Friday and its been a bad night so I wake up late and feel grim and headachy. My partner brings me a hot water and goes to the gym. I eventually get up and get into my training kit before making breakfast. My intention is to train but I feel decidedly off so I open the post (bills and instantly recyclable crap) and take paracetamol. While I wait for the pain killers to kick in I scribble a poem, which kind of captures where I am.

568
I feel under attack
by fearsome erosion.
Parts of me disappear
in full view
as I try to stand
in the face of the tides
that sweep in from oceans
of changes and lost time.
The lesser me strives
to be the person I was,
do the things that defined me,
but I find I lack the parts.
This is a dip, at least
I hope it is. 
In truth I’ve no way of knowing
So this is how it is,
A new personal universe 
with more than its share 
of dark matter. 

						568 30-10-2026

As I sit an await the numbing effects of the paracetamol I draft the first part of todays blog. Its as far as it might get today. However I do find the energy and gusto to pay the invoices for the instillation and maintenance of the upgraded house alarm system.

My partner returns from the gym and finds me newly out of the garage and another rowing session. Again I extend to thirty minutes despite feeling crap. Once again with Sophie Ellis Bexter’s Kitchen Disco in my ears I set off and try to not look at the monitor in order to just keep going. Of course eventually I take a peep at the distance and do a quick rough calculation of how much time has passed and do another calculation of how many more tunes I need to listen to before I get close to the end, using three minutes as the average tune length. Eventually I take another peek and find I am down to the last two and a half minutes. I feel sluggish and I am convinced that this is slower and shorter than yesterdays half hour session. To my surprise when I get to compare the two sessions I have gone further and spent more calories than yesterday. I am pleased with this, it means I can rest at the weekend with a clear conscience.

With my training kit still on I have soup for lunch and then I join my partner in the garden. She is busy planting up the pots in the front garden so I set about junking the old tomato plants, pruning the Lilly’s, and of course cutting back the Peonies. Its late in the year to be doing this but this year has been exceptional for how long it has taken the to die back. I can do no more having filled the compost bin so I retreat back inside and note the down the wood sizes I need to repair the fence. I also order the G clamps that I need to use in the fence repair. Tomorrow or over the weekend I will need to go to B&Q to buy the wood I need. Having finally got out of my training kit I return to the sofa and update the blog. I have no doubt that tonight I will be glued to the last episode of The Traitors. Hopefully my exercise today will mean that I will sleep well tonight.

Wednesday and it is a day of accompanying my partner to the gym, she to exercise, me to eat bacon rolls and drink coffee. While my partner bounced around in the pool I read more of The Correspondent and chatted to my brother in law who was in the gym with one of my nephews. All in all a good way to spend a morning. It got better as post gym I took my partner to our local Pesto and had a delicious late lunch. I just cannot go to a Pesto without ending the meal with an Affogato with a shot of Amoretto. It is a delicious combination of cold ice cream, hot expresso and the warm almond flavour of Amoretto. Such a treat and one that always puts me in a good mood. I am no good for anything sensible after an Affogato. When I got home I finished reading The Correspondent. I recommend it, it is an easy read and there are enough threads woven through the book to keep one engaged. The format of it all being in the form of letters and emails breaks the book into easily read chunks. from my point of view it was nice to have a main character who is retired and draws in the issues of being over seventy in a changing world.

Having once again thanked the person who had given me The Correspondent as a birthday present I set about entering a couple of poems into the National Poetry competition. Its £9 blown on a fantasy, so I am not sure why I entered but then I guess its all part of a fantasy life in a fantasy world. I had to adjust one poem in order for it to fit the 40 line constraint of the competition. I have no idea whether this has improved or mutilated the original poem. What a laugh if it won the £5000 first prize. It won’t but as I said this is all about fantasy. The evening was football and Celebrity Race Across the World, before I down my meds and go to bed. It feels like a day where I have fed my brain again.

