Friday I am awake quite early as I hear my partner go off to work! I get up, have toast and coffee and then head for the GP surgery to have my bloods taken. I have totally forgotten to preload with water for the last 24 hours so my platelet count will probably be crap again. I arrive, book in and then take a seat, however I am called in immediately by the nurse. This woman is a goddess. She can get the needle in me without me feeling it and extract the required vial of blood before you can say “Bobs your uncle”. I am in and out quicker than a prime minister. Back home I read a bit and then go to the Shed. I am feeling a bit overwhelmed, probably the aftereffects of the conference. I write a letter and take my time doing it. It’s a slow morning. I finally get to lunchtime with the letter completed and make an egg sandwich for lunch, wash it down with coffee and then return to the Shed.

I am all written out, I think about another letter, but I have not got it in me so I cast around for something to do. I take down my paint pallet which is supposed to keep paint workable and to my surprise find the acrylics on it are indeed still usable. I rummage in my art bag and find a small board. I spend a lot of time just painting and using up the paint on the pallet. I appear to be fixated on gardens, trees and sky as this board turns out to be similar to one I have done before. It has taken time and distracted me for a while. There is a strange pleasure in playing with colour regardless of how talentlessly you do it. I guess it’s the process not the product.

Like all my others it will see it’s days out in the Shed. I pack up the Shed and go to the post office to send my letter grabbing chocolate while I am there. Back home I check Fort Hog and find the food bowl empty, so I refill it and reinstall the garden camera. I lock the Shed up for the day and return to the sofa to read, nibble M & Ms and await the return of my partner, who after briefly returning from work at lunchtime has gone off to see her mother with her brother. I continue to read Reaper Man. I like the idea of Death being made redundant due to developing a personality. Unfortunately, the consequences are tricky but amusing in Terry Pratchett’s Disc World.

My partner returns and after a coffee she goes to make tea and I draft the blog. My evening will be reading and TV as I wait for midnight to arrive. This is when the results of my blood tests are posted, if not tonight then just after midnight in the following days. They have to be on the system by Tuesday the 1st of November as this is the date of my next review by the oncologist. These weekends of waiting for blood results are always difficult as the logic of my life is in the arithmetic of the blood results. Either my status will remain “as good as it gets again” or something different. The something different is never going to be “better”, “as good as it gets” is really as good as it can get. Any change in the arithmetic will mean the wind is blowing harder on my dandelion life clock. Hence these weekends I can be a bit edgy.