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Wednesday 21st January 2025 – THIS TIME TOMORROW …

… I shall be having my fevered brow soothed by a bevy of nubile nurses while I’m tucked up in my comfortable bed in The Land of Grey and Pink – I mean, the Hospital Pitié-Sampetrière in Paris.

Actually, I probably won’t be, but there’s no harm in wishful thinking, is there? As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s only my imagination and my dreams that are keeping me going.

To tell the truth, I will almost certainly be in a bed in a hospital in Paris, assuming that we don’t have a calamity along the route. But as for the rest of it, who knows? And who really cares? As long as I have my imagination I can continue my desperate struggle against reality.

And the desperate struggle against fatigue too, because I have to be up and about at 06:00 in the morning. I have dialysis tomorrow before I leave for Paris, so that means a taxi at 07:45 and a session on the bed in the dialysis centre starting at 08:30.

At 07:30 this morning though I was still struggling to come to terms with being on my feet. When the alarm had gone off at 07:00 I was deep in the Arms of Morpheus and it was a real struggle to rise to my feet. However I made it into the bathroom just in time before the next alarm call went off.

There had been a lot of perspiration during the night so I needed a good wash. Emilie the Cute Consultant told me that the perspiration was usual, but if it carries on, I shall need a water bed. Then I can sail into the bathroom. Or paddle my own canoe. Or be up the creek without a paddle. I dunno.

After the medication I came in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. My brother had a MkIV Cortina. He’d had an accident in it and damaged one wing. He came to see me to see if I had another MkIV wing. At that moment I had about three MkIV Cortinas, a pale blue one that I was using as my run-around which was something of a wreck. It had no MoT or insurance. Then there were two others, one of which was a reasonably good car and the third one that I was planning to rebuild. He came round to ask if I had one so I replied that I hadn’t. Everything that I had was spoken for. Nerina said “why don’t you give him the one off the blue one? You’ll be scrapping that soon and it’ll save you the time in dismantling it if he were to take that”. I replied “that’s the car that I’m using to drive around at the moment. I can’t give him that”. We had quite a big discussion about t which became quite heated. In the meantime my brother was wandering around in the garage and came across a wing for a MkIII Cortina. he said “I’m going to break your hearts now” he said “and I’m going to take this”. I said “come here” and went into my workshop. Scrabbling around on the worktop I found the washers and bolts that had been used to hold it on. I was scrabbling around and ended up with about ten at that particular moment. He said “that’s OK, I’ll take those”. I sorted out some washers for him but he didn’t seem to want very many. I thought that a MkIII wing on a MkIV would invite lots of comment but he didn’t seem to care. But there was a question that he’d asked me about “was Ford bringing out a new car to replace the Granada?”. I replied that I’d not heard anything. There had been no executive meeting so no-one seems to know as yet.

In theory of course, a MkIII wing will fit a MkIV Cortina because they have the same chassis and A-post arrangement but as I said, it’ll look rather strange.

But I was, and still am, a big fan of the Cortina MkIII, IV and V. Practically the same car from 1970-1982 with all the mechanical parts interchangeable, they did me proud when I had my taxis. Not only did I have the cars, I’d pick up MoT failures, dismantle them for spares, sometimes repair them and until I had my health collapse after my big car accident, I was always ahead of the game.

There are still several Cortinas lying around. There’s an almost-immaculate MkV estate keeping a MkIII 2000E Cortina and a Citroen “traction avant” company in the warehouse in Montaigut, a “rare as hens-teeth and worth a fortune” MkIII 2000E estate in the barn on the farm, and an old rotten MkV saloon down the field that was going to be cut up for spares but it’s lost in the undergrowth now.

All the same though, that dream was disappointing. Nerina was there, as of course she is entitled to be, but once more we were arguing. We spent so much time arguing in real life – if only we’d stepped back, breathed, and began to talk to each other, things would have been so different. And my brother was there once again. How disappointing is that? Why can’t I summon up any one of the Fearsome Foursome to come to me during the night?

As for the Ford Granada, that relates to something that is running in a thread through my mind somewhere right now, relating to nothing in particular. But no MoT or insurance on a Cortina is a thread that’s been running through my dreams for ages, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

The nurse was early today. It’s His Nibs starting his seven days. He’s not impressed with my early start tomorrow (neither am I as it happens) and told me to keep my socks on during the night. That’s not a sound policy – not at all.

After he left, I made breakfast and read more of MY BOOK.

As I suspected, I’m right about him working up to a crescendo. With no sense of embarrassment or responsibility he’s laying in to all kinds of people. Not even the Astronomer Royal is exempt from his scorn. It really is quite shameful and how his publishers accepted it I really don’t know.

Back in here I revised for my Welsh class and then went for the lesson. Once more, it seemed to pass off quite well. However, that was then, when everything was fresh in my mind. Give me half an hour and it will all have evaporated from my teflon brain.

After lunch I had a few things to do and then I pushed on with this radio programme that I’ve been trying to finish since Sunday. Now it’s all done as far as I can, the 11th track is chosen and notes written ready to dictate on Saturday night when it’s quiet.

The next trick will be to finish the one that I started at the end of last week and have it ready for dictation on Saturday night too. I need to snap out of this depression and lethargy and push on.

And that’s the first time that I’ve said that since dialysis started.

While we’re on the subject of the radio … "well, one of us is" – ed … there was the radio programme for this weekend to review and send off, so I listened to it to make sure that it was OK.

It’s just as well that I do this because I’ve been caught out before by people dying in between the recording of the programme and its transmission. And not that I’m bragging, but this programme was recorded in May 2023.

Tea tonight was a taco roll with some of the leftover stuffing followed by chocolate cake and soya dessert. Delicious as usual.

But then I had more food to make. The food in the hospital is dreadful, I’ll be arriving late, there’s never any food that I can make. So I’m in the process of making some bread and I’ve cooked a lentil and potato mix that’s in a plastic container that they can bung in the microwave when I arrive. I have to be prepared.

Right now though, I need to be prepared for bed if I’m going to be up at 06:00. I don’t fancy that in the least, but I can always sleep while dialysis is going on.

But in our Welsh class today we were discussing War poets. And one thing that most of us had in common was that we all had had to study War poets for our ‘O’ Level English Literature exam, and without exception, it destroyed any love of poetry that we might have had.

We all agreed that it was so depressing and so miserable, but it seemed to us that the examiners were working to their own very private agenda. It wasn’t until I discovered the works of AE Housman that I began to develop a love of poetry, but I never ever want to hear another War poet again as long as I live, if I live that long.

On the other hand, I can listen to this all night and next day too – one of Housman’s poems SET TO MUSIC

Another thing that we were discussing was the early television programmes. And I remember when the BBC, in an economy drive, was selling them off to independent producers.
At one meeting the Director asked the Sales Department for the accounts.
He asked them "What did we get for ‘Larry the Lamb’?"
"According to our accounts" said the accountant "we got four shillings per pound"
"And the guy in the historical records" said the Director. "What did he get for ‘Muffin the Mule’?"
"Eighteen months, I think" replied the accountant.

Saturday 18th January 2025 – ANOTHER THREE HOURS ..

… and thirty minutes of sheer, unadulterated agony this afternoon as once more, one of the nurses managed to find the “sensitive spot” in whatever it was that they did in that hospital in the summer.

Whatever else happens in this hospital, I can’t go on like this. I’m sure that dialysis isn’t supposed to be this painful.

At least I can console myself that I’m not suffering as much as the guy who usually comes with me on a Thursday and Saturday. I asked why we hadn’t seen him for a few days and was told "he comes in an ambulance now. He’s had a bad fall"

The only fall in which I’m interested right now is to fall from my chair into bed as I’m exhausted.

It was another late night last night. Just as I was going to bed, a “Traffic” concert came round on the playlist and that’s another “must” to stay up and listen to, especially when there’s an 11-minute version of SOMETIMES I FEEL SO UNINSPIRED and almost 10 minutes of DEAR MR FANTASY.

Anyway, once we returned to normality I crawled off to bed, with the words of Steve Winwood echoing around my head –
"sometimes I feel like my head is spinning
Hunger and pain is all I see
I don’t know who’s losing
And I don’t care who’s winning
Hardships and trouble are following me".
My head is definitely spinning, I can certainly feel pain and while I’m not suffering any hardship – those days are long gone – I’m definitely being followed by a heap of trouble right now. What is worse is that it’s all of my own making too.

Those troubles kept me awake once more and it seemed like an age before I finally drifted off to sleep.

When the alarm went off this morning. I was away on my travels, with a shower that I had to repair so the first thing was to drain the tank. I profited from that by having myself a nice hot shower. I disconnected the shower hose so the pump was on the wall in the bathroom so I took off the pump from the wall and lowered it down a little. This forced the water out of the pump which then drained into the bath. I put the shower pump down, about halfway down the wall so that it was about halfway down to the level – so the water in the tank was halfway down, and put the pump there so that it was drained off the top half. I was sitting there contemplating what to do next when the alarm went off. I was really disappointed because I was enjoying that.

So don’t tell me that all of my nocturnal skills, about which I have so boasted in the past, have deserted me during this crisis through which I’m going right now. It’s the one thing on which I could rely in the past and with the right kind of support, I could have made millions from the skills that I never knew that I had

It was a desperate struggle to rise to my feet and go into the bathroom before the next alarm went off but I just about made it. And then a desperate discovery – that I’ve run out of clean sweaters. Nothing else for it but to put last week’s back on. I have just about enough of other clothes to have a good change but I really am going to have to overhaul my wardrobe. What am I going to do with all my Arctic clothing for a start?

Having washed and shaved, I put the bedding from last week into the washing machine with a selection of other dirty clothing and let the machine do its stuff. Then I wandered off for my medication, remembering to take my “sunlight” Vitamin D.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out what else has been going on during the night. There was something about an extremely valuable – well, not valuable but a historic plate that was of great significance between me and some young lady and I don’t know who she was. I had to keep it safe so I hid it under my coat but as I moved, I broke it. A V-shaped piece fell out of it. I was thinking “how am I now going to repair this so that it will be the correct type of plate and that no-one will notice that it’s damaged.

In fact, I really didn’t know who she was. She didn’t resemble anyone whom I might know at all

There was also something about people who were working in Crewe Works. They had to cycle a certain way around the Queen’s Park and would reach a point where someone was waiting. When they reached that point they would have to turn round and cycle back towards the Works. They couldn’t take a short cut by turning around earlier but they all had to go to where this particular guy was standing in the middle of the road.

“Queen’s Park”, or, at least, the road around the back of it by the Golf Club, and “Crewe Works” – that is, the Railway Works – are playing something of a role in what’s going on right now in my mind so it’s inevitable, I suppose, that they should put in an appearance at some point. No sign of Moonchild though. She didn’t come dancing through the shallows of the river into my dreams last night

But what’s sad about this is that I can remember when half of the town was covered in the various branches of the Railway Works and when every boy in the town was destined to become an apprentice in either “The Works” or “Royce’s”. The town was flooded out with bicycles at chucking-out time, and how much like a ghost town it was during “Works Week” – all that was missing were the tumbleweeds. Nowadays Crewe is a ghost town all the time, but for different reasons. There is nothing whatever left of its railway heritage and even the big multi-storey “Rail House” is empty and threatened with demolition

Isabelle was in and out in a new world-record time today. She doesn’t seem to be so keen on stopping and chatting as she used to. Perhaps word about me is filtering around the town

After she went, I made my breakfast and carried on reading MY BOOK.

For a change, I’m not going to post any selected comments because firstly, I don’t know enough about the subjects that he’s discussing – it’s all conjecture unsupported by any evidence anyway, and secondly, because his invective and abuse has become tiresome to read and even more tiresome to repeat. I shan’t be sorry to finish this book and start the next one.

Back in here I carried on with the radio notes and they still aren’t finished. Once more I was caught in flagrante delicto by my cleaner who surprised me by her arrival when I wasn’t expecting her. She fitted my anaesthetic patches and we didn’t have long to wait for the taxi to come for me.

Just me in the car today with the driver. Apparently the other passenger who usually accompanies my on a Saturday has had a bad fall and goes to dialysis in an ambulance now.

Everything was running horribly late at the Centre today and it took hours to plug everyone in. That can’t be why it hurt so much because the first pin went in much less painlessly. Anyway, I didn’t enjoy it at all.

