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.

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.

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.

Wednesday and Thursday are Spa days, which means three meals a day, a lot of massage and huge amounts of laying on beds and recliners in different environments and trying not to snore. Both ending up with big meals, night meds and a collapse into bed wondering how I can I be so tired after so much lounging and indulgence. So far Hoar Hall has been a real success.

Thursday our last day at the Spa. We have an early breakfast after having packed and stowed some bags in the back of Elsie (the car). This morning I actually ate a cooked breakfast, the first day I have felt up to it. We put our travel clothes into lockers in the Spa and I headed for the sound sanctum. My partner went off to a pool. I woke up about 10:30 and realised I had probably snored quite a lot and ruined the peaceful space for several Spaees. As I left the sound sanctuary I bumped into my partner coming to collect me. It is almost time for another rub down with an oily rag.

Todays massage was a full body affair , deep tissue with a scalp massage to end. It all goes well The massager took me by surprise by the distance she rolled my swimming trunks down to access my buttocks. However my buttocks appear to have enjoyed the firm oiling they got. At the end we had a bit of a debrief and she said she would send me her suggests for some relaxing and refreshing oils. She was good to her word, however I do not see myself spending £48 on 150ml of relaxing oil for the bath or the same amount for cooling and relaxing gel for my back. She also gave me all the guff about lactic acid crystallising in the muscles and massage breaking down the “knots”, so it important to drink lots of water to wash away the “toxins”. Its all bollocks of course, lactic acid doesn’t from crystals and its the liver and other organs that deal with the lactic acid.

I met up with my partner and we indulge in post massage drinks and lemon muffins. We sit and chat comparing Hoar Hall with Ragdale. Hoar Hall comes out well from the comparison, we would both do it again. Pay less for a room, after all their is no need to be in it between breakfast and bed time and spend more time in the Spa facilities including the very good gym facility they have. At lunch time we go to the dining room to find they are running slow, breakfast had been slower due to only one chef turning up, I assumed that there was still only one chef. At one point the waitress said they had no jugs for tap water but they could do it by the glass. She went away and then returned with jugs of tap water, clearly some one behind the scenes had decreed that jugs would be used. Although slow lunch was nice and another chance to chat. With eating done and tine getting on we retrieved our travel clothes and prepared to leave. Thee was the moment of truth when we paid our bill for the little extras we had had during our stay. I still think a fiver for a side of chips is extortionate no mater how many times they have been cooked. On the whole we got a way lightly. We clamber into Elsie and I drive us home via the pretty route via Ashby and Ibstock, a route strewn with speed cameras.

Once home there was a general flop of relief to be home the garden had survived well and everything in pots looked just fine. I managed to get my bags upstairs at some point but lacked the energy to unpack. I watched Granite Harbour until l fell asleep and woke only to take my night meds ad get off to bed.

Friday and I wake up in my own bed and feel crap with a head ache. I am not amused by this. My partner brings me a hot water and I struggle to get up. I unpack and sort my washing out and put the rest of my clothes away. Breakfast follows as does morning meds and paracetamol. I have a postcard from a friend who sent it only yesterday, it must be a first, a card arriving before the sender has got home. I wait for the paracetamol to take hold and then drive my partner and to the butchers at our local garden centre. Here we buy mounds of sausages, pes and other goodies in readiness for the visit of the two youngest grandsons tomorrow.

Once home there is time to start to draft the blog until my eldest daughter goes of to buy stuff for her face and my partner goes to visit her mother in her care home. I sign the contract to have our house alarm system upgraded and send it off before returning to the blog draft. I’m doing this when my partner returns. We slide into the evening, there is still stuff to do to prepare for tomorrow but tonight there are the last episodes of Granite Harbour to watch. It will be an early night for me so I can be up for the challenge of a three year old and eight month old. I have not written anything for a little while now and I am starting to think my brain or whatever creates my stuff as taken a break. It might just be that my inspiration is running slow or low at the moment. I think unconsciously I am waiting to see the Forward for the next collection, but the author is away on holiday with his family at the moment so I need to be patient and wait and see in the fullness of time.

Tuesday and the first full day at the Spa. Breakfast is at 7:45! I arrive and survey the array of help yourself food. I cannot face it and content myself with toast and marmalade washed down with orange juice and decaf coffee. Its back to the room and for the first time I get into my fluffy white robe and swim joggers. As a first journey into Spa land my partner goes in for her massage while I read my book. The book springs a surprise as the main character, a young teenage Japanese boy, kills a kitten and then watches as another boy eviscerates it. Not what I was expecting! My partne returns and soon it is my name being called.

My “therapist” explains what she is going to do to me and does a brief medical history with me. She then in structs me about disrobing and getting ready for the massage and disappears to check that it is okay to do me as planned. She returns and says we are good to go. The back massage is fun if a little painful in the neck and shoulders. I then get my face sprayed with stuff and some lip balm applied. With my eyes covered up she moves onto my feet where she does some massage with a fancy name. Finally she massages my lower legs with freezing cold balls! That was interesting, and then it was over. I dressed and she recommended things to do and not do. I as then shown the way back to find my partner.

My partner and I go to lunch and find it is a three course meal. Whilst settling down to decide what to eat I look around the dining room, it is full of people in fluffy white robes, it looks like a flock of sheep have all come to lunch. Lunch is tasty and filling and at the end of it we head for some where to rest. My partner and I end up in the sound sanctuary laying on a circular sofa thing with cushions. I was going to read but apparently I ruined the atmosphere by snoring..

