Sunday and a late rise to a simple breakfast but not before ordering new toothbrushes and an olive tree. Its sunny so I am heading for the garden, there are bird feeders to fill, swing seats to be measured, plant to go in tubs and of course lots of autumn tidying to do.

As it happens the garden guy turns up to mow the now lush lawns and lop the tall bits off a Damson tree. So three of us, my partner joins in, have a concerted effort on the garden. By four thirty the garden is looking brilliant. The bird feeders are full as is the squirrels nut box, and in no time the squirrel is running round the garden burying peanuts in the lawns. We have cleared all the old pots and dead paddling pool away and dead headed everything. The new front door large pots are in place with new plants in them. The swing sat has been measured and a new winter cover ordered along with a new olive tree to go into one of the front pots. It’s been a productive afternoon and my partner and I sit on the patio counting our blessings. We are truly fortunate to have the garden we have, it is a real refuge and a sanctuary. All I have to do tomorrow is put in the new olive tree when it arrives and get the swing seat cover on.

The evening starts well as my new poetry collection, The Cancer Years: The Rechallenge goes live on Amazon and I order some author’s copies to arrive next week.

I then settle down to an evening of Ultimate athletics and the final episodes of Vigil. My family go off to bed leaving me to watch Mock the Week. I take my meds and finally go to bed. Tomorrow is 28 day jab day. Not my favourite day.

Saturday and I wake up to find my partner has gone to see her mother in the care home and I have a headache. I get up and make breakfast and try to rest. Eventually I work up the courage to check to see if my blood results have come in. The results are in my in box but I hesitate to open them, I realise I am quite anxious about what I will find. After some hesitation I begin to transcribe the results. When I get to the PSA result I get a big, very big surprise. I had been expecting for my PSA to rise post chemo rechallenge but it comes in at 2.5. That’s the lowest its been since August 2025, over a year ago. I had calculated that if I finished all cycles of the rechallenge the optimum I could achieve based on average reduction per cycle, was 2.4. So I am very surprised that it has come in at 2.5 some 50 days after the end of the re-challenge chemo. The rest of my profile seems to have stayed relatively stable. So I am taken aback and know it will take time to process the information and decide what to do. It will certainly change the tone of the oncology review on Tuesday.

I cast up the results and share them with my partner. I then hunker down and take paracetamol to se if I can shift my headache. I watch the English women’s rugby team play Australia and of course win. The game is interrupted by the Tesco deliver, happily almost at half time. I move onto the athletics and begin to draft the days blog. The athletics take me into the evening and I and my partner get to watch the final episodes of Trigger Point. I take my night meds and then get myself to bed. It appears after todays blood results that the question “what is this” is more tricky than I thought, could it be remission? What is clear is that my overall being is down to me to get right, which for a start means getting myself as fit as possible. This seems to be a crucial moment.

Friday, a big day. It starts with an early start as I have to be at the GP surgery for 9am for a set of bloods. Thankfully my partner drives me to the surgery after a quick breakfast and my morning meds. I am soon called in and to my dismay the vampire nurse realises that she needs to take enough blood samples to monitor my apixaban medication. Happily it was one needle for double the number of vials. I leave with the nurse with the usual cotton wool cloud on my arm. My partner takes me to the post office so that I can post my letters, and then we moved onto the chemists, where I picked up my prescription drugs ready for my injection on Monday. Once home I settle down to complete the days cross words.

