Monday and I’ve been a “busy boy”. I woke to find my partner gone with her brother to see their mother in the care home. I get up quite quickly for me as today is to be a sunny day which means garden things need doing. I make breakfast and take my meds before clearing the kitchen and emptying the Daisy (Dishwasher). There are things to do but first I check my RAC renewal and the goodies in the museum catalogue. I head for the garden in my boots and start the autumn pruning and clearing away of dead or spent flowers. I fill the garden recycling bin before giving it best and downing a diet coke.
Before lunch I read the energy meters and submit my readings on the phone App. Its been a good month the household will come in under budget for the month. The use of the fans in the heat waves seem not to have made any difference to our power usage. So I reach the time for a late Pizza lunch and as it turns out, a nap.
Post nap I put my office chair back in the Shed and then hunt out some Velcro fixing strips. I spend some time sorting out the right fixings and then place the new miniatures into the collections on the staircase. That was to be my last task of the day, so I retreated to the sofa and began the drafting of the blog until my partner returned.
Post diner I settled down to watch several episodes of Lidia Poet. This person actually existed, an Italian woman born 1885 and was the first woman lawyer to be admitted to the bar and then rejected three months later. She spent decades fighting for women’s rights and finally was admitted to the bar again along with other women when she was in her sixties. A fearsome, religious woman, who did not drink, never married and had no children. In the Netflix series she drinks, fucks and profanes freely. The remaining living relatives, she died in 1949, when I was one, offered to advise Netflix but Netflix never responded. Given what they turned this woman into they are no more or less hypocritical, bigoted and ignorant than the Italian male establishment Lidia fought all her life. Bastards.
I take my night meds and retreat to bed to gather more energy for tomorrows tasks.
Friday, after a slow getting up and taking my morning meds I go to the gym with my partner. While she bounces about in the pool under the guidance of an expert aqua aerobics tutor I take a gym shower, free hot water, that does not fail. I take a luxurious time and emerge clean and refreshed ready for a cookie and a diet coke. While I wait for my partner to emerge I tap out a verse on my phone.
554
I'm tapping bars which I cannot see, I think I am going blind. Ages changes the eyes but the brain accommodates and personal universes alters. My mothers hooded eyes passed down to me along with her bloody but clear mindedness. I peer through pin holes and see a world upside down, an old world being ravaged by ageless change and growing losses and the struggle for survival. It feels like war is at hand but I fear it has already begun I'm just not a casualty yet. With luck I will be a blessed one to have lived and died in relative peace. Unfortunately my generation had the seeds of damaged men embedded in it, and now in their declining years their rottenness infects us all. The horsemen gather and await the final charge.
554 21-08-2026
My partner reappears and in a moment of spontaneous hunger satisfaction we decide to eat out for lunch. We agree on the local pub in a nearby village. Once settled into a comfy nook we order our meals and enjoy the atmosphere and chat. It is a very pleasant meal and by the end we are relaxed and ready for home. Once there we settle in for a quiet evening in front of the TV catching up with Professor T. I take my night meds and go to bed feeling that I am recovering and finding some energy.
There are only a few ways to describe my Saturday. Of course it started with breakfast and morning meds. The rest of my time is taken up with filling a Hippo Bag. In order to fill it I have to dismantle a sunshade which included emptying the ballast tanks. My next task was to dismantle a brute of a Swedish business office chair. Once I discovered the right tool it was a matter of unscrewing everything I could get my tool to. By the time I had got everything into the Hippo Bag I was knackered. I had just cleared everything away when Tesco delivered, so there was an intense unloading and squirreling time. Dinner was emergency shepherds pies and and evening of more Professor T and Ludwig. While this was happening my team, Brentford were thrashing Spurs in the first match of the football season. So a good day, which ended with Match of the Day and the inevitable night meds.
Sunday and its unexpectedly sunny so on a whim my partner and I have breakfast and after a short rest to let the paracetamol work. We drove to Statin Harold where there was an Artisan Show. Normally such “art fares” are full of tat interspersed with the occasional stall with something worth having however this Artisan Show was populated with really good products. There were several very good arts and people making things. There was music by live musicains, pipers, and organ grinders.
