, it had never appeared at the south side of the town. The Citroën is a mystery too.

Someone came to see me to tell me that there was some work going, abroad. It meant that we had to take a ‘plane to fly there. The ‘plane was leaving at 15:15. I had a look, and that gave me two hours to pack and to go to Manchester. I thought that this was a strange timetable, so I went home and began to pack, but I couldn’t think of what to take. I needed some casual clothes, some work clothes, some entertainment etc. By the time that I’d finished, I had the size of a suitcase that everyone would take for a month, especially with a camera in it. It wasn’t the kind of thing that you’d take for a couple of days’ work at all. I went outside but the taxi had already gone with some other people so a group of us began to run. I found that running was comparatively easy and I actually ended up in the lead in this, although after a while, someone began to close the gap. There was one section with a long, steep uphill and this is where the person began to close the gap, but I began occasionally to sprint up this hill to keep the distance. Everyone was saying that I’d soon blow up at this rate, but I reckoned that if I made it to the brow of this hill, I could push on really well. It turned out that the brow of the hill was the railway bridge in Edleston Road. Just over the top by the traffic lights was a pub on the corner. As I reached the pub, a group of policemen came out with someone so we all had to stop and wait while the police sorted out this arrest or whatever it was. Then, I forgot where I was going. I sued to work in a building across the road from there as if I was going back to work there. I suddenly realised that I had a good way to go yet to the airport, so I had to turn round, go back to the road and carry on running. In the meantime, I saw some members of my family who were also running along this road. They knew that I was well ahead so they asked me what had happened. I explained about this incident at the pub. One of the people there was my niece’s second daughter. She was so pleased to see me. She said something like “Eric, wherever I am going to go to live in the near future, I want it to be somewhere near you”. I replied that there were a lot of other places in the World. She replied “yes, but not near you though”.

This is typical me, though. Always packs ten times more than he really needs. Running was another thing, and so is forgetting where I’m supposed to be going. As for my family, here we go again. Who on Earth in their right mind would want to live near me?

Finally, I had to go to a medical examination and it’s said that there were one hundred and forty pieces among the tour and some were trying to start before the others had finished. I told my daughter how dissatisfied I was and she told me that she’d alleviate these symptoms or cancel them altogether for either the awful growth and one of the holiday weekends later in the year. Back home, I was trying to pack for this trip. It was only for a couple of days but I couldn’t think of what to leave behind. Things like the computer and the camera made my briefcase weigh a ton. Then we had that race up the hill again in Dream Two and we carried on back from there.

This is another one of my dreams that means absolutely nothing at all to me. I have no recollection of any of this. As for my daughter, this is obviously a Freudian slip. Someone is trying to tell me something.

Isabelle the Nurse brought the rain in with her this morning. She was her usual cheery self, not that it’s much of a surprise seeing as she’s off on her week’s break later today. She dealt with my legs and then she bounced off outside again. I made breakfast and read some more of Thomas Codrington’s ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN.

There was nothing worthy of report today, though. No interesting fortresses to track down.or anything like that.

Back in my office, I checked over this week’s radio programme to make sure that it was goos enough to broadcast and then sent it off. Next task was to check my Welsh homework, export the text into *.pdf format and then senf that off too for marking.

The rest of the time was spent revising my Welsh ready for tomorrow.

My cleaner came along to apply my anaesthetic and then I had to wait for the taxi. We had a couple of other people to fetch too. They lived at the Old People’s Home at Sartilly. It’s on the way, but we were still late arriving so I was late being plugged in. There’s a big shortage of staff right now so they had drafted a male nurse in from the AUB at St Malo. He was, well, not what I was accustomed to.

The chef de service came to see me to ask how it went at the Centre de Ré-education so I told him. He’s still going on about this chemotherapy so I told him AGAIN what they have told me before.

"We shall see" and I reckon that we will, too.

Emilie the Cute Consultant didn’t come to see me today so I was rather disappointed. It took me a good while to get over it and it was 18:40 when I finally left the hospital, with one of the passengers who had come down with me.

After we had dropped her off in Sartilly, we came back here only to be buffeted about by the wind so, as I said earlier, I had to come in via the back door.

My faithful cleaner helped me to a chair in the kitchen where I sat, completely exhausted for a while. And then I warmed up and ate the remaining half of yesterday’s pizza.

Now I’m off to bed, thoroughly exhausted once more. I need to prepare for my Welsh tomorrow so I’ll do that in the morning. I can’t keep going any more.

But before we go, seeing as we have been talking about Hissing Sid and daughters … "well, one of us has" – ed … one day, one of his daughters slithered over to him
"Are we poisonous snakes, dad?" she asked.
"No dear, actually we aren’t" he replied
"Thank heavens for that" she replied. "I’ve just bitten my tongue."

0

Sunday 30th November 2025 – WHEN I WENT …

… to bed last night, I was looking forward to a nice uninterrupted sleep all the way through to when Isabelle the Nurse would shake me awake by the shoulder when she comes in to sort out my legs.

And so waking up at 01:06 this morning was something of a disappointment.

It wasn’t as if I had gone to bed early either. It was well after 23:00 by the time that I’d finished everything that I needed to do and crawled in under the covers. Mind you, I fell asleep quite quickly with the kind of sense of relief that you have, knowing that a good sleep is just about the ideal solution for all known ills.

Anyway, as I said just now, I awoke at 01:06 and when I noticed the time, I was devastated. I was not expecting this at all. However, I was lucky in that I managed to go back to sleep quite quickly.

But only until 07:46 though. I might not have moved a muscle in the intervening period, but it was still not long enough to have really enjoyed it. What was worse was that I couldn’t go back to sleep afterwards.

In the end, round about 08:00, I gave it up as a bad job and arose from the Dead.

It would, of course, happen to be a day when Isabelle the Nurse decided to reorganise her round in order to give me more time to sleep, so she was rather put out to find me sitting at the kitchen table with my glass of hot ginger, honey and lemon drink.

She had something of a mumble about it, sorted out my feet and then went to carry on with the rest of her patients.

It took me about fifteen minutes to summon up the courage to rise from my chair in the kitchen in order to make my breakfast – coffee, porridge and home-made croissants from the batch that I had made last weekend.

While I was eating, I was reading more of Thomas Codrington’s ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN. I mentioned the other day that he had put me on the track of John Horsley’s BRITANNIA ROMANA. Codrington is not very impressed with Horsley’s interpretation of the Iter Britanniarum though, saying that "the way in which he dealt with the Itinerary distances is remarkable.".

Codrington talks about a Roman camp called Epiacum up on the northern edge of the Pennines. It’s described as "not rectangular but lozenge-shaped, with probably the most intricate system of defences of all the known Roman forts". So I had a little search around on an on-line aerial map, and what do you think ABOUT THIS? Isn’t it magnificent?

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. We were trying to smuggle someone out of mainland Europe last night into the UK. We had something of a trial run at one of the border posts but it didn’t work very well because he had a kind of wrong attitude towards the Customs officers and it rather shattered his nerve somewhat. So rather than adapting his behaviour and comportment, he just sat there like a clam and refused to co-operate. We tried everything we could to cajole him to coming along and crossing the border but each time, he refused. When we told him to prepare himself a drink, he’d prepare a drink and then pass it to one of us instead of bringing it with him. In the end, full of frustration, we decided that we’d leave him and go back on our own. There was no point trying to force someone. But there was some kind of dispute at the border between him and one of our army officers. It seemed that the guy at one time had stolen the girlfriend of one of the army officers, and that was what made one of the army officers in our group rather bitter and terse with him.

This dream probably relates to some of the issues that the Secret Intelligence Service had with trying to bring out their agents from occupied Europe in World War II. They had many different escape routes, but going over on a ferry would have been novel, especially as no ferries ran during wartime.

There had been talk of a giant whale stalking people in London. Things came to a head when it appeared before a group of Year Two children, so Holmes and Watson set out on the trail. They waited until it was a foggy night and then took a boat, and rowed to a wharf where this school was. These two young boys who were rowing were telling them stories about it. They climbed out and went for a little walk themselves, and stopped to have a bag of chips each. They put their chips on their plates and were sitting there outside, waiting. Suddenly, out of the mist, the whale appeared. The first thing that it did was to launch itself at the plate of Sherlock Holmes. He quite simply cut a piece out of it with his knife and fork and ate it. That was basically at the end of the drama.

There have been dreams involving Holmes and Watson before, but this one was one of those surreal ones that has no explanation at all.

