Last night I was in bed at about 23:30, totally flaked out, and I went straight to sleep. Not for long though, and when the nurse came in at 06:00 to fit my anaesthetic patches I was already wide-awake thinking about leaving my stinking pit. I’d actually been awake for some considerable time.<\/p>\n
It wasn’t long after she left that they came in with my breakfast. For a change, everything on the tray was something that I could eat. And the coffee was wonderful.<\/p>\n
They had told me that a porter would come to fetch me at 07:30 for my dialysis so I went into the bathroom at about 07:10 to do what one has to do. Sure enough, two minutes later the porter turned up.<\/p>\n
That was rather a shame, for he had to hang around for a few minutes while I finished.<\/p>\n
He pushed me in a wheelchair downstairs to one of these electric vehicles that they have, and then he drove me round to the dialysis centre.<\/p>\n
What I experienced there made me glad that I am usually dealt with in Avranches. Here in the hospital, although it was a comparatively modern building, it was old, quarry tiled, no ticket printout on the weighing machine, no television for the patients etc. It really was rather sad.<\/p>\n
The nurses were nowhere near as pretty as those in Avranches, although the one who saw to me was friendly enough. But they had no echograph machine to find the connection under the skin so it really was like playing darts on your body. I’m not sure how many goes she had to find the bullseye. At least she managed to miss treble nineteen.<\/p>\n
Luckily I had taken my laptop so I had plenty of things to do seeing as there were no pretty nurses to admire.<\/p>\n
One good thing about it all was that for the coffee break, they proposed an orange drink as well seeing as I can’t eat their cake. And the orange juice was one of these protein drinks, lactose free too. I shall have to make further enquiries about this drink.<\/p>\n
After they unplugged me, the driver took me back to my little room just in time for lunch. The vegan meal consisted of a salad ni\u00e7oise (that’s a tuna salad) and fish. Of course, tomorrow is Friday and in a Catholic country, even though it has been officially laic for well over one hundred years, we know what that means. After the first day of non-vegan meals served to someone on a vegan diet with a recorded allergy to animal fats, I wrote to the complaints department of the Hospital. As yet they have not replied so I sent them another one about the meal today.<\/p>\n This afternoon, it was just like yesterday afternoon. A huge wave of fatigue came over me and after trying to fight it off for quite a while I was overwhelmed.<\/p>\n When a nurse came in to see me, I asked her what they were giving me to make me go like that. "Nothing that’s not recorded on your prescription"<\/em><\/strong> she replied.<\/p>\n And I’m not even having that because the tablets that she brought me for my afternoon snack were one short, and I’ve not had even one of my disgusting drinks.<\/p>\n The laptop sliding off my knees caused a sudden rush of adrenalin that awoke me, so I buttonholed a passing Auxi who brought me a coffee which was nice of her.<\/p>\n Back in the land of the living, I could make a start on the dictaphone notes. I was with a girl from school. I thought that it was a certain girl but it didn’t look like her. We’d been doing a lot of things together and we’d spent the Sunday doing things and we’d seen each other for a few weeks after that. Then I became time to take her home. I said that I’d take her home but if she wanted, she could stay the night. After thinking for a minute she agreed to stay. I promised that I wouldn’t do anything silly – she could stay fully-clothed and I would stay fully-clothed but it would be nice just to spend the night together. She agreed to that so I began to prepare things. There was a problem with the house in which we were living and some other smaller women there, whom I recognised as being my sister, was involved in sorting out these problems. This went on and on and on and on. In the end the other girl came to me to apologise, saying that she had had second thoughts and wanted to change her mind. She’ll stay the night here, she said, “but I don’t want to share a room or bed with you because if I do, we’ll be sharing a bed with each other every time we meet up and I don’t think that I’m ready to do that. Of course I was disappointed but I could understand so we agreed that she’d stay in another part of the house somewhere and we’d meet up for breakfast. By this time, the searches were going on in this room for whatever this problem was. There were all kinds of people in thee and I couldn’t go to bed because of it. Whatever it was, my sister was looking at this girl who might have been the one with me. She expected to hear that the girl was spending the night with me. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that she wasn’t. She came out with some kind of talk about how she would spend the night with me sometime but she had to tell him and sort things out with him, all this kind of thing. I wondered who “him” was because I was convinced that she didn’t have another boyfriend somewhere but this long speech implied that there was someone else to whom she needed to talk first. Then this enquiry into what was happening with this business went on and on and on and they’d moved down the street to somewhere else and there was no way on this earth where I could find a bag of chips now because all the shops were now closed or closed down ready for demolition so we didn’t last very very long in that route (…fell asleep here<\/em> …) but we did alright as a sort-of couple I suppose.