Sunday and I wake quite late to get up and make toast to take my meds with. Our guest has slept well and appears to be enjoying her stay. The morning is idled away until its time to go for Sunday lunch at a local pub. Its a pub that is surviving quite well in a comfortable village. We are joined by my partners brother and we all sit down to a traditional Sunday roast. Going to eat at 2 o’clock is now our favoured time as by then most people have eaten and left, which means even in big venues it is quieter. Quiet enough to have a conversation without having to shout above the background noise. I go for the special pudding of the day, which is, spiced rum and pineapple crumble with custard. It is delicious. We ,with our Hungarian guest, decide that what to eat with a crumble should be in the citizenship test. Any answer other than custard should mean instant failure, every true Brit knows it has to be custard with crumble. We relax over coffee until we finally pay the bill and head for home.

Once home I head for the recline and unashamedly fall asleep while my partner and our visitor drink tea and sit in the garden. By the time I am awake its time to gather and watch a couple of films, one a very English comedy, which I am not sure our Hungarian guest understood all the jokes, but fund funny anyway, and Heat a Sandra Bullock film. By the time the films ended people went off to bed and left me to take my meds and watch Mock the Week.

Monday and I wake up to voices downstairs as our guest is up and about. My partner brings me hot water and I eventually get up to do myself toast and take my morning meds. There is a short time to chat before my partner’s brother arrives to take everyone, except me, to see my partners mother in the care home. Our guest is going as well as someone is going to meet her at the care home to give her a lift to Birmingham from where she can continue her journey to Cardiff. I finish my breakfast and then head for the garden where I refill the bird feeders and replenish the squirrel feeder. It is not long before the squirrel is out and about while I sit on the swing seat.

I clear out the covered raised propagators of old pots and trays and get them ready to go to the recycling bins at one of our garden centres. It is turning into a sunny day so I take pictures of the flowers that have started to flower for a second time this season and those still about to bloom.

I return to the swing seat and take in the garden and the blue sky. Almost inevitably I pen another poem.

560
My world gets smaller.
There are fewer messages,
a diminution of letters
and less emails.
The world is busy 
and I am not,
so my world becomes
squirrels and bird feeders
in an autumn 
uncommonly warm.
It feels like stasis,
a standing still
of the soul.
In my head
a long to do list
none of which
impels me to action.
Me and the squirrel 
potter in the garden,
him living and me
glad to have read Cicero.

                                                            560 21-09-2026

I return to the lounge and start todays draft of the blog but not before ordering some posting boxes. I intend to send out more review copies of my new poetry collection. It was a futile exercise last time but I’m willing to try again if I can get the publishers to play ball. My partner and brother return from the care home visit having safely handed on our visitor to her next lift on her journey to Cardiff. In due course my partner and I dive to the garden centre for a coffee and something to nibble before I buy bird seed and suet balls for the garden feeders. As we leave the garden centre we add our bags of old flower pots and trays to the recycling piles in the car park.

Once home I stow the bird fee in the containers it he garden shed and ensure they are secure. With on of the days jobs ticked off I return to the sofa and the blog as my partner prepares for her singing lesson this evening. I need to talk to my publishers and get my review distribution letter sorted as I shall soon be in a position to send copies out. Of course I will try the Lancet again, but I am not sure where else to direct them, perhaps Chris Hoy and the TV presenter Nick Owen, fellow prostate cancer fighters. Of course there are charities like McMillian and Prostate Cancer UK, Tackle Prostate Cancer who might be interested. In terms of the poetry world I will of course try The Poetry Review, but with little hope. The Telegraph, The Guardian and the Times Literary Review are all possibilities and maybe one or two on line magazines like Ink, Sweat and Tears and perhaps Magma. It would be nice if there was some local interest but I doubt it exists. For all of those kind people who have actually bought my work I would nudge them to write reviews on their suppliers websites. Amazon could do with a review or two. I actually thought about writing a couple myself but that is just not cricket and would be very poor form indeed.

Evening arrives and tea is eaten before my partner begins her singing lesson and I resort to TV violent films, it is my one chance. I will progress to a late edition of Mock the Week before I down my night meds and go off to bed. Tomorrow is a gym day, that’s shorthand for bacon roll and a shower. I have to say I have felt better today, my calf muscle seems to be well mended and I have had some energy to think and potter with. What I need to do now is grit my teeth and begin the long haul back to fitness. I want to be Christmas body fit!

Friday is a quiet day so I take my time getting up and taking my morning meds. I discover that I have begun the day with a headache so its not long before I am taking paracetamol and trying to rest. This is me for much of the day, trying to stay quiet and waiting for things to get better. One bright moment was the arrival of my new leather biker jacket. Its a Joe Browns real leather one much like the one I have got too fat for. It teaches me that once again you get what you pay for as this jacket is a million miles from the rubbish plastic thing that China served up as a biker jacket. Class costs. By the evening I was feeling a bit more chipper and managed to do some life admin related to the latest poetry collection. By the evening I am TV fit and watch a couple of decidedly family friendly films before taking my night meds and getting myself off to bed. Its been a slow day that I just had to go with.