Thursday and I wake up after a solid nights sleep. My partner was at a loose end so went off to the gym while I struggled to get myself together to get up and make breakfast and take my morning meds. Having eaten I put my washing into clean and headed belatedly to the garage and the rower. I had not rowed for two days so I decided that to was time to stop pussy footing around and to up the time I rowed for this session. I set my session for thirty minutes, a time I have not done for very many months. with Sophie Ellis Bexter’s kitchen disco pod cast in my ears I get going, slowly. It was an effort but I get to the end of the session with the pleasing result that I had burnt 300+ calories. Having proved that I can do it, it seems churlish not to extend future sessions to the half hour.

I put my washing in the dryer and open a diet coke as I settle on the sofa to catch up on drafting the blog. With that done its time for the rest of the day including filling the bird and squirrel feeders. After lunch with my partner I fill the bird feeders and then we audit the garden pots. It would appear that we have at least a dozen pots that need replanting to get through the winter and into spring. With that in mind we drive to one of our favourite garden centres to have a coffee and biscuit before loading up with trays of pansies.

Once home it is time to rest once the trays of plants have been unloaded. I laze while reading Cicero’s letters until tea is ready. I slide into the evening not really interested what it has to offer as I am tired and happy to go to bed early having taken my drugs. At least today it has been possible to finalise the dates to visit my youngest daughter and the grandsons and also fix the dates for Christmas visitors. Its almost time to be wearing my “nightmare before Christmas” jumper. Having stepped over the half hour hurdle today it is time to keep pushing myself forward. Body fit for Christmas.

Tuesday and I wake up tired. Not surprising real when I wake up every two hours on average for a piss. That’s prostate cancer for you. I check my phone for messages and find a picture of one of my grandsons meeting the Gruffalo. There is also a message from a friend thanking me for some birthday flowers. There is nothing else apart from Harry Kane winning the Ballon D’or. I eventually get up and make breakfast and take my morning meds. My intention was to take a shower and have a rest day but my plans are scuppered by low water pressure on the shower. I take the shower head apart and clean it but to no avail. This is a problem that requires a serious solution.

I retreat to the sofa and write stuff until my partner returns form the doctors and we have lunch.

566 
I feel I have been left to die.
Broken on the battlefield,
defeated and still attacked,
slaughter the  goal,
the erasure of being.
There is no resistance,
no working weapons
on which to base
an honourable last stand.
All I can do is look 
it in the eye 
and wait. 

						566 27-10-2026

567
I’m in no man’s land
neither ill nor well.
There are contradictory signs,
great fatigue yet hairy arms.
Signs of recovery
all marred by growing weariness,
where not only effort is required
but resistance to a breaking world.
The every day breakages and hurdles
seem larger and more difficult.
This seems a wasteland
full of snakes and demons
some real, others self made.
It is difficult not to sink
or fall back on hope
if not the irrational 
fantasies of being rescued.
It is in these moments
that I have to stand
suck in breath
and give it another go.
One more step,
one more something
that I might not have. 

						567 27-10-2026

My partner goes off to see her mother with her brother and I do the days crosswords. With my daily head exercise done I play toilet roll fairy and restock the toilet roll holders in the house. As I finish off the bathroom I lazily check the shower and to my surprise it works so I whip of my clothes and shower before it looses pressure again. Its a real delight to feel fresh and clean again. In all fresh clothes I sit and go over some old poems and in doing so I write a sister Acrostic for the Golden Shovel I had written. It means that in one the last word of each line spells out a line of another poem. In an Acrostic it is the first word of each line that spells out the line of poetry. It can spell out other things like names or messages but in this case it is the first lines of a poem. I am not claiming that either of them are good poetry but the exercise of doing it was interesting.

