{"id":17694,"date":"2023-12-12T20:22:22","date_gmt":"2023-12-12T20:22:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/?p=17694"},"modified":"2023-12-12T20:22:26","modified_gmt":"2023-12-12T20:22:26","slug":"tuesday-12th-december-2023-the-doctor-came","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/?p=17694","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday 12th December 2023 – THE DOCTOR CAME \u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

… round here at the end of the morning, with a student trailing along behind.<\/p>\n

As he walked into the apartment he looked at me and said "it’s getting worse, isn’t it?"<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Considering that when he saw me a year ago after my torrid three months away from home he told me quite frankly that he thought that I was dying and that I wouldn’t pull through, his comments today weren’t exactly encouraging. How much worse can it be?<\/p>\n

It has left me with the feeling that the clock is winding down rapidly now and the first thought that came into my head when Frodo and Sam were staring despair in the face near the end of LORD OF THE RINGS<\/a>\"\"
\n"Have you thought of an ending?"<\/em><\/strong>
\n"Yes, several, and all are dark and unpleasant."<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

He was insisting yet again that I ought to see a therapist (read “psychiatrist”) to help me come to terms with “events” but as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed<\/em> … anyone who sees a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined.<\/p>\n

And I really would feel terribly sorry for whoever it is who draws the short straw and has to probe the depths of my subconscious mind.<\/p>\n

Actually, I don’t honestly think that he’s too far off the mark because I haven’t had a good day today.<\/p>\n

It was another disturbed night and an early start in the morning because I ended up not being able to sleep all that much.<\/p>\n

After the medication I had a few things to do and it ended up being another nostalgic trip down Memory Lane. And as PG Wodehouse once famously said, "memories are like mulligatawny soup in a cheap restaurant. It is best not to stir them"<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Eventually I managed to sit down and transcribe the dictaphone notes. I was going through editing my blog last night. As well as that, I was comparing a few web pages to check on things. I came across 2 that were absolutely identical so I deleted one of them. It wasn’t until later that I realised that one of them was actually the copy on the hard drive and the other was the copy on the server. I needed to have the two copies of course but I couldn’t remember the name of the file. I then had to go all the way through, count the files and compare each of them one by one. This led to its own complications because the only way to identify the different web pages was by the images on them but I kept on losing count. A couple of people there were trying to help me but they weren’t particularly helpful. There was one occasion where I missed an image and just wanted to go back a short way but she reset the machine that she had so that it went right the way back to the start so we’d have to start all over again. I had a feeling that this is a job that is never ever going to be finished because no matter how many times I make a start on it I can’t keep my concentration going long enough to count all of the web pages and images correctly (and doesn’t this sound so familiar?) and I’d just keep on slipping up every time. I’d never find this missing file that I deleted in error.<\/p>\n

I was then doing something different with the blog. I was trying to prepare a report of each and every football match that had taken place over the last 4 or 5 years. I had some notes and we had some old newspapers. By going through them we were able to make some kind of rough approximation of what had happened the previous season and were able to make some kind of report of each game that had taken place so that with the aid of a couple of very small children I went back and did a couple of years. That seemed to work fine. I set a little task and sent the children away to do the previous years but I was rather over-ambitious with that and the children weren’t able to do it. A couple of parents came to see me and in the end we all sat down, had a talk about it and went to work it out. One woman complained in a light-hearted way that I was speaking Geordie to them but another one replied “no, that’s Scots” and they were all being rather confused by my accent. I actually awoke before we finished it. But someone had asked me about how many years back I was going to do. I replied that that would be the last one because we couldn’t rely on having copies of the newspapers any further back than that. Without access to any records it was going to be practically impossible to complete.<\/p>\n

Later on last night I was in Leuven, preparing to go to do my shopping. Then a flyer came round from LIDL. I thought to myself “I haven’t been to LIDL for months and this would give me a good opportunity to go”. I didn’t know where the LIDL was in Leuven. I’d have to have a look at the map to work out a route. 5 minutes later found me out in the street and I’d forgotten to look at the map. I was wandering off, daydreaming as usual down the road and almost ended up driving through a red traffic light. All kinds of traffic came to join me at the next traffic light. There was a while MkIV Cortina saloon full of people etc. Then I suddenly had a brainwave about where there might be a LIDL – miles out of my route but I may as well go while I’m out. I began to plan my itinerary about what I was doing, where I was going and what I was going to buy while I was sitting in the van at the traffic light.<\/p>\n