I was somewhere in France. There was a road down which I had driven hundreds if not thousands of times, only today, I found that I was walking down it. When I reached the top of the hill, I noticed that there was an old car just at the edge of the field with a sign pièces detaches written on it. I’d not noticed it before, so I went through into the field and at the back was a kind-of wood or coppice. There were probably about thirty or forty old cars scattered around there, and there was some kind of workshop. Someone came by and asked me what I wanted. I asked if it was OK if I were to have a look around. The guy told me to please myself, so I did. Eventually, someone came over to me to chat. He pointed to an old 1930s-type car that was there. He said “I don’t know what I’m going to do about this because the cylinder block has cracked”. He couldn’t find anyone to weld it because it was such a long crack. I asked him if he had thought about re-sleeving the bores and putting smaller pistons in. I thought that when he had an idea that I knew what I was talking about, he began to chat with me. I told him that I had one or two old cars andA TRACTION. He replied “we have four around here”. I noticed that there was one that was being restored and painted. I told him that I would give my right arm to have a Traction that was running but he didn’t really hit on anything like that. We had a long chat, and then I found myself driving back into town again afterwards. I wasn’t thinking, and I was following two cars. One was a Rolls-Royce and one was something else. I suddenly realised at some point that we were going the wrong way down a one-way street. I hoped that no-one was watching and that there were no cameras. Eventually, I found the supermarket and grabbed myself a plate of chips with some weird Indian accompaniment. I had to struggle to find a seat in the café but I did in the end, and the chips were nice. But these Indian things, I wasn’t all that impressed. I decided that I wasn’t going to eat them after I’d tried a couple. Then I looked at the time and it was almost 18:00, time that I was due home, so I had to hurry up and move on.

This dream reminds me of that time ON LONG ISLAND when I stopped at this warehouse where I’d seen an aeroplane parked outside. I spoke to the manager of the place who interrogated me on my knowledge of the history of early aviation and, satisfied that I knew my stuff, allowed me in to see their prize exhibits, including a replica of Lindbergh’s Spirit of St Louis and sit at the controls inside it.

The Indian meal reminds me of tea last night.

Going back to that dream about the abandoned cars, later on, I was driving around somewhere in the USA in a hilly area. I found a nice patch of green at the side of the road where I thought that I’d pull up and I could eat my sandwiches there. I noticed that there was a group of kids in the field at the side. They were all playing about. One of them came over to say “hello”. I had a little chat with her, and it turned out that she was in Year 6 and was going to High School soon. She was talking about her new English teacher, that he was always crying and becoming angry. I explained that not everyone is always very happy and in a good equilibrium. Sometimes, people are like that and you have to push the emotions aside and push on with what you are doing. Learning English is fun. We carried on chatting and we talked about sports. It turned out that she wasn’t American at all. She was from somewhere else. She was saying that one thing she hated about the Americans was how they blew themselves up into something that they weren’t. They were always showing off etc, and how she couldn’t really cope with it. I told her a story about one of my niece’s children who played sports. They were playing against some team from a High School on a Native American reservation. There was one young lad who was winning everything, and no-one knew why he was so good until a few days later when they checked the results and discovered that he was an Olympic champion in some kind of events. That was much more like the way that people should be. She agreed. Then, one of her friends came over and the three of us began to chat. I said how well they had done, that they had gone through elementary school so quickly and were nearly ready for the High School, and I hope that they’ll enjoy it. Then, the school bell rang and they had to leave. I said goodbye to them and “maybe I’ll see you again”. I drove off and back over the hills with this beautiful view in the distance of what was going on in the valley.

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I have a lot of time for kids. I think that they have a really raw deal in life. They have such a lot to say, much of which is interesting, yet no-one wants to listen to them

There was football next. Stranraer v Clydebank in the Scottish Cup. The third round was full of shocks and surprises, with many clubs being knocked out by lower-league opposition, such as Dumbarton losing 4-0 at home to West of Scotland League side Auchinleck Talbot, for example.

And we almost had another one here at Stranraer, where but for several slices of good fortune, the score could have been 2-1 to Clydebank rather than the 2-1 to Stranraer, as the match finished.

This afternoon, I tackled my Welsh homework and waded through it from start to finish. I just need to review one or two questions and then I can send it off.

While I was at it, I was chatting to my friend from Munich, but I had to abandon that because Rosemary rang with a computer issue and needed help. It was another one of those long conversations where we can talk for hours about nothing at all, but it made me late for my baking.

The loaf that I made looks to be excellent, and the pizza really was delicious. However, I could only eat half of it, so the other half will do for tea tomorrow. Based on the weight, I’m eating between about a third and a quarter of a pizza that I would have comfortably eaten six months ago.

While everything was cooking, I wrapped my two Christmas cakes in baking paper and tinfoil, and they are now cooling in the fridge ready for marzipanning next weekend.

So now, horribly late, I’m off to bed. Dialysis tomorrow, unfortunately, but at least I’m only out twice next week, which is a major improvement. I can get on and do things.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about Holmes and Watson … "well, one of us has" – ed … I was talking to Holmes not so long ago and I asked him how his crime investigations were going.
"Ohh, I’ve retired now" he told me. "It’s only the elderly who remember me and appreciate me. The young people don’t know me at all."
"So I suppose you’re really an Old People’s Holmes" I replied. "But do you keep up with the news from London?"
"Watson still lives there" he replied. "He keeps me up-to-date with the news."
"So he’s your ‘Watson in London’ then."

0

Tuesday 11th November 2025 – TODAY’S WELSH LESSON …

… was another one that passed quite well, and I’m not sure why. Maybe, subconsciously, all of this preparation that I’m doing is having some effect, even if I don’t really notice it.

Having a good sleep also helps. I finished my notes fairly early last night, dashed through everything else that needed doing and found myself in bed for 22:50 – early by the standards of these days.

Once in bed, there I lay, fast asleep, until I had another one of these dramatic awakenings. This time, though, it was at 06:17, just twelve minutes before the alarm was due to go off. And being sat on the edge of the bed with my feet on the floor when the alarm sounded allows if to be counted as an early start.

In the bathroom, I had a good wash and scrub up, and then I went into the kitchen for the medication. This involved another honey, ginger and lemon drink to hopefully dissolve what is causing all of these fits of coughing. It doesn’t seem to be working so well so far.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There was some big battle going on in Europe. In the USA, they would be sending thousands and thousands of shells over to Europe to fight this battle. When they had unloaded them on the docks and put them on a big railway, it would send them somewhere near the front line. Then, they would have a system of trench railways that would bring the stuff right up to the front. It was the Scots who were mainly involved in this battle. What they did in the USA was to encourage exiled Scots to make a monthly contribution. It only had to be a few pence or it could be a few Pounds every month to a bank account that had been set up, which could be used to purchase more ammunition and equipment.

That’s another thing about which I’ve been reading just recently – the trench railways in World War I. There were hundreds of miles of them built to bring supplies from the forward depots up to the front line. And this military subscription thing is similar to something that was set up to supply the Ukrainian forces in order to defend their country against the aggressor.

Isabelle the Nurse started her week this morning, and started in excellent fashion by turning up early. She was her usual cheerful self, except when she began to talk about the new War Memorial plaques that have begun to create a huge scandal.

In the town centre, they have commemorated the fallen by adding new plaques, listing the names of the fallen from the town in both World Wars, alongside the statue in the town square.

However, all of the names on the list are of the men who fell. There is not a single woman listed, although it is well-known that there were nurses from the town who were killed in action in both wars, there were female resistance fighters who were either killed or executed, there were females who were transported and died in the camps and there were females who were killed in the bombardment of the town. All of these people were mortes pour la France.

Many people are outraged by the omission of these names from the rolls of honour.

After she had left, I made breakfast and, having finished the project that I had been undertaking just recently, I went back to reading AB-SA-RA-KA, LAND OF MASSACRE.

It’s the diary of Margaret Carrington, wife of Colonel Henry Carrington of Fort Phil Kearny fame, and talks about her journey to the fort, her encounters there, and the final retreat after the Fetterman Massacre.

It’s written in a spirit of total naïveté, which would be charming had it not been full of comments that would be considered most offensive these days. Imagine someone writing today about the Powder River valley, saying"Buffalo Tongue and other Indians who infest its valley." and what the response would be.

She also has absolutely no sense of irony either. She mentions that "the Crows lost possession" of the Powder River "by robbery".

Furthermore, she then berates the Sioux and Cheyenne warriors at the Peace Council at Fort Laramie, asking them "Why do the Sioux and Cheyennes claim the land which belongs to the Crows?". They reply, quite naturally "The white man is along the great waters, and we wanted more room.".

Yes, no sense of irony whatever.

But she tells us of some very interesting events on the border. When talking about “Old Little Dog”, she announces that "he sprang upon the bare back of his pony with all the elasticity of youth and more than the skill of our mounted infantry, and galloped swiftly away. He had the appearance of being very old, but his agility and address in his intercourse with that pony were decidedly suggestive of the probable skill and activity of the young warriors of his nation"

Now, who amongst us would not have liked to have been present to witness that?