The swans at Staunton Hall
First new addition to the miniature collection Another new addition to the collection.an amazing intact 1653 church the original 1653 ceilingHad balls to build a catholic church at the time of CromwellA genuine grind organ.
We wandered the event, ate pizza and drank coke before buying additions to the miniature collection. We also looked at the 1653 church that is an amazingly intact example of a 1653 catholic church built while Cromwell was running the country. Its a great little gem of a church. We drive home and rest until the evening when we dine and I draft the blog before I watch the last of the Professor T series. Finally its of to bed after my meds are taken. I just have a week of rest and recovery before I am due to start training again.
Thursday and I had hoped I was going to feel better after my 28 day jab on Monday but alas it has not happened. I woke up feeling fatigued and with a head ache. My partner brought me hot water and we chatted for a while before she went to the gym for an aqua class. I got up and made breakfast and took my morning meds. Amazon delivered the new garden hose reel which I set about making, A pretty simple challenge really. Once the reel was assembled I took it into the garden and attached the hose to it. All seems to have gone well. I spent a bit of time dead heading flowers and took more pictures of the Dahlias in bloom. I also gave the newest two plants that I potted up yesterday a extra watering. A waste of time really as it rained heavily later in the day.
My headache had not gone so I took some paracetamol and relaxed listening to Jus a Minute. My partner returned and I did the Tesco order for Saturday before my partner went to her brother’s to sort out more finance issues related to their mother being in care. I rested feeling intensely frustrated that I could do no more. I turn to drafting the blog and checking my emails which included a David Lloyd member survey. I’m not one for filling in surveys but I did this one and probably vented my irritation with life in general. My frustration with myself for not shifting the projects I want to do is growing.
I spend the afternoon resting, trying to read and thinking about reviewing my poetry website. I’ve not written anything lately and I have a lot of new poetry to read and write about. I am also waiting for the person who is writing the Forward to the new poetry collection to finish it, but their is a lot for him to read and digest and that cannot be hurried, so I shall have to be patient. I’ve not put anything up on my poetry YouTube channel either but I think that will happen naturally when the new poetry collection is published. So I wait to feel better and have more energy. Of course my anxiety is that while I am not taking any medication to fight my cancer that I am giving it free reign over my body and that I may not get to feel better. I am back to the “What is this?” question in my cancer journey. I have specific things (projects) I need to do to organise life a bit more and clear away some of the “stuff” that needs to be got rid of. So I am aware that it must be frustrating being around me at the moment, I must look like I’m just laying around doing nothing, which is partly true. So I’m still no nearer knowing what this is, which means I have to make it into something . Finding the energy to do that is the challenge.
My evening is going to be slow with TV, reading and finally night meds. With the addition of a box of after eights.
Monday I wake and prepare to go to the GP surgery to get my 28 day injection. My youngest grandsons are still visiting so there is a shuffle of cars on the drive so that I can get out. My usual nurse is back from her holiday of traveling around Canada. She gives me my usual injection and I head off home. My eldest daughter and partner take their youngest son with them to collect a new car and leave their eldest with us to entertain. It goes really well and in a bout two hours the parents return with the new car, a lovely orange red Nissan Juke hybrid. It looks good and means that the family can get about their domestic and work lives more simply than before. After a light lunch the grandsons get strapped into the cars and the family drive off home My partner and I tidy up a bit and I retreat to the garden swing seat to rest, my injection site is becoming sore and soon my body will start to react against the injection. And so it does as the day wears on. The evening is slow and I am sure I watch something but it was unremarkable. What is remarkable are the Dahlia’s that have come out more in their patio pots. A good image to end the day on.
Magnificent.
Super, with more to come.
Tuesday and I wake up still sore from yesterdays 28 day injection. I know right from the off this is going to be a slow day with a lot of resting. And so it is as I drift and meander through the day. I get a call from a friend out there in the real world. She is heading for a post office to send parcels before collecting her youngest daughter. It is easy to forget that there are people out there working and having to achieve things. It is the greatest luxury of retirement, and the most difficult to understand and accept that you no longer have to achieve things, that days can go by with having achieved anything apart from fulfilling your own fancies and desires. Of course there are personal things that one wants to do, like write and publish poetry, play better guitar or have a tidy garden but no one requires me to do these things and my financial agency is not dependant on doing them. This is real freedom but I worked bloody hard to obtain it, perhaps the best achievement of my life. Any way my friend and I chatted for the duration of the journey to the post office.