564 (A)
It was by total accident, according                               According to a friend ,who came
to a relation who happened to                                     to after much drink and going to
find scrolls and a                                                           a wad of papers, charred and
wallet of papers, black                                                  black like recently pirated
and charred like pirated sheep,                                    sheep, that the hag was my 
that the strange woman was my aunt.                         aunt. Taken aback I found myself
Taken aback I found myself swigging                          swigging from a bottle marked 
from a honeyed bottle marked mead                          mead. A brew by cheeky monks
by cheeky monks who knew at                                    at some shady abbey, where
what temperature the bee made a                              a bee juice induced fun and new
juice that could make illicit family.                              family. Vats and flagons now at all
Vats and flagons found at every gathering                 gatherings turn time around until 
the drinkers drunk until I became we                         we and I meld as does when and 
and here and now to when and where.                      where and here and now my
So now I wonder where my descendants                   descendants find themselves drinking 
will find themselves partaking of                               of nectar deeply and losing
their nectar and losing count                                     count of whether they are 
of whether they are Sackville                                     Sackville or some bastards by
or some bastards by Barret.                                       Barret. But perhaps it does not matter,
Perhaps it does not matter or                                    or if it does there is
if it does whether there is some                                some reason to care if
reason to care if such                                                such issues matter to a modern
issues matter to a modern bloke.                              bloke like me. 

564  (A) 27-10-2026
Acknowledgement to Helen Jayne and "An Account of Minor Aristocracy"
A Golden Shovel Acrostic my first and last.

I have concerns that the format will cause trouble when people come. to read the blog. In my browser the format is okay but there maybe a problem in other formats. Anyway I tried to log into the Poetry Society web site but it rejected me so I have had to email them to get my details right again. The evening draws in and it gets dark as I type and I realise that winter is now truly upon us even though it remains uncommonly warm for the time of the year. I am interrupted by a message from the alarm system person who provides the quote for two more motion sensors to be put in. I agree it and now wait for an engineer to arrive to install them.

My evening looms and I know there is a hot pot bubbling away. Tonight I shall indulge in something mindless before downing my meds and having an early night once the bins are out.

Monday and it’s 3mg Monday, the first day of reducing my steroids down to 3mg, that’s 1mg below the normal body production range and edging into adrenal insufficiency territory. My partner brings me a hot water before going off to sort out a new phone for her mother. I get up and get into my training kit even though I am feeling pretty crap and then I make breakfast, take my meds and then sort out my drugs dosettes for the next two weeks. With the life/drug admin done I finally go to the garage and the rower. This is the last thing I feel like doing but I tell myself that I will feel better for doing it. So I strap in and get going with Sophie Ellis Bextor’s kitchen disco in my ears. I feel rank and my body really does not want to be doing this but I press on and get to the end with reasonable figures at the end of it.

I retreat to the recliner to rest from the rower. I have not been there long when my partner an her brother return having partly sorted the issues regarding their mother’s missing phone. We all at sandwiches and then I shower before the Tesco order arrives. It’s being a difficult day so I intend to take it slowly for the rest of the day, perhaps write something or catch up in my reading.

The day was taken slowly post Tesco order and the evening was just a binge watch of a political thriller. Then it was night meds and bed.

.

Saturday and I wake to find my partner off out early to the hairdressers, a cancelled appointment sees her being fitted in early. I get up and in a fit of enthusiasm get into my training kit before having a meagre breakfast and taking my morning meds. Then its off to the garage and the infernal rowing machine. Today is the first chilly garage day but I press on knowing that my body is telling me it does not want to do this session. I grind out the twenty minutes to an inane radio programme and then thankfully stop. The data on the monitor tells mem that I’ve been okay, not brilliant but good enough for today.

Post session I change into comfortable gear and settle down to one football match and two rugby games before the evening of Strictly and The Assassin kicks in. At the end of the night I take my meds and get to bed having heard that a friend has just taken in her two new kittens. I envy the sound of purring.

Sunday and the clocks went back as I slept. My night was filled with bad dreams of being abandoned on a foreign holiday in a tunnel like hotel and an antiseptic airport, I woke disturbed and headachy. After a basic breakfast and taking my meds, this is the last day of Steroids at 4mg, I get myself windproof dressed in jeans adn biker jacket to accompany my partner to the garden centre to buy food for today and tomorrow before the Tesco order appears. With our goodies acquired we drive to a second garden centre on the way home to have a coffee and a toasted tea cake, Its becoming a regular luxury. Once home I settle done, take two paracetamol and start to draft the blog. I need to be fit by three o’clock to watch another derby rugby match, however my daughter has just sent me a photo of the felt on the garden Shed (the writing Shed) flapping about as a result of the high winds we have had. I really could do with out this shit.