The most noteworthy remark however, was when she was talking about her house catching fire just before leaving for the Powder River. "But as this was only an incident very possible in army life, the fun of the affair made up for its losses."

Yes, “the fun of the affair being “an incident very possible in army life”. I’m all agog to find out what she makes later in the book about the death at the hands of Red Cloud and his band of Oglala Lakota of Lieutenant Fetterman and the eighty soldiers who went with him from the fort. How much “fun” will she think that this “incident very possible in army life” was?

After breakfast, I had to revise for my Welsh and then I attended the lesson. One of the subjects that we discussed was the UK’s Postmaster scandal. Many sub-postmasters were convicted of false accounting and sent to prison, with several committing suicide, only to be told later that the new computer program that they were obliged to use contained a bug that corrupted the entries that they had made.

The Post Office knew all about it but chose to keep silent, thus destroying the careers and the future, and in some cases the lives, of many of their sub-postmasters.

After the lesson, my cleaner turned up to do her stuff and I had a lovely shower. So now I’m all nice and clean for once.

After she left, I fitted the new SSD hard drive into the computer and loaded up the operating system. However, despite trying all afternoon, there’s a corruption in the C++ libraries that is preventing many of the programs that I use from loading up.

Had I realised this, I would have updated the operating system before loading up the programs. What I’ll have to do now is to format the disk and start again.

Tea was another helping of Moroccan bean tajine, but once again, I left a pile of food on the plate. However, a helping of chocolate cake and strawberry soya dessert filled a hole.

So now, this nice, clean me is off to bed to make the most of an unexpected Day of Rest tomorrow, to see if I can’t sort out this C++ library and then finish this radio programme.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about Margaret Carrington’s offensive remarks about the Native Americans … "well, one of us has" – ed … since writing this entry, I am told that the Oglala Lakota Sioux are planning to take legal action against the estate of Margaret Carrington, and have consulted lawyers.
"It’s quite surprising that you have done that" I said to Red Cloud
"Not at all" he replied. "We’re not called ‘the Sioux’ for nothing, you know."

0

Sunday 26th October 2025 – HAS ANYONE ELSE …

… experienced any problems with Windows 10 today?

Updating and revisions for Windows 10 stopped being produced yesterday, and this morning, when I switched on the big computer, I had the error message “no operating system found”. After some coaxing, I managed to make it fire up but it went down again shortly afterwards and that, dear reader, was that.

Luckily, I have an old disk with a locked version of Windows 10 on it, and that fired up and seems to be running quite well at the moment, although it’s old and slow.

It could, of course, be nothing whatever to do with Microsoft’s policy of making all computers obsolete so that everyone must buy new computers, and be a simple technological fault. However, I seem to remember the exact same problem with an older laptop running Windows 7 on the day after upgrades stopped being supplied for that operating system, and so my curiosity has been aroused.

But it’s a good job that I have organised my computer as I have.

There’s a 1TB (although at the moment it’s a 256GB) solid state hard drive with the operating system and the programs

There’s a 4TB data drive, which is where I keep the data

There’s another 4TB data drive that is a mirror of the one above

There’s a 128GB memory stick in a USB port that I use for backing up every evening, or more often if I’ve been working a large number of files

There’s a 64GB memory stick in another USB port. That’s attached to my house keys. It’s another daily backup device and I use it as a travelling drive to update the travelling laptop.

Apart from that, there are several external drives and an array with several hard drives in it, all of which represent the complete history of my computing since I had my first 386SX in 1993. Wherever the stuff is for the old Apple 2 that we had before that, I really don’t know.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … err … apartment, last night should have been an early night. And it would have been too, had I not fallen asleep while riding the porcelain horse, yet again. Honestly, I was dead to the World last night.

No-one could ever have been more pleased than me to crawl into bed last night, even if it was as late as 23:30. Surprisingly, given how tired I was, it took a while to drop off to sleep, and it was a rather turbulent night too, thanks in the main to the howling gale that had sprung up outside again.

Round about 03:10 (well, 04:10 had we not put the clocks back) I awoke definitively, and try as I might, I couldn’t go back to sleep. I lay there dozing for quite a while until about 05:20 when I heaved myself out of my stinking pit.

After a good wash and scrub up, I came back in here to watch yesterday’s live football match – Cardiff Metropolitan v Y Fflint.

And what an exciting match that was! The two teams are low down in the table but they both play exciting, attacking football, and the game lived up to expectations. For about 80 or so minutes, the two teams slugged it out toe to toe with the game roaring from one end to the other.

The final ten minutes were something else entirely, and the game finished with one of the most astonishing goals that I have seen for a long, long time. EDRYCHWCH A MWYNHEUWCH – “watch and enjoy”, as the commentator said.

The nurse came at his usual time, and didn’t stay long. He was soon in and out and off on his travels again. I could then take my medication and make breakfast. With it being a Sunday, I had a very slow, relaxing morning.

Back in here again, I transcribed the dictaphone notes. To my surprise, there actually were some. There was a problem with one of the Ford Transits that I had. It had to be moved so I towed it all the way from France back to the UK. I reached about two miles from my home before I started to have a few problems. I was quite annoyed about that, being so close.

There is a story behind this kind of dream too, but the world isn’t ready to hear it.

But earlier, there had been something to do with ships etc on the Great Lakes where I’d been weighed. I had four kilos to lose but again, they had to cut short the session. That left the ship in the Lakes top-heavy and in the first storm afterwards, it turned over and sank. That was another piece of work that needs to be doing that I didn’t have the time or the energy to face.

This dream seems to include a little piece of everything, including THE WRECK OF THE EDMUND FITZGERALD

Later on, I’d been working away somewhere and my desk, as usual, was a total mess, my office was a total mess. The boss one day came in and she decided that she was going to help me organise everything. She asked me where I intended to put the spare battery for the car. I told her that I could put it in the bottom of the big black cupboard. Instead, she found a place at the side where there was a plug to plug in the charger. She was coming up with suggestions like that. Then it was time to go home. I filled up my suitcase with all kinds of rubbish that I didn’t particularly want her to see while she was tidying up, including three spare batteries for the cars. I set out, and I had my mother with me. When we came to near where we lived, she wanted to walk the rest of the way so we climbed out of the car but she couldn’t find her shoes. Eventually, when she did, the soles were wafer-thin, which hurt her to walk on the asphalt. We continued on down to my house, pulling my huge suitcase with me. When we reached the house, we could hear the taxi office working, but there was music coming from somewhere else in the house. The first thing that we did was to go in. We were met by someone working the radio. The house was, as usual, in a total tip. They were saying that they hadn’t been very busy at all while we’d been away. This was just how things were as usual while we hadn’t been there.

Everywhere I go seems to finish in total chaos and disorder. Someone once paid good money for a birth chart for me, and this was mentioned quite firmly. However, it went on to say "but that probably disturbs the people around you far more than it does you."

Having finished that, we had more football. There were the highlights of the other games in Wales over the weekend, and then there was Stranraer in the Scottish Cup against non-league Glenafton Athletic.

Stranraer ran out in what would appear to be a comfortable 4-0 victory, but a more experienced professional side would have capitalised on several of the errors made by the Stranraer back line during the match.

In the afternoon, I attacked the rest of the Welsh homework, which is now finished. And then I went a-baking.

Not only do I now have a lovely loaf of bread and a wonderful pizza (well, I don’t now, because I’ve eaten it), I have some croissants.

With visitors being here in two weeks time, I need to think about breakfasts, and so in my delivery from Leclerc I ordered a roll of vegan puff pastry and had a go at making croissants.

They were not very successful, but it was “encouraging”. At least, I know how to improve them.

While I was at it, I was looking up recipes for aquafaba – the juice out of a tin of chick peas. It’s an acceptable egg substitute so I’ve been trying to find something interesting to do with the aquafaba that came out of last week’s chick peas.

If anyone has any useful suggestions, let me know. I’ve found a recipe for meringues but I shall pass on that for now.

So having eaten my pizza, and hours later than usual, I’m off to bed, ready for dialysis tomorrow (I don’t think).

But before we go, seeing as we have been talking about aquafaba … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone once asked me "what’s made of egg-whites and sugar, and when you throw it away, it comes back to scare you?"
"I don’t know" I replied. "What is made of egg-whites and sugar, and when you throw it away, it comes back to scare you?"
"A booh-meringue."

0

Monday 20th October 2025 – I HAVE LEFT …

… on the dinner plate about half my tea tonight. I just couldn’t physically eat it.

The way things are right now, I seem to be in quite a bad way, what with one thing and another, and unless I can find some way to pull myself out of it, I worry about what will happen.

