{"id":20171,"date":"2025-07-12T21:25:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-12T21:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/?p=20171"},"modified":"2025-07-12T21:25:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-12T21:25:10","slug":"saturday-12th-july-2025-here-we-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/?p=20171","title":{"rendered":"Saturday 12th July 2025 &#8211; HERE WE GO &#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8230; again.<\/p>\n<p>For once, the taxi came early and the other passenger who travels with me on Thursday and Saturday was already on board.<\/p>\n<p>For once, we arrived quite early<\/p>\n<p>For once, they were ready and waiting<\/p>\n<p>For once, I was coupled up quite quickly and quite early<\/p>\n<p>For once, it was only a three-and-a-half hour session<\/p>\n<p>For once, as the session slowly drew to a close, I was looking forward to an early escape and return home<\/p>\n<p>And so regular readers of this rubbish will recall exactly what happens next in circumstances like this.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, it was a pretty miserable day all round, what with one thing and another, and I wonder when I might be able to step off this treadmill.<\/p>\n<p>Despite my best efforts, last night was another late night when once more I failed miserably to make any impression upon the idea of having an early night.<\/p>\n<p>This pain in my chest was also playing havoc with me. I couldn&#8217;t cough and I couldn&#8217;t sneeze because I was in total agony every time I tried to expand my lungs. I&#8217;ve no idea what&#8217;s happening now.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, I settled down in my lovely clean bed thanks to my faithful cleaner &#8230; <em>&#34;huh?&#34; &#8211; ed<\/em> &#8230; Yes, I suppose that I&#8217;d better explain. It wasn&#8217;t she who settled me down in my lovely clean bed, but in the afternoon she had changed the bedding as part of the plan to make my bedroom\/office\/recording studio look nice, clean and comfortable, as indeed it proved to be.<\/p>\n<p>It didn&#8217;t take long to go off to sleep either, however, when I awoke, it was still dark. I tried to go back to sleep but I wasn&#8217;t able to do so, and so I gave some serious thought to raising myself from the Dead. However, a glance at the time on my &#8216;phone dissuaded me. 03:10 is far too early to be up and about, even if I can&#8217;t sleep.<\/p>\n<p>Consequently, I decided to lie there semi-comatose until a more realistic time, but the next thing that I remember was the alarm going off at 06:29. Bane of Britain has struck again, asleep when the alarm went off.<\/p>\n<p>When I awoke, I was dreaming about something to do with the Welsh Premier League and Y Bala FC. As usual, it evaporated so quickly from my mind before I could take hold of the dictaphone.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not difficult to guess what it might be, though. Having failed to qualify for Europe for a couple of years now, the money has run out, the budget has been slashed, and according to the FAW&#8217;s squad lists, at least twelve of their star players, more than an entire team, have voted with their feet. As far as I can tell, to date they have signed just four, and none of them would be what I would call &#8220;significant&#8221; signings.<\/p>\n<p>Over the past few years we&#8217;ve seen several clubs in the same position and it&#8217;s usually always ended in tears and involving relegation. But the future of Y Bala looks more bleak than all of the others right now and I reckon that unless they pull something magical out of the free transfers elsewhere, it&#8217;s going to be a very long and hard season.<\/p>\n<p>It took a while to come to my senses yet again and to unstrap the ice pack, with which I went to sleep, from my right knee. And with the pain still wreaking havoc in my chest, I went off to the bathroom for a wash and shave in case I meet Emilie the Cute Consultant this afternoon.<\/p>\n<p>While I was in the bathroom, I set the washing machine off. With loads of bedding and everything else, there were probably about three machines-worth but one will suffice for now, with the bedding and the hospital stuff seeing that I might be back for chemotherapy in ten days time.<\/p>\n<p>The kitchen was another really slow, leisurely affair while I took my time with the medication. I just couldn&#8217;t find the motivation today. As I said earlier, it was a pretty miserable day all round.<\/p>\n<p>Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I&#8217;d been during the night.  <\/p>\n<p>Nerina and I had to go to see a sports scientist kind of person for my knee. We were sitting in the waiting room and we heard him sawing a child&#8217;s foot to even off the bone. We could hear her screaming and it was absolutely horrible. Then we had to go into the room and it was freezing cold so the first thing that I did was to light the gas fire. Nerina was busy arranging everything and tidying it up. She made some kind of remark to me about why I wasn&#8217;t helping. I replied &#8220;I can&#8217;t possibly help because I&#8217;m so slow to move around these days on my crutches and you are very much quicker than me in doing everything&#8221;. However, she wasn&#8217;t very happy with that kind of answer.<\/p>\n<p>As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, it&#8217;s not my usual habit to post distressing dreams like this. Some of you will be eating your tea right now, others will be turning the page, and I will be feeling extremely uncomfortable. In fact, I can&#8217;t understand why I did post it because &#8220;distressing&#8221; really is the correct word to describe it.<\/p>\n<p>And why this kind of dream should occur when Nerina is there, I don&#8217;t know that either, but Nerina and I ended up just as we would end up after coming back from holiday<\/p>\n<p>However, there was something in there about a group of musicians being on tour. They had a Volkswagen Microbus and there were so many of them that half of their group, the smaller ones, were sleeping on the floor with a series of camp beds above them. That was where the elder ones slept, all inside this VW caravan. The heat generated by these people must have been intense and the smell of bodies overpowering. I seem to remember it heading towards Barry Town in order to be there for the special day a week next weekend when hopefully the gates might be hung.<\/p>\n<p>As for what this may be about, it&#8217;s a pretty good description of that trip I mentioned a few months ago when a group of people piled into a J4 van in Crewe in 1973 and drove all the way down to the Windsor Free Festival, blowing a tyre and almost overturning on the way, while my friend from the Wirral and I went down a different way on a Triumph 350cc motorbike.<\/p>\n<p>The nurse turned up early yet again. He applied this heat treatment to my knee and dealt with my legs, after which he left. I could then push on with breakfast and read <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/in.ernet.dli.2015.274449\" target=\"_blank\">MY BOOK<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Our author has been talking about the various &#8220;Undershafts&#8221; in London, and explains how the name came about, <strong><em>&#34;because that of old time, every year on May-day in the morning, it was used that an high or long shaft or May-pole was set up there &#8230; which shaft &#8230; was higher than the church steeple.&#34;<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>He goes on to describe how it was stored <strong><em>&#34;laid along over the doors and under the pentises of one row of houses&#34;<\/em><\/strong> and mentions its ignominious end when the curate of St Katherine&#8217;s Christ Church denounced it as idolatrous and <strong><em>&#34;whereon it had rested two-and-thirty years, they sawed it in pieces, every man taking as his share so much that had lain over his door&#34;<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>After breakfast I took the washing from the machine and hung it up in the living room window to dry. And that&#8217;s a task that&#8217;s becoming harder and harder as time goes by.<\/p>\n<p>There were things to do after that and I was in the middle of doing them when my faithful cleaner turned up to fit my anaesthetic patches.<\/p>\n<p>She was still here chatting when the taxi arrived and so I descended to the vehicle and we cleared off into a glorious, hot summer&#8217;s day. Far too nice to go to dialysis.<\/p>\n<p>At the beginning, I spoke about some of the events at dialysis today, but one thing that I haven&#8217;t mentioned is that the connection was the most painful that I have had for a very, very long time and I was in agony throughout the entire session.<\/p>\n<p>The  <em>je m&#8217;en foutiste<\/em> doctor came to see me during the afternoon. I told him about my complaints so he put his stethoscope to my chest and totally ignored my knee yet again.<\/p>\n<p>There was plenty of work for me to do and I was advancing quite well, looking forward to a really early finish with just ten minutes to go, when another patient had a crisis and all of the nurses went a-running. And I was simply left there, sitting like Piffy on a rock while the nurses dealt with the emergency.