As usual, once the pump started up I crashed out and I was away for quite a while. So much so that my coffee that had been brought to me while I was asleep was stone-cold.

Before crashing out though, I was hallucinating again as I did the other day. This time there was something about me being on board a Spanish Galleon but I didn’t stroke it this time to see if it was real..

That miserable doctor was on duty today and he managed a brief “hello” as he passed by my bed. And that was my lot. I must be thankful for that, I suppose

Unplugging me was just as painful as plugging me in and how I wish that it wasn’t. The same driver who brought me was waiting to take me back and we had a guided tour of his Head Office at Marcey les Grèves on the way home. I’m convinced that he is in some way charged with the running of the place in some capacity.

Anyway, he’s confirmed that I’ll be picked up in principle at 07:45 on Wednesday for my trip to dialysis followed by my taxi to Paris at lunchtime afterwards.

It’s freezing outside tonight, literally freezing, at 0°C so I was glad to be in the warmth indoors even if climbing up these stairs doesn’t seem to have become any easier just recently.

Tea tonight was a breaded quorn fillet with baked potatoes and salad, which was nice as usual, especially when followed by chocolate cake and soya yoghurt.

So now i have to dictate what I wrote earlier in the week and then finish off the lot that’s half-way done sometime. I need to go back too and review the couple of weeks that are missing and have another think about what I’m going to do. I can’t leave it until the last moment to come up with a plan.

So I’ll do that and then go to bed – to make the most of my little lie-in

But in the radio programme notes that I was writing, I was writing something about Caravan’s album A BLIND DOG AT ST DUNSTAN’S
St Dunstan’s was a Charity in London created to care for Blind People and is famously known for its hotel in Brighton which was praised for its "magnificent views over the Downs and out to Sea" – the sense of irony being totally lost on the writers.
But the title of the album relates to a story that one day a little boy saw a male dog mount a female dog.
"What’s that big dog doing, daddy?" asked the little boy
"Well," stuttered daddy nervously, "the dog at the bottom is blind, and the one on top is helping him, pushing him along to St Dunstan’s."

Tuesday 14th January 2025 – I AM TYPING …

… these notes during a pause in the football.

It’s hardly surprising that there’s a pause either because, as the score is proving, trying to play a game of football as banks of fog come rolling from the Dee estuary across the stadium at Cae Castell is producing some extremely unpredictable, and for Y Bala who are defending the river end, some extremely unfortunate moments.

After an hour of playing hide and seek the players have gone off the field in the hope that the fog will roll away. But even if it does, there is no guarantee that it won’t roll back.

It’s ironic that it’s happening to Y Bala. The final round of the first half of the season should have been played weeks ago but their pitch has been alternately under snow, ice and water on so many occasions that after several postponements that led to the postponement of the final round of matches, the game against Caernarfon that we watched on Saturday, was played at a neutral venue, Llandudno’s all-weather stadium

All the final round games were postponed until tonight, but now Y Bala’s vital match against Cei Connah is swathed in fog and all the players are in the dressing room waiting. There’s no guarantee that they will be back out either.

So while I’m waiting for things to happen, after finishing my notes last night I stayed up to listen to yet another concert (I’ve forgotten who it was) and then at about 00:30 I gave it up as a bad job and crawled into my bed. I can’t keep going as I used to.

Once in bed it took a while to go to sleep and there I stayed until about 06:35 when I awoke, once more drenched in sweat. There’s definitely something going on with this dialysis that I don’t understand.

It goes without saying, I suppose, that I went back to sleep again. I was certainly asleep when BILLY COTTON awoke me from the Dead.

Being awake was one thing. Leaving the bed was quite another thing completely. Mind you, I did (just about) beat the second alarm. And then I staggered off to the bedroom

After the bathroom it was the kitchen for the medication. And while I remembered the stuff that I can only take on a non-dialysis day, I forgot my blood-thinning medication. I’m definitely losing my touch, and probably my mind as well.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. Last night I was stacking things inside the van. It was already quite loaded. There was me and there was another person, a girl, helping me. We had some long, thin wooden boxes probably about two metres long, to put in the back. We were carrying them one by one. Someone suggested that we’d advance much quicker if we were to take two or three at a time between the two of us. We tried it with a couple but it was much wore awkward. Positioning them in the van was a problem because the girl with me always wanted to carry them on her left-hand side which meant that she was having to fight with the back door to put them in when she arrived. That was becoming rather difficult. We stacked them inside quite high. There was already a lot of things in there so we thought that we’d better find some way of strapping these in against the side of the wall or the other things that are already in there, strapping them up against them against the side of the wall that way so that they didn’t fall over because if they were to fall they would be quite something of a problem inside and the whole inside was something of a mess.

Whoever the girl was, I have no idea. She was small and lively, but not anyone whom I recognised immediately. However, stacking stuff into vans was the occupation of a lifetime once upon a time and regular readers of this rubbish will recall seeing a few photos of how I used to travel around Europe in the past.

Isabelle the Nurse is on duty for the next seven days. She is much more cheerful and was telling me about the float that she and her friends are building for Carnaval. She’s not telling me what it is though – it’s to be a surprise and won’t be unveiled until the day of the parade.

It’s now been announced that the football match has been postponed, which has now completely upset the timetable for the rest of the season. And I can press on, hours later than I was hoping.

So after Isabelle left I made my breakfast and then read some more of MY BOOK

His polemic by now is raging out of control and he condemns one of his colleagues in a manner that is quite unfitting in a published work, saying that "he blunders in a way which makes me hesitate to accept his statements about archaeological details that I have not myself studied" – a pretty outrageous remark for any academic to make, especially about a colleague.

He goes on to ask "How then would the professor and the doctor explain the fact that in the round barrows of the Yorkshire Wolds there was a reaction in favour of inhumation, seeing that Canon Greenwell 8 found in them 301 interments of unburnt and only 78 of burnt bones ?"

Christianity has been around for 2,000 years, but there are still plenty of Jews about. Protestantism has been around for almost 600 years, but there are still plenty of Catholics about. And going back to the “Dark Ages” of early Medieval times, there are many recorded instances of Christian Princesses being married to heathen Kings.

History shows us that several religions can live perfectly well side-by-side, and there’s no reason to suppose that things were different in Neolithic times. It’s quite possible to have two religions and two forms of dealing with dead bodies living in co-existence.

Back in here I revised for my Welsh lesson and hen went to class. We had, for the first time since I don’t know when, a full house of students and the class moved along smartly. I was once more quite satisfied with my progress, although my lack of memory is greatly hindering my vocabulary.

After the lesson it was lunch and a slice of flapjack with fruit, and then a very long and involved video chat with a friend in the UK who is carrying out a special project for me. We ended up discussing his holiday to Canada and, to my surprise, he liked everything that I didn’t and vice versa.

It was a Rosemaryesque conversation that lasted over an hour and it was very pleasant. It’s the only way that I get to see my friends these days and I do miss them all. Anyone else who wants a video chat some time, let me know.

Christmas cake break, very late, was next along with that disgusting protein drink, and then I started to work on the next radio programme. All of the songs are chosen, re-mixed, paired and segued and I’ve even begun to write the notes. That’s a job to be finished tomorrow I hope, in and around the shower I suppose, because it’s shower day tomorrow.

Tea tonight was a very rushed taco roll with rice followed by chocolate cake and chocolate soya dessert. Rushed because there was football on the internet. But I did remember to organise the lentils as well as some split peas that I found.

It’s the last match of the first half of the season as I mentioned earlier, the round having been postponed because of the issues with the pitch and the weather at Y Bala which has seen the Caernarfon game postponed three, or is it four times?

That match was played at Llandudno on Saturday, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, and so the final round, having been postponed while that game was still unplayed, took place tonight.

Both Cei Connah and Y Bala needed to win in order to qualify for the European playoff section of the league, and it was the Nomads who took advantage of the conditions. The first goal was an audacious lob from near the halfway line when a gust of wind lifted the fog briefly and enabled a Nomad to see the Bala keeper off his line.

They scored two more goals while Bala offered nothing whatever at all. It was all one-way traffic. But the match being called off saved Y Bala’s bacon. Some of tonight’s results mean that Cei Connah can’t possibly qualify, but Bala could if they have a good win. So if the match is replayed on Thursday, it might favour Bala.

But before I leave the story of the football match, there was a new recruit to the commentary team this evening.

Please excuse the poor quality but it’s a screenshot taken in the fog and so nothing will ever come out correctly. However it goes to show that gate-crashers can get in anywhere.

That is, except my bed (unless it’s Castor, TOTGA or Zero of course, and maybe Jenny Agutter and Kate Bush) because I’m going to climb into it in a moment, alongside STRAWBERRY MOOSE who keeps me company as much as he possibly can.

Tomorrow I’m radioing again and showering and pie-baking too. Maybe even bread-making. I’m certainly keeping myself busy.

Today, our Welsh class was discussing war. We were being asked about our family in wartime so I told them the story of my great grandfather who, after having long-since retired after his service in India and South Africa, dyed his white hair black, lied about his age and joined the Canadian Army in 1914, and also of my mother who served in the Royal Air Force in World War II.

I didn’t mention my distant great-great-cousin or whatever relation he was who was SENTENCED TO DEATH because, being a devout Quaker, he refusing to fight

One woman, the teacher from Nantwich, told the story of her father who was an Army dentist in Syria and the Western Desert in World War II.
One day he had to examine a group of volunteers to see if they were fit to join the Army and fight. One of them he was obliged to reject because his teeth were rotten.
"Blimey!" exclaimed the unlucky volunteer. "I know that we were expected to kill the enemy, but I didn’t know that we had to eat them afterwards."

Monday 13th January 2025 – I AM HORRIFIED …

… by how much *.html coding that I have forgotten.

It was almost 30 years ago that I wrote my first web page and after a couple of years of practice I was even teaching *.html 4.0 until new technology evolved faster than I could absorb it.

Nevertheless I soldiered on, upgrading to *.html 5.0, and both of my websites and the thousands of pages therein are entirely written by hand, with the only templates in there being those that I designed and wrote myself.

The design of the sites was last changed in 2007 and not since, because there isn’t much point. *.html 5.0 has long-since reached the peak of its development and still works fine. All that I have done is to introduce elements of Javascript as I have gone along, once I’ve mastered parts of it.

But today, I was on the point of adding in a couple of new features and do you know, I couldn’t even remember how I’d actually designed my site. Despite making the coding abundantly clear, with plenty of notes, I still had to pick the coding of a page apart to give me some idea of what I did.

And then I ran aground over a simple piece of Javascript.

But it’s slowly coming together and here on my blog, on the right-hand side, you’ll notice a “buy me a coffee” button. Something that has also happened today is that I’ve had the bill for my web-hosting and domain name registration so I’ll be passing around the begging-bowl. Renting my own piece of cyberspace is not cheap.

Something that didn’t happen last night was going to bed early. It was, as usual these days, much later than usual. It might, and indeed ought, to have been a little earlier but just as I was on the point of going to bed, a “Curved Air” concert came onto the playlist.

The first piece of music that I ever played in public was the piano riff to BACK STREET LOVE and Sonia Shaw can come and sing to me any time she likes, so the song, and the group, have a special place in my memory.

It didn’t take long to go to sleep and although it was something of a mobile night, I don’t really remember anything much at all, and I was certainly asleep when the alarm went off.

Once I’d hauled myself to my feet I staggered off into the bathroom and sorted myself out, including having a shave just in case Emilie the Cute Consultant is there this afternoon at the Dialysis Centre, 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 was taxiing last night on a motorbike. I picked up someone at the station in some town or other to take to the University. He sat on the back and we set off. When we came to the first bend, which was a turning on the right at some traffic lights, the lights were against us so we had to stop. When they changed to green I’d forgotten how to turn corners on a motorbike and I had a panic attack. In the end I managed basically to manoeuvre us around which was all an inconvenience but all my knowledge of riding a motorbike had been shot to pieces. I was on the wrong side of the road, the bike wasn’t sounding very nice. In the end the guy tapped me on the shoulder and said “if you just pull up here and drop me off, I’ll walk the rest of the way”. The Fare was £1:40 but he gave me £2:00, asked for the change from £1:60 and wanted a receipt that said “Fare £1:40, damages £0:15” and I’ve no idea why. I felt really embarrassed that the motorbike was showing me up today. It really really was a shame.