It all had the air of being really good today too. Once more, I was in bed prior to 23:00 – well before, in fact, and I fell asleep quite rapidly.

Although I awoke at about 03:00 or so, it was only for a fleeting minute and then I went back to sleep again. And there I stayed until the alarm went off at 06:29

There was the usual procedure – into the bathroom for a wash and scrub up, and then into the kitchen for the medication.

Back in here, there was the dictaphone. The war was about to hit France in its full fury. I’d been leading one of the French armies. We’d ended up on the Normandy coast not too far from here when the information came through that the Germans were massing ready for a final sweep into Brittany. There was no time to spare so I ordered my army to stand to, and I went back to the base headquarters from where my army was administered. Everyone was waiting there for me, waiting for instructions, but I needed to look at reports and plans, and details from the sentinels as to what the German army was doing before I disposed my troops. But people were in such a rush. They asked if they should be ordered to arms, so I replied “yes”. “So what about being sent to the transport?”. I replied “there’s no harm in them being sent to the transports either”. I asked about Division 1816 which was the one that I wanted to be in the thickest of the fight. That was not actually present at Headquarters at the moment. Eventually, I obtained enough information to go to join my particular division which was at St Pair here and ready for an attack on the German Army.

This is, I believe, only the second time that I’ve dreamed about this area. But, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, there would be no chance whatever of me joining the Army, even in wartime. If I had to choose, I would be in the Merchant Navy.

There were three of us, two guys and me. We had to walk somewhere, which was going to take us about eight hours. We set out and began to walk, but at one point we were in a field where there was a big depression. To go round this depression, it meant climbing up some kind of bank, crossing over higher and going out through a hedge. The first person who went, she was actually a girl. She complained that I was too close behind her for her to manoeuvre at the top, saying something like “the purpose of being perpendicular is so that you can turn easily”, in other words, implying that I had to take a couple of steps back to give her room. At the top, there was a barbed wire fence to slide under. This turned to be more complicated than it might be, and I began to think that it would have been far easier just to jump the depression, and far quicker too. At the top, we had to slide under this barbed wire fence, then another barbed wire fence and into the roadway, but there was a cowpat in the way that didn’t look very comforting. Just then a car pulled up and a little woman was sitting in the car reading something that was on the seat beside her. We thought that if she stays here for long, we’re going to be very late. We have to push on regardless. Later on, there was this announcement that the British Government had discovered traces of three snakes. They described the three snakes, and I wondered if they meant that they had found our tracks on that embankment place where we had had to slide on out stomachs underneath that barbed wire.

It’s amazing how my fellow travellers change sex in the middle of a dream, isn’t it? As for the rest of the dream, including the cowpat, it’s quite meaningless. What would the snakes be doing in all of this?

There was also something about being in a house at the side of a road with a slight incline downhill. I had to come out of there in my van, towing a caravan, go down about 200 yards and turn left. I’d checked the road and it was clear, so I set out. But the van was really struggling to find any acceleration and a car caught up with me, which I thought that I’d have plenty of time to avoid. He cut in front of me at the traffic lights where this left turn was, and turned left, regardless of the light being on red, but just as I approached it, it turned green so I could carry on.

Where the house comes from, I have no idea. But the road junction, minus the traffic lights, is where you turn off the Upper Labrador road near Goose Bay to travel over the Mealy Mountains to the Labrador coast, SCENE OF OUR TRIUMPHS IN 2010. The van not working as it should, especially when towing a caravan, is something that doesn’t fit anywhere.

After that, I turned up in Wrexham after that. There were these people trying to register for something – there was a huge crowd. One girl was saying to her friends “come back here! Look at this!” and took them back to the reception window. As I walked past, I saw one of the guys whom I knew from the previous times that I’d been to hospital. He said “hello” so I said “hello”. I asked him if the way to the hospital that I wanted, which was a different one, was down at the bottom of this particular lane. He said that it was, so I set off. It was through a posh area with these Victorian buildings that looked like a school or a hospital or something. Then out in the countryside, I came across a ruined viaduct, so I had to walk down the valley to find another bridge to cross over, and then climb back up the other side.

This dream doesn’t fit anywhere either. I could easily see it as being the first part of the first dream, except that it’s out of order. But then, the purpose of this project at the beginning was to tie together some of these isolated dreams into some kind of continuous soap opera.

Isabelle the Nurse blew in on the gale (we’re having another storm). She told me that she doesn’t think that her oppo will be here in time tomorrow before I go. She’ll ring me if there’s a change in this decision (but as yet, not at all).

After she left, I made breakfast and then came in here.

There were several important things to do this morning, such as pay a few bills and write a letter or two.

To fill in the rest of the time, I prepared for the Welsh class tomorrow. I know that I won’t be there, but I need at least to have an idea of what’s going on so that I don’t fall behind. I’ve been doing too much of that in the past.

My cleaner turned up as usual to apply my anaesthetic. She brought with her a pile of medication too, as I’m running low on that as well. And that reminds me – the prescription is expiring so I need a new one.

Once she had left, I waited for the taxi. And waited, and waited. It turned up eventually at 13:30 or shortly thereafter with another two passengers. The driver was a very young, chatty girl who has taken me once, months ago. She was somewhat insistent on the bell, so I apologised, saying "I’m not able to run".

There was heavy traffic on the road but she put her foot down when she could, and I wasn’t all that late arriving. And although I was last to be coupled up, I didn’t have to wait too long.

Emilie the Cute Consultant came to see me to talk about my infection. She thinks that I’m fit enough to go to chemotherapy tomorrow. I told her about all of my medical appointments this week and asked her if she couldn’t find one for Sunday, so that I would have a full week.

While I was at it, I told her that I was going to sell my apartment and live in one of the taxi company’s ambulances. That would save everyone a pile of trouble.

They have also re-organised my dialysis sessions for when my niece and her daughter arrive so that I can spend all the time with them.

One of my favourite taxi drivers was waiting for me, and we had a nice chat on the way home, but I was battered by the storms once I left the car, trying to return to the apartment.

After my faithful cleaner left, I made a stuffed pepper with pasta and veg but as I said, half of it went into the bin. I’m throwing away tons of stuff just now and it’s not at all good.

So tomorrow, I shall be up at 06:00 ready (I don’t think) for chemotherapy. I’m not looking forward to it at all but I suppose that I have to go through with it.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about snakes … "well, one of us has" – ed … one day, mummy snake saw baby snake crying.
"What’s the matter, dear?" she asked
"It’s the snakes next door" sobbed baby snake. "They won’t let me hiss in their pit."
"Don’t you worry about them" replied mummy. "I can remember them when they were so poor that they didn’t have a pit to hiss in."

0

Tuesday 14th October 2025 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… day I’ve had today. It’s another one of those days that would qualify for “the worst day ever” and I shudder to think of how I would have been had Emilie the Cute Consultant not insisted that I cancel the chemotherapy for today.

It seems very much as if I have returned to the bad old days of 2016 in my little room in Leuven.

Things were not looking very good last night. Despite having spent much of yesterday afternoon asleep at dialysis, I fell asleep again while riding the porcelain horse and that was embarrassing. I had a very quick trip into the bathroom afterwards and was really relieved when I was finally able to crawl under the covers into my nice, comfortable bed.

And there I lay until all of about 04:00 – after about four and a half hours’ sleep. Not that I was wide awake, though. There was no question of me leaving the bed at that time. At some point, I went back to sleep again but awoke at 06:20, nine minutes before the alarm was due to go off.

That was the key to forcing myself out of bed, even though I had never felt less like it than I did this morning

As might be expected, it was a very slow start to the day. Isabelle the Nurse, spurred on by the suggestion that I would be going for chemotherapy this morning, exerted herself to arrive really early and caught me in mid-transcription of my dictaphone notes.

Naturally, I apologised for making her rush but she didn’t seem to be too worried. She didn’t stay long and I could push on and make breakfast. Not that I felt much like eating anything, but you have to go through the motions. I was in no mood to read my book either.

While I was at breakfast, my faithful cleaner stuck her head in at the door to check that I was still alive. That was nice of her. I’m not so sure that she was reassured, though.

Back in here, I carried on with the dictaphone notes. We’d been giving a discussion about the ten most deadly massacres by the Japanese of Allied prisoners of war. This involved one particular incident where, with a ship, the prisoners were rounded up and marched into the interior in different groups, but one group was stopped on the way and the Japanese injected everyone with what was supposed to be some kind of antibiotic or something, but in fact was a poison and all of the ones of this particular group were killed.

Something that I have been reading recently has bee the story of the Japanese “hell ships” – cargo ships crammed full of prisoners of war in the most unhealthy and disgusting conditions – which they sailed out of war zones towards the mainland. Refusing to notify them to the Red Cross so that immunity to attack could be granted, they were torpedoed by the dozen by American submarines who treated them as ordinary merchantmen.

