Wednesday and its been a bad night, I feel like I am coming down with a cold with the added fun of a bad gut. So I get up in the morning having slept in the spare bedroom of the apartment. I try to sit on the balcony to get some fresh air but it is cold so I retreat to one of the sofas in the lounge. My emails get checked as do my messages and the days headlines. There is nothing in any of them apart from a reassuring picture from my eldest daughter showing the bins waiting to be emptied. The morning meds get washed down with orange juice as I begin to draft the days blog. Today I had planned to walk to the Tenby art gallery and museum but at the moment I feel rank. Hopefully the day will improve as I recover. Perhaps this is the day I will write something or will content myself with reading some of the books I brought with but left untouched so far.

By late morning I feel less rank and take a shower and some paracetamol. I wait for thirty minutes and then feel well enough to take a walk on the beach with my partner. It is a strange day, bright and sunny yet the wind is chill. I star tout in a T shirt but as soon as I hit the beach I put my Helli Hansan wind jacket on. The beach has a lot of dog owners giving heir dogs a run, My partner and I walk for 15 minutes before returning. Along the way I take some photos.

After our beach walk we return to the The Lounges, the beach café, and have coffee and toasted tea cakes with jam. We are surrounded by dogs and their owners, this is a really popular spot for dog lovers. We sit around watching dogs, birds and the beach until we are chilled and return to the apartment. My partner reads on the balcony while I down load the photos, draft more of the blog and drift off. Somewhere in there I scribble a poem. Where it came from I’ve no idea.

562
Rod Steiger went to bed for ten years
Gloria Swanson retired to her cot
I just lazy around a lot.
One was depressed 
One was just old and deluded,
Me, I’m not sure.
Partial remission means
partially not,
so I become Schrodinger’s cat,
indeterminate until I look,
or someone else does. 
In here with my bag of poison
that may or may not trigger
I wonder if anyone will lift the lid
and what they will find. 
Rod survived to act another day,
Gloria slipped from the close up,
and I wonder how I became a cat.
							562 Tenby 07-10-2026

My partner make us late lunch and we dine quietly while outside the sun continues to shine but the temperature to drop. We sip coffee and nibble fruit cake in idle ease. Tonight there is no football so I guess we will continue to watch Blue Lights, the Irish police drama. Does nothing to suggest anything other than northern Ireland is a shit place to live, still riven by religious and political factions who seem intent on continuing to make life shit for everyone else. I know its just a drama but it seems to tap into something. I shall take my meds and get to bed early, perhaps I will make it to the art gallery tomorrow.

Tuesday and another reasonable night by the seaside. I get up and go to the balcony to see how the day is and to breathe in the sea air. For the first time there is a hint of blue in the sky.

I take my morning meds and sip orange juice as I check my messages and emails. As a result of one of then I order my eldest grandsons birthday presents. Hopefully all will go well this time and they will arrive in time for his birthday. Last time sending things to Sweden was a problem. With that done my partner and I have breakfast before girding our loins for the walk into town, which means climbing the cliff path.

My partner and I make it to the town walls and then on into the town centre. It is drizzly and cannot make up its mind to rain properly or not. As always we decide to take a break and see what happens in a local café. I sit and watch the passers by as I sip a diet Pepsi an nibble a jam and cream scone. The fellow diners come in and out , many with dogs. I think that because it is October dog owners are allowed to take their dogs onto the beach so this is the week they all come to the seaside. Its also cheaper.

Unsure about the status of the rainy weather over the next couple of days my partner and I pop into a sports clothing and general seaside crap store and buy baseball caps, mine with Captain on it. In fairness there was little choice in the end of season selection of hats. With our new hats on we went in search of a news paper and took pictures of the town walls.

We found a shop and bought a newspaper and then walked slowly back to the apartment. I sat on the balcony and settle down to do the days crossword only to find that the newspaper (its a rag really but has an easy crossword I can do) had printed the same easy crossword as yesterday. I had a decide moment of thinking I was gong mad or that I had acquired a super power like time travel or clairvoyance. I check yesterdays paper and sure enough it was the same crossword. I then did something I had never done before I wrote a email letter to the paper pointing out their mistake and telling them that I assumed Ludwig had gone on holiday. I then got on with the other puzzles in the paper. Tired by my efforts I lazed for a while until I took my partner across to the beach café for toasted sandwiches and a drink. Once again they dusted the sandwich with powdered cheese, it really is an odd custom, its like the sandwich has dandruff. Returning to the apartment I find that the news paper has replied to me! They apologised and said they were investigating how it happened and sent me a PDF of the days edition with the correct puzzle. I was impressed. Rather than dash to do the puzzle I then took a nap as fatigue had caught up with me.