At lunch time thee was time to have a roll and then I am booking an Uber to take my partner and I to the Curve theatre to see our eldest daughter be presented with her doctorate. I chose to wear my cerise cord blazer and black dress shirt. On arriving at the theatre we are met by our eldest daughter who is now robbed up in her doctoral robes. She gives us or tickets for the presentation and then we wait for a while until its time to go into the auditorium. Before we go to the auditorium we go to the top floor where the photographers are and we have official photographs taken. Over the next few days we will order our preferences and wait for our photos to arrive. We take our seats and wait for the start of the ceremony. The ceremonies begin with an academic procession and is followed by the revealing of the graduates sitting on the other side of the stage. There are speeches by various dignitaries, musical entertainment and input from the Leicester poet laureate before a huge crocodile of students walk across the stage to collect their degrees. The crowd applauded well and at times was quite raucous. Eventually it came the turn of my eldest daughter to receive her doctorate. Of course whooped and cheered as I filmed her do her walk of achievement and collect her degree. At the end of the ceremony we meet up with our daughters PhD supervisors and took soem pictures. We hung around in the theatre café for a while and watched the various families celebrating their children’s achievements. My secret pleasure was the fact that my daughters robes included the floppy hat with a tassel. There were only five other people with them so I wander around thinking to myself “my girls got a floppy hat”. When the crowds have thinned and almost everyone has drifted away we call an Uber to take us home.

Once home I start to draft the blog and nibble chocolate biscuits while waiting until its time to go to the restaurant to celebrate todays achievement. It will be excellent food but at the end of the evening I shall looking out for my blood results and the data they will bring. Some where in there I will need to check the Tesco order that is due tomorrow. The reality turns out that my blood results do not arrive at midnight and I am so tired I cannot wait any longer and go to bed.

Thursday and I am awake as my partner brings me hot water. I decide to accompany my partner to the gym while she does aqua and has her nails done. It gets me out of the house and an opportunity to shower on someone else’s energy bill and to eat food not cooked at home. So I take my morning meds with a cheese straw and get ready to go to the gym. Once there I order a bacon roll and coffee and settle down to write but my partners brother is at the gym so as my partner bounces up and down in the pool I chat to her brother. At 12:30 my partners brother leaves and I star to draft the blog. There is no sign that my publishers are moving forward with my new collection, but it takes time to finalise the manuscript before it can be up loaded for printing and publication. I need to be patient, I am sure things will move along soon. It is also my sons 50th birthday today, so there are messages to send. Unfortunately there are soem delays in his presents reaching him so there he is going to have an elongated birthday. Due to Brexit he is also going to have to pay a customs fee to get his main present. A classic case of the majority being wrong.

With my CD player feeding the latest Rolling Stones album I start to write letters before my partner joins me for lunch and brings my chatty morning to an end. As my partner goes off to have her nails done I go and take a long shower. Feeling refreshed and quite energetic I return to the gym lounge and continue to write a letter. My partner soon return and we drive home, finding that the Hippo BAg has been collected.

Once home I continue to write my letters until tea time arrives and there is time to watch a football match and Trigger Point at the same time. With the football over, my night meds taken I can focus on Trigger Point. I drink a load of water before finishing the blog for the day and going to bed in preparation for tomorrows bloods and my eldest daughters doctoral graduation.

Wednesday and I sleep late. I wake at gone 10 o’clock and although I am happy yo have slept well I am irritated that the morning is skipping away. I check my messages and mail and get up to make my breakfast and take my morning meds. I clear away some of the life admin debris that is laying around. At lunch time my partner goes off with her brother to meet with an estate agent to measure up their mothers house. I attempt to join Prostate Progress, a data based research charity but having completed everything the expected email to complete the process did not arrive and had not late in the afternoon. So a waste of time really. I moved on to bring the bins in and then settled down to write letters. It is months since I wrote to anyone and I decide to write the letters on the laptop. So that is what I do for the rest of the day.

The evening starts when my partner returns and we settle down for the evening. There is food and then we continue to watch the City of Shadows, a crime drama set in Barcelona featuring Gaudi buildings. So of course we sit playing “been there” and trying to guess the outcome of the drama. At the end of the evening I take my night meds and get of to bed earlier than usual. Its my sons birthday tomorrow so there will be lots of messaging to do. Unfortunately due to a combination of Amazon and Swedish customs most of his presents will not arrive on time. Another effect of Brexit.

