Thursday and I wake up in my own bed to familiar sounds of the house. I get up to make breakfast, put my washing in and read the cards and letters that were waiting for me on my return from the conference. I take my time over the correspondence and indulge in a second coffee. I am aware that I am decompressing from the conference. It’s a sort of mental check to see how I am. You know when you fall over and you lay on the floor and mentally check your body over to see if you can wiggle your toes or if you are bleeding. I do a similar thing only I check myself in terms of all the symptoms of my condition. I’m tired but functional.

I am greatly heartened by my correspondence. I am very lucky to have people who write to me. I am also blessed by people who either give me books or recommend them. A woman at the conference suggested a book to me after I had made a public comment along the lines of “It’s because rich bastards own the land nobody can get access to nature”(not a complete truth but close.) Anyway, during a coffee break an unknown woman comes up and suggests I read a particular book as she thinks I will be suitably angry, based on the sort of person she thinks I am. I was so taken aback I ordered it instantly from Amazon. It has arrived and she was right, I’m only on chapter two and I am truly pissed off.

I also have a new book that I have been given by the friend that drove me to and from the conference. I have spent some of today reading it and as ever with a Terry Pratchett book I have smiled and laughed.

Lunch comes and goes, and I go to the shed and write a reply to one of my letters. I finish the pages and then check to see if the hedgehog has eaten its food. I am gratified that the dish is empty, I gather up my Shed things and then close up the Shed before refilling the hog’s food dish. A quick trip to the post box is followed by my hanging my washing up on the airer and retrieve the garden camera. I review the camera captures and copy then to the compute file Hedgehog 19. By now it’s time for tea and football, which goes to plan until my eldest daughter reminds me that I promised to take her to her circus skills session tonight. I am about to grumble but she bribes me with fruit pastilles so I comply and take her. Back home I watch football until everyone else goes to bed. I draft the blog, set the dishwasher going and extract my blood form from my files. Tomorrow is a blood test day so I shall be up early to trot down to the GP surgery to have the blood taken. So I will spend tomorrow night waiting for midnight to see if my blood results have been posted. This is in preparation for my next cancer review on Tuesday. It’s a time of anxiety so I will try to keep myself occupied.