I woke looking forward to tonight’s England football match and set about drafting the days blog and getting ready for kick off. I am beginning to wonder what I am doing, I mean what this partial remission actually is. I know that I have to wait till the bloods at the end of November to know if my PSA is holding or rising, or racing away but in the meantime this partial remission is a mystery. Is this the “quality of life” the medics talk about, the simple absence of intervention, or the anxious waiting “to see” during which I’m free to do what I can manage? It makes it difficult to produce a script of fighting my disease. Its still there but how do I fight it if all I am doing is waiting the next attack and the oncology team offering another chemotherapy drug? All I can do is be in this suspended state not knowing if I am going to drop or not. It does not feel comfortable nor comforting. So I will try to keep exercising and loosing weight. It feels that is the most I can do at the moment. It does not feel like much. So I will watch football, take my night meds and go to bed . If all goes well then tomorrow will see me walking into town to see the art gallery.

Sunday and it is travel to holiday day. Of course I do not make the early start I planned but there is time for hot water and toast before the final loading of Elsie (the car)takes place. It seems we have packed enough food to last the entire week but eventually it is all packed away. Elsie (the car) being an SUV helps as there is plenty of room in the back to take the large number of bags we have stowed. So my partner and I finally pull of four drive at about half past ten and head for Tenby.

The journey turns out well, good roads and good weather, accept of course in Wales when it rained for a while. Elsie (the car) is a delight to drive now that I have found a pair of shoes that are good to drive in. The soft Sketchers are hopeless but a good old fashioned solid soled Chelsea boot is ideal. My co-driver, my partner, gives me regular up dates on mileage to go and time of arrival, This is all important as I can then judge when to make a pit stop. The last stop is always crucial as it is the one that ensures I am comfortable as I negotiate the final and always last wiggly bit of the journey. Nothing worse than busting for a piss as you are trying to find a little out of the way cottage or address.

We finally arrive at our apartment right on the edge of Tenby beach. Having lugged everything into the apartment we store the food and take a breath. We find the apartment has two bedrooms, electric blinds, good WiFi and a balcony, which of course we go out on.

We find ourselves just behind a beach side restaurant, which turns out to be a real bonus later. Being tired and travel weary my partner and I head for the beach restaurant for a bite to eat. Tuna melt toasties with grated cheese dusted on the outside of the toastie, it must be a Welsh thing, but very welcome as we looked out over the beach.

The weather turns a bit chilly so we retreat to the apartment where we settle down to watch the Strictly results show, thankfully the right person left. This was followed by a football match and a smidgeon of Mock the Week before I went to bed. The effort of driving had caught up with me and I was beginning to definitely wilt. The double bed was smaller than our usual giant bed so it was going to be a snug night except that when I woke at 1:30am my partner had abandoned ship and gone into the other bedroom. Apparently her tickly cough had got the better of her and she took to a space of her own.

Monday and I wake up after a long block of sleep, its a while since I slept for more than six hours in one go. It must be the sea air. I get up early for me about 8 o’clock and go out onto the balcony to write the blog and catch up in my head where I am. Over the last twenty four hours the last two of my poetry collections has been published in hard back. I have of course ordered authors copies of them. So now The Cancer Years: Man to Man, the anthology, and The Cancer Year: The Rechallenge are now in hard back as well. I start the blog as the sun tries to break through the clouds, but it gives up as the drizzle increases in its heaviness. I retreat inside to continue the blog.

I am soon joined by my partner and we settle down to enjoy a tortilla breakfast as we watch the drizzle fall. After some serious lazing we go out for a walk. Our way out is through the outside area of the restaurant/bar and onto the beach path that leads up the cliffs to the Esplanade above the beach. Its a challenging climb and has a large number of rest benches along the way. At the top are an array of benches on which to sit and look out to sea. Most of the benches are memorialised, so some poor bastards clearly did no make it up the slope.