Of course I spent some time on the garden swing seat in the much cooler weather trying to get rid of my headache and the soreness of the injection site. M partner goes out early evening to have dinner with an old work friend leaving me to watch a film and indulge in a take away Indian. The film was okay the chicken Balti was not. I made a poor choice and my mouth and gut declined to finish it and left me to nibble on a plain nan. A second film followed, which has left me so it cant have been any good. On my partners return we settle down to watch The Great British Sewing Bee, kids week, and then I take my evening meds and go to bed still feeling sore and decidedly grumpy. I am frustrated that I have not had enough energy to get to grips with the things I want to do, it is a consequence of having to give my injection time to settle down and for my body to gather itself together enough to be active.
Wednesday, my chicken Balti gives me a disturbed night and I end up surfacing about 09:30 when my partner hands me a hot water. I sip the water as I go through my morning orientation ritual of checking messages, alerts and all the other stuff that clutters up my phone. In a short time my partner goes off with her brother to see their mother in the care home. Shortly afterwards my eldest daughter goes off to see her physiotherapist to sort out a painful limb. In a moment of energy I take a shower grabbing the first shower/shampoo gel I can get my hands on. Feeling refreshed I make breakfast and then set about drafting the blog and ordering my own shower gel.
By lunch time I have done all my life admin and when my partner returns from her gym class we go off to the garden centre for bacon rolls and coffee. Of course as we have an empty pot we buy two new plants. Once home I set about planting up the new plants in some rare spots of rain. I spend the rest of the afternoon reading and napping until my partner goes out to meet a friend for dinner. I make myself a meal and then indulge myself by watching The Matrix, a great film that still stands up today. I follow this by the new Professor T series before taking my night meds and heading off to bed.
Friday was a day at the gym. My partner was doing back to back aqua aerobics and having her nails done so I decided to go to the gym and have a shower and spend my time reading till she was done. It gets me out of the house and it is also a test. I have not been able to bare being in the gym changing rooms and exposing my naked body to view by others. So todays adventure was a big deal. ONce at the gym I head for the changing rooms and grab a locker. I undress quickly and head for the showers with my Sainsburys bag with my towels and smellies in it. I have chosen a locker close to the showers so that my exposure time is as small as possible. Once in the shower I take my time adjusting the shower head and the temperature before I get in under the warm stream. I let myself have the luxury of two rinses with the shower gel and take my time rinsing and then drying. Back in the locker room I wrap myself in towels and sit waiting to dry fully whilst watching the European athletics on the locker room TV. Once dry I apply my lotions and dress. I am soon back in the gym lounge having survived my exposure.
I sit in the lounge with a diet Coke and read Blindboy Boatclub’s series of short stories. The guy definitely has issues but also has a really warped sense of humour, sharp and satirical. I read until my partner appears for a brief lunch before she goes to the beauty salon to do her nails. I lunch on a Lucozade sport and an ice cream and continue to read. At three o’clock, or close to, my partner reappears and we drive home.
The evening is all athletics as the Brits win medals and also lose appallingly, a real mixed bag. Eventually I take my night meds and go to bed knowing it is the poetry stanza meeting tomorrow, I hope for good sleep.
Saturday arrives and I feel tired and a bit apprehensive but I get up and make breakfast and take my morning meds. I run off copies of two poems to take to the stanza meeting as I cannot decide which I want to make public. I will see what else is brought before I make up my mind. At lunch time I set off early as I want to get a parking space, its a small car park and the space are narrow and few and with Elsie (car) being an SUV it can be a struggle parking her girth. I get there early and I am rewarded with an easy car parking space. I’m fifty minutes early and go to the Quaker House library to sit in the quite and wait. I think their are others around but being British probably do not want to be too early. While I am waiting I think about a comment by John Cooper Clarke in which he thinks poetry is accessible to everyone as “who cannot afford a biro”. I write a brief verse.