There was a big group of us hanging around together, and my Afro-Caribbean friend was in there. I’d heard that these people were talking about going swimming, so I went to have a chat with her to find out where, and it turned out that they were going that afternoon, which was a shame because I wouldn’t be able to make it. So we had a chat and she said something like “you know, why don’t you come another time with us?”. I said “why don’t you come with me for a week in California and we’ll go swimming in the Pacific Ocean?”. Her eyes lit up, and so did her mother’s. I wondered if this was something that might actually really happen. Anyway, we all went later on to a rock concert with Mark Knopfler. We were in the wings on stage, watching it. He walked on stage and began to sing but his voice gave out so he had to stop, collect himself, clear his throat and begin again. He was halfway through the first number when one of the radios of one of the security men bled into the PA and said “is he still going on?”. Mark Knopfler obviously stopped dead and really didn’t know how to proceed after that. He thought for a minute and then said to the audience “you may as well go outside and bring in the adverts for this concert. There’s no point in them being outside now while the rain is pouring down” and he just turned round and walked off the stage. When we were assembling after the concert, we looked around and there were one or two people missing. We wondered where they had gone. We decided that we’d go to look in the nearest bars and pubs, and we’d all meet up back here in ten minutes to see if we’d been able to find them. I was in one when someone came in carrying a railwayman’s signal light. I overheard them talking, saying “I got it from the car park at the back of the station. The guy wasn’t very happy and he actually had a gun, but I managed to take the light from him”.

Whoever my “Afro-Caribbean friend” might have been, I’ve really no idea. During my University studies I met Annette from Barbados and Tracy from Nigeria and spent some time with both of them but I’ve not thought too much about either of them for years. That is a shame because I happened to like them both. And in any case, they were both sensible enough to keep me well at arm’s-length.

Strangely enough, I have never seen Mark Knopfler live, although the scenario in this theatre would not have been an unusual one. The rest of the dream means nothing at all to me.

Back with these Japanese prisoners of war again. A Japanese aeroplane flew in with several deceased and dying prisoners on board. I asked a couple of minutes later if the ‘plane was unloaded and was told “no” – they can’t find something that they need. I told them to go on and make a start without it. They came back a few minutes later to say that they still couldn’t find something else now. I told them to drop the passengers out through the bomb bay, and if they can’t find the button to press for the bomb bay, to use the manual winding handles to open up the bomb bay.

Wherever this fits in, I really have no idea either.

Once I’d sorted out all of that, I revised my Welsh again and then went for the lesson.

It was another one that, from an educational point of view, went quite well and I was very pleased, but from every other point of view, it was a shambles. I almost fell asleep three times during the lesson and had to fight to stay awake.

What surprised me though was that one of my classmates has noticed that I have been losing weight. I hadn’t realised that it was so obvious.

In the middle of the lesson, the hospital at Rennes ‘phoned me. Apparently Emilie the Cute Consultant had been unable to contact them so they were wondering where I was. I explained the situation to them and they gave me another date – Tuesday next week, to be at Rennes for … gulp … 08:30 – which means leaving here at something like 06:45. I shall be looking forward to that, I don’t think.

While I was at it, I gave Emilie the Cute Consultant a quick ring to check that I would be OK for that date. She seemed to think so. She also seemed to think that I would be recovered by then.

After the lesson finished, I was no longer able to concentrate. I struggled to accomplish something – anything – without any success at all and by 16:00 I was on the bed, under the covers, fast asleep. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … sleep is my cure for all evils.

When I awoke, I found that not only was I still wearing my jacket, but my slippers too. What kind of state am I in just now?

Tea was the other half of the pizza that I had not eaten on Sunday. It didn’t take long, and so now, I’m going back to bed. Tomorrow is an unexpected day with nothing at all planned, so I really need to find some enthusiasm from somewhere to complete some of these outstanding tasks. I can’t go on like this, otherwise I’m just going to drift away.

But seeing as we have been talking about Isabelle the Nurse … "well, one of us has" – ed … when she came this morning, she told me that I was indeed looking extremely.
"That kind of comment is unacceptable" I replied. "I’m going to want a second opinion"
"OK" she replied. "My second opinion is that you are ugly too."

0

Monday 13th October 2025 – CHEMOTHERAPY IS …

… officially cancelled for tomorrow. Emilie the Cute Consultant seems to think that I’m far too ill to go and that chemotherapy will only make things worse.

Yes, lucky me! I’ve had Emilie the Cute Consultant soothing my fevered brow at dialysis this afternoon, and I reckon that I ought to be ill more often when she’s on duty.

But joking aside, after yesterday, I needed someone to take me in hand and sort me out. The day began awfully and as time advanced, it went from bad to worse. Those of you who saw the half-dozen notes that I posted last night will probably have gathered that I was in bed before 21:00, and it’s a long, long time since that has happened.

Once in bed, I was asleep straight away, which is no surprise. And I stayed asleep too until all of … errr … 00:30.

At that point, I was giving some light-hearted consideration to leaving the bed but in the end I decided against it, and spent several hours drifting in and out of sleep. Round about 05:30, I gave up trying and arose to my feet.

After the bathroom, I had another leisurely period of medication-taking, before coming back in here to restart writing my notes. But not for long, though. At about 07:00 I set the alarm for 08:05 and, something that I don’t recall doing for years, I went back to bed and slept for another hour or so. That’s the kind of state in which I found myself this morning.

Once the nurse had been and gone, I made breakfast and, once more, took my time while I ate it. I was in no real hurry, and I certainly wasn’t in any kind of mood to read my book.

Back in here afterwards, I finished off my notes from yesterday and then had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. We were in the American Civil War this time (not the Revolutionary War). We were trying to track down the enemy, or the enemy was trying to track us down. I was suffering from fever and having to use my toilet frame to walk around. It was becoming extremely complicated. At one point, I knocked some things off the kitchen worktop, and with my improvised walkframe, I positioned one of the feet on top of two of the spice jars that I have. I thought that it was a good job that I noticed this before I put my weight on it otherwise they would have broken. But I still don’t know what I’m going to do about my health and how I was going to deal with the issue of the enemy, of them looking for us or us looking for him.

If I’m dreaming about a war in the USA, it makes a change not dreaming about the Revolutionary War. But then again, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, when I was in Eastern USA in 2005 for Rhys’s wedding, I VISITED SEVERAL SITES CONNECTED WITH THE CIVIL WAR.

Later on, there were three ships, the Ateb Harry, the Ateb something else and a third one. The Ateb Harry was coming back from the USA to Europe as a passenger liner, and was intercepted by the contraband patrol. The patrol found, underneath the coal, a pile of shells and ammunition. The captain tried to argue that it was for his own self-defence but they saw that it had been manufactured in Germany and was of a German calibre rater than an Imperial one so they decided that they would take the ship and intern it.

This relates to something else about which I’ve been reading recently – the British blockade of Germany in World War I. They set up plenty of barrages across the North Sea and intercepted as many of the vessels that they possibly could that were heading east, in an attempt to stop supplies reaching Germany. They were quite successful too and by the end of the war, there were shortages of every kind of imported goods over there.

At some point though, I had my Welsh lesson to do and I was parked in a car park. There was a lorry in front of me and its rear door was open. A policeman told me to close it so I closed it as best as I could and explained to the driver that there was only one of the two catches was working. He replied in a foreign accent “never mind” – to leave it with him and he’d sort it out. I went back to my van, which was a dark blue Sherpa long wheelbase towing an enclosed trailer that looked like the rear of a Sherpa. I climbed in, and could see on the laptop that my Welsh class had started. I took off all my excess clothes and found my sleeping bag. But my sleeping bag was inside-out so I had to turn it the other way, and then I could climb into the sleeping bag and begin to attend the lesson.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I had a Sherpa for a couple of years. It was quite nice when I bought it but it rotted quickly and ended up being unsafe. Furthermore, trying to find spare parts for it in Belgium was impossible in the end and it became a liability.

Next task was to finish off my Welsh homework and send it off, and the rest of the morning was spent revising.

At one point though, I could no longer stand the cold in here and so I switched on the heating for the first time. It’s not like me, and it shows just how ill I am right now.

My faithful cleaner turned up to apply my anaesthetic and then I had a long wait for the taxi. Not that I minded, because it was one of my favourite drivers. However, rather regrettably, I wasn’t in the mood for chatting.

Once again, we were late arriving, but for a change I was seen quite quickly. Because of my health, they put me into a private room and then spent half an hour examining me, including a Covid test (I was negative). I wasn’t too keen, but Emilie the Cute Consultant insisted on it being done, and I noticed that there seems to be no argument or discussion with her when she makes up her mind.