We follow the Esplanade along the sea front until we come to the famous Tenby town walls. Tenby is a walled town (“by” means town in old English). It is like York and like York it is possible to walk the towns walls. We got as far as the nearest shop in order to buy a paper for the crosswords before turning back and retracing our steps back to the beach. Being knackered by the walk, I am clearly no Sherpa Tensing, we headed into The Lounges and ate. I was pleases with my chicken burger soaked in hot honey and adorned with chilli. With nothing to do but laze and watch other people pop in for a coffee, or in one couples case, two large glasses of rose wine, each. Further coffee took us into the realms of discussing the shorts wearing habits of older men and I had to explain to my partner that older men find trousers perilous to put on and that donning shorts means less risk of over balancing and/or catching your foot in the trouser leg and finding yourself in A&E being asked how frequently you fall over. “He’s of an age” is the usual response of less insightful medical staff. We finish our late lunch and return to the apartment where I do the cross words and play a word game on my partners i-pad until I am bored so start to draft the blog again.

Its been an ideal start to a holiday. A brief recognisance of the area, the nearest post office located, a lazy lunch and then a relaxing afternoon. There will be an evening snack, TV and for me an early night as tomorrow I expect we will tackle the slope again and venture beyond the town walls to see what goodies Tenby has to offer. Nothing exciting but then that is okay right now.

Saturday and I attempt to get up quickly but fail, my body needs time to wake up. My partner brings me a hot water and I sip it until I am ready to arise. A quick bagel breakfast and my partner and I go in search of a suitcase for the holiday. We try the local shops at the big garden centre but to no avail so we return home empty handed. I do a Tesco order for later today and then take to drafting the blog having read a WhatsApp message that included my resignation announcement in May 2006 of my Therapy Directorship of the HMP Dovegate Therapeutic Community. It raises memories of people who I still meet with and those that have either died or moved out of my sphere of contact. Its a strange feeling after two decades to think about all the things that the group has done since and how they have spread out.

My afternoon sees me filling the bird and squirrel feeders before finally getting round to planting the rest of the bulbs in the front garden flower bed. If all goes well the Spring will bring five bunches of Narcissus to edge the front flower bed. It is intriguing how things will turn out. Having cleared everything away I sink in to the sofa to watch a rugby match, which turns out to be a really good one. I pack my holiday main bag and then watch England thrash Serbia 7-0. Of course Strictly follows on the i-player, during which I try to get some old compact cameras working and take in a Tesco order. Before going to bed I pack my traveling office backpack. I have a whole range of techno goodies that goes with me on holiday. This time the cameras and binoculars are going on holiday as well on the basis that there might be seals to see and photograph. Tomorrow is a long drive to be taken slowly.

Friday and I wake up feeling stiff and tired although I have slept well. My partner brings me a hot water and I eventually get up having found nothing in my messages or emails. While my partner busies herself with holiday preparation I make a simple breakfast dressed in my training kit. I am determined to train today to try an get rid of the stiffness in my arms and to try and get my body kick started. My partner goes off to shop for the holiday and my holiday underwear arrives. I get myself into the garage and get on the rower with my ear buds in and feeding me Sophie Ellis Bexter’s Kitchen Disco with summer music. All I want to do is get to the end of this session, as I start to slowly pull.

As I suspected the session is hard and is the worst one yet in this new season of training. I take solace in the fact that I complete the session. That’s four sessions in the week, so not bad for the first week. As I am away on Sunday I will have to do my weekly weigh in on Saturday, I am hoping that my abstaining from sweets, cakes and puddings will see a drop in my weight, but I maybe being over optimistic. I shall see tomorrow.

My day now focuses on getting a shower and packing for the holiday. There is also the final arrangement of any possible break in the journey at a handy hotel or not. In the final analysis it is decided that we will make our travel arrangements to take up only one day so it will be an early start on Sunday.

