Freezing Friday and I wake to messages and social media. I take my vitals which are all good and slowly get up. I find my household sitting on the sofa watching the news and I soon join them with comforting crumpets and morning meds. With breakfast out of the way I have time to update my vitals Excel data base so I can keep track of my blood pressure averages over chemo cycles. So far the last two cycles since my “heart fiasco” have been normal so I am content. I will be happy if things stay as they are till my next oncology review in early March. My partner and eldest daughter go out and leave me to start the daily draft of the blog.

My day progresses to writing the first letters of the year. It is an important moment of the year for me as keeping up my letter writing as a way of staying in touch with friends I value and care about is big issue for me. At the moment my Dupuytrens Contracture makes using my favoured pen and ink tricky so I have resorted to typing using a script font. Its not the same but it does add the additional factor of readability to my letters at the moment. There are some household chores to do but I soon return to the key board and continue to write. All the while I listen to Radio 3s mindfulness selection. Its so refreshing to just have gently music on in the back ground, not lift music or caned music but proper classical music that has been toiled over and thought about. No adverts, opinions, no extraneous noise just music that does not try to force its way into my ears. I seal my letter using some of the sealing wax I received as a Christmas present. Before venturing out into the bitter cold where the streets where still white with frost I layered up and made sure I was as warm as could be. I made my way to the post box and back without mishap.

Once home set about the days crosswords, some tricky stuff in them today so it took me longer to work through them, but I eventually came out triumphant. having nibbled Panettone along the way. My mind turned to the evening meal and on having explored the possibilities I was off to the village shop to get potatoes for jacket potatoes because this is the sort of weather that is just perfect for them.

So the evening is a rough and ready meal and then there is a TV quiz show to watch and then some football before I can finish off drafting the blog, take my evening meds and get to bed ready for the weekend. I’m still stunned by yesterdays review of my poems in the Lancet, its going to take a while for this to work off.