Tuesday and I am just awake when my partner brings me hot water before she goes to the physiotherapist and the onto her aqua class at the gym. I sip my drink, check my emails and social media and then call the GP surgery to book my COVID and Flu jabs. So now I have something to look forward to on the first of October. I write a poem, not brilliant but where I am.

558
Ten o’clock
still in bed
as I struggle 
to open another day.
My mind ticks off
the to do list
of everyday self
maintenance tasks,
and before I know it
I’m  exhausted 
at the thought of it.
This is fatigue
and the voice
that pleads for respite.
Still the question,
“What is this?”
gnaws away at me.
Am I abandoned?
Is this remission?,
or just waiting.
Perhaps caste off
to die
and the doctors staying quiet.
Bloods on Friday,
So data at last,
then a phone call
midweek.
I’m not hopeful
of any answers,
in their minds
I’m 12 to 18 months
And 9 of those
have gone.
A body
half full.

					558 08-09-2026

Finally I manage to get out of bed and take a shower. It perks me up a bit when I feel fresh and clean. The next task is breakfast, I go for fast and easy, which in my world is muesli, yoghurt and fresh orange juice. Its A second Tuesday in my drugs rota so I spend time filling my drugs dossetes for the next two weeks while my washing sloshes around in the machine. By twelve o’clock the life admin has been done and I have time to draft the blog and to read the letter from Prostate Progress inviting me to join. It appears to be a research project which will ask me to fill in surveys and to contribute to ideas for treatment and services. I am not one for joining things but I am tempted to contribute Maybe I will sell them a few books. So far today it feels relatively productive.

My partner returns from the gym as I am in the middle of the days crosswords, I leave my puzzles and we go to a local garden centre for lunch. I chose a baked potato with tuna mayo, I would not usually mention my food but it was the cost of this one that was staggering. It seemed disproportionately priced compared to my partners scone platter, which I swear had more calories. Any way we ate and then looked for a pair of matching pots to house our new perennial shrubs that we intend to be the front door guardians. We had no luck so returned home empty handed. I finished my puzzles and attend to my broken nails before catching up on the blog. It is a European night of football tonight but it is also the semi final of the great British Sewing Bee so there are some tricky choices to be made.

Whatever the out come I shall end up taking my night meds and going off to bed one day closer to the bloods on Friday and whatever logic is in their arithmetic. What ever they are I am hoping they move me on from What ever this is?

Saturday and Sunday are all about grandchildren and the celebration of the oldest member of the family. I woke up on Saturday looking forward to the arrival of my youngest daughters family. They arrive mid morning and settle down with lunch. The afternoon gets filled with a trip to a local park to feed the ducks. I did not accompany them due to feeling fatigued. The evening saw the family getting the grandchildren off to bed before the adults enjoyed the calm and silence before going to bed wondering how many times they will be woken up in the night. I of course take my night meds and go to bed hoping for no more than sleep.

Sunday is a busy day. Everyone gets up early and prepare to go to the family gathering celebrating my partners mother’s 98th birthday. After breakfast the household drive off to the care home where the great grandmother awaits unknowing that family is about to arrive. In the end four generations gather together to eat cake, sing happy birthday and catch up with each other. After a couple of hours its time for the residents of the care home to have lunch so the celebrations are cleared away and people left leaving the birthday girl and a single person to have lunch. The family outside say their farewells and drive home.

Once home there was time to take the eldest visiting grandson into the garden where he helped fill the bird feeders and the squirrel nut box. He worked very hard at the task and then helped to hang the feeders up. We then spent time on the swing seat waiting for the birds and squirrels to come and find the new food. Tea time arrives and everyone tucks into pie and roast goodies and once again the children are gentled off to bed and the adults hit the sofas and watch TV until each person goes off to bed again hoping for uninterrupted sleep.