<\/p>\n There is actually a story about going to bed fully clothed with a fully-clothed girl, but the World isn’t ready to hear it at the moment. As for the girl in the dream, a name was mentioned but it certainly wasn’t her. The girl with the name had a mass of black hair but the one in the dream was smaller and had light brown or dark blond hair, very fine and only shoulder-length. I have a feeling that I might know who she is, but I just can’t remember. However, despite their best efforts to throw a spanner into the works, my family managed to avoid disrupting my evil schemes. The girl must have seen them for herself and come quickly to her senses.<\/p>\n Later on, there had been some huge conflict between my youngest sister and someone or other – some guy. I was out and about on my travels walking around and I came across a friend at his house who was going to a party that night to which I’d been invited too, and a few others. He was outside trying to deal with a huge snowfall that had covered his car and covered his drive. He was trying to sort it out so that he could make things ready for him to come tonight so I went to lend him a hand. Another one of our friends was there. I’d had a long talk with this other friend at some point in the recent past. The three of us ended up chatting. Something came up in the conversation that this third guy had said. The first guy asked him “from where did you receive that information?”. The third guy pointed to me, saying “we were talking about that and in the end Eric mentioned it”. We carried on and something else that came up – the first guy wanted to know where the third guy had learned that. The third guy said “oh, Eric had mentioned it”. The first guy said “well, Eric is doing a lot, isn’t he at the moment?”. We set about to try to shovel the snow while the conversation went on, saying “it’s going to be hell tonight. This lot is going to freeze and it will be a nightmare”. Someone mentioned that the guy with whom my sister had had an argument was going to see her. I thought that I’d better go there as well. So I went, and she was in hospital, in her little bed. She had all her stuffed toys around her, and STRAWBERRY MOOSE<\/a> was there too. I sat him up properly at the side of her bed and made sure that she was comfortable. Then I saw this guy come into the ward and walk down towards her bed. At that moment a nurse came in and awoke me to fit my anaesthetic patches.<\/p>\n The snowfall in this dream was a snowfall of Montrealesque proportions. It reminded me of my epic trip along the North Shore of the St Lawrence that I DID IN THE WINTER OF 2001\/2002<\/a><\/p>\n And how often does His Nibs appear in my dreams? In the old days when I used to be able to travel, he was my constant companion and was the first moose to set hoof on Ellesmere Island, Philpot’s Island, the Brother John Glacier and the Greenland Icecap. But my youngest sister seems to be back in my dreams again. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed<\/em> … it’s rather depressing that my family keep on sticking their noses into my dreams and I can’t seem to summon up any of my young ladies, apart from that flying visit from Zero the other night.<\/p>\n Once I’d finished my notes I had a quick chat with my faithful cleaner on the internet and carried on with my hunt for films of Launder and Gilliatt to download. I was in luck because I found two classics – ROME EXPRESS<\/a> starring my hero Gordon Harker and then the legendary GREEN FOR DANGER<\/a> starring Alastair Sim in what I consider to be his best performance.<\/p>\n By the way, if you notice aside in the right column, I receive a small commission from purchases made from Amazon via my links. It doesn’t alter the price that you pay, but it helps defray my web-hosting expenses which are quite considerable these days. I know that some of you do already, and I’m very grateful to you, and if other people were to make use of the opportunity, I would be just as grateful.<\/p>\n For tea tonight, my vegan meal included yoghurt and omelette, so another e-mail followed the ones that I had sent earlier. If no-one replies by the time that I go home (whenever that might be) I’ll print them out and send them to the director-general of the hospital to demand an explanation, firstly for the state of the vegan meals, and secondly for the failure to reply and take any action over my complaints. I shall go on the offensive and regular readers of this rubbish will recall that “offensive” is certainly the correct word to use in these cases.<\/p>\n Right now though, it’s late and I’m off to bed. But seeing as we have been talking about His Nibs … "well, one of us has" – ed<\/em> … he went with me on our first Arctic Expedition in 2018 when we reached about 600 or so miles from the North Pole via the Greenland Icecap and the Kane Basin
\n"IT’S FISH EVERY FRIDAY, IT’S FISH TWO FOOT WIDE
\nIT COVERS UP YOUR PLATE AND HANGS OVER THE SIDE"<\/em><\/strong>I<\/a><\/p>\n
\nIn 2019 when we went back for part two of our expedition, we encountered some anthropologists scratching their heads.
\n"What’s going on here?"<\/em><\/strong> we asked.
\n"That’s what we don’t understand"<\/em><\/strong> they replied. "There’s a very strange phenomenon here"<\/em><\/strong>
\n"What’s that?"<\/em><\/strong> we asked.
\n"Several polar bears have given birth this summer and there’s something very strange about their offspring. They are just like little polar bear cubs but their fur is brown and furry and they look as if they may have antlers."<\/em><\/strong>
\n"I see"<\/em><\/strong> I replied helpfully. "They look like what you might say ‘like a moose in front but with a bear behind’"<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n
