\n“Mr Hall”<\/strong><\/em> he said, “you are lucky to be alive. When you came in here on Thursday last week we didn’t think that you would survive.”<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n
That’s as maybe but what I really need to be done is this knee issue that has brought my activities to a dead stop.<\/p>\n
And then there’s the breathing issue, more of which anon<\/em>.<\/p>\n Last night, once again, I fell asleep without any artificial aids whatsoever. And whether anyone came and checked me for anything during the night as usual, I really don’t know. I felt nothing whatsoever.<\/p>\n At about 04:00 I awoke but despite taking advantage of a stray orange that was loitering about I was nothing like as lively as I was yesterday. It took until the arrival of breakfast before I was in possession of all my faculties.<\/p>\n During the day I fell asleep a couple of times and on one occasion I had some notes to add to the dictaphone notes that were already there from the night.<\/p>\n There was something about me travelling to somewhere in Canada last night to meet a girl who was the daughter of someone. Someone else had gone before me. I was on a specific train. The arrangement was that somehow I’d sit in a special waiting room for these strange people and somehow she’d be able to identify me. I can’t remember very much about this at all except that once she had done, virtually the same thing happened again but this time I was leaving rather than arriving and the trains were on a very tight schedule. I was afraid that if I missed this one due to me running late it would throw my entire plans right out of the window<\/p>\n I fell asleep in mid-afternoon and found myself playing bass with the Gibson in a group with a young Peter Telford there playing a guitar with the machine heads in the body and several other older guys. They’d made all kinds of notes in pencil of the chords on pieces of music for me to make a start to follow. They were talking about some old guy who had been their mentor and had mentored some of the group and was possibly responsible for bringing everyone including me together for this first-night practice.<\/p>\n In fact many years ago I did play bass in a group with Peter Telford, but that’s another story.<\/p>\n On another occasion I was shaken awake by a hospital porter who wanted to take me for an examination.<\/p>\n This one was a cardiac examination where they gave me the same set of tests that they gave me last time, with, rather predictably, the same results.<\/p>\n This interview took place in Flemish, which was good. But when I asked him what he examination showed, he replied “there’s nothing wrong. Everything is normal”<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n So her I am, back to where I was 6 months ago, and 18 months ago with no identification of my illness in sight. I’m beginning to think that this breathing issue is imaginary and I’m going to ask for counselling about my imaginary illness.<\/p>\n It’s Ingrid’s birthday today and although it took me a while I finally made contact with her and we had a good chat for 45 minutes.<\/p>\n My e-mail account was busy too. As well as helping one of my colleagues with a project, the Post Office had contacted me again with rather more urgency so as another of my colleagues works in a building nearby, I arranged with him to go and rescue the perishing.<\/p>\n In between everything I’ve also had plenty to read.<\/p>\n At first I stumbled upon a report by a Board of Trade examiner about A TRAIN FIRE AT BEATTOCK<\/a> in 1950 that has many interesting facts about the outbreak and spread of fire.<\/p>\n As well as that, I’ve finally managed to track down a downloadable copy of THE OLD STRAIGHT TRACK<\/a> for later perusal. This book is really the meanderings of the mind of a rather eccentric elderly gentleman in the 1920s and which were picked up by the “New Age” movement and popularised as “Ley Lines”. That’s my reading for my return journey, if ever there is such a thing.<\/p>\n On that point I’m packing up and going to try to sleep, without a sleeping pill if I can. And see what tomorrow will bring. There won’t be any examinations this weekend as all of the specialists have the weekend off. I’ll have to gather my strength for the onslaught on Monday.<\/p>\n
