Monday and I wake up to my partner bringing me a hot water. I check my messages and mail and then get up to take my morning meds. I do not have time to eat, there is a general clearing of thee decks going on. After some preliminary tidying its time to grab the Hoover. It of course needs emptying and the front roller bar needs to have the entwined hair cut off it. Then its time to whiz round the ground floor and get the place looking acceptable. With much of the tidying done its time to brave the outside world. I juggle the cars so that Elsie (car) can be driven off the drive. My partner and I drive to the local garden centre where there is a good bacon roll to be had. Its good to get out and to get a late breakfast.

Before leaving the garden centre I stock up on bird seed and suet balls for the bird feeders. Once home I do the reverse car juggle and settle down to file down the guttering cap to ensure that it will fit when I get the chance to dismantle the water terrace and return my guttering to a standard configuration. After several minutes of filing and test fitting I get the pipe cap to fit the right size of down pipe. All I need now is a couple of dry days, so I might be waiting for a while. There is time for a sandwich and a chat to my eldest daughter via tablet before Tesco arrives with our delivery. Its all hands to the pumps as everything gets squirreled away in next to no time. I try to read some of John Berryman’s 77 Dream Songs. I am unimpressed, its garbage. I am disappointed as everything I read about the collection said how ground breaking it was and how it broke the mould of traditional clear poetry and how it incorporated new cultural expression. What was Pulitzer prize winning in 1965 is now just a jumble of obscure broken sentences centred on an imagined malfunctioning character. Henry or Mr Bones is no more than someone wading around in the post beat poet generation and not really understanding what it was or how it developed into the counter culture movement.

Putting poetry aside I start to draft the blog before assisting my partner in changing the bedding, all part of clearing the decks and trying to get through the post illness recovery period. The evening arrives and I crash, no energy, no option but to take my meds and go to bed. It happens like that sometimes.