Having showered and got comfortable I put out my holiday clothes. Its a dilemma of what t take and what to leave at home. The easy stuff is the inner layers, its the outer layers of hoodies, jumpers and jackets that pose the problem. I am spoilt for choice, which is definitely a first world problem. It is all so weather dependant and I’ve little indication of what its going to be for sure next week. In the end I hedge my bets with light weight rain wear and stuff that will keep me warm on wind swept beaches. So eventually I have a pile of clothes that should see me through a seaside week. With all this sorted I return to the blog while my partner is off visiting her mother in the care home with her brother. With my clothes packing sorted I turn to deciding what tech is coming with me in my portable office. It is amazing how much techno stuff alongside my book reading for the week I can pack into my office back pack. I’ve decided that if there is a chance of seeing seals on this holiday I am definitely going to take my proper camera with me. I have no doubt it will all get sorted by the time we come to leave for our holiday destination. I just need to sort out the folding chairs, although god knows if we will ever need them on a seaside holiday in October in England. Optimism needs to be fed I guess.

My evening is going to be food and the final episodes of One Dollar and if I’m lucky episode three of Slow Horses. Now I have another day at home I can relax a bit and may even contemplate another training session tomorrow.

Thursday and the 1st of October I wake up knowing I have to shift myself as I have jabs this morning. Breakfast is a quick toasted tea cake and orange juice to accompany my morning meds. I have time to check my messages and my emails before my partner gives me a lift to the GP surgery. I was going to walk but to be honest I do not feel great. My partner drops me off at the GP surgery, I am early but I get in straight away and in no time my usual nurse has stuck a needle in each upper arm with my COVID and FLU jabs. I am very quickly back in the car and on the way home.

I am just resting when my partner goes to the gym for an Aqua class so I decide to join her. It gets me out of the house. I throw a journal and some books into a bag and of we go. My partner goes to her class while I munch a bacon roll and drink dark black decaf coffee whilst reading Cicero’s essays on friendship and old age. I also start to read his collection of letters. Sending letters in the ancient Rome empire seemed to depend on having slaves you send, if in Rome, or knowing someone who might be going in the general direction of the intended recipient. I sent a letter on the 11th of September to a friend who lives a 25 minute drive from me which did not arrive until the 29th of September. Not good for a service that is supposed to deliver within at least two days of posting. Had I been in the Roman empire I would have sent a house slave off with it and it would have arrived the same day. Tell me again how modern technology is making my life better.

My partner reappears and we leave for home. On the journey I remember it is one of my grand children’s birthday is in mid October and the pharmacy has sent me a text to tell me that my prescription is ready to collect. Once home I get comfortable and start to draft the days blog listening to medication music.

As the afternoon progresses my partner start to plant out the winter pansies in the front door and drive way pots. I assist with getting the compost and preparing the pots. I leave my partner to plant the flowers while I clean up the block paving from the side of the house. There are a lot of small plants and weeds trying to establish themselves in the blocks but I get to them and then fil the gaps with salt and sweep it into the path. I have found that using salt in this way prevents weeds growing back, simple and easy. With the pots done and the garden tools packed away I return to the sofa and some big bang theory. I have an early tea as I am expecting a call from a friend who duly rings at the agreed time. It is a long time since we had a long chat so we catch up with what we have ben doing and how our respective families are. It is really good to have time to chat to someone who is not in my family and who is living a very different family life out in the world that I no longer have much dealings with. After my call I settle down with my partner to watch One Dollar. I have to say that the setting of the Rust Belt in America seems a grim place to be apart from the shows plot line. I am tired so go to bed relatively early having taken my night meds. As I go to bed I become aware that one of my arms is aching a bit from the COVID jab I had earlier in the day.

Wednesday and I over sleep. I hate it when I wake at about 8am and then reawaken later to find its gone 10 o’clock. It sets me back and disturbs me. The assumption I make is that my body is telling me that I need the rest but it is still annoying. My partner pops in before she goes to the gym and gives me the now warm, but was hot, water she bought me earlier. I get up and make my breakfast feeling groggy. It makes me wonder if this is adrenal insufficiency or fatigue from the previous days rowing session. It could of course be both. I take my morning meds and try to get myself going. First up is buying some sports socks which should have been easy but MandM had locked me out of my account so there was that to sort out first. Finally I get things ordered and turn my attention to other things.