I am a hero, armed only with a hammer, felt nails and a ladder I battle the raging winds and nail back down the loose felt on the writing Shed roof. No easy task but eased by assistance from my partner who held things down in place while I set about the nailing down. Ideally the Shed needs a reroofing but that may have to wait a while. Next job is to see if there has been any leaking into my writing area. That too will have to wait. Exhausted by my efforts I retreat to the sofa for a Red Bull, paracetamol and liquorice torpedos and more pre rugby blogging.

With the much battered Shed first aided I present my partner with the tops that have just been delivered. The other day I noted she was looking for suitable tops to wear and thought I could add to her collection so I visited a favourite website and picked some to order. I am pleased to say she is pleased with the and they all fit. So I guess that went well. Now for the rugby.

The rugby was entertaining and worth the watch and it lead into the second Addams Family film, I really like Wednesday Addams. The evening arrived with the evening meal and of course the Strictly results show followed by more of The Assassin. In an attempt to get an earlier night I take my meds and head for bed, Tomorrow is a training day and a writing day, I feel I have stuff brewing away inside about where I am, ill or not ill, moving or suspended, I find mysefl in another strange place.

Thursday and a training rest day for me, I get up take my morning meds and get ready to accompany my partner to the gym. We arrive with plenty of time for me to order a bacon roll and coffee. While my partner bounces up and down in the pool doing her aqua class I eat my roll and then go for a shower, a long lingering shower with at least two lots of body wash and shampoo. Back in the club lounge I go through my journal and pick out some of the addresses buried in it. I then spend some time auditing my bank balances and savings. Every so often I calculate my financial position just to make sure I can afford my projects and plans for the future. By the time I get to the bottom line my partner has returned and we leave the club.

On the way back I suggest we have a late lunch at our local Pesto restaurant. so we stop off to dine. at 2 o’clock the restaurant starts to clear so that by the time our food arrives the place is quiet and calm. I always end my meal at Pesto with an Affogato with an added shot of Amoretto, it is a delicious way to end a meal. Feeling very satisfied we return home via the post office. I send some hard back copies of my last two collections to the folk at Ruler’s Wit the publishers. Back home there are things to do.

I decide to put the cover on the garden swing seat before the weekend storms hit us, if they are going to. I pad the hinge points of the top cover with insulation foam and then wrestle the new cover into place fastening the cover in place with the provided ties. With that done its time to read the meters and send my readings in. With the chores done its time to settle down with the days crosswords before settling into an evening of the final available episodes of Reacher and the last episode of Slow Horses. My final act of the day is to set Daisy (dishwasher) going, take my night meds and get myself to bed.

Friday and I awaken feeling decidedly grotty but before long my partner brings me a hot water before she goes off to the gym for another aqua class. I eventually get up and get in to my training gear and head down stairs. I have a light breakfast and take my morning meds. I have only two more days of taking my 4mg dose of steroids before I taper them down to 3mg on Monday. With breakfast done I head for the garage and the rower. Once strapped in I get myself going. It is one of those sessions where the body is giving off all the messages about not being able or willing to do the work. Then like so many times before the data on the monitor at the end of the session tells a different story. IT turns out a reasonable session which I can be satisfied with.

Post session I change clothes and then spend a bit of time impulse shopping, not for me. With that done I draft the blog for yesterday and today so far. Time to go for a bite to eat somewhere and a decent cup of coffee before the heavy rain sets.

All goes to plan till the evening when we dine and then watch a tasty rugby match and the beginnings of Assassin before taking my meds and going to bed. Tomorrow the storm is due.