In Paris and many big cities there are motorcycle taxis that are available to hire. It’s much quicker for them to filter in and out of the traffic. In North America it’s illegal for a motorcycle to filter down through the traffic, which rather defeats the point of any motorcycle taxi, or any commuter motorcycle if it comes to that. And bearing that in mind, it’s amazing just how many quite common and normal things you aren’t allowed to do in “The Land Of The Free”.

But suddenly realising that you’ve forgotten how to ride a motor bike is not an ideal situation in which to be when one is halfway down the road. But at least it wasn’t a road in Crewe. I can still see the image of the road and it was down a hill at some traffic lights and a right turning underneath a railway bridge, something similar (but not identical) to coming down Wood Street towards King Street in Longton.

Thinking about it all though, long afterwards, this sudden panic attack about forgetting how to ride a motor bike is something similar to forgetting all about how I built my website, isn’t it? Bizarre, hey?

The nurse came round for his last day for a week. He was soon in and gone which was fine because I could push on and make my breakfast.

So armed with porridge, toast and coffee, I attacked MY BOOK.

We’re having a splendid argument about the name of the Isle of Man … "Isle of PERSON" – ed … today. Our author notes that Pliny called it Monapia and Caesar called it Mona and so the argument that is currently raging is whether it was the Brythons or the Goidels or the Belgae who so named it.

However, the “local” Welsh name for the Isle of Anglesey is Mona, and what both places have in common is that they are islands. Could it be, maybe, that Mona is simply an old word in an extinct language for “Island”?

He doesn’t seem to consider that possibility at all. But as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the word afon pronounced “avon” is Welsh for “river” so one could easily imagine a Roman or a Saxon or a Norseman asking a local “what’s the name of that place?” and the person replying in his own language “it’s the River”. And so we have the “River Avon” in several places in England.

Could the same thing not have happened when Caesar asked a local “what’s the name of that island?”. “Ohh, it’s just the island” he might have replied in his own language. Maybe I’m barking up a gum tree too, but I’m surprised that in all the 805 pages of his work, our author never even considers the possibility for a single moment despite everything else that he considers.

Back in here I attacked this website amendment that I wanted to do – a task that shouldn’t have taken me more than ten minutes. But when my cleaner came along two hours later to fit my patches, I was still far from finished. I have something that works in principle, but it’s not how I want it.

The taxi was late again, and once more it had these other two women in it. There’s no doubt that these new Social Security regulations are making everyone tighten their grip. No more squadrons of taxis streaming along the road between Avranches and Granville, and I can’t say that I’m surprised. In any case, we didn’t have a taxi today but the little Ford wheelchair carrier. And if I were back taxiing again, that’s what I would have now.

Being late at the clinic meant that everyone else was plugged in so I didn’t have to wait. The first pin was quite painless but the second, although not painless, was much easier and much less painless than Saturday. Mind you, as the anaesthetic wore off, then I knew all about it.

Emilie the Cute Consultant came to see me today. She asked if I needed anything, and I thought that it was a shame that I was in a public ward and not in a private room. She did bring me a prescription from the dietician for more of this awful drink. I suppose that I’ll just have to keep on going and learn to like it.

But a strange thing today – I was off having more of those hallucinations that I used to have all those months ago. And during one of them I felt as if I was stroking a cat. The “fur” felt so realistic too. I’ve no idea what that was about.

Once I was unplugged I had to wait for a few minutes for my car. But that was OK because it was the chatty blonde girl – the one with the long straight hair – who brought me home and I like travelling with her.

But it was freezing when we arrived back here and my poor cleaner was frozen to the marrow waiting for me. She watched as I climbed up the stairs, and now another part of the handrail is coming loose. It won’t be long before I’ll be stuck in this apartment for good.

Tea tonight was a delicious stuffed pepper with pasta, followed by chocolate cake and soya dessert. Plenty of stuffing from the pepper left over for a couple more meals. And then I’ll hopefully have my vegan pies ready by then, if I remember tomorrow to soak the lentils overnight.

So Welsh lesson tomorrow. And I’m not in the mood. However I suppose that I’ll have to do my best.

But while we’re on the subject of motor bikes and hospitals … "well, one of us is" – ed … one of the nurses today told me about a woman who had been rushed to hospital as an emergency.
Her husband had been riding a motor cycle and the police stopped him a few miles down the road.
"Excuse me, m’sieur" said the Gendarme. "Your wife fell of the pillion a couple of miles back"
"Thank heavens for that" said the man
"Thank heavens?" asked the Gendarme with a puzzled air
"Yes" replied the man. "I thought that for the last few minutes I’d suddenly gone deaf"

Sunday 12th January 2025 – GUESS WHO …

… forgot to put his lentils in the slow cooker overnight ready to make his vegan pies today?

That’s right, folks. Brain of Britain strikes again!

What I’ll have to do, if I remember, is to put them in the slow cooker overnight on Tuesday so that they are ready for baking on Wednesday. I can’t leave things another whole week or the pastry will walk out of the fridge on its own.

The thing about the lentils is that you put them in the slow cooker on high heat, and after about an hour when they begin to boil, you drain them off and rinse them. Then put them back in with fresh clean water and a variety of herbs and spices, and leave them on a slow setting for twelve hours by which time they should be cooked and taste nice.

Then fry some onions, shallots, garlic and a block of tofu (chopped finely) in a wok with herbs and spices and anything else you like (I used a tin of sweet corn last time),.

When it’s cooked, tip the lentils in and then simmer it right down with a stock cube, and then add a few handfuls of oats to stiffen the mix, and there you have your filling for a vegan pie. Mine will of course be different because I’ll probably be adding other stuff too, but I never know what, until the final moment.

That’s the thing about vegan cooking – you can experiment with all different kinds of things to see how it all ends up.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment, after I’d finished my notes I had some dictating to do – the eleventh or “missing” track from the programme that I recorded before Christmas, and then the one for this famous concert that I’ve been pasting together from a collection of off-cuts.

After that I should have gone to bed, but onto the playlist came Neil Young and a mammoth 16-minute version of DOWN BY THE RIVER and how is it possible for anyone to go to bed when Neil Young is singing “Down By The River”?

There once was a girl who "could drag me over the rainbow and send me away" but that ship sailed a long time ago.

So last night we ended up with a “Neil Young Live” playlist and it was horribly late once more when I went to bed.

Once in bed though, I stayed in bed fast asleep with just the odd awakening here and there. But I was definitely asleep when BILLY COTTON’S RAUCOUS RATTLE aroused me from my slumber. It’s not just “Peel’s view-halloo” that “could awaken the dead” or “the sound of his horn” that “brought me from my bed”.

Bearing in mind it’s Sunday and I’ve had a small lie-in, I can’t hang about and I was straight into the bathroom to sort myself out ready for today.

Back in here there was time to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was doing some 3D modelling during the night, making figures and shapes. I wanted to make the shape of a girl but when I looked on my workspace I already had made a shape that I wanted so I had to rework it into a different shape. While I was doing that the first girl disappeared so that meant that I could make this figure back into the shape that I wanted at the start. When it was finished there was no enemy or anything in sight so I just had to make any kind of poses on a hillside. Then this other girl came to join her and this was when it began to be complicated. I decided that I’d better rework the new arrival and make some other figure that wouldn’t be similar to the one that I had.

It’s been a while since I’ve done any serious 3-D modelling. But now that my adventure down in the Auvergne is over, there’s no real need for it – certainly not in this apartment. It might come in handy if ever I decide to join a Virtual World community but I don’t even have the time to cope with all of the problems that arise in this World, never mind another one.

And then I was staying in some boarding house somewhere. I’d only not long arrived. It had been concerned with a road accident in which a vehicle pulling out onto a main road had sent a small child hurtling through the air so everything had come to a standstill. I found myself at the front of the queue where I could see a car parked in the middle of the road, a person on his ‘phone and a small child lying in the roadway so I imagined that everyone would be ‘phoning the police and ambulance. There was also something quite interesting. At another road junction was a guy digging a hole in the road from underneath. To protect his head when he came out he had a wooden box that he put over the hole and he put his head in it to work. One car came over and flattened it. He raised his head again and another car stopped. This was a side-lift fork lift truck and it began to lift up this box. It lifted up this guy and his girlfriend with it and pulled them out of the hole. This began a huge argument and dispute with a lot of name-calling. When I arrived back at my little hostel place whatever there was another couple there being interviewed for signing in. They were two young people, quite tall, quite well-built and speaking in a North American accent. After they had signed in, they came into the room where the rest of us were sitting and asked if there were any other Canadians in here. I was on the point of working out whether I should speak to them in English or French to see whether they were Québecois or Anglophone.

That was a totally strange dream too, tunnelling up to the road surface and putting a box over your head and then being pulled out by a side-life forklift truck. There’s no doubt that my dreams are usually quite interesting, even if I have no idea of what has brought them to the forefront.

The nurse was late today. He’d probably had a lie-in too . He didn’t hag around long, so I could make my breakfast and read MY BOOK.

Apart from the usual scything and scathing remarks directed at his contemporaries, he notes that two of his colleagues consider that "a tall, broad-headed, dark-haired, light-eyed people ’, whom they regard as the descendants of the men of the Bronze Age ’, formerly inhabited Aberdeenshire, but were driven inland by later blond immigrants, who were shorter and had narrower heads ….. But is it the fact?" and then devotes a couple of pages in rubbishing their theories.

However, remember a week or so when we were discussing the presence of stone circles, menhirs … "PERSONhirs" – ed … and “nothing”? It looks to me as if his two colleagues do have some kind of case worth arguing.

On page 428 of his book, he attacks the arguments of a colleague by saying that "Very likely the round-headed race which he has in mind did not make its way across Europe unmixed ; but the mixture did not greatly diminish the roundness"

However, on page 445, he attacks another one of his colleagues because "his arguments, which I have examined fully elsewhere, do not prove that the dominant Celts among the Belgae were dark, but simply that, before they invaded Britain, they had become largely intermixed with an older dark population, and that, since they reached this country, they and their descendants have intermarried with people darker than themselves"

Leaving aside the question about “intermarriage” and that any cross-breeding of invader and native inhabitant is more likely to be by violence than by a priest turning up to bless the union, I’m trying now to work out how “crossbreeding” can cause one characteristic to be inherited to some great extent but not another to at least the same extent.

Back in here afterwards, there was football to watch. Clyde peppering the East Fife goal with shots and East Fife just having three shots on goal. Anyone care to guess the score?

And why was I watching that game? Because, once more, Stranraer’s game was postponed. And that’s just as well because Stranraer seems to have lost half its team in this transfer window so far.

Once the football was finished, I had the soundtrack of two radio programme notes to edit.

The first one was quite straightforward and hardly needed anything at all editing out – just the odd second or two which is no big deal.

The second one was this complicated concert and its notes. That overran by well over a minute and it’s really ironic that part of the vocal introduction that had given me some of the most difficulty was one of the parts that ended in the bin. It’s always like that, isn’t it?

The joins however where I’ve had to fade songs in and out and edit in a few rounds of applause seem to be done perfectly. I’m listening to it right now and I’m really impressed with those. But strange as it is, I’ve been using this sound-editing program for ten years and I’m still finding out tips and hints about it and making it work better for me.

There were several breaks – for making soup and a bread roll for a start. It was a beautiful leek and potato soup today with a pot of soya yoghurt and plenty of black pepper stirred in. The fresh bread roll, hot out of the air-fryer, made all the difference.

Later on, there was pizza dough to make. That went well too, and there are now two balls in the freezer and the third I rolled out, assembled and baked. And that was perfect.

So what’s going to happen at the Dialysis Centre tomorrow? Will it be another three and a half hours of excruciating agony? I don’t see what else it could be. In any respect I’m not looking forward to it.

But going back to these stone circles … "well, one of us is" – ed … archaeologists were puzzled by a strange, fossilised spiky animal that they had unearthed when they were excavating a stone circle somewhere
The took it to the Natural History Museum and found the curator. They asked him if he could identify it
"We found it when we were excavating that stone circle" said an archaeologist. "Do you know what it is?"
"Now that you told me where you found it, of course I do" said the curator. "It can only be a hengehog!"

Friday 10th January 2025 – THIS IS SOMETHING …

… like pretty hard work.

The piece of music, all 65 minutes of it, is not the original. It’s been hacked around quite a lot and the joins in between the pieces are awful. Consequently today, I’ve been tracking down the original sound recording.

