Monday. I wake late not feeling my best. The fried egg sandwich and coffee do little to lift me and then I watch yet another chancellor scrap a mini budget. The basic message is that our latest prime minister is thick, does not understand the economy and basically is innumerate. I check my social media for signs of life, there is none beyond a passing hello. The highlights of my day are going to be a Tesco delivery and the arrival of a long cardigan to wear at next week’s conference. Doubtless I shall go to the Shed and write and then train at some point in an effort energise myself. I realise I am seething inside although not completely sure why. I can locate some of it as being the aftermath of stepping out of the Elders group. I think it is the sense of being taken for granted and the phrase “familiarity breeds contempt”, rings true to my experience in this moment. Perhaps it is a wider experience. For the time being I will sit with it, write, read and go about my business.

I spend time doing small jobs around the house like fixing the bathroom light and the lounge light. I check Fort Hog and find the hog has not dined. I throw the old stuff away and refresh the food dish. Tomorrow I will check the garden camera. It occurs to me that now is usually the time that the hedgehogs start thinking about hibernating, perhaps the non-eating last night is the start. It’s a tricky time as I have just ordered another tray of Mr Prickles meaty super for my hog.

Jobs done I and my partner walk down to the village shop to get dish washer tablets and so spontaneous buys. Back home my partner has lunch and I begin to think about training. I am not feeling my best physically and I’m still full of my “seething” so I am slow getting into my kit but once I am I drop into my “all or nothing” mode. I hit the rower for an hour with Rammstein loud, very loud, in my ears. I discovered years ago that loud music can surface the unconscious and coupled with physical effort can be a vehicle to confront what is going in the “Dark and Tricky” that lay below the surface. I strap in and row, closed eyed with the music drowning everything out, in this state I let my body get on with the effort of exercise and let my mind roam and see what rises from the deep. It is a state in which everything else disappears and nothing can intrude. I stand alone with myself in the desert and it’s a reaffirmation that I stand on my own without fear. In this space the confrontation between who I am and what cancer is trying to do to me come face to face. Ultimately there maybe only one outcome but between now and then I win the battles in this space. At the end of a session I am stronger.

I emerge from the garage, change clothes and then move the car from the drive so that Tesco can deliver. While I wait, I watch the continuing cluster fuck that claims it is a government. The message is that when incompetence fails there will be more austerity that the poor will pay for. I begin to wonder if this Guy Fawkes anniversary there might be a successful reincarnation. Tesco deliver and I return to the political blood bath on TV. I catch up with social media and continue to draft the blog. This evening I plan to eat tea, watch a rugby match and go to bed early to read. Tomorow is an empty day that will either see me in the Shed or the gym.