Wednesday and its a day I should be going to a funeral but I feel crap so decide not to go. My partner and her brother will go. I get up late and make breakfast and take my morning meds. I’ve dressed in my training clothes in the hope that as the day goes on I will feel well enough to train. By mid day my partner has left and I continue to paint over the wall scar left by the instillation of the new house alarm. I bring the bins in and write a poem based on my experience of the last poetry stanza. I also message the alarm company to get an update on my new system. next on my list is parcelling up hardback copies of my last two poetry collections and boxing them up to go the team at Ruler’s Wit, the publishing team. Then its time to begin to draft todays blog. It seems very little but I find more and more that small jobs are taking longer and it is difficult to find a rhythm.

565
Shakespeare  reveals the yobbo 
who has read a few books,
It’s a fair summary of the easy way,
the short cut to the end 
justified by meagre means.
Avoid the work, the graft
to get the skills nailed
and the knowledge imbedded.
There is and never was the time 
to take time, to immerse 
and indulge, to reflect. 
Always drowning, always sinking
in the effort to stay moving. 
Years behind as the dyslexic 
dragged to the back of the class
to do raffia and be advised to 
be a butchers boy. A life
of stealing, lifting and dodging 
all the while knowing that learning 
was the ticket out. Steinbeck
saved me, correspondence courses,
Vesta curies and a cold single room
made me Balzac like.
Finally university opened the eyes
and then the doors,
but even now the years of ignorance
cannot be washed away 
and I stumble over words
that do not fit my mouth
or my history.

								565  21-10-2026

I come to a stop when I cannot find the big labels I bought and cannot get to where they might be. Perhaps its time to train. I go to the garage and not that it is 10 degrees, on the chilly side. Once strapped on the rower I get going and keep going. The outcome? I am a monster, crashing my best distance since 29th of April this year and on over 6 kilometre an hour pace. This is very unexpected but very welcome. Making the effort is paying off in a short time, now the onus is on me to keep this training going.

Of course I am on the laptop straight away to get it on the blog. I need to keep this going, the real goal is to lose weight so nothing is good until I weigh in on Sunday and see my weight reduce. That will be a slower process than the improvement in the rowing. No more sweets for me now. I want that drop in clothes size.

My evening comes along with an early football match, an Indian take away and then more Reacher. Inane but pleasingly gratuitously violent. I clear the decks, take my night meds and get myself to bed.

.

Tuesday and I wake quite early for me, to find my partner already up and ready to go to the physio and then onto the gym for an Aqua class. My eldest daughter had already gone to work so by the time I get up I am alone in the house. I get my now usual breakfast of muesli and yoghurt and take my morning meds. My red track suit keeps me warm as I eat and listen to Ten To The Top on Radio2 before I go to the garage and strap onto the rower. Its another 20 minute session on level 3, the lowest I’ve ever been. My plan is to gradually increase both time and resistance level over time . Ultimately I would like to get back to the tine when I rowed for an hour on level 5, but that is a long way off and a lot of weight has to be lost before I will get anywhere near that kind of performance.

Todays session goes reasonably well and I do better than yesterday, so I am pleased. I rest before clambering off the rower and returning to the house to get cold orange juice and a chance to rest properly. I record my session, get out of my kit and start to draft the blog before lunch with my partner when she returns from the gym.

The afternoon is filled with Amazon orders, reading and checking that all the clothes I need for tomorrows funeral are ready. I’m not feeling that good but I assume I will get better. My partner returns home from visiting her mother in the care home and we eat the evening meal before watching Reacher and football before I take my meds and get myself to bed.

Saturday I wake up and immediately think about the poetry stanza. I take my morning meds and then start the preparation for the poetry stanza. I run off the copies of the poem I am taking and tidy up my papers. When the time comes I drive to the venue. There is still a wedding going on, where they are doing post service flower throwing and photos. Other Stanza members arrive and eventually the vicar ushers us into the actual church where we eventually have our meeting. I hand over a couple of hardback copies of my collections to the person who wrote the Foreword to both the collections.