And now that I have it, I can see exactly why it’s been hacked about as it has. It’s for a very good reason. Consequently I’ve decided to run with the hacked-about version and see if I can improve the joints, but it’s not easy. Not at all.

Actually, it was easier that that to go to bed before 23:00 last night. And how long is it since that has happened? I’d finished quite early everything that I needed to do and once I’d backed up the computer I went and sorted myself out ready for an early night.

Once in bed, it was totally painless. I was out like a light and remember nothing whatever until just about a couple of minutes before the alarm went off, and I’m not sure why.

Nevertheless I didn’t move until Billy Cotton ROARED HIS RAUCOUS RATTLE and then I staggered off into the bathroom for a good piece of scrubbing.

After that it was into the kitchen to take my medicine, including the powder that I’m supposed to take when it’s not Dialysis Day. Honestly, I’m so confused with all of this medication, when I’m supposed to take it and why.

After that I came back to listen to the dictaphone to find out what was on it. And to my dismay, there was nothing at all thereupon. However there was a lot of this medieval, early medieval, Roman kind of stuff going on last night all through my head. There was so much of it that it wasn’t possible to collate any of it. I just kept on going from one thing to another without a pause.

There was also something about another civilisation, a rabbit and a cat flap. And whatever all of that meant I really have no idea.

The nurse was early today. He clearly had no blood tests or injections to carry out. We had something of a chat this morning and then he cleared off, leaving me to it. I could then go to rescue my bread that I had kept away from his evil cutches and then prepare breakfast.

There was MY BOOK. to read too. And our hero is stuck, trying to read the enigma of the extinct Iberian People. They had a language all of their own that is yet to be deciphered. He’s trying to link it to the Basque language and while there are similarities, there aren’t enough to draw the conclusion that one is linked to the other.

He’s busy trying to probe the theory that the Basque people came from the Middle East via North Africa and the Straits of Gibraltar rather than the established route via Turkey. There’s some mileage in this but he has then to explain why the Celtic people were pushed West into Galicia rather than North, back into France from whence they came.

Nothing that he has found – the barrow culture, the burial customs, the size of the skulls and so on add up, but it’s not stopped him carrying on his aggressive criticism down into a level of personal attack and ad hominem.

Back in here later, I had a few things to do and then attacked the radio editing. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s not an easy programme to edit. Huge lumps have been cut out – and for good reason too, as I discovered when I finally found the master tape

Consequently it’s been a very, very slow process of trying to reassemble it into some kind of spontaneous, simultaneous concert without the missing bits (that are missing for a reason). Some of it went together really well, but other parts are not so good.

There is one thing though, and that is that I’ve managed to write the notes for it. However, I have a feeling that I’m going to have to make them longer so as to fit some of the large gaps that I’m sure that I’ll be having to make in the music before long

There were the usual interruptions today. Lunch of course, with my slice of nice flapjack, and then my cleaner came by to do her stuff, so for a few hours I had a nice, clean apartment.

There was Christmas cake break too with some of that disgusting protein drink, but the final interruption was the LeClerc delivery. I’d reviewed my order this morning, added a few things, taken away a couple, and then sent it off. So there I was, at 17:00, with a room full of food.

Some of it needed to go into the freezer straight away, some needed preparing before I could freeze it, some needed going in the fridge and then there was a head of broccoli and 2kg of carrots to wash, prepare, blanch and freeze.

There’s now a broccoli stalk and about a litre and a half of carrot and broccoli water ready to make some soup, but I’d forgotten about the leeks that I have left over. So it’s leek soup this coming Sunday followed by broccoli stalk soup the following weekend.

Tea tonight was a vegan salad with chips and falafel followed by chocolate cake and soya dessert. And we’ll keep on eating that until it’s all gone and then we’ll make some more, seeing as LeClerc delivered some more cocoa powder.

But I really need to be more adventurous in my baking. That apple cake that I made a few months ago, for example, that worked quite well. But what else can I make that’s simple but different?

On Sunday I’m going to make some Vegan pies wit that flaky pastry that’s left. I’ll make a base of lentils, tofu and oats, maybe some potato and I’ll have to think of what else I can put in there

However, I’ll worry about that tomorrow. Right now I’m off to bed because I’m exhausted. It seems that the more sleep that I have, the more I want.

In the meantime, seeing as we’ve been talking about ancient, dead languages … "well, one of us has" – ed … the Earl of Carnarvon discovered some writing that he didn’t understand on the wall of the inside of the Great Pyramid.
So after he died, he fund the ghost of Jean-François Champollion, the French hieroglyphics expert, who told him to tell him precisely what he saw.
"Certainly" said Carnarvon. "It’s ‘sacred maiden’ ‘hippopotamus’ ‘triangle’ ‘crocodile’ ‘rising sun’ ‘sacred maiden’"
So Champollion goes away to work out his translation, by reference to the Rosetta Stone.
Twenty years later Champollion contacted the Earl of Carnarvon to say that he had succeeded in translating it.
"What does it say?" asked Carnarvon eagerly
"It’s Tutankhamun leaving a note to his architect" he explains. "The first part asks if the architect can explain to him the difference between the door to the lavatory and the flap on the letter box"
"What did he say?" asked Carnarvon
"He said that he couldn’t right at this moment"
"So what did Tutankhamun reply?" asked Carnarvon
"He told him that he’d better find someone else to post his Pools coupon"

Thursday 9th January 2025 – IN A STARTLING …

… new development, putting the pins for the dialysis machine into my arm was totally painless. I’ve no idea what went wrong or went right, but here we are.

Mind you, that was at first. When the anaesthetic began to ease off I knew all about it. And so if it proves anything at all, it proves that this anaesthetic does actually work. And that’s good news too because I was beginning to have my doubts.

As for going to bed before 23:00, it’s not a question of having my doubts but more one of an absolute certainty that I’m never going to make it into bed by then.

A concert from the Marshall Tucker Band stopped me dead in my tracks last night, and it’s not just the Southern Rock music, but Southern Rock played sometimes on a flute, and in that, the Marshall Tucker Band is unique. But of course, what helps are the songs. Good old country-rock songs played with an energy that you don’t find in many places, and with Toy Caldwell on guitar.

If you’ve never heard them live, have a listen to BLUE RIDGE MOUNTAIN SKIES. "CAROLINA’S WHERE I’M AT, AND I’LL ALWAYS LAY MY HAT …". And I wish that I was at Carolina right now, for not the least of reasons that I can catch up with Rhys. It’s years since we last saw each other.

Anyway, have a listen to SEARCHIN’ FOR A RAINBOW. I can listen to Southern Rock music all night.

After the Marshall Tucker Band I went to bed, and there I stayed until about 06:55. I say “about” because I didn’t know the time. I’d just awoken and was musing on the idea of showing a leg but instead the alarm beat me to it.

After a trip to the bathroom for a wash and shave I went into the kitchen to take my medication, remembering to forget the anti-potassium powder that I’m not supposed to take on Dialysis Day.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. This was another one of these dreams that goes on for ever. It concerned a group of people, probably in their 30s. There was one woman quite in love with one of these guys but somehow or other they never quite hit it off. They had some kind of business together, this entire group did, and it involved cars. One Monday morning they went to check the cars and they found that her car had travelled 7,300km that weekend. They checked the tacograph and found that the tachograph had been removed. They checked the time, and it had been removed at something like 04:00 so they were trying to figure out exactly where the car had gone. They worked out that Vietnam was halfway of the distance so the car could have gone to Vietnam and back. There was certainly someone whom this woman knew in Vietnam so they were busily trying to work out how to approach this when they had another incident that required them to send another car to Vietnam. They thought that they would send this girl to see if she could repeat this journey. This Vietnam journey was more complicated because the woman to be picked up might not want to come. A couple of hours later they saw the woman and without saying anything about the tachograph they explained this new job to her. She understood it and seemed to be happy to go. They said that this woman must get into the car at all costs. “You should be prepared for difficulties but you shouldn’t hit her too hard”. This woman’s eyes opened and exclaimed “too hard?!?”. They explained again that “it’s because she has to climb into the car at all costs and you shouldn’t feel squeamish about having to persuade her. You have to do exactly what’s necessary to make her get into the car no matter how unpleasant it might possibly be to you”.

If someone can drive from Europe to Vietnam and back in a weekend they deserve a medal. And in any case, Vietnam is a darn sight more than half of 7,300kms away. However, that dream really was a vivid one and for some reason or other it’s stuck in my mind. I can’t see what relevance it has to anything that’s been going on around here.

The nurse was late coming today. He was armed with his blood-testing kit so that means that not all of his patients have given up on him and are waiting for Isabelle the Nurse. Apart from that though, he didn’t stay long and was soon gone. I could get on and make my breakfast.

MY BOOK is grinding along slowly. The author has spent this morning pooh-poohing the theories of several other writers on this theme, who probably at the same time were expending their energies pooh-poohing his theories.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall a reviewer who said that his book was "a flurry of argument and counter-argument" and I can certainly see what he meant.

Back in here afterwards I spent some time tracking down some music for the next radio programme. That’s all remixed and re-edited now but it needs to be cropped down as it’s likely to overflow my one-hour slot. Once I’ve done that tomorrow morning I can write the text, and then dictate everything on Saturday night.

Once again, I was caught unawares by the cleaner who came without my realising what time it was. She fitted my patches and then I had to wait for the taxi to arrive.

It was a new driver today so he was late, and wasn’t sure where I lived. Then I had to show him where our other passenger lived. Once we were all together we had a good drive down to Avranches.

With late starting, I was late arriving but as everyone else was early they were already plugged in so I didn’t have long to wait.

The dietician came to see me this afternoon, and someone brought me the details of an appointment that they have made for me with the heart specialist – in June. They believe in keeping up to date with everything. But that date is after I will have regained possession of my apartment downstairs. Look how quickly time is approaching.

But apart from that, they left me pretty much alone and I spent the time preparing an order for LeClerc which I’ll send off in the morning.

The girl who compressed my arm after the dialysis was over had volunteered because she wanted to talk to me about air fryers. And we had quite an animated and lively chat.

Being late starting meant that I was late finishing, but that was good news in a way because the driver who brought me home was a lovely young girl, complete with long brown hair, whom I hadn’t seen before. She was a very lively character and insisted that we speak English so that she could practise.

She has a love of travelling but hasn’t been far yet and is afraid of flying. However she has a burning desire to visit Canada, and I resisted the temptation to say that I’d carry her in my arms all the way there. Had I been 40 years younger and in good health, I wouldn’t have needed asking twice.

Back here my faithful cleaner watched as I made my way upstairs. And once I’d settled down I made some dough for bread

For tea tonight, I was doing my “Mr Carmichael” impressions and SUPPER WAITS ON THE TABLE INSIDE A TIN. I couldn’t think of anything else to do tonight – I wasn’t in the mood

So right now I have things to do and then I’ll go to bed. The bread has finished baking so that’s one less thing about which to worry I suppose.

But this talk about carrying the girl across the Atlantic in my arms reminds me of when I stumbled upon that woman at that lighthouse in Labrador.
She looked at me, looked at the car, a Chrysler PT Cruiser, looked at me and asked "have you driven from Baie Comeau in THAT?!?" – bearing in mind that the road from Baie Comeau to the Labrador coast was 1800kms of the worst-ever roads in the World.
"Ohh yes" I replied. "It’s not the car on roads like this, it’s the driver who makes the difference. And for my next visit to Canada, I’ll be crossing the Atlantic on a motor bike."

Monday 6th January 2025 – BACK AT WORK …

… as of today, and more of the same old stuff that characterised last year – namely that I wasn’t able to do anything because the medical issues interfered with my progress.

What interfered with my progress last night though was that a good concert appeared on the playlist just as I was thinking of going to bed. Shame as it is to admit it, I can’t remember which one it was now, but last night I enjoyed it to such an extent that I stayed up to listen to it, consequently it was quite late when I went to bed last night – again!

We somehow managed to survive the night without any phantom alarm calls upsetting our rhythm, although I do recall being awake once or twice at some point. However, when the alarm went off at 07:00 I was deep in the Arms of Morpheus

It was quite an effort to haul myself out of bed in order to beat the second alarm but I went nevertheless fairly rapidly (for me, anyway) into the bathroom to sort myself out.