Monday and I wake up feeling very under the weather. I can hear the young visiting family are up and about but I do not join them until breakfast later on. There is a lot of packing and clearing away activity until they clamber into the new car and head for home. I retreat to the recliner and try to rest. The foreword for my new poetry collection arrives and I immediately send it of to my publishers who now have to integrate it into the manuscript and get it up on the publishing platform. Its going to take at least a couple of days for that to happen so it will be at least a week or ten days before I can hold the physical book in my hands. The foreword has been written by the chair of the South Leicestershire Poetry Stanza. He wrote the foreword for the last collection. His Foreword for this collection is very generous and kind and I am touched by it. As I draft the catch up on the blog, the flowers I ordered from a local florist arrives for my partner. A small gesture of thanks for all the hard work she has put in to make the family experience this weekend such a success. I also discover that the “too good to be true” leather biker jacket that I ordered is coming from China. I swear that when I ordered it the seller said it was coming by DPD but it turns out it is coming by Yuntrack, the obvious Chinese equivalent. I paid an express free thinking it would be with me quickly but now my expectations is that any time before Christmas will be an achievement. So I shall while my afternoon away with some light gardening and plan on how I shall fill my evening during my partners singing lesson. My guess is her pipes will be a bit rusty and that there will be some interesting sounds in the night.

My light gardening goes well as I manage to regain a pot and plant the third of our ornamental grass experiments. I am thinking that ornamental grasses might be a good idea in draught like weather conditions so my partner and I have acquired three and potted then up to over winter them and then see in the spring if we want to plant them out. It is a sort of future planing to future proof the garden.

Having potted up the third grass I have a look at the garden and find that the rose bought for my partner by a friend a couple of years ago has flowered again and has more buds. Unusual for the time of year.

These late flowers and the wild life give me hope. The Honeysuckle is also flowering again and the Cosmos and other plants continue to flower. I am hoping that signals a warm autumn and of course the hope that there will be no need to turn the heating on till as late as possible. With everything cleared away I spend time on the swing seat watching the birds feed from the feeders that my grandson and I filled yesterday. My garden never fails to inspire me and bear me up when I am feeling less than chipper. So I spend time on the swing seat relaxing and thinking about “What is this?” It is still my dominant question at this time.

Eventually I return to the sofa and update the blog before making myself tuna pasta and then settling for the night to watch TV while my partner has her singing lesson. I get to night meds time and take myself off to bed noting that tomorrow week is my oncology review, which means bloods this Friday.

Friday I wake up feeling decidedly off. My partner brings me hot water and I get up to make breakfast and take my morning meds. I am feeling rotten and all I am good for is doing the days crosswords and reading snippets of a newspaper. I write a quick verse that sums me up this morning.

557
I’m furious 
I fell over.
One step
was one step
too many.
Now I have 
a strained calf.
So I am immobilised,
Limping like
a matchstick man
down a painted street.
Another hurdle
in the pursuit 
of wellness.
Hobbled and trapped
I rage silently 
and try  to 
learn to hop
in a compulsive
urge to live
normally. 
It feels like time 
is running out.

                                                             557 04-09-2026

                                                     

I have a lunchtime roll with my partner and try to settle down, My partner and eldest daughter go to the gym with a plan to go to the theatre afterwards. I see them off and then tidy up a bit, shower and do my nails. Feeling clean but with a gut that is decidedly off I rest for a while before making a dinner of tuna pasta and watch a Millie Bobby Brown fantasy film. I wait for Tesco to deliver and as I wait I draft the blog against a background of the British Open snooker tournament and later The Dark Knight. Night meds and then bed.

Thursday the 3rd of September, its the seventh anniversary of my first chemotherapy. It feels like a long time with its highs and lows but here I am battered but moving forward. Currently my biggest challenge is my strained left calf, which is making mobility an issue, and the fatigue that goes with coming off the chemo rechallenge and the steroids. However I am above ground and vertical, which is all good. So after drinking the hot water my partner brought me I get up and make breakfast and then begin the draft of todays blog. I’ve already booked the Tesco slot for tomorrow and begun filing the basket in readiness for my youngest daughter’s family visit at the weekend. Once I feel settled I crack on with jobs while my partner meets the physio at the care home to discuss her mother, after which she moves she moves onto the hairdresser.