Saturday and my partner brings me hot water before I get up for breakfast and my morning meds. Then its all go to get he house ready for the arrival of our house guest, a previous carer for my partner’s mother, who is coming over from Hungry to work. Bins get emptied and I re-tighten the loo seat as well as packing stuff away. I get a message to tell me that the Kindle version of the latest poetry collection is now available. I start to watch the mid day football match until our visitor arrives. My partner makes lunch and then goes off with her brother and our guest to see her mother at the care home and I watch the end of the match while starting to draft todays blog.

My afternoon is all rugby until the evening meal. The family watch the start of the new Strictly season with our guest from Hungry. At the end everyone goes to bed and leave me to take my meds and finish the blog before bed.

Thursday and I get up, take my meds and accompany my partner to the gym. While my partner bobs about in the aqua class I read and write. I also drink coffee and eat a bacon roll. I am reading The Correspondent by Virginia Evans. It is a story told through correspondence so as a letter writer it really appeals to me.

After a brief lunch with my partner I shower and the continue to read and write. A short verse comes out.

559
I’ve declared a state of
partial remission.
After seven years
I finally reach the criteria.
In my second 12 to 18 month
prognosis I achieve a first.
Its bitter sweet
and ironic.
The worse the life expectancy
the better the condition,
is this some cruel joke 
or an act of whimsy 
my body and cancer 
have contrived. 
False hope before the hammer blow
and the appearance 
of Death and Binky,
his horse,
to take me off 
to the great
Terry Pratchett
disc in the sky.

						559 17-09-2026 
						David Lloyd lounge. 

In no time at all I go into the beautician to have my nails done. As my nails have started to settle down post chemo I decide to have my subtle sparkles revived. At the end of my session I go home with my partner and rest over adjusting the Tesco order for tomorrow. As the evening arrives so Amazon deliver two copies of my new poetry collection, The Cancer Years: The Rechallenge. It is always a thrill to have a new book in my hands. I am pleased with the way it has turned out. It feels like a proper reality and a proper collection that has a context. I know the world at large are not interested but the whole idea of the poetry and blog is that there is something for family and friends to know me by. The interesting thing is the way poetry becomes its own thing as others read it and alter it. It acquires a life of its own and no longer mine. Its a strange experience. Now I have the new collection done I need to post some more readings on the YouTube and update my poetry website.

I ease through the evening with the new series of Slow Horses and then draft the blog. I take my night meds and go to bed feeling that today has been a good day.

Wednesday and I wake up after a reasonable night’s sleep. Our house guest has left early as usual and my partner gets up and brings me hot water and toast. I was hoping to be okay today but it soon becomes clear that I am not. My gut is still sore from the injection and I feel rough. Post toast and chat I get up to take my meds. My partner’s gym class is cancelled so we agree to go to a garden centre for a bite to eat. I was going to drive but my soreness is a pain so my partner drives us.

My partner and I indulge in bacon rolls and coffee while we chat about where we might go for a break. Tenby and Westwood Ho! seem to be favourites. We leave the garden centre empty handed which is unusual for us and head home. Due to my morning disappointment over the plastic/leather bikers jacket I head to Trust pilot to write a stinking review. Unfortunately the process requires log into either Apple, Google or some thing else and of course there are passwords to navigate. In the end its all too much faff and I abandon the task, but vow to return to it. As a result of my buying experience with Manssino I go to my trusted Joe Browns and order myself a replacement biker jacket. It is my one winter clothes buy for 2026/7 as I attempt a Marlon Brando look, The Wild One look not the Godfather image, as I prepare for winter. With the new jacket ordered my partner and I look for a break away in October by the sea side and after research and some consideration we enquire about a place in Tenby. Never been before but it has beaches and people seem to live there without too much trouble, so we await the landlord to reply to us. Going through my emails I note the programme for The Consortium of Therapeutic Communities has no input from the prison TCs. I dash off an email to an old colleague ask if she is aware of any problem. I still keep an eye on therapeutic communities, I think that were a big part of my life so it is not easy to ignore them. I ring the GP and try to book an appointment to talk about tapering off my steroids as asked to by my oncologist. I explain but I am them put on hold. The receptionist comes back to me and tells me the doctor will review it and ring me back! I just know I am about to get caught in between clinicians arguing over who is responsible for me or the process. So I sit and wait for the outcome.