As well as Yours Truly, there were some clothes to wash and a shave to have just in case Emilie the Cute Consultant comes to see me. I even applied some deodorant after the events of Saturday in the taxi when no-one spoke to me. You can’t ever be sure.

Into the kitchen next to take my medication, and it’s nice to do that – in fact it’s nice to re-adopt my old habits – without having to rush around at all. I’m fed up of always being in some kind of panic.

Back in here, I transcribed the dictaphone notes to see where I’d been during the night. It was something like the end of the month and there was an inventory of surgical interventions so everyone had to meet at the centre of the place where they had been hospitalised in the past and declare their reason for going. I was there waiting to be called when I heard a couple of girls say “there he is. Let’s take him and we can deal with him”. They came straight for me. I wondered whether they were the two twins whom we’d met on that island a few months back. These girls certainly meant business so I had to try to hide. After a while they worked out where I was and they stood outside saying things like “if you really are serious about waiting for the things that come you should go to Route Départementale n°9” – something like that, but itemising these lists, capitalising them and deals with them accordingly to make them all work as much as possible.

Returning to your place of business or place of origin sounds rather Biblical to me. But what twins did I meet on which island a few months ago? I have no recollection of any of that. But I hope that those twins bore a very close resemblance to THE FAMOUS TWINS OF AUSTIN POWERS. And if they did, I’m sorry, really sorry that I can’t remember them. And as for Route Départemental n°9, if there is one, it’s nowhere near anywhere where i have ever lived or travelled, but the RD 2009 is the road from Riom to Vichy which I have driven on many occasions.

I wondered why I awoke again quite dramatically and had this horrible feeling that no alarm had been set for Monday and I was going to miss my taxi that was going to take me to Dun Laoghaire and then Dundalk. I have no idea what I was going to do now. I just went to make sure that the lettuce was OK. I put some lettuce in the icebox so that it will keep and will be crisp when it comes round to deal with it and I should be able to place them on a map with no particular problem

If I did awaken dramatically, I have no recollection at all of it, and I’ve no idea why I might be going from Dun Laoghaire to Dundalk. However, it was a project of mine, long-abandoned, to profit from the collapse of the ferry network to the UK after Brexit and the positive flooding of the seas from Cherbourg, Caen and St Malo direct to the Republic of Ireland by catching a ferry direct to the Republic and, armed with a rucksack, a bus pass and a train ticket, to go to explore the island.

It was interesting nevertheless to see in the newspapers the whole raft of different redundant ferries being given berthing trials on those three French ports and in the Irish ports in the run-up to Brexit. This was to see which ones would be suitable for the Irish companies to buy so that they could run them direct without having to pass through a British port. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we even had one given a try-out in the port down here.

However – “icebox”? I’m dreaming in American – or maybe Canadian – now. Probably a reminder of happy times staying with my relatives, either with my niece in New Brunswick or my cousin in Ottawa. And that reminds me – I have a Fender bass and combo amp over there somewhere that I must repatriate.

Then there was a dream about orcs moving all around the countryside causing all kinds of chaos so I had a look at my arm to check on what the nurse had done and stayed done but I found that my little kitchen place and rest room had been wiped out by the rest room and checking, or the moist of the checking that what they had now was a really big car park (…fell asleep here …)

It’s no surprise that this dream, based on LORD OF THE RINGS that I’m currently watching disintegrated into a pile of nonsense. But for the benefit of new readers, of which there are more than just a few these days, I don’t actually fall asleep because I’m already asleep when I’m dictating. What happens is that my dictation tails off into silence and then you’ll hear a snore. And I’m sorry for doubting you, Percy Penguin.

Did I dictate that dream … "no you didn’t" – ed … about me being in Gresty on my way back home and going to bed and there was some kind of discussion somewhere about someone’s homework? In the end I decided that I was going to help that person, whoever it was, to do that homework because there was something in there that interested me. So next morning I was in bed and someone came up to see me and asked about something. I replied “the reason why I’m still here was because I’m hoping to give you a hand with the homework” so whoever it was who came to see me asked “would you like a cup of tea?” to which I replied “yes” so they wandered off presumably to make the tea

Helping someone with their homework? What help would I be? And tea would be no use for me either. However, note once more that I’m “back in the family”. I wish that they would leave me alone.

There was no-one here to fit my anaesthetic patches so, regrettably, I had to do it myself. And that was the most disagreeable task that I have done for a while. I couldn’t look at my arm at all. I had to close my eyes, tear off the plasters that they had fitted on Saturday and put these patches on with my eyes closed and hope that I had found the correct place.

The taxi was on time for me. It was the young chatty guy and he already had a lady in the back, so the three of us had a lovely, lively ride down to Avranches. And it would have been even livelier had the driver of a car at a roundabout not switched his indicator off at the very last minute just as we were about to pull out.

So they took me to the clinic and dropped me off where I discovered that I’d forgotten to bring all my paperwork with me. It didn’t take them long to call me in but the process lasted for an age. We had an interesting chat though while it was all going on.

Back outside, I had to wait and wait for the taxi to come. he had another person with him and we had to pick up a third too. They were going to Granville but I was being hurled out at the Dialysis Clinic as they drove past.

It was 13:00 when I was finally plugged in and that’s long after the anaesthetic patches have ceased to have any effect. You don’t need me to tell you how the plugging in went.

The good news is that Emilie the Cute Consultant came to see me and we had a chat for a while. I even gave her a demonstration of how to access a password-protected file on a website – not that I would ever do such a thing in real life, perish the thought and all that. But what a wonderful course T223 was.

She asked me if there was anything else I wanted. I could of course think of a few things, but that wasn’t the moment to mention them, I reckon. Not when one is plugged into a medical machine.

Some other good news was that I struck gold again today. I was looking for something on the internet concerning the Norse voyagers and came across a whole pile of literature that I had missed. Most of it is available on MY FAVOURITE SITE but some is only available to Academic researchers and my Academic connections have long-since lapsed.

As I said yesterday, this pile of stuff that I have to read is growing longer.

The taxi that was to bring me home kept me waiting for a while before it turned up, with the result that I was only about 45 minutes ahead of where I would usually be. And that’s after spending almost a whole day out. It hardly seemed worth it.

Tea tonight was a stuffed pepper with pasta, followed by chocolate cake and soya dessert. There is plenty of stuffing left over which is good because many regular readers of this rubbish will recall that they have suggested that I want stuffing, and now I have plenty.

So bedtime ready for my Welsh course that restarts tomorrow, not that I’m looking forward to it at all. But I have to keep up.

A few weeks ago I mentioned the story of the Fertility Clinic. Emilie the Cute Consultant mentioned the story about a woman who went to the Clinic because her husband had lost interest in her.
"Here" said the doctor. "Take these pills. Slip one in his coffee and he’ll soon be back to his teenage years "
A week or two later he saw the woman walking down the street. "How did you get on?" he asked
"I slipped one into his coffee" she said "and it was wonderful. The sparkle came back into his eyes, he threw me across the table, tore off my clothes, tore off his, and gave me a really good seeing-to just like he did years ago"
"That’s wonderful" said the doctor. "But are there any side-effects?"
"I don’t know if it’s a side-effect" she replied "but they won’t let us go back into that café."

Thursday 26th December 2024 – MY CHRISTMAS PUDDING …

… is just as excellent and tasty as last year.

For pudding tonight I tried a helping with some nice custard and it really was delicious. This lot will be all gone at the end of this holiday season and I’ll have to make some more for next year if I’m still here, and I hope that if I do, it will be just as tasty as that which will have gone before.

Anyway, retournons à nos moutons as they say around here. Last night, it was quite late by the time that I’d finished my notes and done my backing-up, but I didn’t go straight to bed. It’s the holiday season so I stayed up and listened to some of my live concerts from the past.

One of them that came round was a Lindisfarne concert, the one at Newcastle upon Tyne City Hall in either 1977 or 1978. It’s the best time to listen to Lindisfarne, Christmas-time, especially with one of their Newcastle ones.

And they have some very happy memories for me. There was a big Lindisfarne fan club, of which I was a member, at school and I went to see the group in 1971. That was the famous concert where most of the group were locked out, leaving the harmonica player alone on stage playing his 10-minute harmonica solo for 25 minutes, and where I led my rather young girlfriend astray, much to the anger of her parents.

OH WHAT IT IS TO BE YOUNG, hey?

So somewhere round about 02:00 I called it a night and staggered off to bed, and there I stayed, sound asleep until about 07:40.

Yes, 07:40. I’d decided that as it was a Bank Holiday I’d set the “Sunday” alarm, which goes off at 08:00. However something rather dramatic awoke me. Once more, I’ve no idea what it was but I was awake, bolt-upright, with no possibility of going back to sleep.

When the alarm went off at 08:00 I was already up and about, having a good wash and a good shave just in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon. Then back in here to listen to the dictaphone and await the arrival of the nurse. There was a group of natives wandering around somewhere. I happened to join them as part of their trip was taking me past one of the sites that I wanted to visit. I noticed that for breakfast every morning two guys there ate nothing but breakfast so I asked the chief what was the story behind this. He replied that whatever it was (…fell asleep here …) anyway the special meal that they had was taco rolls. They made the taco themselves by heating oil in a pan and dropping a few spoonfuls of this liquid in it. The heat caused the liquid to solidify into the taco and was really quite nice and was going to save me all of £20:00 on the delivery

So I’m now writing cooking recipes in my dreams. But that recipe is pretty much like a Breton crèpe recipe or even how bread would be baked out on the trail in the Nineteenth Century in North America and elsewhere, and probably even today in certain places. And if it’s going to save me twenty quid with every LeClerc delivery, then I’ll certainly be trying it.

The nurse didn’t stay long today. He was in and out and that was that. Then I could make breakfast and continue to read MY BOOK.

We’re now wandering around Dartmoor, where "like the people who dwelt on the Yorkshire Wolds, the inhabitants were poor and backward ; for the extreme scarcity of spindle- whorls and the abundance of the flint scrapers used for leather-dressing that lay scattered in their abodes seem to show that they were commonly clad in skins"

One thing that the upland areas of the British Isles, like Dartmoor and the Yorkshire Wolds, had in common and in abundance, was wildlife. Down in the fertile valleys and lowland plains, the pressure of population would have meant that most of the wild animals would either have been driven off or hunted. There would still be plenty up in the hills, so there would be plenty to skin and catch, and no need to make clothing out of cloth

This way of thinking can be seen in places like Canada. Stone and then brick have long-since been used in the construction of houses in most Western countries but they are still built in wood in rural Canada because there is just so much of it so close by.

After breakfast I came back in here for a relax for a couple of hours and then had to go to prepare myself for departure.

It’s a good job that we were ready early tonight because the taxi, booked for 12:30, turned up at 12:08. The driver has to go up the coast to pick up someone else and seeing as he was already in Granville, he thought that he may as well come here first.

Not that I’m complaining. These new Social Security rules means that I’m having loads of guided tours of all different parts of Normandy, seeing the sights and so on. It’s getting me out of the house and, as regular readers of this rubbish have remarked, I ought to get out more often.

Having picked up our passenger we had a belt all the way down the express road south and then off towards Avranches, where we arrived early.

Just for a change, I was one of the first to be plugged in and although the first pin was totally painless, the second one killed me. I have never had such a painful experience in the Dialysis Centre as this one, and I can still feel it even now.

There were no interruptions today, which was just as well. After I’d had my usual doze, I watched the football – Caernarfon v TNS.

Caernarfon were doing really well at one stage, with the score at 2-2, but two killer goals in just a couple of minutes killed off the tie and TNS even scored a fifth later in the game.

TNS’s play was much more technical and competent, but Caernarfon’s tactics of the long ball over the top for Louis Lloyd, their lightning-fast winger to chase, had TNS’s rather pedestrian defence in a few difficulties here and there.

After they disconnected me I went to look for my taxi and it was already outside so, for a change, I was home really early after all of that. The driver who brought me home was the young, chatty lad and we had an interesting conversation all the way home.

Coming back up the stairs was easier tonight than it has ever been in recent times, and I was soon back in here where I watched the highlights of the rest of today’s games. And today’s results, with Llansawel’s dramatic victory against Cardiff Met, means that Y Drenewydd have been sucked into the relegation dogfight.