Having been wired up and plugged in, they left me alone pretty much. That was just as well because I slept through most of the session. All that I seem to be doing right now is sleeping.

At the end of the session, Emilie the Cute Consultant gave me another thorough going-over, and wanted me to spit into a container so that it can be analysed. She is of the opinion that I have a pulmonary infection. I can’t go to chemotherapy like that so she’s going to cancel it.

One thing that was nice though was that she patted my shoulder, and as I said earlier, I’m going to be ill again when she’s on duty if that’s the reward.

The poor taxi driver had to wait hours for me, and then we had to find a chemist’s that was open so that we could buy some medication that was prescribed. There was someone else to fetch too, so I ended up being the latest back here that I have ever been.

After my cleaner had sorted me out, I made tea. Burger with pasta and even though it was a small portion, some of it still ended up in the bin.

So I shall be at my Welsh lesson tomorrow then. In that case I’d better go to bed. It’s already later than I would like.

But seeing as we have been talking about spitting into a container … "well, one of us has" – ed … I remember taking my niece to see my premises in Canada, situated as they are with one border of my land being the international border with the USA.
"Blimey!" she said. "You could spit into the USA from here!"
"I know" I replied. "Now ask me how I know."

0

Sunday 12th October 2025 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

… the dictaphone again this morning.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

0

Monday 6th October 2025 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

… the dictaphone this morning.

Mind you, that’s no surprise at all. The storm that had been raging for a couple of days had died down by the end of the evening and for once, it was as quiet as the grave outside.

Once I was in bed, I went to sleep quite quickly and with two days’ worth of sleep to recover, there I lay without moving, all through the night.

How I was looking forward to it too. Once more I rushed through the work that I needed to do before going to bed and by the time that I crawled in underneath the covers, it was 23:02 – past my ideal curfew time of 23:00 but I’m not complaining.

After that, I remember nothing whatever until I awoke with another one of these “sitting bolt-upright” awakenings at 06:20 precisely. It took a couple of minutes to summon up the courage to haul myself off into the bathroom, and then I went into the kitchen to take my medication.

With nothing on the dictaphone, I took the opportunity to do something that I’ve been meaning to do for quite a while, and that is to tidy up the freezer.

During the move, the freezer was filled in any kind of order and I had real difficulty finding anything that I needed. Now, though, a couple of the drawers are sorted out and there remains just one more to do. Everything that needs to be in there is in there, but it needs to be tidied.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up a little later. It’s her last day before her week’s break so she was quite naturally in a good mood. We had a good chat about her Breton grandmother and how sad she … "the nurse, not the grandmother" – ed … was that her grandmother hadn’t taught her to speak Breton.

That’s just how I felt too. My grandmother never taught my father to speak Welsh because it was considered to be shameful back in the 1930s. Consequently, I had to learn by other methods. My grandmother did say a few words in Welsh to us when we were very small but she never explained that it was Welsh. We thought that it was just meaningless speech.

After Isabelle left, I could make breakfast and read some more of BATTLES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

By now, it’s Spring 1781 and the British have all-but given up hope of retaking the United States. A few inconclusive battles have seen the British Army retreat, even when they have had the upper hand. I think that Cornwallis is retreating towards the coast in the hope that he’ll meet a British ship that will whisk him out of the mess that the politicians have created.

Back in here, I had the radio notes to check for this week’s programme and to carry out a little judicious editing. I was also chatting to my friend in Munich and my friend in Telford while I was at it.

With the time that was left, I spent doing my Welsh homework. It’s not finished yet but it won’t take very long. Then I can concentrate on the next unit.

My cleaner turned up as usual to apply my anaesthetic and then I had to await my taxi. Although he was on tie, there was someone else to pick up and for that, we had to wait around for a while. I had to sit in the back seat too, which was uncomfortable.

And so we were late arriving at dialysis and, as usual, even though I wasn’t the last to arrive, I was last to be plugged in.

For some reason that I don’t understand, my weight had ballooned since Saturday. The amount that needed to be removed was over the threshold for three and a half hours, so I expected to be there for four hours. However, the nurse failed to notice and I wasn’t going to say anything. The quicker that I’m out of there the better.

And jamais deux sans trois as they say around here. My niece’s second daughter contacted me for a chat while I was at dialysis.

Despite the fact that I was finished after three and a half hours today, I may as well have stayed because the taxi was late coming to fetch me. I didn’t complain because it was one of my favourite drivers so we had a good chat all the way home. With plenty of traffic on the roads, her driving was suitably restrained today.

Horribly late back home again, and totally exhausted because when the dialysis machine is going flat-out, it takes a lot out of me, I didn’t faal like eating anything. However, I can’t starve myself to death, so I made some pasta and veg with a vegan burger. That will do me for now.

Anyway, I’m going to bed, hoping to sleep for a week because I am so exhausted right now. I’m really beginning to worry about my health.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my favourite taxi driver … "well, one of us has" – ed … she’s one of the “old school” of taxi drivers who has her own way of doing things that wouldn’t fit in with modern ideas.
The first time that she took me to Paris, I remember it vividly.
Being someone who is famous for his very low blood pressure, I was surprised when at the hospital there, they told me that my blood pressure had gone through the roof.
"Well, you go for a long drive through the Paris rush-hour with my driver" I retorted "and see what yours is like when you come back!"

0

Tuesday 30th September 2025 – IT WAS ANOTHER …

… afternoon that ended up just like so many others just recently – with me hunched over the table in some kind of catatonic fit for well over an hour.

Perhaps not exactly a catatonic fit because for a good part of that time, I really was asleep. I know that because of how far the Byrds’ concert that I was listening to had advanced.

That’s the thing, though. When I’m having one of these fits, I can hear quite clearly everything that’s going on, but I’m just not capable of reacting to anything. Perhaps one of my followers from Avranches, presumably the dialysis clinic, can supply some information in this respect to help me understand what is happening.

But all of that is for another time. Right now, I’m more interested in what happened last night.

What also seems to be the case is that no matter how quickly I finish my notes, everything else seems to take correspondingly longer and I’m still no earlier in bed, no matter how I try.

And such was the case last night. My notes went on-line at 22:41 yet it was 23:30 when I finally crawled into bed and made myself comfortable. I don’t know why it takes so long to motivate myself these days.

During the night, I remember awakening and turning over a couple of times, but when I awoke at about 05:50, that was that and I couldn’t go back to sleep.

After vegetating around for a while, I left the bed and went for a good wash, followed by the medication and something to drink, because I had a thirst that you could photograph.

Back in here, I listened to the dictaphone to find out what had been going on during the night. It was in the Revolutionary War again. We were there patrolling the outposts of the British front line. We noticed that one of them had seemed to be under attack by the Native Americans because there was food scattered around, indicating that there had been some kind of fight during the lunchtime. We had to think about how to reinforce these posts with enough men to defend the front line, making sure that first of all we didn’t step on the toes of any colonist there, and secondly, that we could find some trained troops to do it, who wouldn’t panic and run if the Native Americans decided to attack.

By the looks of things, I seem to be totally immersed in BATTLES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. I wish that I could dream like this about other things in which I have an even greater interest.

And then the Social Services had intervened in the case of a girl and her baby. One of the many things that they were doing was trying to sort out her car for her, an old Ford Escort estate. They had been in contact with a female friend of mine about this car. She had asked me to come along to look at it. The guy from the Social Services had sent a long list of work that needed to be doing on this vehicle, much of which wasn’t really all that important, such as grinding off the surface rust and treating it, painting it etc. I noticed that one of the gutters had come away and was flapping around. While I was examining it closely, I saw that the sill on the nearside was rotten. It would need to be replaced. First of all, I went to attack this gutter mount but I couldn’t find any self-tapping screws the correct size so I would have to go back to my garage to look for some. But the sill, I marked it off with a big piece of chalk where it needed to be replaced. I thought that at the weekend, I’d go to the body panel shop to see what I could find. But as soon as I’d put this chalk mark on, my brother went to fetch an angle grinder to cut it out. I told him not to do that because if we can’t find a sill and the existing sill had been cut away, we are going to have an awful lot of problems. I could patch it if necessary with some of the sill remaining by welding a few plates over the missing pieces, but if it’s all cut out, it’s going to be extremely complicated to manufacture something. When I explained this to my brother, he picked up the angle grinder again. I had an enormous amount of problems trying to stop him cutting this sill out. I still wasn’t sure that he was going to take any notice, and the moment my back was turned, he’d cut it away, and that would be that as far as this car goes if I can’t find another sill.

