So Thursday rolls around and after a disturbed night I wake to a sunny day and the sound of the builder badgers cement mixer going in the front garden. I do not know what I will do when they finally finish and I wake to a different soundscape. When I check myself I find I am not feeling that chipper, the curry and the sweets I had yesterday are probably a major contributing feature, the price of self comforting I suspect. My vitals when taken are okay, I am just finishing them when my partner brings me hot water. On getting up I find there are some emails I need to deal with, the most pertinent is the subscription to the service that keeps this website free of spam adn unwanted stuff. It appears that my subscription has not renewed due to my card being old. I talk to the Bot who tells me how to go about remedying the situation, which I duly do, so hopefully this site will be spam free for another year.

A brief breakfast and I cast around for things to attend to and a single line keeps coming to me. “I m like a dog in a new basket”. Clearly there is a new poem inside trying to get out, this is the way it sometimes happens. I try to put pen to paper but I get no further, again this often happens, time is required for whatever is going on to ripen till it is ready to flow. At these time my garden sometimes comes to the rescue and it seems to be trying despite the builder badgers continuing there work. The flowers are doing their best despite their pots being moved around or being planted in a new part of the garden. Here are a few that are trying really hard to inspire.

PURPLE IS CLEARLY THE COLOUR OF THE SEASON

Despite the flowers efforts my poem does not materialise. My eldest daughter pops in for a chat about a hospital appointment later today, so we look at the options, I’m not up to taking her so we talk about how that will work out. I am sure that the household will come to the right solution. I have lunch with my partner and start to draft the blog but I am feeling very much like a dog in a new basket and find it difficult to settle. The sun is shining, its a lovely day, I have a Hippo waste bag to fill and things to do in the garden but cannot get myself going beyond coping with my electronic bubble that I seem to have created around me. Apart from the blog I have recently taken to recording video letters with a varying degree of success, and I have started to make public videos for the poetry collections on my YouTube channel, Prost8kancerman. I am trying to think through how best to use them all and whether I should link the two, but I am wary of doing that as this space is meant for family and friends, not the general public. I do have another Prost8Kance man domain but at the moment cannot face creating another website, although I could shift all the poetry related stuff into it and make it more public. It is something I need to give a lot of thought to. It raises issues about what I really want for the poetry I have published and are publishing. My initial goal was to make my poetry available to family and friends, to share more of myself with them adn I think that is still my aim. However it is very alluring to take up some of the publishing options and to be lured into believing that my collections have relevance beyond friend and family. When I look at what I have written in the acknowledgments and book descriptions of the two new collections in production and I seem to have strayed into addressing wider audiences, e.g dyslexics or rejected and unpublished poets. For the time being I shall contain the public awareness via the YouTube channel and try and keep this space for family and friends and live with the fact that some seepage or osmosis may occur. Making money from my poetry was never an issue and was extremely unlikely any way, I am no John Cooper Clark after all.

I have lunch and then spend a little time resting and continuing to try and write but it does not work, as the afternoon goes on I get progressively more tired and restless. Eventually the builder badgers leave for the day so I take the chance to take some photos of the work that has been done so far. Its beginning to look good and I can visualise what the finished patio will look like.

The work is coming along and after 10 days and I am hoping that by the start of next week the project at the rear of the house will be complete or that by the end of the week the front drive will be started on. Having eaten tea my partner and eldest daughter prepare to go to a hospital appointment to have my eldest daughters ankle ligament damage assessed. A friend rings and there is time for a brief chat as she ferries her cat back home from the vets. Its all too short but it is really nice to talk for a brief to time to someone outside the household. After the call my partner and eldest daughter leave for the appointment and I return to drafting the blog. There is a difficult decision to make tonight, football or the semi-final of Eurovision. It remains to be see what I chose. More important is for me to prepare for my bloods to be take tomorrow so I need to focus on drinking a lot of water to keep my platelet count up. Of course it means a late night as I will wait up for the results and I find out whether my arithmetic is holding up.

I took a shower to spruce myself up and then elected to watch the football. After an early goal I chose Eurovision. It is the usual rag bag of stuff where anyone could win, what is clear is that Sweden is obsessed by Eurovision. Once over I do the admin required for tomorrows bloods, take my night meds and finish off the blog for the day. I am hoping for a smooth night of sleep so that I am at my best for an early start tomorrow.