Tea tonight was a delicious leftover curry with naan bread followed by a delicious Christmas pudding and custard (I still have a small amount of custard powder left)

So now that I’ve finished my notes I’m going to hang around for a while before going to bed and have sweet dreams of Castor, Zero and TOTGA.

But talking about that dream of making taco rolls and home-made field bread … "well, one of us is" – ed … the recipe is actually in the Boy Scout cookbook
The Scouts were introduced by Lord Baden Powell when the British Army was blockaded by a group of recalcitrant Dutch farmers in Mafeking in South Africa. He became a War hero and later went on to write a book to encourage young boys to take up the outdoor life.
One day, someone went into a bookshop in London and asked "may I have a copy of Lord Baden Powell’s autobiography, please?"
"He never wrote an autobiography" said the sales assistant. "He only ever wrote one book. It’s called ‘Scouting for Boys’"
"Isn’t that his autobiography then?"

Wednesday 18th December 2024 – IT’S REALLY HARD …

… to believe that this time next week we’ll all be sitting around stuffing ourselves with mince pies and turkey.

Well, you might but you can rule out the turkey from my point of view and if I don’t find any motivation from somewhere very soon, I won’t be eating any mince pies either. I don’t think that I’ve ever felt less like Christmas than I do this year.

At least the Christmas cake is something worth eating. I opened the oven door this afternoon and the whole building was overwhelmed with the smell of fresh-baked spices, and my faithful cleaner had something to say about it. So at least there will be something for Christmas.

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I’ve told the nurse not to bother calling on Christmas Day. I’m going to have a lie-in and savour the day at my ease.

That is, unless the lie-in was anything like this morning’s.

Last night wasn’t all that late going to bed – about 23:30 or something like that, and once in bed I was asleep quite quickly.

And there I lay, without moving a muscle or anything else until all of 06:45 when for some unaccountable reason I sat up bolt-upright, wide awake. I’ve no idea at all what disturbed me, but whatever it was, it must have been pretty good.

Just as I was deciding whether or not to leave my stinking pit, BILLY COTTON made up my mind for me, bellowing his raucous rattle loud enough to awaken the dead.

Once I’d managed to stagger to my feet I wandered off into the bathroom to sort myself out and then into the kitchen for a drink to wash down my medication.

Back in here afterwards I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night but to my surprise there was nothing on it at all. It must have been a deep sleep

However, do not be downhearted because when I awoke this morning I was actually away on my travels and I remember everything so clearly too, even now. What I remember was that we were in some kind of derelict, run-down city and we were going to a party. We were four of us, and three were going in one car with some members of someone’s family, not mine, I was going in another car with another group of people. We were waiting in this street for this taxi to arrive. There was me, a friend of mine and a girl, and the friend of mine was dating her. We were waiting in this street for a car to come to pick us up. We saw something that was of interest a little further down the street so we wandered off down there. We went past an Indian restaurant where there was a waiter outside trying to entice us in. For some reason the prices were hanging from an awning above the door. We couldn’t reach it or see it so we carried on walking a little further and then a little further. We came to a T-junction with an Insurance Company across the street. It didn’t look like an Insurance Company – it was several shops. Then I happened to look up and I could see the name of the Insurance Company in a window so it was obviously in the offices that were above the shops. We went over there, past another Indian Restaurant where there was another waiter outside trying to cajole us in. Again, the prices were out of reach so we couldn’t see them. This girl remembered something about one of the addresses in this street so she went over to have a look at the numbers so we followed her. The number that she wanted was 200-and-something but we were in the 120s or something. We had a look, and it was a run-down street with all kinds of old terraced houses of all different styles. We turned round and slowly began to walk back. Suddenly this girl took off like a rocket to run down to the far end of the street where we’d been waiting at first. The guy, he asked “what’s the matter with her?”. I didn’t have a clue. She hadn’t said a word but she just took off. The thought went through my mind that maybe she’d seen the car in the distance that had come to pick us up. I was totally unable to run and having trouble walking so there was no way that I could run after her so I really had no idea what was going to happen next. And it was right at this point that I sat up bolt-upright

And if anyone wants to know where this took place, it was in Stoke on Trent, on one of the side streets off Campbell Road near the old football ground. I can see it quite clearly in my head even now. However who the people were, I have no idea about them either but the girl was dressed all in red, a red tee-shirt and red shorts. It was a totally bizarre dream.

Isabelle the Nurse didn’t stop here long this morning. She admired the decorations again, oiled and greased my legs, fitted my compression socks and then cleared off. In and out in just a couple of minutes.

After she’d left I made breakfast and carried on reading the report of this excavation.

They are slowly coming round to the idea that the farm and its buildings were demolished with purpose, rather than being a random act of wanton and gratuitous destruction. Non-reusable material seems to have been put carefully into a ditch rather then being left scattered around, and there is no trace of anything lying around on the surface that might have been useful.

In one of the cellars though, it’s a different story. There, they have found a rather large grinding wheel of the type that would be used in a mill for grinding corn. It’s hand-powered, so that was probably a task undertaken by slaves.

Slaves would have been plentiful back in those days. There were no such things as prisoner-of-war camps and a victorious army would have a pile of useless mouths on its hands. Anyone important would be ransomed, sometimes making his captor a very rich man indeed. But if there was no-one to ransom you or you weren’t wealthy, then if you were lucky you’d be sold into slavery by your captor. If you were unlucky, you would be slaughtered.

And believe it or not, there were also people who gave themselves voluntarily into slavery. In a society were there was no welfare, if your crops failed, you and your family would starve to death. However, a slave-owner had the obligation to feed, clothe and house his slaves which, let’s face it, wasn’t much less than the life of an early medieval peasant anyway. So if the alternative was to starve to death, then slavery was an option that some people considered.

Back in here I had a few things that I wanted to do and that took me up until lunchtime. The after lunch my cleaner came round to do her stuff.

One of her tasks, according to this Association thing that has taken me in charge, is to help me with my grande toilette. We interpreted that as being the shower and so every Wednesday is shower day.

It was beautiful in there again today and I really enjoyed every minute of it. I didn’t really want to climb back out.

Still, back in here I began to find the music for the next radio programme and by the time I was ready to knock off for tea, not only had I found what I wanted but it had been remixed, paired off, segued and some of the notes had been written.

There had been a big interruption too. There was the afternoon hot chocolate break and then I made some dough for the naan bread for the next few weeks. But we’ve hit a tragedy, and that is that the soya yoghurt has frozen in the fridge and when it does that, it all separates out. I must order some more if I can.

Nevertheless, my leftover curry tonight was another good one, and the naan was cooked to perfection. Things are looking up around here and will be even better when I’m downstairs. Pretty much like only five months to go and then I can install myself in my own place. Won’t that be good?

So tomorrow I’m at the Dialysis Clinic and what I’ll do will be to prepare my order for LeClerc. I may as well make some good use of the time that I’m there

But the cleaner, when she came up, brought me a pile of post that had accumulated in my mailbox downstairs.
There were a couple of bills that needed paying so I had a close look at them, because I like to try to keep on top of things like that.
One of them concerns my taxe foncière from my current département of La Manche
"Please connect to the internet at the following address and make a bank transfer by electronic means"
The other is from from the Crewe Municipal Council where I used to live years ago.
"Please take the enclosed stone tablet, chisel your bank account details in block hieroglyphics thereupon and send it by native bearer to the Council’s Accounts Cave, situate …."

Monday 16th December 2024 – JUST FOR A CHANGE …

… the session at the Dialysis Centre this afternoon was almost totally painless. I don’t understand that at all

Added to that, I was lucky enough to have had a visit from Emilie the Cute Consultant. She came to see how I was and if I needed anything. Anything medical, that is.

Mind you, whatever rift we have had hasn’t healed quite yet because our chat was quickly business and she didn’t say “goodbye” as she left. It’s fair to say that she doesn’t love me any more, and that’s sad, especially after our cosy chats in the Summer with her perched on the edge of my bed, spending hours discussing nothing in particular.

What else that doesn’t happen any more is me being in bed at a reasonable time. Once more, it was long after midnight when I crawled into my stinking pit but as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … much as I would like to be in bed before 23:00, I’ve given up rushing and am now taking things easy. I’ll go to bed at whatever time I happen to finish.

Once in bed though, it didn’t take long to go to sleep and there I stayed, dead to the World, until the alarm went off at 07:00.

BILLY COTTON’S DULCET TONES aroused me from my slumbers and I staggered off into the bathroom to prepare myself for the ordeal

As well as a good wash, I had a shave and then washed my undies ready for Wednesday when I hope to have another shower and make myself all nice and clean. These showers are not very convenient only once per week. When I have the apartment downstairs and the shower is all nicely installed, I’ll be having a shower every Dialysis morning, and probably a few more besides

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. To my surprise and disappointment, there was nothing on there this morning but I have vague memories of being a singer/songwriter being at some kind of concert, or going to play at some kind of concert. We had to arrive at a certain time and camping was very sauvage in a field. When I arrived there was already a mobile home with someone and a tent from someone else. There were some restrictions on what you can play – you couldn’t play anything that anyone else was going to play etc. That’s really all that I remember of that.

Pretty much similar to what happens at the Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival in Fredericton. Camping is on the National Park out by the reservoir and although the pitches are pretty well set out, it’s still quite wild camping and every now and again a deer or a raccoon scurries across your path.

But not as wild as that camping ground in Upstate Maine where I stayed one night, where everyone was told to make sure that all their food is kept well inside their vehicle as the bears that roam through the place at night will otherwise steal it. As the Park Ranger explained to me, "there’s a considerable overlap of intelligence between the smartest of bears and the dumbest of tourists, and we have them both here"

In the wild of course, you’d throw a rope over a branch, tie your sack of provisions to one end of the rope and then pull the sack up aloft, out of reach of the bear.

It’s certainly though a case of “disappointment” that there’s nothing on the dictaphone. Something else that I’ve said before … "and also on many occasions too" – ed … is that the only excitement that I have these days is what goes on during the night.

The nurse was early again and didn’t say much. He’s probably still smarting from yesterday. He was in and out in five minutes, which suits me fine, and then I could carry on with something more exciting.

Like making my breakfast and reading my book. It’s the story of the accidental discovery of a Roman … "Gallo-Roman! GRRRR!" – ed … building on a field, which led to an archaeological investigation that uncovered a farm dating from the 1st Century BC to the 4th Century AD

At the moment they are digging down and have uncovered a cellar with the steps that go down to it

The site isn’t as rich in artefacts as any site in the UK. That’s mainly because there never was the dramatic rupture of private life of the inhabitants as there was in the UK with the arrival of the Saxons, then the Danes, then the Normans.

Anyone abandoning the site in France generally had time to pack up and take his possessions with him, or if not, come back and fetch them when the emergency was over. In the UK, the arrival of the barbarians led to wholesale destruction and massacre, with nothing left worth taking and no-one left alive to take it anyway.

It’s the difference between “orderly evacuation of a site” and “panic-stricken flight”.

Back in here I carried on with my Welsh homework, but it wasn’t finished when my cleaner came to fit my anaesthetic patches. I’m leaving early today to go to the hospital.

The taxi came, driven by a very taciturn driver, and what he lacked in conversation he made up with speed and we had one of the quickest trips that I have ever had down to Avranches.

He pushed me in a wheelchair to the X-Ray Department and there he left me, although he may as well have waited because I was in and out before he’d probably had time to find his way out of the building.

Armed with some pretty impressive photos of my foot, I waited for the next taxi to arrive, and a very pleasant woman took me over the road to the Dialysis Centre.

For a change I didn’t have to wait long to be seen, and the plugging in was almost totally painless. I had the usual crash out once the machine started and then everything went OK.

As I said earlier, Emilie the Cute Consultant came to see me but our conversation was on a professional level. The two of us, and Anaïs who seemed to be the nurses’ shift leader, had a chat about my forthcoming trip to Paris and they could indeed, exceptionally, fit me in on the Wednesday morning beforehand.

That’s quite inconvenient, but it can’t be helped, I suppose. And I thought that I’d better arrange it and tell Paris what I’d done rather than leave it to them and find that they have forgotten to do it.

As for reading matter, I came across a book about infamous Cheshire personalities. And to my surprise, I’m not in it. But the author is an unashamed and unrepentant fan of that politician who was called A LIAR AND A CHEAT by the Grauniad and never ever went through with his promise to them for libel, something that led many people to wonder what might come out in evidence if he actually did take the paper to Court, and why might he be afraid of it so doing.

