… that I have a sense of humour meltdown, but today has been one of those days, right enough. Nothing that I have done seems to have gone as it should.
Last night’s activities set the scene somewhat for today’s disasters. What with the football and everything, I ended up being really late going to bed when I could really have done with going to bed early.
Once in bed though, I can’t remember all that much. I have the vaguest memory of waking up, noticing that it was still dark and so going beck to sleep pretty much straight away.
Be that as it may, I awoke at 06:40, 20 minutes before the alarm and when the alarm finally did ring, I was already in the bathroom having a good wash. Not as early as some, but an early start all the same.
After the medication I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night. I was in a public ward in a hospital after an operation on my leg. I found it really difficult if not impossible to walk around at the moment but being in this ward with all these other people made me realise just how healthy I was. It was probably the best reason that I could think of for actually leaving the bed but it was so painful trying to move. There were examples being shown on the television of other people who had had this kind of operation to their leg, mostly foreigners, people from abroad. It was interesting to spot their places where they were actually going to fit into this hospital regime as far as needing help and lack of autonomy went. They would be cruising so many hours of their own private life for so many hours per day on dialysis and was it worth it?
If you want to know my opinion about this, read on. But once more, I was dismayed that I’m spending so much of my time dreaming about medical issues.
Later on, my brother was talking to a girl from his class whom I recognised and to whom I used to chat occasionally. When they finished I asked her what she was doing. She replied that she was at Manchester University. I took hold of her and pulled her so that she sat down on the edge of my bed and asked her what she was studying. She said, with a strange look on her face, “geography”. I asked how she meant. She replied “different parts of Europe and Dalmatia – I moved my bath the other day and there they were, all of them on the floor. I was horrified”. I said “had I known, I would have let you come and share my bed”. We had something of a laugh, a joke and a flirt around. I thought to myself “this is yet another good chance of actually trying to build on something, some kind of relationship for the immediate future”.
Even now, I can still see this girl. I’ve no idea who she is but in the dream I knew that I knew her. She was wearing a red and white gingham school dress too, so what she was doing at University I really don’t know. However, there is some kind of undercurrent to this story but the World isn’t ready to hear it. And what a shame that the dream finished when it did.
There was something going on with a Native American tribe in North America of which I was a member. I was there, I suppose, because I respected the people, liked them, liked their culture. A group of Native Americans from outside my group were not content with everything and were trying to incite my group of Native Americans into rising up and rebelling whereas our opinion was that rising up and rebelling is OK in books and folk songs but it’s much more complicated than that. In the end the situation became so severe that those from outside our group were expelled from the tribe. There was talk that I would be expelled too because my position was seen as being something of an anomaly and I was being seen as a position of suspicion by some people from within the group.
What immediately came into my mind when I was typing out these notes was my visit in 2019 to Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, the site where the US Army massacred what was left of the Lakota Sioux people, where I went for a walk around the site of the slaughter and visited the mass grave of the victims.
This is what the author of “The Wizard of Oz” had to say at the time about Wounded Knee "The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extermination of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries, we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untameable creatures from the face of the earth".
Nothing has changed in the USA.
The nurse had very little to say for himself, which suited me fine. He was soon in and gone and I could carry on with making breakfast and read MY BOOK.
We’re pushing on with our visits, dashing from one site to another in some kind of indecent haste. We’ve been to the castle at Oswestry, such as it is, and then back across the dyke into Wales for a couple more places. We’re pushing on at quite a rate and there can’t be all that many places left to visit.
Back in here, I reviewed the radio programme that will be broadcast this coming weekend and then I had an electrician to see.
Not that I know an awful lot about electricity – I do it all by trial and error – but I don’t think that I’ve ever seen such a disgraceful estimate. To supply and fit a new power board (that isn’t necessary) that costs €199:00 at Brico Depot, he’s quoted €2,000. For changing eight double sockets for multiples and wiring up the oven, microwave and hob, he wants another €2,000.
What beat me though was that he had the quote back here in less than the time that it would have taken to go back home to type it, and he rang me up thirty seconds after the quote arrived, to tell me to sign it and return it quickly. I’m not sure from which tree he thinks that I fell, but I feel really sorry for any elderly person who comes across him.
Next task was to finish my Welsh homework, which is now ready for a final check tomorrow morning before I send it off for marking.
My cleaner turned up to fit my anaesthetic patches, and then I had to wait for the taxi. And wait, and wait, and wait. Round about 13:00 I ‘phoned them up to enquire and was told that "he’s running a little late."
These new Sécurité Social regulations allow a 45-minute window in order for the vehicles to carry multiple passengers, and when my vehicle did turn up, 44 minutes late, it already had one passenger in it.
The driver and the other passenger chatted like long-lost buddies so I relaxed and enjoyed the view, knowing full well that by the time I arrive, my anaesthetic will have worn off.
As I was leaving the car, my telephone fell out into the footwell, as I found out later when the driver brought it back. And an envelope in my pocket with a prescription for a blood test became dislodged and I won’t tell you where it fell, because you are probably eating your tea right now.
There was a new patient today and all of the nurses were congregating around him, sorting him out. It was 14:20, 50 minutes late, when I was finally plugged in. painful yet again
There were plenty of things for me to do, right up to the moment when the needle ceased to work and my arm began to swell up. By that time though, the new patient was having a crisis and the entire medical staff, doctors and nurses, were congregating around him so I had to wait.
When the crisis began, my nurse was standing by me bed, dealing with an infusion. When the alarm sounded, she dropped the infusion pouch – right onto my leg where the wound is.
Later on, moving the table with my computer, she banged the wound yet again.
Everyone finished at the same time today but while most of the staff were dealing with this emergency, there was just one nurse unplugging everyone. So guess who was last?
By the time that I made it back home it was 19:20 and I was thoroughly fed up with everything. So in answer to the question that was asked during one of my dreams, it’s certainly not worth it
Tea was a stuffed pepper with pasta followed by vegan chocolate cake and soya dessert, and now I’m off to bed. I’m thoroughly fed up with today. Gotthold Lessing once famously said "Better counsel comes overnight " and that is for what I am hoping.
But seeing as we have been talking about transport issues … "well, one of us has" – ed … it’s not by any means the first that I have had.
Several years ago I was waiting for a train in Canada – the 11:55 from Calgary to Regina – when at 11:42 exactly it pulled into the station.
It’s never happened like that before so I went to express my admiration to the driver.
"It’s not like that at all" he replied
"Why not?" I asked
"Because, if the truth be known, this is the 11:55 train from a week last Tuesday"