<\/p>\n<p>Eventually, Sarah came back to deal with me and to unplug me, for which I was heartily relieved. Mind you, she dropped the pipe and there is now blood all over my shirt. The good news is that I am now below my &#8220;inactive&#8221; weight which suits me fine.<\/p>\n<p>In the hallway my co-passenger and I waited for the taxi. And waited. And waited. Twenty-five minutes later, he turned up.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s the busiest weekend of the year this weekend, and we&#8217;d seen the enormous queues on the motorway as we came down. There had been plenty of breakdowns in the afternoon and as the taxi company holds the contract with the Highways Authority for dealing with repatriations, they had a whole pile of vehicles out of the area, so those who remained were rushed off their feet.<\/p>\n<p>Consequently, we were no earlier coming home than we might otherwise have been.<\/p>\n<p>My cleaner was waiting for me and watched as I struggled upstairs, and then I collapsed into a chair, totally worn out.<\/p>\n<p>Tea was a breadcrumbed quorn fillet with salad and baked potato, all very nice, but I struggled to eat it tonight. My appetite still hasn&#8217;t come back and it&#8217;s only ten or so days to my next chemotherapy.<\/p>\n<p>But I&#8217;ll worry about that another time. Right now, I&#8217;m going to bed and I can&#8217;t say that I&#8217;m sorry.<\/p>\n<p>But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about Nerina &#8230; <em>&#34;well, one of us has&#34; &#8211; ed<\/em> &#8230; someone once asked me <strong><em>&#34;what did you like especially about Nerina?&#34;<\/em><\/strong><br \/>\n<strong><em>&#34;I liked the fact&#34;<\/em><\/strong> I said <strong><em>&#34;that she could see both sides to every argument.&#34;<\/em><\/strong><br \/>\n<strong><em>&#34;Could she really?&#34;<\/em><\/strong> he asked.<br \/>\n<strong><em>&#34;Indeed she could&#34;<\/em><\/strong> I said. <strong><em>&#34;Both sides &#8211; her side and the wrong one.&#34;<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<div class='watch-action'><div class='watch-position align-left'><div class='action-like'><a class='lbg-style1 like-20171 jlk' href='javascript:void(0)' data-task='like' data-post_id='20171' data-nonce='114bee3705' rel='nofollow'><img class='wti-pixel' src='https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/wp-content\/plugins\/wti-like-post\/images\/pixel.gif' title='Like' \/><span class='lc-20171 lc'>0<\/span><\/a><\/div><div class='action-unlike'><a class='unlbg-style1 unlike-20171 jlk' href='javascript:void(0)' data-task='unlike' data-post_id='20171' data-nonce='114bee3705' rel='nofollow'><img class='wti-pixel' src='https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/wp-content\/plugins\/wti-like-post\/images\/pixel.gif' title='Unlike' \/><span class='unlc-20171 unlc'>0<\/span><\/a><\/div> <\/div> <div class='status-20171 status align-left'><\/div><\/div><div class='wti-clear'><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8230; again. For once, the taxi came early and the other passenger who travels with me on Thursday and Saturday was already on board. For once, we arrived quite early For once, they were ready and waiting For once, I was coupled up quite quickly and quite early For once, it was only a three-and-a-half [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10849,1710,12054,44,4507,1616,8571,3173,334,12057,7876],"tags":[15089,3501,8612,1235,5577,1302,16165,5180,212,2560,5565,8581,5911,16265,5385,12058,7891,16266,1029,13109,9354,502],"class_list":["post-20171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-avranches","category-cleaner","category-doctor","category-dream","category-eric-hall-2","category-france","category-granville","category-hospital","category-nerina-hall","category-nurse","category-place-darmes","tag-air-fryer","tag-archive-org","tag-avranches","tag-baked-potatoes","tag-cleaner","tag-crash-out","tag-dialysis-issues","tag-doctor","tag-dream","tag-eric-hall","tag-france","tag-granville","tag-hospital","tag-john-stow","tag-nerina-hall","tag-nurse","tag-place-darmes","tag-survey-of-london","tag-taxi","tag-taxi-issues","tag-vegan-salad","tag-washing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20171","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=20171"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20172,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20171\/revisions\/20172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}