Eventually the sound sanctuary was abandoned and we made or way to the Spa terrace where we found sun loungers and settled down to read and apparently snore again. As the day clouded over we retreated to the room only to find the key not working so a quick trip to reception was in order to get new keys. I take the opportunity to draft the blog and then shower before dinner.

We dined and went to bed very tired but in a Spa relaxed kind of way.

Monday and its the start of a three day Spa break. I get up sluggishly and make toast and take my morning meds. I have a headache so I slug about a bit and then take paracetamol before I take a shower. Feeling a bit more revived I pack my bags for the trip. partner and I have lunch and then I pack the car. At two o’clock we say farewell to our eldest daughter and head for the Spa.

I drive us to the Spa and drop my partner and bags at reception and go of to find a parking space. Its a nightmare, the place is rammed with cars, no spaces left at all. In a severe bout of “fuck it” I stuck Elsie in a reserved space close to reception and joined my partner at reception. The process was quick with a helpful receptionist and our bags got take to our room on the fifth floor.

After a quick look at the suite and discovering the route to the bathroom, its a big suite, we returned to reception and nabbed our free arrival drink. Sitting in the Long Galley sipping our freebies I looked over the drinks price list. My conclusion was that I will be drinking a lot of the complimentary lemon water. After a quick study of the hotel plan I returned to he car to put on my non driving shoes on and then my partner and I went exploring. The gym is well equipped and worth a visit. The Spa is on different levels and has a couple of pools and spa areas as well as treatment rooms. There are also some odd spaces like an “unlimited reading room”. No idea what this is about, yet. Having explored, it was back to the room to cool down. I ate my contraband pastry and started the days blog. We are dining late tonight so I might move the car and have a nap curled up in my nice white fluffy XL bathrobe.

Saturday and its up early, at least for me. My socials sorted I take my morning meds. My partner and I go to the local garden centre for breakfast. I know I will be outfaced by the large breakfast and go for the traditional with added eggs. It is a good change to occasionally eat a hearty breakfast at the start of the day. Having been well fed my partner shops for slip on shoes to take to the Spa on Monday, I sit on the fitting seat and wait whilst passing my opinion when asked. With shoes bought we move to the food hall and buy what we need for the rest of the weekend. With all our needs fulfilled we head for home.

There is a period of rest when I cool down and regather my energy and then I drive my partner and I to Astley Book Farm. It is a tucked away farm near Nuneaton that houses over hundred thousand used books. A vast rambling series of interconnected barns filled floor to ceiling with books. I of course head for the poetry section only to find an elderly gent occupying the whole poetry aisle. I have a bit of a sit down thinking he will move on, after all who goes into a poetry aisle and lingers? Old buggers with hearing aids, that’s who. In the end I negotiate getting past him and start to peruse the shelves. I have book tokens to spend so the world is my oyster. In the midst fall this poetry there is a “How to play rock guitar” complete with instructional CD for £3:50. It has a Stratocaster motive on the front, how could I resist?

So I gather my four books and instructional CD. One of the books is Fourteenth Century Verse and Prose. It has clearly been studied by a student who has written in numerous pencil notes, mostly translations of the more tricky words. I am delighted to find that the book contains a glossary. A glossary compiled by one J.R.R. Tolken. Its good to get an idea of what Tolken was doing as an academic before he wrote the Hobbit and all the other Hobbity tosh he wrote later.

The other three books are collections of single poets, Yevtushenko, Rupert Brooke and D.J. Enright.

With my books tucked under my arm I approach the pay desk and ask if they take book tokens. Yes they do but the website is a bastard to work, could we go away while they sort it out. We do go and make our own coffee at the bar in one of the sitting areas. We find ourselves in the same area as the old man with hearing aids who was the poetry aisle blocker. I sip my coffee and note how the book barn has gone down hill a bit, no café or hot food, its clear they are struggling. With coffee drunk we go back to the pay desk and find they have the book token website up and running. I present my token and pay the additional pound I owe. I remind the woman that we need to pay for two coffees and she gives us to then free as compensation for havining to wait to pay. We load up the car and I drive home.

I’m tired once I get home and need to rest. The evening arrives and I watch the dying embers of the Commonwealth games before continuing to watch series two of Criminal Record another series that is siding into the realms of desperation script writing. Its always disheartening when you can predict the plot line, who is going to tragically die, who is going to screw who and who will be in the next series, if there is one, more flawed, guilt ridden or psychopathic than before thus posing the scripty writers the impossible task of writing something believable about a bunch of characters that you lost patience with a long time ago. It all makes Midsomer Murders really appreciated, normal policemen, how refreshing. I take my night meds and go to bed knowing that tomorrow I need to rest and begin to pack for the rapidly approaching Spa break.

Sunday, I wake up knackered and feeling off. I have some toast and take my meds. On checking my blog I find that I have not finished Fridays and not published it. I set about finishing Fridays and get it out there published. With that done I start on the weekend blog pages. It takes me till early afternoon to catch up. My afternoon is spent reading some of my new poetry books and napping whilst making a mental list of the things I am going to pack for the Spa break.

The evening is food and a lot of TV films and the final episodes of Criminal Record. Of course it ends with repacking the dishwasher and taking my night meds and going off to bed. Tomorrow is a Spa day.