Once upon a time I did actually have a Ford Escort estate. It was quite a nice car and I wish that I’d kept it now. But the number of cars that I must have welded up in the past when I had my big oxy-acetylene kit – it must have been phenomenal. I remember once having to weld the floor back into someone’s ancient Cortina but we couldn’t remove the seat to take out the carpet. So I was underneath welding it and every time the carpet caught alight, the guy would tip a bucket of water on the flames – and on me via some of the holes in the floor.

And as usual, my brother is up to his shenanigans – not being able to leave things alone and doing his very best to make the situation even worse than it already is.

It’s Isabelle the Nurse’s turn to be on duty now for a week, so she breezed in as usual just as I was in the middle of doing something. She didn’t hang around long, though. She took my medical card so that she could do her accounts and when she’d seen to my feet and legs, she cleared off.

That was the cue to make breakfast, and with my porridge, toast and coffee I read some more of the aforementioned book.

The British invasion of the Hudson Valley from Canada has come to a shuddering halt and an embarrassing defeat AT SARATOGA, WHERE WE VISITED ALMOST EXACTLY TWELVE YEARS AGO.

It’s a defeat that can be summarised by three factors –

  1. the failure to adequately supply General Burgoyne with the necessary men and stores
  2. the failure of General Howe to push General Clinton and his troops further up the Hudson Valley to take the American defenders in the rear
  3. the overall lack of aggressiveness and haste in the British Army, who, having cornered the Americans on several occasions, was far too slow to press on and finish the task

Although Point Three is probably the most crucial. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall – at least, those of you who were with me twenty years ago at the THE FIRST BATTLE OF BULL RUN – that the Confederates had the Union Army – and Washington DC – at their mercy, but failed to press home the advantage. This lack of the killer instinct seems to be infectious.

After breakfast, I came in here to revise my Welsh, and then I went to class. And how our numbers have grown! There are quite a few new faces, as well as one or two returning former classmates.

For a change, not only did the lesson pass really well, I actually felt confident, and it’s not at all often that I can say that. I reckon that over the summer, despite having done almost no studying, I’ve been listening to a large amount of Welsh football commentary, and I suppose that it’s a case of throwing a lot of whatsit at a wherever and some of it will stick. I was disappointed when the lesson finished.

Nest task was to book my taxi for the Centre de Ré-education tomorrow, and then to send off my order to LeClerc.

It was quite a large order today, and it took an age to unpack and put away correctly. And having done that, that was when I had my little wobble, and had to go to sit down.

It’s quite worrying really, these little fits that I seem to be having. One of these days, I’m not going to awaken from one of them and that will be that. I’ve tried to speak to people about them but no-one seems to be all that interested in discussing it with me. I have the feeling – and I don’t think that I’m too far from the truth – that the treatment that I’m having is more palliative rather than curative, maybe because the overall long-term prognosis is not good at all.

After a while dealing with the radio programme that I really need to finish, I made tea – a taco roll with rice and veg. And I managed to eat it all tonight – just about.

So my physiotherapy begins tomorrow morning. I’ll probably be worn out again after that but if it’s free, why should I worry? I’m not expecting it to do much good but it’s worth giving it a try. What do I have to lose?

Right now, I’m off to sleep in the hope that I can actually recover some of my force and energy. I’m not doing too well right now.

But seeing as we have been talking about force and energy … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of the doctors once prescribed some force and energy pills for me
However, I had to ring him up – "do you remember those pills that you prescribed to give me force and energy?"
"Yes I do" he replied
"Well, I don’t have the force and energy to be able to open the bottle."

0

Monday 29th September 2025 – I HAVE DONE …

… something today that is so rare and so unusual that it is worthy of some note.

And that is that I have left food on my plate tonight.

Usually, I’m really good at estimating how much food I want to eat at a meal, but tonight, even with my much reduced appetite, I still didn’t manage to finish the small (for me, anyway) portion of food that I served myself.

It’s down, I reckon, to a combination of a lack of appetite, a horrible salty taste of just about everything (since chemotherapy began) and a feeling that things are fermenting in my stomach, and I’m not sure which is the principal, or worst of those three situations.

That’s rather a shame because it was looking as if it might have been a good day today. Although it was later than I would like when I went to bed, I slept right through until the alarm went off at 06:29, and judging by how I was lying in bed, I hadn’t moved a muscle all night.

In the bathroom, I had a good wash, scrub up and also a shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon. While I was there, I washed my undies and had a change of clothes too, and then I went into the kitchen to take my medication.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I’d started a new job in a solicitor’s office and was being shown around the building. I was looking at all of the files and all of the documents, and thought that all of the things in there that they had collected over time were magnificent. Then I was taken to a table where there were two girls sitting, and was introduced to them. I was told that this was going to be my little case group. The first thing that I wanted to do was to find out what their attitudes were towards different things, motorists and so on, so that we could have some kind of uniform approach. However, they didn’t seem to be all that interested in that kind of thing so I had the impression that there wasn’t really any kind of uniformity there. Everyone dealt with the legal cases as they saw fit. Later on, we were filing away some papers, and I was fascinated by some of the things that I saw in there, on the files and on the evidence etc. It was the little comments that made my morning when I was looking at these – all kinds of remarks scribbled on them by other solicitors. They were sometimes hilarious, sometimes very cutting remarks. There were old papers there that you could see written on them details of the cases and similar things. There were files there relating to old vehicles that went back years. I remember saying to one of the girls that I could have an immense amount of fun just sitting here and reading these old papers. Then we began to file away some books. This girl had a book where the name of it began with an ‘A’ so she was trying to put it at the very beginning of the run. However, I had noticed that at the beginning of the run they had things that were grouped and the alphabetical names only began about halfway down this run. She was up on the top trying to put away this book. I explained to her, but she dropped the book. A whole pile of other books fell off and I caught them, but it was a real struggle to pass them back up to her so that she could put them back on the shelves.

Now, that would be a job that would be right up my alley – poring over ancient papers and files, noting all of the interesting information that they contained. When I worked for that Insurance Company in Chester between 1972 and 1974, several of the files held old deeds of trust and deeds of assignment dating back to the Seventeenth Century after the Restoration. I could (and did) sit and read them for hours, even though I worked in the section that dealt with the insurance of commercial garages.

The nurse was early today, but that was because his client from down the road was still in hospital. Not doing so well, apparently. He … "the nurse, not the client" – ed … didn’t stay long and was soon out of the way so that I could make breakfast and read some more of BATTLES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

The subject today had been the woeful lack of urgency, and the delay by General Howe in following up his victory at New York, allowing the colonists to slip away in good order. And then the embarrassment that the British must have felt when, having occupied Trenton, they forgot to fortify it or even mount a proper guard, so that they were overwhelmed and pushed back with the loss of most of their supplies and weapons.

That really is the eternal story of the American War of Independence – the British refusing to press home their advantage with enough speed or determination to launch a killer blow.

Back in here, I had things to do and then I spent the rest of the morning working on my Welsh. I’ve finished reviewing and preparing the chapter, and I’ve also made a start on the homework. I’m trying my best to keep up to date with that at least because I can’t afford to fall any further behind than I already am.

My faithful cleaner came along as usual to apply my anaesthetic cream, and the taxi came early for me too. Not that it did much good because, even though I arrived at 13:30, I wasn’t plugged in until 14:20.

While I was waiting, though, I had a ‘phone call from the Centre de Re-education. My fourteen-week course there starts on … errr … Wednesday at 11:30.

Believe it or not, Emilie the Cute Consultant came to see me today. She told me that they have thought of a way to repair my implant, but they are not convinced that it will improve the situation any. What did I think?

"What do I know?" I replied. "I’m quite happy to leave it in the hands of the medical staff and follow their advice."

We discussed my recent blood test, and then she asked if there was anything else that I needed.

"A pretty nurse to sit at the foot of my bed throwing grapes into my mouth, and a couple of dancing girls on that table over there" I replied. She laughed at that, but I wouldn’t like to type out what she was thinking or my site would be taken down.

The rest of the session was spent preparing my LeClerc order ready to send off tomorrow. It’s going to be a large one too because it’s been a good three weeks since my last delivery.

When the alarm sounded to signal that I had finished, I had to wait a good 20 minutes for them to attend to me, with the result that, once more, I’m hours late returning home and it’s dismaying me.

After gathering my wits (which takes longer than it ought, seeing how few I have these days) I made tea – a stuffed pepper. There is plenty of stuffing left for the next few days too.

But as for leaving food on my plate, that’s worrying. It’s not like me at all and it’s a sure sign that I’m not at all well. Perhaps a good sleep might make me feel better, but that’s a comment made more in hope than expectation.

But seeing as we have been talking about being off our food … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of the cannibal chief of a village where the chief cook put a captured blonde woman in the stew pot.
After thirty seconds or so of contemplation, the chief went over to the fire and put it out.
"What’s the matter, chief?" asked the chef. "aren’t you hungry?"
"Not really" replied the cannibal chief. "I don’t think that I could eat anything right now. I’ll probably just play with my food for a while and see how I feel later."

