Tuesday and on the face of it I’ve an easy day ahead of me as I wake up. I take my vitals as my partner goes of for physio and I get up and get into my training kit. Breakfast is a scant toast affair that goes down with my morning meds and hot water. I clear the kitchen and put in a load of washing before checking my messages and WhatsApp. The world appears to be in order, or at least my world seems to be chuntering along as normal. My GP is offering a COVID booster tomorrow so I book myself in, why not, it might be beneficial, who knows, its just another round of medical Russian roulette.

I finally get into the garage and strap myself onto the rower. Its a three day gap since I rowed last so I decide to go for an hours session. These are always sedate and slowly paced affairs but build to a final burn and deep regrets that I should have gone for a shorter more intense session . Today was no different but I used and BBC motivational tape to keep me going despite not quite getting the timings right. I lagged behind the tape by about fifteen minutes so while I was being congratulated on a first half hour I was feeling crap after fifteen minutes of actual rowing. However I plugged away and got to the end of the session having managed eleven plus kilometres, which is not bad given I’ve not done an hour for a while.

With the session recorded and a Red Bull drunk I wander into the garden and start to do odd and ends, which turns out to be some extensive weeding out of the pots and one of the smaller flower beds. My partner has returned adn gone out to lunch with a friend so I continue to beaver away in the sunshine until I can do no more. I have extended my days “to do” list so that when my partner returns from her lunch I suggest we go to one of the nearby garden centres and get some plumb slate and a new rake. So off we go and spend time picking up bags of slate and assessing the merits of the range of rakes available. By the time we have completed our assessment the garden centre café has closed! My toast breakfast is now no longer sustaining me.

Once home we set to and rake out a narrow bed behind the front hedge and sow wild flower seeds, after which I spread the slate under the new raised cold frame. By the time I’ve cleared away the tools and debris I am about spoonless so retreat to me end of the sofa, drink cold Lucozade and book a night in a hotel for myself and my partner for an upcoming trip we are going to make this weekend. All that is left for me to do now is draft the blog, order in an Indian and watch football this evening. The elephant in the room is my lack of progress in clearing and organising the office space now that my partner has retired. Hopefully I can get some focus and get this done soon. I am feeling guilty that it is ages since I wrote to my friends, this is important to me so I will begin another round of letter writing from the Shed now that I am able to write once again post hand operation. For now its time to read the Velveteen Rabbit, order food and slide into the evening. I’m at the stage where I have run out of spoons (energy) and running on automatic until I hit the point where I go through my pre bed rituals and then maximum oblivion until tomorrow.