Monday and I wake to my partner leaving the house to visit her mother, the builder badgers sawing paving blocks and the thumping of bricks into the ground. By getting Alexa to play Meditation Music and taking my vital, which are good. When I do get up adn make breakfast it is time to make the badgers a coffee adn get an update on progress. The sideway is almost complete just some sanding to do and then the work on the bin bay can be stated in earnest. Before the bin bay can start there is a big old pine tree stump that needs to be fully ground out and the lead badger tells me that it is likely to happen later today or tomorrow. BY lunchtime the badgers have done all they can for the day and pack up just as stump grinding man appears with his beast machine. So one workman in as two leave which means fresh coffee to make.

With everything and everyone in place I have time to sit and reflect on how I am. Out of this comes a poem, a bit unexpected but that’s the way it goes.

430 
I ask myself why,
Why am I having this operation,
an optional op?
I look at my crooked finger 
and I am repelled and fearful
that this is how I look inside.
My misshapen digit reminds me
that I am invaded,
that there are tumours,
contained but threatening 
to consume me 
at any moment.
I see the bumps on my hands,
I see the power 
of cell biology rampant
and I am afraid again.
Every time I try to
lay a palm flat 
or type, or clap,
or retrieve from a pocket,
pouch or draw
I am impeded and once again
I know I’m fighting invisibility.
The days tick by pretending
all is well,
a proverbial cognitive ostrich,
but this outcrop 
catches me cold.
Sitting here trying 
To capture my fear
I find myself stranded 
like so many bodies
sitting in homes 
staring and being alone 
and not knowing, 
feeling the want of 
warmth.  
Its lonely,
if only I can get 
my finger straight 
I can wear the rings
again, and give the finger
to my inner enemy.

							430 27-01-2025

I have just about finished writing when the stump grinding man finishes, loads up and dives off. As I put his used mug in the dish washer I notice that the sun shade top of the garden swing seat has been ripped off by the high winds and is hanging on by a single screw. Nothing for it but to grab my tool box and get to it before it is torn off completely and whisked away by the wind. The joint at one end has given way and will not be a repair I can do so the only option is to remove it and put the cover over the separated parts. I am in the middle of wrestling the cover over the two parts when my partner reappears and helps me get the cover in place. It is clear that the wind is going to pull the cover off again so I sacrifice one of my rolls of gaffer tape to put a securing band round the thing. With that done its time to go for lunch.

The chosen place for a late lunch is a garden centre near the police HQ towards town. I drive us there and that were dine and chat till early afternoon. Before we leave we buy fruit and veg from a stall and then drive home, park up and settle in to our cosy home while another storm rains in the evening. I check my phone and find I have missed a call from a friend , this always irks me as I know in a busy life it s difficult to find such spaces and I miss the chance to talk to friends and hear a voice outside he family. When I check my emails I find that the chair of the Poetry Stanza has put a proposal to the committee of a local writing and publishing shindig to be held in March and if accepted I might get to read a poem publicly. It would be a new challenge and an experience. It could be fun or a nightmare, or of course both. With the life admin done I draft the days blog in the gathering gloom of early evening and look forward to something, I am not sure what, to fill my evening. However what ever happens it will end in night meds and the hope of a restful night.