He champions several other Cheshire people who were caught up in various allegations of sleaze and dishonesty, and one thing that all these people had in common was that they were all members of the Conservative Party when he wrote his book.

Most of them have by today though been found even too extreme for even the current batch of Tory politicians and have been pushed out to the Fascists where they belong. But I digress. These pages aren’t about politics.

When the time came I was uncoupled, and clutching the Christmas present that the Dialysis Centre gave to each one of us, I headed out to the taxi that was already waiting.

The run back home was quick and I was soon back in the warmth of my lovely apartment.

Tea tonight was a delicious stuffed pepper with pasta in tomato sauce, followed by ginger cake and soya dessert.

Tomorrow there’s no Welsh lesson, but I have homework to finish and then I’m baking my Christmas cake. I can’t believe how quickly Christmas has come. It has taken me by surprise and I’m nothing like ready. But this evening I installed my strings of lights in the windows here and they look quite nice, seen from the street.

Before I go to bed, on the subject of professional behaviour, at the hospital today I overheard two doctors conversing
"Didn’t I see you last night" said one "in the company of Madame X, the notorious local prostitute?"
"I’m afraid that you did" replied the other. "But you needn’t worry. It was for purely professional reasons"
"I don’t doubt you for a moment" answered the first. "The question simply is, were the reasons concerned with your profession or hers?"

Friday 13th December 2024 – IT’S FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH …

… today and so far nothing disastrous has happened. Mind you, there’s still three hours yet to pull defeat from the jaws of victory so I’m not relaxing yet. But as soon as I finish these notes I’ll be scrambling off to bed, pulling the quilt tightly around me and praying that the ceiling doesn’t drop down on my head

That was what I should have done last night – scrambled off to bed as soon as I’d finished my notes but the new reformed me, desperate to chisel out of my busy schedule some private time for myself, stayed up for a while and loitered around cyberspace until … errr … let’s just say “some time later” than 23:00.

Once in bed though, I had another sound sleep all the way through to … errr … 06:05, when I note from the dictaphone that I was awakened by a phantom alarm call. How many of those have we had just recently?

Having said that, when Billy Cotton let forth his RAUCOUS RATTLE I was fast asleep and it was something of a struggle to make it to my feet before the second alarm sounded.

In the bathroom I had a good scrub up and then went into the kitchen for a drink and to sort out the medication. I really wonder how long I’ll have to keep up all of this. Mind you, bet that I’ll order a further pile of medication in mid-January,, only to have my prescription amended when I’m in Paris on the 23rd

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out what went on during the night. I’ve told you about the phantom alarm, but there was other stuff too. When I was in bed I was dreaming that Steve Knightley came along and began to play COUSIN JACK and began to give a talk on how the song was made, how the song was formed etc. I was asleep me room down a corridor in some old Victorian building. I had to get up, make sure that my shorts were on but I couldn’t find my socks anywhere in the room and I had a really good look for them and couldn’t see them at all

Then I dreamed that a load of folk musicians like “A Show of Hands” and a few others came to awaken me and make me leave the bed. When they turned up in my room I had just awoken so I wasn’t exactly asleep but I wasn’t really awake either. Then they had this huge discussion about should they search me for searching the lyrics to one of the songs that they’d play. They all had something of a discussion about it. In the end one stepped forward and ripped off my blouse and found that I was actually wearing the shorts with this particular music written on it. So again another chat ensued, during which I escaped out of the centre where I’d been sleeping. Of course, they didn’t notice until after I’d gone, when they began to have a guilty chat amongst themselves

All this probably has some relation to the famous comment of Kim Howells, who said in 2001 that "listening to three Somerset folk singers sounds like hell". At the time, he was a Junior Minister in the UK’s Ministry of Culture

Steve Knightley replied by singing that his"idea of urban sprawl is a pub where no-one sings at all"

The nurse was early again today, and decided once more that I don’t need any more plasters on my leg. But I’m not going to file them under CS quite yet. I’ll speak to Isabelle the Nurse and make sure that she agrees.

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

He’s finally made it onto dry land at what was then Buffalo Creek but which is today the city of Buffalo. He and his friends have engaged native American guides to conduct them through the forest towards New York.

His observations are remarkable though. He comments that "the varied hues of the woods at this season of the year, in America, can hardly be imagined by those who never have had an opportunity of observing them ; and indeed, as others have often remarked before, were a painter to attempt to colour a picture from them, it would be condemned in Europe as totally different from any thing that ever existed in nature"

Those are comments with which I concur wholeheartedly. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, it’s always been my habit until recently to go across the Atlantic at the end of August and stay there for several months, as the autumns and early winters there are fantastic and the colours of the leaves are unforgettable

Talking about several treeless plains that he encounters on his way back from the Lakes to New York he notes that "very different opinions have been entertained respecting the deficiency of trees on these extensive tracts of land, in the midst of a country that abounds so generally with wood. Some have attributed it to the poverty of the soil; whilst others have maintained, that the plains were formerly covered with trees, as well as other parts of the country, but that the trees have either been destroyed by fire, or by buffaloes, beavers, and other animals … It appears to me, however, that there is more weight in the opinion of those, who ascribe the deficiency of trees on the plains to the unfriendliness of the soil … Dutch farmers, who have made repeated trials of the soil, find that it will not produce wheat or any other grain, and, in short, nothing that is at all profitable except coarse grass. I make no doubt but that whenever a similar trial comes to be made of the soil of the plain to the westward, it will be found equally incapable of producing any thing but what it does at present."

After the Native Americans were expelled from their land on the Plains in the States of Oklahoma and Kansas, those Plains were settled by farmers who ruthlessly and relentlessly ploughed up everything and planted as much as they could on what was perceived to be the fertile plains of the Mid-West. This led to the legendary “Dust Bowls” in the 1930s and the flight of tens of thousands of impoverished “Okies” to California and Chicago.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall accompanying me in 2002 to THE HIGH PLAINS OF WYOMING – the Plains taken from the Native Americans after “Wounded Knee” in 1894 and farmed extensively, making millionaires out of people like “Judge Garth” of the “Virginian” fame, who had millions of head of cattle roaming around up there. And when we went for a look, we found nothing but a dust bowl and abandoned shacks where farmers had fled from the land that they had destroyed.

He’s also still going on about the preoccupation of the European Americans with money and profit. He notes that "we were particularly struck with the prospect from a large, and indeed very handsome house in its kind belonging to a Major Wadsworth, built on one of these hills. The Genesee River, bordered with the richest woods imaginable, might be seen from it for many miles,, meandering through a fertile country, and beyond the flats on each side of the river, appeared several ranges of blue hills rising up one behind another in a most fanciful manner, the whole together forming a most beautiful landscape. Here, however, in the true American taste, the greatest pains were taking to diminish, and, indeed, to shut out all the beauties of the prospect. Every tree in the neighbourhood of the house was felled to the ground; instead of a neat lawn, for which the ground seemed to be singularly well disposed, a wheat held was laid down in front of it; and at the bottom of the slope, at the distance of two hundred yards from the house, a town was building by the major, which, when completed, would effectually screen from the dwelling house every sight of the river and mountains. The Americans, as I before observed, seem to be totally dead to the beauties of nature, and only to admire a spot of ground as it appears to be more or less calculated to enrich the occupier by its produce."

There’s no doubt that some of his prophecies were remarkably and surprisingly accurate

All throughout the day I’ve been working on my next radio project. This has involved speaking, would you believe, to one of the artists who was on the stage performing at the first Glastonbury Festival back in 1970 and who very kindly sent me a rare recording of himself and his friends performing one of their numbers. I also managed to track down a copy of the very first ever song performed at the very first Glastonbury Festival.

However, that’s not true. It’s a little-known fact that there was a series of Glastonbury Festivals between 1914 and 1925 but when it was revealed that the organiser was a paid-up card-carrying member of the Communist Party who debased the Nativity with a crude joke, his festivals were quickly brushed under the carpet.

There were interruptions for lunch, for my cleaner and for my hot chocolate break, but most importantly, I’ve selected all of the music that I need, tracked it down, downloaded it, edited it, paired it, segued the pairs and written about half of the notes. That’s what I call a good day’s work.

Tea was vegan nuggets with chips and vegan salad, delicious as always, especially when followed by home-made ginger cake and soya dessert. I am lucky.

So now I’m going to bed, and probably dream of folk singers again as I now have Lindisfarne round on the playlist.

But going back to Kim Howells, it reminds me of the French schoolboy who was asked "can you list the factors that separate modern Homo Sapiens from the Palaeolithic Humanoid Stone Age culture?"
The little boy puts his hand up and says "please Sir – it’s la Manche – the English Channel"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wednesday 13th November 2024 – I HAVE FINISHED …

… the second radio programme, the notes of which I also dictated on Saturday night.

This one was much more complicated than the last one but because of my little program it was all done, finished and dusted off much quicker.

It helps having used an array for the numbers rather than entering them manually whenever they needed to be changed, so let’s all give it a big hand … "hip, hip, array" – ed …

Last night I had a lot of things to do and as a result I didn’t go to bed until late, long after my ideal time of 23:00 but one thing that I can say is that I had the best sleep that I have had for ages. I awoke once during the night as far as I can remember, but I was asleep very quickly afterwards so I didn’t pay much attention

When the alarm went off, three girls had just come round to my apartment. I was still in bed but I was wide-awake. I was making plans for the immediate future, what I was going to do. Then one of the girls came up to me, ripped the bedclothes off and shouted “wakey wakey”. At that moment the alarm went off and Billy Cotton REPEATED THE CALL.

But can you imagine that? I suppose you can because it’s pretty much par for the course. 3 girls come into my apartment and just as it’s about to become interesting, Billy Cotton spikes my guns. It’s a change for him to do it though. Usually it’s one of my family who would put the spanner in the works, just like they did in real life.

So there I was, sitting on the edge of the bed waiting for the World to stop spinning around and then when it stopped I got off and headed off to the bathroom to clean myself up.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. My girlfriend had come round with her mother, and we’d left her mother in my apartment while the two of us went to a kind-of party in the afternoon. When we came back, the taxi dropped us off by the club on Nantwich Road and we walked down the side street there to the side door of my building. The first thing was that we couldn’t open the padlock. It was as if something had been stuffed down the keyhole but eventually I managed to open the padlock and could unlock the place and walk in. At the first glance I thought that her mother had died, the way that she was lying on the sofa, but she was lying there chewing, and it suddenly occurred to me that she was chewing a chocolate. My girlfriend went over to talk to her to make sure that she was OK while I prepared the papers and so on from this party/reception type of thing to which we’d just been.

Who this girl was, I have no idea at all which is a shame. Some kind of company would be a nice thing to have in a dream. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we have met some really nice girls on occasion during the night. It would be nice if I could do that today but first of all I don’t go anywhere these days and secondly I’m far too old for any of that kind of nonsense.

The nurse came early again today and after making the usual remarks, saw to my legs and then cleared off. He can’t have been here ten minutes. Not that I’m complaining though. It suits me fine.

After he left I made breakfast and read my book.

Samuel Hearne is on the move again, out on his third trip to find the Coppermine River. He makes some very prescient and penetrating remarks about the First-Nation women whom he encounters which, if read in the wrong spirit, would not be appreciated. He likens them to nothing more than beasts of burden

However, it should be remembered that if the men are out hunting for food, chasing deer around and hoping to catch them, they need to be able to move quickly so someone else has to do the heavy lifting and carrying. Life on the Barren Grounds is really tough and in fact a guy from Nantwich, John Hornby, starved to death with two companions out there almost 100 years ago. It’s a fight and only the toughest survive. Co-operation and partnership is essential.

Back in here, I had some editing to do. Listening to the radio programme that I’d prepared yesterday, I found that I’d left in there a reference to a track that I’d cut out. So the reference had to go too, which meant that I was now 2.23 seconds short.

Not a problem though – just add in some applause at an appropriate moment and we’ll be fine.

Then I began to prepare the next programme by editing the notes that I’d dictated.

Having done that I broke the finished sound file up into segments for each track and then entered the times of the sound-bytes and tracks into my little program and the machine did the rest.

It found me a selection that ran out to one hour and twenty-eight seconds – not a problem – except that one track wasn’t what it was supposed to be and by the time I’d edited it to represent what I wanted, the batch was short by several minutes. And there was, regrettably, an error in my programming that caused one track to be counted twice.

