Tuesday. I have slept quite well again and attribute this to the co-codamol. I quickly take my vitals and check my book shelf on the Kindle Digital publishing site. I also check the Amazon site. To my delight the paper back version of my second collection of poems is there to be bought. I order some so that can get copies in my hands as soon as tomorrow. It is that feel of a book in my hands that is so visceral and affirming of the reality of the books existence.

I have little time before I need to go out so I take my morning meds put a few things in a shoulder bag , swap the cars round on the drive and then go off to meet my friend. As I am a bit early I order a couple of bacon rolls and a pot of hot water and wait. The bacon rolls are not very good but they fill my stomach. My friend arrives and we sit and chat till the mid afternoon, taking in the odd drink and toasted sandwich as required. Its a while since I have had a chance to talk to someone outside the family, not counting the stranger at the Murder Mystery evening in a noisy room, and so it is nice to have time and space to be able to reflect and share ideas. We have a mutual love of books and have exchanged books in the past but usually it is my friend who supplies me with new authors. We share the same love of Japanese literature and have similar likes in general when it comes to books. So conversation is easy and we have a shared work history that goes back to the early nineties and several therapeutic communities. It is good to have someone who knows me well enough to ask the awkward questions about how I am dealing with my cancer and all the stuff that goes along with that. Eventually by mid afternoon I begin to run out of spoons and need to go home, we say goodbye and go our separate ways.

Once home I sort my bag out and start to write the blog when the garden guy turns up. He is starting to move plants from the front garden where the drive is going to be widened and put them in their new locations according to the plan I drew up. It’s a shame that the work is being done at this time of year as it means moving pants at a bad time for them, but it cannot be helped. I am hoping that we won’t lose too many. After our chat I find I have missed a call from a friend who I have not had a chance to talk with for a while and by the time I know she will have picked her daughter up. And so I slide into the evening with no appetite for an evening meal, I shall read and perhaps watch TV this evening and snack before bed. As it turns out I end up watching Top Gun, geriatric, the last Tom Cruise pilot film. I take my evening meds and return to the blog. Tomorrow, if I am lucky, I will get to see my new poetry collection, that’s worth getting up for. It feels like I am learning about how to put things together so I am hoping that the coming book is better than the last one in terms of feel and presentation. I will take a break before I put more of me out there and spend more time constructing any future collections, except perhaps the next in the Cancer Years series.