While waiting I write a list of things I do to keep my mental health good. First on the list was “turn off Jeremy Vine”. I then start to draft the blog. Tonight my partner is going out for a meal with a friend so I shall be watching a football match and pondering on whether now is the time to get a layer of nail polish on when I have my nails done tomorrow. These are the issues that really matter, Putin, Trump and the rest of the power crazed, and in some cases religiously bigoted, can find their own ways to misery and demise, I’m too busy to get them out of the shit they have created for themselves. I think clear varnish or subtle sparkles will do. Most important of all is that I should receive the first copies of my latest poetry collection.

Tuesday and I wake up after a terrible post injection night. I feel like I have been wrung out all night, basically knackered. I was just coming round after my partner brought me hot water and some toast when the oncologist rings me to do my review. Unheard of, a call at just gone 8:30am! He is business like as usual. He is not surprised by my reduced PSA and says he will review me in the new year, so I am done till 2027 apart from a couple of monitoring blood tests, one in November and one just before the next review. The oncologist was unmoved by my plea to taper off my steroids and told me to go to my GP if I wanted to taper them. His view was that I should stop them and that all that would happen would be a week of feeling rough. I can’t be arsed to take him on via a safeguarding complaint or by talking to the CQC, I’ll see my GP and take it from there. After the call I rested and to my surprise the oncologists letter to the GP landed in my in box on the phone so I was able to print it off immediately. That’s an impressive use of technology. Given the outcome of the review I am left with the assumption that my current condition constitutes a partial remission. My first in seven years. I have had periods of containment but this is the first time the metastatic element of my cancer has been seen as not contributing to my condition and that the basic prostate cancer has been seen to reduce. Although I feel crap at the moment due to yesterdays injection I am fundamentally skipping around like a spring lamb inside. The onus is on me now to get as fit as I can and to lose weight. I need to be body fit for the new year.

My partner goes to the gym once I have moved my car and I start a new journal. I spend a bit of time ordering flowers for an old colleagues birthday and checking where my new biker jacket is. Apparently the Post Office has it at Heathrow Distribution centre and are claiming that they will deliver it tomorrow morning. I am not holding my breath. I have severe reservations about how good a quality it is going to be given the price I paid for it but it should at least fit. While I was at checking things I check to see when my author’s copies of the new poetry collection would arrive, apparently I have to be patient until the 25th of this month. I’m assuming that the delay is due to the fact that they have to be printed first.

I finally get round to drafting the blog with its new tittle. I am considering writing a brief piece for LinkedIn and letting the world know there is another collection to be read. Its a while since I added to my poetry blog or posted anything on my YouTube channel, all of these things I can be getting on with while I recover.

Before the evening comes around I post a piece for LinkedIn and then watch a gardening programme hoping to pick up ideas for my own garden. A friend of my partner arrives and spends time chatting with her before they go off to a restaurant for an evening meal. I cook my tea and settle down to watch a football match and then the final of the Great British Sewing Bee when my partner and friend return. All I need to do is take my night meds and hope I get a good nights sleep. If I am lucky my new jacket will arrive tomorrow and I will feel well enough to wear it out for the first time.

It’s Jab Monday, not my favourite day. I am up early for me, before 8 o’clock and having breakfast. It takes me longer to get going in the mornings these days so I plod through my getting up rituals until its time to juggle the cars on the drive and get myself to the GP surgery. I drive down in Elsie (the car) to the surgery and park in the car park, a risky choice as Elsie is quite big and the car park small. I check in and in no time at all the nurse calls me in. I tell her how my latest bloods have turned out while she mixes my injection, there is a lot of it, 80mg. So she finds a suitably flabby bit in my gut and injects me. In no time at all I am manoeuvring Elsie out of the car park and getting myself home to start drafting the blog.

In a flurry of energy I take my partner to Sutton Cheyney Wharf where there is a café by the Ashby De La Zouch canal. We order lunch and watch people feed the ducks and swans as canal boats chug slowly past us. Its the first time we have been here and it looks likely that we will return as the food is good and the service good and friendly. They also have huge sunflowers in their garden. After a very pleasant meal I drive us home as I am beginning to feel more sore and the symptoms of post injection reaction are starting. As a brief activity I plant the small olive tree that arrived yesterday into a large pot at the front door. Another small step along the path of making the garden draught resistant and based on perennial plants

The injection catches up with me and by early evening I am very sore and I have started the “cold turkey junkie” effect. I am cold and shivery and getting more and more sore at the injection site. By six thirty I am in bed having had a sandwich and taken my meds along with more paracetamol. Its going to be a long night.

It is my oncology review tomorrow and I think my lowered PSA blood result is a game changer. I think the team will decide that they do not need to see or review me again until December before the end of the year. If that is the case then I shall have the answer to “What is this?”. The answer will be “Remission”. After seven years of treatment I finally look like I have a attained remission, albeit for a possibly short period of time. Now there is a thing! So tomorrows blog, post review may well have a new title.

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.