Saturday a day of puttering focussed on ticking off the pre-Christmas jobs. At last I have swapped the office chairs round from office to Shed and vice versa so that now the cheap comfortable one is in the office and the one that has more handles and levers than the Millennium Falcon and is grossly uncomfortable is in then Shed. The birds and Squirrels are all fed and with the arrival of the garden guy the shrubs have had their winter prune. With these mundane tasks under my belt I attempt to write the remaining words for the new website. It goes okay until I try to send them to my techno person. There is a huge and unproductive waste of time, which does not reach a satisfactory conclusion. I make a dash to the post office to stock up on Lucozade and buy a paper. At least when I get home I have a crossword to do.

The evening is all pie and chips and Strictly. The family watched and are mostly agreed that Balvinda is doomed. We shall see tonight. We move onto stranger things, the new episodes. Its strange watching adults pretend to be kids with parents played by actors who cannot possibly and plausibly be their parents. It seems to have lost its naive charms, no doubt good will win and all the actors will breathe a sigh of relief and go back to auditioning for adult roles. There is football to watch and then meds to take and finally bed. I’ve missed my youngest daughter and family not being able to visit this weekend and hope their colds and feelings of grottiness soon pass.

Sunday and I wake up quite late with all sorts of stuff in my head. My only resort is to write, so I scribble this in the dark on my phone.

481
I'm asked if I have a plan.
I have children's toothbrushes,
steroid tablets, and all the 
paraphernalia
to self inject.
I've had a pre-emptive haircut,
number three all over
as I anticipate it
falling out.
A new set of clippers 
to control any patchy growth. 
I have made sure I have a suit
that fits me, 
an act of faith, 
that at sometime 
there will be a need
to look smart,
a funereal perhaps?
Hopefully like butcher
Beynon's finger,
"not his own".
I wait
and listen
for the call,
the invitation to the 
chemo party, to submit
to the poison from the 
Yew tree, that will stiffen
the tubercles and kill the cells
that are busy devouring me
as I wait.
I am becalmed 
in a beautiful boat,
left with my enemy 
and the ever present battle,
waiting for reinforcements
that may never come,
held back for other foes
or redirected to those with
fewer birthdays behind them. 
A life of Pi but with an
invisible, untrainable tiger.
I wait
and try not to get excited,
to contain the anticipated
journey across the seas.
But as this silence 
and this pause goes on
my energy drains
and I cannot bear
the non arrival.
Does Goddo ever appear?
I feel like the luckless slinger
in whom everything sinks.
My one lament amongst
a life of joy,
and so
I wait.


                                                               481 14-12-2025 

I finally get and dress and make breakfast for my partner before she heads for the garden and I start to draft the blog for yesterday and today, but not before I finally find a football shirt desired by my Swedish grandson. The afternoon I spend listening to football on the radio and then I sort out my quartermasters stores. I find hideously out of date bread flour and yeast along with some aged biscuits, which all get disposed of. Knowing what we have in store now its time to update the Tesco order. With the chores done I settle into the evening which is quite full of TV. The Strictly semi final result show is on followed by The War between the Land and the Sea. By football highlight time I have taken my night meds and looking for an early night. All I want now is a phone call from the chemo nurse as soon as possible, I need to be able to plan.