Rapidly changing country, I was at the Centre Normandy, somewhere like that, standing at the reception when a giant rat scurried across the room. I picked up one of these pointed letter-openers and threw it at the rat and skewered it straight away. I felt really impressed with that, except of course that the idea of a rat running around somewhere like that is horrible.<\/p>\n

Finally, we were in Virlet preparing to come back north. Someone had already heaved a brick through the windscreen of the Ford Escort so I wanted to make sure that everything was properly burglar-proof. One of the windows was rather badly-damaged and was easy for anyone to try to come in that way so I was trying to find some string to secure it but I found a piece of wood that was exactly the correct size to blank it off. I went looking for my drill, screws and bits. I found them lying around on the floor in all kinds of places where I’d left them the previous day when I’d been working and been too tired to put everything away. I began to collect everything together to prepare. I can’t remember who I was with now but Percy Penguin was also there. <\/p>\n

There was some more stuff than this but you really don’t want to read it, especially if you’re eating your meal.<\/p>\n

After a good wash I prepared for my Welsh lesson and it was a disaster. Nothing whatever would sink into my head today. And being disrupted by the visit of the doctor didn’t help at all.<\/p>\n

The car came for me later to take me to the Centre de Re-education and I don’t know why, but I fell into the pit with the Black Dog. And fell quite deeply too.<\/p>\n

Not that that usually bothers me because I’ve fallen in there many times before, and sometimes much deeper than this, but I’ve always consoled myself with the thought that when things are really bad, they can only improve. However, at the moment, it’s difficult to see quite how.<\/p>\n

Severine pulled and tugged me about for half an hour and then I had the ergotherapist who discussed her report with me.<\/p>\n

Back here later I made my hot chocolate and biscuits, and then promptly crashed out.<\/p>\n

The hospital and I had a chat at some point. My visit on Monday is now cancelled and I have to come on Tuesday, as previously advised, instead. However it still involves a stay. But that’s next week. There is still plenty of time for further changes before then.<\/p>\n

My cleaner came round too. The doctor had given me a prescription for more medication so I’d sent her a message to ask her if she could fetch the products. I warned her that she’d need a shopping trolley<\/p>\n

Tea was a taco roll, and there’s enough stuffing left over for a leftover curry tomorrow.<\/p>\n

There’s the Centre de Re-education again tomorrow and then I’ll finish off the radio notes. I waded through a pile of them earlier before tea and I’ve done about 70% already.<\/p>\n

But right now I’m exhausted again so despite how early it is, I reckon that I’ll go to bed. Not that it’ll do me much good but I have to show willing.<\/p>\n

0<\/span><\/a><\/div> <\/div>
<\/div><\/div>
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

… round here at the end of the morning, with a student trailing along behind. As he walked into the apartment he looked at me and said "it’s getting worse, isn’t it?" Considering that when he saw me a year ago after my torrid three months away from home he told me quite frankly that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15521,1710,12054,44,4507,1616,8571,7876],"tags":[13133,15522,5577,1302,5180,212,2482,2560,5565,8581,5911,801,1137,2644,301,15228,7891,13547,8309],"class_list":["post-17694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-centre-normandy","category-cleaner","category-doctor","category-dream","category-eric-hall-2","category-france","category-granville","category-place-darmes","tag-bouquet-granvillais","tag-centre-normandy","tag-cleaner","tag-crash-out","tag-doctor","tag-dream","tag-early-start","tag-eric-hall","tag-france","tag-granville","tag-hospital","tag-httpwww-amazon-co-uk","tag-ill-health","tag-lord-of-the-rings","tag-percy-penguin","tag-pg-wodehouse","tag-place-darmes","tag-taco-roll","tag-welsh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17694"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17695,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17694\/revisions\/17695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}