My eldest daughter and I move the bags f books from the garage to the Hippo Bag on the verge in front of the house. Once the books are all stowed I retrieve old covers from the garden shed and cover and secure the Hippo Bag. With that done I try to change the light bulb in the bathroom but there is clearly an issue with the supply to the fitment. This may well be an electrician job. I tidy away my tools and rubbish and return to the British Open Snooker championship and writing odds and ends. I appear not to have too much energy at the moment as moving around seems to be draining me a lot at the moment.

Later in the afternoon the garden guy turns up and gets to work on some Autumn pruning and planting. We are in the phase of preparing the garden for next Spring with cutting things back and making sure the things we have potted up for the beds next year are safe and secure. The evening will soon be upon me and apart from the final additions to the Tesco order I have little to do. I need to catch up with my correspondence, people must feel |I’ve abandoned them. There will be the inevitable night meds and last minute clearing up to do and before I know it the weekend will be upon me and it will be full of family.

Tuesday and I wake with my left calf still hurting from my fall on Sunday so I order a calf support, get up and have breakfast with my morning meds. It is my partners mother’s birthday so she goes to the gym before being picked up by her brother at lunchtime to visit her in he care home. I spend my morning attending to my sons birthday. Some things go well, good old Amazon being a star provider. However Tigers rugby club store was less helpful. Apparently in this day and age of international digital trade the Tigers are not able to send goods to Sweden, tossers. The birthday present is therefore now coming to me for onward transmission to Sweden. Having wrestled with the birthday admin I moved onto sorting out the Foreword for my next collection of poetry to be published. Having emailed the author I got a swift response and have agreed that in the circumstances its reasonable to give more time for it to be written.

The rest of my day was pottering until two thirty when I limped out to Elsie (the car) and drove to the chiropodist. I parked in my usual pace in the Co-op car park and then limped to the chiropodist’s. I must have looked like a shuffling old man out for his daily hobble. On arriving at the chiropodists I read the local advertising rag and took photos of all the “Handy Man” adverts before being called into the treatment room. I am usually quite chatty but today I did not feel like it. Of course I did chip in with some comments but I sensed the chiropodist was not up for much of a chat either. She worked away on my feet very efficiently and effectively until they were ready for their cream rub.

Having paid my bill I tottered in happy feet back to the Co-op where I bought some essentials, a paper and some After Eights. I almost thought of them as essentials but realise they are in fact an unnecessary indulgence that I turn to when I am feeling pissed off with the world or myself. I drove home and retreated to the sofa and more episodes of The Big Bang Theory. This is where I pretty much stayed for the rest of the day, drifting into the evening and the Swedish crime drama The Chestnut Man. Very dark and a lot of limb lopping. I a final flurry of activity I pu the bins out, set Didy (dishwasher) going and retreated to bed looking forward to tomorrow as my newly order calm support sock should arrive. Its come to this, the joy of anticipation of a compression sock, how bad can it get.

Wednesday and I wake up after a reasonable nights sleep, however my left calf is still giving me gip. My partner brings me a hot water as I check my social media and the news. World is the same old shit so I move on to sending messages to people. My partner goes to the gym for an aqua class and I get up for breakfast to find my partner has already fetched todays newspaper. One of my sons birthday presents has arrived and I spend some time boxing it up and getting it ready to go to the post office later today. I change a light bulb or two and do a bit of rudimentary tidying before beginning to draft the blog. This is followed by the days crosswords.

My afternoon is spent getting a bacon sandwich and buying new plants for the front garden. Of course there is an afternoon nap before the excitement of tea and more Danish crime drama. Refreshingly one of the main police characters gets unexpectedly gunned down four episodes in. I get to my night meds, eat supper and go to bed having removed my newly acquired compression calf support, which I am hoping will ease my left calf.