Monday and I wake to the knowledge that I shall be taking the final bandage off my hand today and possibly just putting a plaster on it, or not. My partner brings me hot water to drink and I check my vitals. I get up for breakfast and meds and then I set about removing my last remaining hand bandage. It still looks a bit gruesome but I clean it up and for the first time since the operation I am able to wash both hands. I rub it down with a sterilising wipe, run Nivea cream into the scar and then put a plaster over it. I think its going to take a couple more days to get it fully healed.

Having sorted my hand out I get ready to go out with my partner. I drive us to a garden centre where we discover a Waitrose which instantly solved what we would be eating for tea. It was an impressive garden centre but like the others it sells almost anything other than plants, I guess there is less effort and risk involved in selling almost anything that you have to grow. Naturally we had lunch amidst the dozens of others who had exhausted the range of plants available and had lost interest in all the other goods available. In fairness we found some children’s books for our youngest grandchild.

Once home I set about getting my new journal ready as the current one is into its last week. With my life admin done its time for another round of hand exercises and joint compression. Unexpectedly I feel myself running out of spoons and spend time drafting the blog while my partner does singing practice before her singing lesson tonight. I have one last throw of my remaining energy and I unpack my new sack barrow and use it to move the newly delivered bird and squirrel feed to the back garden shed where I decant it into the storage bins and fill all the feeders. At this point I am truly out of energy spoons.

The evening was a mindless film and more Pennyworth before taking my meds and going to bed very tired. I have felt itchy and scratchy inside all day and not sure why. I have that restless sense of self dissatisfaction that I cannot put my finger on, something is roaming around inside, I just have to give it time to show itself.