0

Sunday 28th September 2025 – AS I HAVE …

… said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s totally pointless going to bed and going to sleep early, because all it means is that you awaken correspondingly early too.

So, having dashed all the way through my notes and all of everything else that I needed to do, I crawled into bed just before 22:30 – some kind of record these days – thinking to myself how glad I was to be in bed at something like an early night, with the prospect of a nice lie-in until 07:59 awaiting me.

And there I was, after my nice, long sleep, wide awake at … errr … 04:11, trying desperately to go back to sleep and failing miserably.

Round about 05:00, I gave it up as a bad job and left the bed. And for the first time this year, I put on a dressing gown because it was definitely colder than I would like it to be.

Today, we have had a footfest. Well, actually yesterday, because yesterday evening there was a live televised match Y FFLINT V LLANSAWEL in the JD Cymru Premier League. However, as I had missed the first hour or so of the game, I had deliberately kept away from anywhere where the score might have been displayed, and waited until this morning so that I could see all of it non-stop.

There have been many, many more skilful matches than this that we have seen, but this match was by far and away the most exciting that I have seen for a long, long time. It ranged from end to end at 100 mph and the entertainment was a credit to the league.

Whether or not there are any football fans reading these pages, I really don’t know, but if you have a couple of hours to spare, have a look at the game. The link is a few lines higher up.

At the final whistle I went for a wash and then for the medication, and finally came back in here to listen to the dictaphone while I awaited the nurse. In the vicinity of where this second battle was taking place, some British troops had installed themselves on the high ground nearby so that they could shoot the battlefield and keep a fire of stready maleiks or mareiks or something onto the dug-in soldiers. They did this as best as they could and managed to advance almost two hundred metres, and were then sent to bomb the English positions so they gored over a late attempt to cross by Proncis Richards take of work, although she’d long-since retired and seeing if they couldn’t between them manage to push this guy Simpson out of the post that he’s occupying.

What happened to the first part of this? It sounds as if it might have been really interesting, even if it did descend into a pile of utter gibberish towards the end. And what is a stready maleiks or mareiks or whatever?

We were back in North America last night. The Americans had dug themselves in somewhere and the British were on the point of advancing towards them. The British notes were quite unclear about this but they must have set out, for bloodstains along the way indicated that they had had little battles and skirmishes. The Native Americans were interested in what was happening but were remaining neutral. The results of this advance were that the American positions fell to the British. But there was no account of the battle or anything ever prepared by anyone.

This dream and the previous one must relate to Colonel Carrington’s BATTLES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION that I have been reading recently, when the British tried without success between 1776 and 1783 to suppress the colonial revolution.

Nerina and I had been living apart. I’d come back to Crewe to find a whole pile of stuff, old furniture and things like that, put on my driveway around the back of the house. I asked Nerina if she knew of anyone who would come along and remove it – she knew people who had a van – but no-one heard at all. I never heard anything from her. I was walking around the town late at night, wondering what to do. There were crowds of people drifting around, and I remembered that there was a nightclub on the corner of Market Street and Victoria Street where I could make a ‘phone call. I passed through these crowds of people going home, but when I arrived at the nightclub, it was far too noisy and far too loud to make any kind of ‘phone call. As I walked in, I met a friend of mine carrying a double-bass. He was dressed in a red velvet jacket. We began to talk, and asked him how he was, what he was doing. I told him that I was living in France, which he knew. He said that it had been the talk of all the clubs after I left. We carried on chatting and he introduced me to his friends. We had a chat, and I asked them if they knew anyone. They replied that with the sheerest bad luck, they were supposed to be meeting someone that evening who had a van but he hasn’t turned up. I persuaded them that if they could think of anyone, to send them round to my house. I prepared to leave but they offered to give me a lift. Parked outside across the road were several coaches, some with foreign number plates. They had a van out there. When we arrived at the van, there was a pile of rubbish in the back of it. It was a pick-up. Someone set light to the rubbish, and the woman of this group thought that this was a dangerous thing and she wanted to unload it and let it burn off the back of the van. When the lorry behind moved, she began to think of how she was going to do it, but it was well-ablaze by now. Someone reminded her that every community was obliged by law to appoint a fire warden. She replied that she was the one for this community. Someone thought “wouldn’t it be a good idea to write spoof orders and spoof instructions for spoof fire wardens in spoof villages, and publish it in all of the local papers?”. She wasn’t too happy but everyone else thought that it was a good idea.

The guy in the dream is – or was – actually a drummer and used to play in a cabaret band whose van and equipment I drove around from gig to gig in 1974 and 1975 after I left my job in Chester. And another dream about things burning? It’s becoming a habit. It must have some significance somewhere.

And the “nightclub” in question is the former Burton’s menswear shop, on two floors, that is currently up for sale. Its corner situation would make it an ideal spot for a café, bar, and games venue and I’ve often pondered about what I could do with a place like that.

Finally, in the back of my van was a whole pile of furniture equipment moving stuff and a whole pile of things that had accumulated over the years. I wanted to dispose of it but no-one would come along and lend me a hand. The van’s controle technique had expired and I couldn’t drive it, so I came back from Europe after four years to try to organise something. I couldn’t even find the van so I began to hunt around. Nerina was with me but she was living somewhere else – she’d just popped by. In the end, we went upstairs to one of the bedrooms, and in the bedroom at the rear of the house, there was the van. I thought “what on earth was it doing in the bedroom? How did I bring it up here?”. It was buried in the hedge in the bedroom. I had a look around it, found the keys, unlocked the back door, and the whole of this furniture stuff was in there. One thing that I noticed was that the light came on, so I went round to the cab, put the key in and turned it, and it started. I thought “that’s not bad for four years being away”. I worked out that I must have brought it up into the bedroom by winching it up on a couple of planks, making a kind of ramp, so I need to find those planks and then I could winch it back down to the street again. Once it was down on the street again, then never mind the controle technique, never mind anything, I would nip out one night down a really dark road that I knew and just drop everything off because I was beyond now thinking of any kind of reasonable or logical way and with no controle technique on the van, I couldn’t go anywhere in daylight where there was a waste recycling centre open

Can you imagine it? Winching a van up to the first floor bedroom on a couple of planks, and losing it in the hedge inside the room. But it’s true that there are many things that I’m having to consider and having to think about winding up as my health deteriorates from day to day.

There are also many things that will have to be wound up by other people as there are simply not enough hours in the day to deal with them. It will be an extremely sad and emotional moment, but at least I won’t be around to witness it.

The nurse finally turned up at 09:45 this morning, ninety minutes or so late. He’d been to another client and had no answer at the door when he knocked. However, he could hear noises from inside so, not knowing what to expect, he called the emergency services. When they arrived, they broke down the door and found the client on the floor, where, apparently, he had fallen yesterday and was unable to stand up. The nurse had to reanimate him and then he … "the client, not the nurse" – ed … was rushed off to hospital.

That, by the way, is the reason why I’m here in Granville. In the Auvergne, one is totally isolated if anything goes wrong. An old English guy with whom I was very friendly had a fall down his stairs and lay there at the foot for five days in temperatures of minus 10°C until someone found him.

He was still alive, but he didn’t survive long. And that was the fate that awaited me if I were to have a health issue.

After breakfast and more of my book, I came back in here for part II of my footfest – Stranraer away at Dumbarton.

Stranraer are having a wretched season so far and up at The Rock in the driving rain, things weren’t looking much better. A penalty had put them in the lead, but Dumbarton had equalised shortly after. However, a wonder goal in stoppage time from James Dolan gave Stranraer their first win of the season.

During the week, Stranraer had played against the Motherwell junior team and those highlights were online too, so I watched that game. How nice it was to watch Stranraer amble on to a comfortable 3-0 win for once.

While I was at it, I picked up a few other matches from Saturday, and it made a nice morning’s relaxation.

After the disgusting drink break, I spent some time working on my Welsh and then went to make the dough for the pizza and for the loaf.

The pizza was perfection itself – absolutely wonderful – and having read the instructions closely and adhered to them, the bread turned out to be marvellous too and it even looks like a proper loaf.

So now, I’m off to bed, trying … "in vain" – ed … to catch up with my beauty sleep ready for dialysis tomorrow.

And seeing as we have been talking about difficulty sleeping … "well, one of us has" – ed … it’s not like the hill farmer in Cumbria being interrogated by someone from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.
"And how many sheep do you have?"
"I’ve no idea" replied the farmer
"My goodness!" exclaimed the official. "Don’t you ever count them?"
"I try" replied the farmer "but I get just so far and then I fall asleep."

0