553
Who cannot afford a Biro? Being somewhere different like a Quaker library for instance. A Biro can take you places, turn inside into outside, make mine yours uncontrollably. Turn strangers into familiars and a world less alien, less lonely. Pity those that cannot afford a Biro and do not know they can steal one from Argos or the Post Office.
553 15-08-2026
Eventually everyone arrives and change the room to a collective satisfaction. We then begin to read and examine our poetry. There is some good stuff and I enjoy reading when it gets to my turn. There is a short break and it comes to my poems turn to be read and discussed. I finally chose my Dr John Cooper Clarke poem.
543 Dr John Cooper Clarke, People accuse me all the time Of being accessible... My ears prick up at accuse! So its poor poetry to be accessible? What is craved is the obscure, the veiled, the smart arsed, unintelligible, sickeningly egocentric, over intellectualised clap trap that indulges airy fairy whimsicality of an aesthete who cannot look you in the poetic eye and say this is it. I am saved by Foyle’s Young Poets anthology where youths gaze is not turned away, raw and rugged and very accessible. But oh woe the adults cannot resist slapping, Content warning, graphic imagery or Content warning, allusion to suicide all over the work of the young. And there you have my loathing of the poetry industry. It drives me wild. Killing the thing it loves with a kiss like the coward it is. 543 25-06-2026
People seemed to like my poem and I eventually cam away feeling satisfied that I had contributed to the group. One or two people asked how I was and chatted for a while. I drive home, content but tired. I also come home with the idea of a story about a piece of Venetian glass. My evening is athletics, the European championship and a crap film before I take my night meds and
Sunday and I wake quite late and to organise myself before the arrival of my two youngest grandsons with their parents. I sort out a 28 day injection for tomorrow . I need to be at the GP surgery for 9am in order for the nurse to jab me. I make breakfast and take my morning meds. I have woken up with a headache so I take paracetamol and head for the garden swing seat to rest and relax. Eventually I am joined by my youngest daughter and one of the grandsons. The rest of the day is filled with children things, garden things and eating. As I am doing crosswords at the patio table I notice that one of the Dahlias has come into bloom and it looks lovely.
A glorious Dahlia comes out.
I take time to draft the blog before tea and then continue while the last day of the European athletics plays out. At the end of the evening I take my night meds and retreat to bed knowing that I have to be up early and at the GP surgery by 9am.
Wednesday I wake to a hot day and my partner and I decide on having breakfast out. I get up take my drugs and then my partner and I go to our local garden centre for bacon rolls and coffee. A vast section of the garden centre is empty as the hot summer has decimated the centres stock. We get told that the centre is not ordering the next seasons stock for a few weeks because of the state of the weather. I buy another plant to fill our empty pot and we add an ornamental grass to try out.
Once home the order of the day was to relax and keep cool. I spend time catching up with messages and chasing up some issues before I join my partner on the garden swing seat to while away the late afternoon. I get my washing in off the line and get it put away. The evening meal is a simple sandwich as I cannot face a big meal in this heat. I watch the European athletics and some more episodes of Hijack and then take my meds and go to bed.
Thursday and I wake up to my partner giving me a hot water before she and my eldest daughter go to the gym for the morning. I must have fallen a sleep again as I wake up again about 11 o’clock much to my annoyance. I am so frustrated with myself that almost half a day has passed. I get up and make breakfast and take my meds before settling down to drafting the blog and watching the European athletics, but before I get on with this I scribble a poem as the window cleaners get about their business.
551 Fuck! I'm on the roundabout inhabited by demons spinning to the music of screams and moans. Caught between tears of frustration and the fire of anger the abandonment complete. The world is busy soaking up pain, pumping out compassion, caring for the falling and the ready for dead. Its easy to get lost in this funfair or to get stuck in the ghost house. Some where beyond there is a world waiting for a return home.
551 13-08-2026
I send birthday greetings to a friend and exchange messages with a couple of friends before wrapping up the drafting of the blog. I head for siesta time with my aim to keep cool during the hottest day of this current heat wave. Despite my best efforts I write more.