In the end, I was nine minutes short so I had to go again. This time I was one minute and twenty seconds over, but editing that much out is no problem at all.

There were several interruptions.

Firstly, there was lunch. I can’t go without food and I had a slice of the flapjack that I’d made a while ago.

Secondly, my cleaner came round to do her stuff and that meant a shower for me this afternoon. And although she stood and watched, I did absolutely everything on my own today and you’ve no idea how proud I felt.

She cautioned me about attempting a shower when I’m on my own. There might be an improvement in my mobility and I’m right to push myself onwards, but I mustn’t take any risks. I’m not out of the woods yet. I have simply moved into different woods.

We then spent a pleasant half-hour going through the medication and you wouldn’t believe (or maybe you will) the amount of medication gathering dust around here that is long out-of-date. There’s some stuff dated 2017 and I bet that I can find stuff older than that if I look around. It’s high time someone got to grips with this over-prescribing of medication.

After my hot chocolate I had naan dough to make because I’ve run out. This lot is extremely garlicky which is just as well. I’m not going to be bothered by werewolves and vampires, especially when the garlic naan is smeared in my garlic butter

Tea tonight was a leftover curry with naan bread, as usual. It really was delicious and I reckon that it was the best that I have ever made. My chocolate cake, with lumps of real chocolate, is also excellent, especially with a pistachio soya cream

So that’s enough for today. Tomorrow I’m off to dialysis so Heaven help me. I can’t take much more of this.

But I’m still having a laugh at some of the comments made by Hearne in his book.
Apart from his beautiful quote "they never give themselves the trouble to acquire what they can do well enough without" to describe the philosophy of the First-Nation people in the Barren Grounds, something from which many people in Western society would do well to note, he records a conversation between several of his First-Nation guides
Sitting around the fire late at night after a heavy meal of venison they jokingly ask each other whether they would ever consider having "an intrigue with a strange woman"
It reminds me of a party in Munich to which I went several years ago and an Italian girl asked me "tell me – would you ever consider making love to a perfect stranger?"
"Madam," I replied "the way that things have been just recently, I would even consider making love to a bloody awful stranger"

Saturday 19th October 2024 – THEY LEFT ME …

… pretty much to myself at the Dialysis Clinic this afternoon.

Once they’d plugged me in, they only came back once to deal with an alarm, one of the nursing assistants brought me a coffee, and that was that until it was time to unplug me

That’s much more like my way of doing things and if they can keep it up like that every time I go, I shall be much happier.

Another thing that shall make me much happier is going to bed early. Last night was ridiculous. Just as I was about to switch off everything and go to bed, round on the playlist came the classic Quicksilver Messenger Service version of Elias Bates (Bo Diddley to you)’s version of WHO DO YOU LOVE, all 25 minutes and 15 seconds of it.

Of course, one thing leads to another and once you start you’ll be surprised at how many other things there are and it was after 00:30 when I finally crawled into bed

For once though I had a good sleep. Apart from a brief, very brief moment, I was asleep for the entire night but I was still feeling the worse for wear when I crawled out of bed at the sound of the alarm.

First thing was to go into the kitchen. I’ve no bread left and so I set to work to make a loaf of bread, starting by making the dough and giving it a good kneading.

Whilst it was busy festering I went into the bathroom. With it being a Dialysis Day to day I gave myself a good scrub and even applied the deodorant, not that it makes much difference

Having organised myself I sorted out the washing. There’s tons of it, but I washed the bed linen today along with some of the stuff of which supplies are running low. When I came here from the Auvergne I didn’t bring everything with me – just enough to keep me going. But there’s no chance now of going back to the Auvergne to pick up the rest.

When the nurse came round he looked at the dough and asked “are you making bread?”. His asinine, patronising comments are getting on my nerves.

Luckily he didn’t stay long and was soon down the road, and I can carry on with breakfast and my book.

Today, the Woolhope Naturalists are at Llandrindod Wells where we hear them applauding the efforts that are being made in salmon conservation and calling for some kind of control of pollution of the local rivers – a good 100 years ahead of their time.

And then I put the bread in the oven.

After I’d started the washing off I’d made a start on the dictaphone notes but the arrival of the nurse had put paid to that. So after breakfast I carried on. There was this very small girl. She was very small and very lively, and very interested in everything that seemed to be going on around her. One day I had to go to the hospital. A car came for me – it was a big Austin A110. I climbed into it and it had to go to pick up some more people. A guy was picked up and he sat in the back, a woman or a guy – it seemed to change between the two. Then there was this small girl and this woman. The woman insisted on sitting in the front, so much so that she actually climbed into the front while I was in the seat. In the end I agreed that I’d step out of the car and sit in the rear. The little girl made some kind of comment so I said “God, I’m sitting next to you, am I?” in one of those harmless fun tones which started a little bit of a play argument. This all took place at the entrance to a car park somewhere but it turned out to be at the Earl of Crewe. We were all at the Earl of Crewe outside, all fooling around, all of us. Someone came up to me and said “You’ve forgotten that it’s her birthday today, haven’t you?” meaning the little girl. I replied “I didn’t really know”. “Don’t worry. The driver has bought a little present for her on your behalf”. I thought “that’s nice of him. That’s the second time that he’s done that. I’ll have to see about paying him back or something”. But I have half an hour when I’m not doing anything. I was planning on looking at a recipe that someone had given me. Instead, I can look at the recipe in the car and go to buy her a present then. We all ended up in some kind of old house with low ceilings and wattle-and-daub walls. We were all inside there and making conversation with each other and the little girl was doing her school homework. There was someone else there doing some work at the seat behind her. I was going to read this recipe but I thought that I’d go to talk to this girl and see what she’s doing. and this dream carried on like that for ages.

This dream certainly dates me if I’m being picked up by an Austin A110. I was still a teenager when those cars were top-of-the-range. And I often used (and probably still do) tease young girls like that. The incident of the woman wanting to sit in the front reminds me of that strange guy at the Dialysis Centre who never opened his mouth all the time except when the taxi driver asked “who wants to sit in the front?”.

Having had one phantom alarm call we have a second. And one of my friends seems to be coming “extremely close” to everyone who comes to her house. Tomorrow morning there is going to be someone new going so we should all be at the house and we should catch her. Se we were there and were waiting. Sure enough, someone came, a refugee from some island somewhere. She had a close encounter with him which makes the fourteenth in fourteen days. After that we walked home. I walked away over the hills and when I was round about at an arch some woman came up, a type of girl, not even wanting to talk to me about anything other than the items of clothing in my freezer bag that I had to give her, a freezer bag with eight items of clothing in there so now there was one piece of pizza and just three or four left. She wanted to search through them and wasn’t going to let me go home until I’d submitted to a search

There is actually one of my friends who behaves like that. Mind you, it’s a good 15-20 years since I’ve seen her and even then I used to keep a respectable distance. However, I don’t understand anything about the second part of that dream.

By the way, I have absolutely no recollection of either of those phantom alarm calls.

Finally I was in a bedsit room in Manchester. It was something of a mess but I was leaving today. I had a train at 18:00 that I absolutely had to catch. I wanted to see one of the many followers of this blog before I left but he could only fit me in after 17:00. As he lived in Altrincham that was leaving it rather tight to go out there to see him then come back to Manchester in the centre for my train. I’d have to have everything ready but it was now 09:25, I was lying there, I was hearing people washing so I arose, found a bearskin to keep me warm and then went to see if there was a washbasin free where I had a really good wash ready for going out catching the Underground and going off to do the things that I needed to do

If I could go across Manchester on the Underground, that would be something of a miracle. Any plans for an underground network in the city have long-since been scuppered which was a shame and today everyone has to go by tram and even then it’s not all that convenient. The “Northern powerhouse” promised by so many politicians is a myth, a vote-catching soundbyte and as long as the politicians won’t admit that there’s anything of any importance beyond the M25, so it will remain.

Having hung up the washing to dry, I sorted out the bread. One side of it hadn’t risen at all so we can call this loaf a failure, which is a shame. But I can’t understand why that would be because the bread was in the middle of the oven with the heat, in principle, passing equally all around it.

While the bread was cooling and the washing was drying I came back in here where I was supposed to be having a morning off. However, I made an interesting discovery relating to what might in the near future be an interesting radio programme so I followed it up.

Round about 11:50 I had a message – “could you be ready for 12:15? We’re short of numbers today and there’s a person needing to go to Avranches for 13:00. Would you share?”.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I am being offered an extraordinary service that exists nowhere else in the World to my knowledge, and it’s all free to me. Who am I to argue about any of this? In any case, the earlier we start, the earlier we finish

It meant a mad panic though, for me and my faithful cleaner to prepare me for the trip and we only just made it. Just as she was leaving, the driver turned up.

It was someone who had taken me to Paris in the past and we had a good chat on the way down to Avranches.

With the taxi coming early, I was early arriving and so I was coupled up quickly, and then left to my own devices.

For the first time in a couple of weeks I crashed out (and isn’t that a change?). Only for twenty minutes or so and when I awoke I had the most appalling indigestion that plagued me for hours.

With no interruptions I reviewed my Welsh, last week’s and the forthcoming week, had a close look at the homework that I need to finish off and then tidied up the laptop. The whole desktop is far too cluttered and there are loads of tabs open in Waterfox and I’ve no idea why. They aren’t open now.

No-one bothered me or interrupted me and as far as I could see, there wasn’t even a doctor on duty. But for the compression stage of the procedure where someone has to clamp my arm for ten minutes I had Julie the Cook again
"You really ought to try to do this yourself" she said
"Clear off!" I replied. "How else am I going to have a beautiful girl sitting beside me for ten minutes holding my hand?"

When they weighed me I found that I’d lost another 2kg. My “unfit” target weight is now firmly in my sights and if I can reach it I would be delighted. But as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … getting it off is one thing. Keeping it off is something else completely.

The taxi driver was a new girl. She was an ambulancier in the Champagne-Ardennes who moved here five weeks ago. She applied to the company for a job and in the kind of logic that only they think is reasonable but neither my driver nor me could understand, they put her to driving taxis when she’s no idea of where she’s going. At least as an ambulancier she’d be with someone, which would help her pick up the hints.

And for once in our lives, having left the Dialysis Centre early, at Sartilly we find ourselves in a long queue stuck behind a tractor (it’s that time of year again) and we crawl all the way to Granville at 30kmh.

My faithful cleaner watched me up the stairs, and today I could manage nine before I need to lift up my leg with my hand. This is certainly progress and I hope that it keeps up.

Back in here even though I was early I did nothing until tea time. I was exhausted. But I made myself a lovely tea of a burger on a bun with salad and baked potato followed by apple cake and soya cream.

Now that this severe indigestion has eased somewhat I’m off to bed once I’ve dictated the radio notes. Tomorrow I’ll be busy with the radio, with pizza dough to make and there’s something else that I need to make but I’ve forgotten what it is right now. I hope that I remember.

But I forgot to mention an incident that caused panic and embarrassment at the Dialysis Clinic today.
A man walked by mistake into the ladies’ cloakroom and a couple of minutes later two women walked in behind him.
Suddenly there were all kinds of panic as a couple of nurses dashed towards the cloak room with the emergency gear.
"What’s going on?" I asked
"It’s one of those two women" replied a breathless nurse. "She’s had a stroke!"
"What about the other one?" I asked
"She wasn’t quick enough" replied the nurse.

EPIC HALL

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

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Wednesday 21st January 2025 – THIS TIME TOMORROW …

Saturday 18th January 2025 – ANOTHER THREE HOURS ..

Tuesday 14th January 2025 – I AM TYPING …

Monday 13th January 2025 – I AM HORRIFIED …

Sunday 12th January 2025 – GUESS WHO …

Friday 10th January 2025 – THIS IS SOMETHING …

Thursday 9th January 2025 – IN A STARTLING …

Monday 6th January 2025 – BACK AT WORK …

Thursday 26th December 2024 – MY CHRISTMAS PUDDING …

Wednesday 18th December 2024 – IT’S REALLY HARD …

Monday 16th December 2024 – JUST FOR A CHANGE …

Friday 13th December 2024 – IT’S FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH …

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

Wednesday 13th November 2024 – I HAVE FINISHED …

Saturday 19th October 2024 – THEY LEFT ME …

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