What is on the Dance Card?

Next week returns us both to the medical merry-go-round. The wife is getting the results of her post breast cancer full genetic work up and I am having a preoperative stress echocardiogram because there was an anomaly with the ST section in my ECG trace. This could be due to ischemia or larger than usual size and ageing. When you look in Pandora’s box you never know what you will find. Our understanding of where we stand could change. The results for me might influence the go/no go for the hip replacement surgery. There may/may not be something wrong with my ticker.

In about a month’s time I have a full blood work up at which I will finally find out my blood group. I will get to meet the anaesthetist, the physio and a dietician. The latter no doubt will imply that I am a fat bastard. Explaining to French people that you do not eat vast amounts of charcuterie, cheese, fish and shellfish is not facile. They do not get it. The don’t do, vindaloo. They will want me to lose weight. I am currently a nice round 100kg. When I bust my hip I dropped below 85kg.

The notion of downscaling house is still on the cards and chronic. We need to do it. What we don’t know is how crippled I will be post operation(s). This feeds into the bungalow or single floor flat versus house decision. Currently single floor is favourite.

After watching the NF/BNP march in London yesterday I wonder why did Blair Peach die. Maybe it is time to reboot the anti nazi league.

Come back to blighty.. really ….. hmmnnn…

So far I have written up 77 dreams this year. There are others I can’t be arsed with. The dream length of late is heading past 1000 words. Why I am dreaming about AI I do not know. I do not use it nor know anything about it. I hate prompts to use bloody copilot.

I also have had numerous pseudo-technical or pseudo-scientific dreams. I do not mix in the kind of circles where I might discuss these nor chase them up. I don’t have to write research grant proposals or come up with ideas. The only person outside medical and this house I speak with is the ex-farmer who helps out in the garden. He does not care about quantum.

There are also Tibetan and Toltec dreaming themes. Again I do not move in circles where these might be in any way applicable. There is a part of me which mildly dreads going to bed. It means an hour in the morning typing up dreams.

The basic notion is visit UK see how it feels. Get bionic hip fitted – recover over winter. Maybe put house on market. Decide UK or France. Move. Or wait, get second bionic hip fitted, recover, put house on market, move. I looked at property in Erice Sicily yesterday.

Our right to remain expires end of March 2026. Probably there is no problem with renewal. Depending on the vagaries of French politics we could be much less welcome. The decision for the second hip is timed for around spring 2026. We too could become unwelcome immigrants.

All this flag waving marching creates fear and uncertainty. Seig heil…

There are a lot of things in the garden that I am going to have to let slip. Maybe in January I might be able to turn my hand to them.

I have a couple more months of increasingly painful / useless right hip on the cards. I need to only stand for an hour or so a day which limits what is possible. I can still do brief DIY painting and cooking and using the strimmer.

We will have a little more info by next Saturday…

Burning House – Pots of Honey – nagal’s Courier – Tim – Dream 06-06-2025

Here is last night’s dream.

The dream opens in a large, several storey, mansion like house. The house is in London and it is full of people milling around. There is a sense of there being former colleagues there, though I cannot identify any individuals. There is a mild chaos and a mild sense of consternation heading towards panic. There is much ado.

Somewhere in the building a fire has started. There is a growing warmth, heat and smoke. People are even more directionless and flapping about. I notice a pair of double fire doors with Fire Exit written upon them on a green panel. I press the bar to open the doors and start to shout and usher people outside to safety. For some reason they have lost the plot and it is my calm that helps them make good the exit.

I can see that the fire is not yet very serious but is in the process of worsening. I am cool calm and collected. I go back inside the building. I can see two fair sized terracotta amphorae. I put one hand in the neck of each of these and lift them up from within. I calmly carry the amphorae out of the building to the fire assembly point. I set them down on the ground and pull out my hands which have been immersed in the amphorae. A rich light golden honey flows off my arms and hands and back into the necks of the amphorae. For a long time, honey flows off my forearms and hands into the amphorae. I know that there is nectar in the honey and that both my hands are fully immersed and coated with that nectar-honey. I enjoy the sensation of flowing honey.

The scene changes and I am walking out of an urban car park at night. I am being tailed by some young men in jeans and with hoodies. They are following me for quite some distance. There are a few of them but two main protagonists. I am unconcerned. I stop and turn. I ask them why they are following me. They say that they have noted that I have something in the back right hand pocket of my jeans. They asks what it is. I say that it is a “special” USB flash drive with a plan, a business plan for Alexandros who is the nagal’s courier, my nagal’s courier. They say that they want me to give it to them. I say that it is encrypted and that only Alexandros and I can read it. They say that they still want it. I explain that it will be for them a Pandora’s box and any attempt at reading it will unleash things they do not want unleashed. They insist. I hand them the USB drive which is in a small black velvet bag with a drawstring closure.

The scene changes and I am in some big faculty like meeting where {big} cheeses are sat around tables in a boardroom style layout. There are more than a dozen people there all smartly dressed. They are aged fifties and early sixties. The meeting is being chaired and convocated by Tim Jones. He has been given this job as being less partial and personally implicated than others. They are to discuss with me what my business plans are, what it is that I want. There is a sense of UK university with some politico-input. I say to Tim that it is more than a little rich that they are finally asking me what I want. How come it is now. He does not know what to make of the situation and is resentful that he has been drawn into it. With no success I try to explain to him and those present that I want nothing, I have no demands. The ball is not in my court – so to speak. I remind Tim that I was pivotal in examining many of his Ph.D. students and was used by him then discarded. Those gathered around the table do not know what to make of it as they are expecting some kind of plan from me, where there is none.

The dream ends.