The big job of the morning was replacing the bulb holder in the bathroom. I had already prepared a new bulb socket so the first stage was to remove the old bulb socket from the ceiling fitment. Standing on a chair I managed to get the old fitment out of the socket and then chop off the bulb socket. With that done I could rewire a new bulb socket onto the power supply wires. It went relatively easily, but my arms tired quickly and it took several goes to get it done. I plugged in a new bulb and to my relief it worked. All I had to do was reassemble the light fitment and put it back into the ceiling. It all worked! All that was left was to put all the tools away, which by the time I had done I was knackered and retreated to the garden swig seat to recover.

The garden swing seat is where my partner found me when she retuned from the gym. After a chat and some planning we went off to our local good coffee garden centre café and had lunch. There we chatted a bit about the state of the universe, the phenomena of pilots stabbing each other and what luggage to take on holiday. I am personably intrigued by whether there is a contiguity between the development of our personal universes by which we make meaning of being and living, and the creation of astronomical universes. I suspect I will never know. I think there is too much dark energy and matter in my processes to know. On our return I napped. I was overwhelmed with fatigue for a while until I started to draft the blog for the day. I then spent my time reading Cicero and writing a little bit.

A little reading and then I write:

561
I find as I get older
my body moans more.
Not just silently 
but involuntarily audible. 
A grunt or expletive
meeting movement,
once youthfully easy 
but now seized.
I’m smaller too,
used to be over six feet
with a good pair of Cuba heels,
but now I come in at five nine. 
My discs are slimmer,
worn down by years 
of sport and pelvic thrusts,
unless my arches have collapsed
spectacularly.
My lungs can no longer 
out dunk my grandchildren
and Scuba is off limits.
I also think my balance 
has gone.
But this is easy to explain,
the weight of all that wisdom 
in my head topples me over,
except when the idiocy in my arse
pulls me quickly earthwards.                                                      562 30-09-2026

.

The evening arrives along with the evening meal an TV. Tonight there is more of The Crowded Room to watch before its time to take my meds and get to bed. Tomorrow is not only the first day of a new month but also it is COVID and FLU jab day at the GP surgery. I’m booked in early morning, I’m just hoping all goes well there is a holiday journey to drive on Saturday.

Tuesday and I wake up to find my partner still home due to a cancelled physio appointment. She brings me a hot water and then goes off to the gym to do an aqua session. I get up and make myself a muesli breakfast and take my morning meds. My muscles are aching after the last two days training so I take some time to update my journal and prepare it for the coming month. by late morning I am fully organised and prepared. I get into my training kit and wonder if I am doing the right thing, there is always the anxiety that if I over do it I might induce the dread blood in the urine but I am willing to chance it as the benefits outweigh the down side. The garage is cold even though the weather forecast said it was going to be in the 70s. I strap into the rower set the session for 20 minutes, put my ear buds in and tune into Sophie Elis-Bextor’s Kitchen Disco and get under way. It feels a tough session, my body complains but I realise at the 10 minute mark I am doing okay and might improve on yesterdays session. Being driven I pull harder and faster with the result that I do indeed exceed the previous sessions this week. This is a typical case of no gain without pain, not a view I necessarily agree within this case it fits the situation.

So my body was feeling rough but produces a session that is the best yet since I went back to training. I take that that to mean that there is potential to get back to a decent level of fitness. It provides the motivation to continue with my efforts, my diet and water only intake. I wonder if I will be able to row for an hour by Christmas? After a few minutes to recover I take a shower to refresh me and give my body a treat. Feeling refreshed and revived I take to the sofa and start the draft of todays blog. I have been looking on the internet at where my poetry collections get offered and I am surprised at how many stores say they offer it, a lot in America, I think. I am convinced the Americans I first dealt with ripped me off, I’ve never seen any royalties from there. Maybe nothing has ever sold, but I am suspicious.

I wander into the afternoon waiting for the return of my partner before deciding on which task to take up next. My partner returns and we decide to go for a bite to eat and a coffee. We go to a local garden centre that does good coffee and average tuna melts. Having eaten we drive to the garage next door to check my tyres but the air line was not working. I drive on and go to another garage where I check my tyres and to up my fuel tank. Once home I feel fatigued and decide to have a nap. Feeling slightly groggy I rouse myself and go and fil the bird and squirrel feeders. Between the birds and the squirrels they will eat me out of house and home. The light leads I had been waiting for get delivered and I set about making up one to put into the bathroom light that needs mending. By the time this is done its tie to eat and watch England’s football team beat a ten man team. I take my night meds early, watch the first episode of strange American thriller, The Crowded Room. I draft the blog, put the bins out and go off to bed feeling tired.