The meeting goes well although not as many as we thought would be there are. There is a wide range of poems, some of them being worked on over time and some of them fresh. It is a constant delight the range of things that people find inspiration in. From stamp collections to walking holidays and ballet. I get to read the ballet poem based on The Rite of Spring and find that reading it aloud is a fun thing to do. My own creation, a rip off of a Shakespeare sonnet. Apparently I betrayed myself with some “too posh” words. First time that has ever been thought of me. One or the poems contained some definitely unchurch like language which was fun to hear in the environment.

563 (18)
Shall I compare you to a summers day?	
                                                                                     Yes I compared you to a summers day.
Thou art more lovely and more temperate .
                                                                                     You are right fit and kindly.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
                                                                                     Cruel weather can ruin nascent flowers in May,
And summers lease hath all too short a date;
                                                                                      and summer may not last long;
Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,
                                                                                      even with some very hot days
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
                                                                                      there are many cloudy times
And ever fair from fair sometimes declines,
                                                                                       when glorious full blooms wilt badly,
By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimm’d.
                                                                                      either by chance or global warming.
But thy eternal summer shall not faded
                                                                                       But your good looks don’t wrinkle
Nor lose possession of that thou owest;
                                                                                      and you do not lose your allure;
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
                                                                                      it looks like death will avoid you,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest.
                                                                                     even though you get older.
So long as men can breathe and see,
                                                                                       As long as I respire and have sight
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
                                                                                        you will be a looker and always will be.

					563 (18) 12-10-2026

At the end of the meeting I drive home and arrive in time for Strictly. The evening passes with Strictly over and then episodes of Reacher before taking my meds and going to bed.

Sunday and it takes a while for me to surface. In truth I lazed all the day apart from the walk to the village shop with my partner to get food and a Sunday paper. There is a women’s football match and some American football to watch. Of course the evening has more Reacher before I go to bed feeling that some how the day has slipped through my fingers.

Monday and I wake up with a cracking headache. This is the day I was going to start training again. As I get up I am not feeling the best so get into my training kit and then I have breakfast late while I wait for the paracetamol to kick in. There are some small chores that I do and then do the cross words in the paper that my partner brought in. After a simple sandwich lunch I gird my loins and head for the garage and the rower. Its been 16 days since I last trained, having been on holiday and done injection week. I get onto the rower, put Sophie Ellis Bexter’s kitchen disco session on the hear phones and start to pull. Like all first sessions it is a tough one but I grind it to the end and end up content with with the figures.

I take a well earned shower and slip into some sloppy clothes. Once tidy I start to catch up with drafting the blog for the last three days before tea after which my partner disappears for her singing lesson. I shall read and investigate what new TV drama series is available. Of course there will be night meds and then a rush to bed. The challenge now is to keep up my training and my amended diet that goes with it. No more sweets, puddings, biscuits and other sugary goodies. The aim is to loose weight and get body fit for Christmas. This is more of a relaunch post holiday. At the moment I weigh in at 104.1 kilos, I must get down to the mid nineties at least by Christmas. I need to drop at least one underwear size!

Thursday and I wake late. I remember this on Friday when I return to the uncompleted blog of Thursday. I wonder what did I do and there is a significant pause while I try to remember what my Thursday consisted of. In reality not a lot returns apart from a late breakfast that is really lunch eaten with my partner before we both go to the person who does our nails in her new garage conversion. There was some time spent trying to write a Golden Spade, a form of poem that uses stolen lines from one poem and uses each word as the last word of each line of a new poem. I had chosen the opening lines of a poem by one of the poetry stanza and tried to write a new poem from it. I did not finish it, but may return to it at some later point. Having had my nails clipped and re-polished with a subtle sparkle my partner and I went to visit her brother in order for a questionnaire to be completed as part of a house transaction. I sipped blacked coffee and spectated the process. Then it was home to an evening meal and the final episodes of Neagley, a spin off from Reacher. Having completed Neagley we started on Reacher before I took my meds and went to bed . So I am sure there are other quite important small details that my mind has jettisoned over night but as far as I am concerned that was that particular Thursday of my life. In reality there is a profusion of details that I could conjure up but once started it could snowball into a novel, just like Marcel Proust’s recollection of the smell of freshly baked Madeleines lead him to write the five novels that comprise In Search of Lost Time. As it happens the 15th of October 2014 is the anniversary of my finishing reading that set of novels. Now that’s the real wonder of the unconscious, that on the anniversary of the finishing I end up using it as an explanation of my memory of a day without realising it until I look at my diary. That’s why I loved psychology and why psychology is far more difficult than rocket science.