552 It’s the persistent alive that are the pain. The thankless resentful who cling on, making their children pay in guilt and anxiety with no regard for the anguish the others have to contain. As everything fails the character hardens, the anger and pettiness rises and is released on those that love the most, those that work to make dying humane, the care enough and the pain less. Fighting to the end means everyone is the enemy and all are in the cross hairs of discontent and frustration. Death knocks loudly but has the door slammed in its face. There are more days, more opportunities to express displeasure, to vent the fear of going and the loss of selfhood. Everything is taken by nature, the growing old, the infirmity of a being ending. All around the family grits its collective jaw and makes the arguments for patience, tolerance and doing the right thing. Partnerships absorb the tears, the helplessness, and self doubt, and sometimes, just sometimes whisper “ it would be kinder if they were dead”. But dead they are not and until they are there is no relief for anyone. Either Nature has got it wrong or medicine got too clever. Humanity no longer understands how to do this?
551 13-08-2026
It is clear that I am tired and need to be careful that I do not become what I feel most uncomfortable with. This is no time to be a mirror but time to move beyond that and keep my eyes clear and focus on what keeps things positive and what belongs to me and what belongs to others. There will be no more today, I need to rest away from this heat.
Tuesday and I wake to Radio 2 and a hot water. I check my socials and messages followed by odd things like TV listings and football results. I get up and dress as my partner and eldest daughter get off to the gym. I cook myself my standard cheese omelette and tomatoes breakfast washed down with a diet coke, which I am drinking far too much of.
I refill my drugs dosettes for the next two weeks. In doing so I note that my steroids are 5mg tablets, which means that I have in fact cut my steroid intake by 5mg to 5mg a day rather than the 2,5 I thought I was taking having mistakenly thought my tablets were 2,5mg. This is good news as it means I have reached the normal steroid levels, which are the tricky ones to taper off properly. So I am unlikely to suffer from adrenal insufficiency right now. I will have to watch for that when I start the process of reducing the daily dosage in the future, probably at the next chemo review in mid September.
With my drugs sorted I tidy up some odds and ends from the weekend and help get the place straight again. At this point the European athletics was on TV so I had some competitive wall paper. On returning my drug stocks to the draw I passed by the bathroom and idly tried the shower as it had been displaying LP (Low Pressure) yesterday. To my surprise it leapt into life and maintained its flow so I whipped off my clothes and had an impromptu shower. It was a welcome pleasure. As a treat I redressed in fresh clothes and then hung my towels out to air. It is these small things that bring such unexpected pleasures.
Feeling clean and shiny I check my emails and find that one of the poetry Stanza has had a poem shortlisted for a Poem of the Month Award on an internet based magazine. There was an opportunity to vote so I of course promptly did. In the process of voting I did a bit of research on the poet, that led me to information about other members of the Stanza, it turns out they are a talented lot who publish a lot of things as well as poetry. It reinforces my sense of not being a real poet. These people work hard on their art, for example the poem that I voted for I had seen before about a year ago when the author brought it to the Stanza meeting to “work it”. That’s dedication, that’s working at your art and seeking perfection. A lot of them are attached to academic organisations and also are involved with publishing groups. A talented lot really, unlike me who just slaps down what falls out of my pen and has the temerity to publish it, god knows what they think of me and my rantettes
I start to draft the blog while my returned partner has lunch and waits to be picked u[ to go and see her mother in the care home. I continue to draft the blog and do todays crosswords. The day flies by and before I know it I am getting ready for bed in a very tired state.
Monday and I wake up to the sound of my youngest grandsons having breakfast an being handed a hot water by my partner. Apparently everyone slept well last night. By the time I get up for breakfast and morning meds the visiting family have gone to the village play ground to burn off some energy. I remain on the patio relaxing and continuing to think about “What is this”, referring of course to this moment in life after the chemo rechallenge and tapering off the steroids. I am no closer to an answer. It just feels like being becalmed. All I know is that in mid September I will have a blood test and my PSA will be either up or down, which in turn will effect the tone of my September oncology review. I’ve used eight months of the twelve to eighteen months my oncologist gave me to live. Frankly I do not feel very arsed about it because I’m not sure I believe him anymore. All I can do is get on with my life and wait. I’ve no levers to pull, nothing to control the thing inside me that’s supposedly killing me. Of course I am getting my regular twenty eight day jab of Degarelix, which just cuts my testosterone production and buggers about with my pituitary gland. Sometimes I wonder what its all been about but as I said to my partner I have seen my two youngest grandsons brought into the world and I’ve seen my eldest daughter achieve her doctorate. I’ve seen my son marry and his family thrive, and today he started a permeant job at the Stockholm Opera House. In all this I have been part lucky and part hard earning my survival to see all this. Perhaps what this is on one level, is a reflection period in the midst of the battle.