Monday and I wake up late and slightly achy after yesterdays exertions. When I do get up I get into my training kit before taking my morning meds with orange juice. Then its into the garage and onto the rower. I’ve no ambition beyond doing my 20 minutes so with ear buds in I start out on my row. My body complains but I push on to the end. I am pleased as I find that I have gone further than yesterday and further than the last session 152 days ago. Somewhere inside a small voice is pleased that I can still do this. with the training out of the way I indulge in a toasted tea cake and some water.

In the early afternoon my partner and I go to a local garden centre for a bacon roll and a coffee. While there we peruse the seeds and plants and end up buying some bedding plants for the pots that need reinvigorating. Once home I retreat to the sofa and spend my afternoon reading Cicero’s essays on friendship and old age. Its good stuff but quite dense. After the evening meal my partner goes to her singing lesson while I watch The Big Bang Theory. The evening comes to a close with me taking my night meds and getting to bed relatively early. Tomorrow I shall see if my drugs order has gone through as I plan the travel to our holiday destination on Saturday.

Sunday and wake up after a late night watching Strictly on the i-player. Todays the day I start my recovery properly. There is weight to be lost and fitness to be gained before I can declare myself body fit for Christmas. So no more sweets, biscuits, puddings or nibbles till Christmas and regular exercise, for me that means the rowing machine needs to be used and oiled. I g o to the bathroom for the first of the day and then weigh myself. Its horrific, fat boy weighs in at 104.9 Kilos, that is unacceptable. It is a combination of comfort eating sweet stuff during the misery of 8 months of chemo therapy and the bucket loads of steroids I have taken during that time. All of this must change. I get into my training gear, put my ear buds in and march towards the garage and my rower. I strap myself in and set the rower on level 3, the last level I trained at pre chemo, and set the time for twenty minutes, and then I am pulling away.

It goes okay, I am of course tired but happy that the calf muscle I strained three weeks ago has held up and I have managed the full 20 minutes. I sit on the rower giving myself a minute to recover and then take a photo of the machine’s monitor, so I can compare the data with the last time I trained. I make my breakfast muesli and open a fresh bottle of water. I take my steroids with the food but today is special, its the first day of reducing my steroids below five milligrams, down to four. This is the beginning of the tricky bit of tapering off steroids. At levels below 5mg it will become apparent whether or not my body has switched on its own adrenal system or whether I am going to suffer from adrenal insufficiency. Time will tell and I shall be watching out for fatigue and the other symptoms of the insufficiency.

I check how long its been since I last trained and it turns out that it was on the 30th of April this year, that’s 150 days ago. When I compare my performance today to the last training session back at the end of April I find I am only ten metres short of the April session and expended 1 calorie less than in that session. Given what the last 150 days have contained I am pleased with todays session. In a months time when I reduce my steroids again by 1mg a day I will increase the level of effort to level 4 on the rower. If I keep tapering my steroids dosage by 1mg a month I shall be free of them by February and if I am persistent a few kilos lighter.

With the morning exercise and reduced meds done I record it all in my journal and think about cooking tonight’s meal, I ‘m going to cook my special smoked paprika chicken one pot using the smoked paprika that our Hungarian guest brought us, but in order to do so I need to go and get red wine and bacon. My partner who is gardening decides to accompany me so we walk off to the village shop. This is something I have not done in a while and is a symbol of my perceived inability to do things due to the chemo fatigue. My partner and I arrive at the village co-op quite hot as I had worn my leather biker jacket and she her fleece. We gathered up the food we needed and managed the self check out but not before some one came and ratified that this 78 year old was old enough to buy alcohol. The walk back home was slow. I stowed the goodies and then took to the recliner to start the draft of todays blog before watching the Leicester Tigers play Saracens.

My team lose at the rugby and I make my way to the kitchen where I prepare paprika chicken one pot. There is some football to watch while the food bubbles away. The food is good and moves my partner and I onto watching Zero Day starring Robert De Niro. It keeps us going till I take my meds and head for bed. Day one of the “body fit for Christmas” has gone well, I hope day two goes as well.