Friday and I wake late with only an hour before my dentist appointment. My partner goes to the gym to take an aqua class so I have some fresh orange juice to wash down my morning meds and begin my pre dentist ritual. Of course I brush my teeth vigorously and ensure that I do not get toothpaste on my T shirt, the later double checked. The walk down the road to the dentist’s surgery is slow as my body hasn’t really woken up properly yet. At reception I am booked in and settle down to wait. To fill the time I check my messages and send one or two of my own. There is a family birthday to acknowledge and a couple of other things to note.

Eventually I am called into the dentist’s room. My dentist is excellent and has been my dentist for years now. We catch up n family news and then she looks at my mouth and concludes that the lost crown and pin can be glued back in. There is an x-ray taken to check the root is still good and then she sets about gluing the tooth back into place. It does not take long and I am soon at the reception desk paying my bill. The walk home is slow. Once home I check my emails, which today entails reading The Visionary, the weekly newsletter of the Universal Life Church. An interesting read it provides a running commentary on the religious and legal issues that are current in America. Some of it is truly frightening as various religious groups try to impose themselves and beliefs on the state institutions and culture of the country. There is clearly a battle going on between the religious and the secular in America all of which is becoming more polarised and politicised. With that read I start to draft the blog and return to my attempts to write a Golden Shovel.

My Golden Shovel comes together, not good, but okay for my fist and what will be my only attempt. I have chosen the opening lines of a Helen Jayne poem, An Account of Minor Aristocracy, a poet in the poetry stanza group I am in. I first heard this poem in September 2024. It is a first phrase that made me laugh and know I was in for an interesting time with the rest of the poem. The lines are: ” According to a black sheep aunt swigging mead / at a family gathering we were descendants / of Count Sackville- Barret or some such bloke.” So I have use each word to be the end of a line in a new poem, as below;

564
It was by total accident, according 
to a relation who happened to 
find scrolls and a
wallet of papers, black
and charred like pirated sheep,
that the strange woman was my aunt.
Taken aback I found myself swigging 
from a honeyed bottle marked mead
by cheeky monks who knew at
what temperature the the bee made a 
juice that could make illicit family.
Vats and flagons found at every gathering
the drinkers drunk until I became we
and here and now to when and where.
So now I wonder where my descendants
will find themselves partaking of
their nectar and losing count
of whether they are Sackville
or some bastards by Barret.
Perhaps it does not matter or
if it does whether there is some 
reason to care if such
issues matter to a modern bloke.

                                                                         564 16-10-2026
                                                    Acknowledgement to Helen Jayne and "An Account of Minor Aristocracy"
                                                    A Golden Shovel, my first and last.

My partner returns from the gym and we go out for a late lunch of coffee and tuna melts. We chat and clarify our life admin lists before going home. I immediately set about reclaiming the “My BT” app on my phone. It takes ages and I do it by accident. Now I just have a key and code to put in. I tried to get my BT email app to work but after several frustrating tries and failures I give up and finish the Golden Shovel and put it on the blog. Its one of those things that having done it I doubt I will ever do it again. As evening approaches I run my eye over my youngest daughter’s CV and then ease into the evening of a meal and TV. I may do a crossword or two and sign a couple of hard back copies of my books for the guy who wrote the forewords to them. Then it will be all night meds and sleep in readiness for tomorrows poetry stanza, a face to face one, which is always nice.