Any way the family return and there are drinks and biscuits as the grandchildren play before lunch is served. not long after lunch the visiting family are pulling out of the drive and heading for home. Some or all of them will return in a few days time in order to collect the new car they have bought this weekend. After a brief clear up, I retreat to the garden swing seat and have a long chat with my partner. After a while we both read until my partner waters the garden and I download the audio accompaniment to the guitar tutor book I have bought.
Early evening and I start to draft the blog while the first of the European athletics events take place. Thankfully its back on the BBC with competent presenters. I shall ease my way through the evening fuelled by sausage sandwiches and finally getting to bed with my night meds inside me.
Sunday and I am up at 6:30 helping to amuse and occupy my grandson. Its a combined effort between me and the grandson’s dad. Breakfast follows and gradually the rest of the family come to the surface. My eldest daughter goes off with a friend to comi con in Birmingham. My youngest daughter and partner along with my youngest grandson go off to look at cars, leaving the other grandson with me and my partner. What follows is a day of amusements and games followed by snacks and story telling. There is watering the garden and more snacks with the occasional Paw Patrol episode. All is swimmingly family until the parents return having bought a new car.
We get to the evening meal and then to bed time for the small people after which there is clearing away and tired parents getting ready for an early night. I eventually go to bed having taken my night meds, very tired.
Saturday and it is the day the youngest grandsons are visiting. I get up and make breakfast and take my morning meds. All I have to do now is wait for the family to arrive. I go to the garden swing seat taking with me the new book that a friend has sent me. It is The Gospel according to BLINDBOY in 15 short stories. Blindboy Boatclub is an Irish satirist and one half of the Rubberbandits. I read the first four stories straight off and really like them. Disturbing and witty tales from someone who clearly has his moments of disturbance.
My current read, recommended.
I also pen a new poem. I think it is my mind trying to rid itself of the nasty images I’ve recently read in a book.
550
I wonder if the flow of ink might inspire me. That the feel of the Montblanc would make my juices run, but alas it seems in vane. I'm overwhelmed by Mishima's description of a kitten sacrificed to satisfy teenage needs and then the sailor that fell from grace with the sea. A Samurai who suicides when the books are finished is likely to have skinned a cat or two. Left with his horrid vision I'm pleased the author had the decency to leave by his own hand.
550 07-08-2026
At last the visitors arrive and my three year old grandson comes to find me on the garden swing. He sits beside me and tells me about the journey and that the flowers look pretty and how he helped plant some of them. He also finds his favourite three stones, which we have kept handy. After a while he goes off in search of toys. Everyone eats lunch and the paddling pool appears so there is much water fun. I return to reading my book on the swing seat. There is an afternoon of chat and play with the youngest grandson falling asleep on his aunts lap, this was her first nap trapping. On going inside I find the PDF of my next poetry collection is waiting for me. There are two poems missing so I send them off to the publishers. I’m waiting on the Forward to be written but in the meantime I’ve asked the publishers to consider being the people that send out the authors copies for review. I shall be interested in what they think of that.
Tea time arrives and the family gorge on steak pie and chips followed by chocolate cake. Everyone digs in and eats heartily. What follows is the “putting to bed” ritual once the elder grandson had helped his Nanny to water the garden. While this was going on I cleared away, stuffed Daisy (dishwasher) full and washed up the pots and pans. I returned to drafting the blog while the parents went into “settling down” mode. At last the boys are asleep and the adults clear away toys and settle down for an evening of chat and TV. Tomorrow is a car hunt, a comi con and entertaining grandchildren.
