Wednesday and it oncology review day. My partner brings me a hot water and then goes off to see her mother with her brother. A friend rings me on her birthday and we chat and talk about gifts and celebrations for the day. It was good to hear her in such good form. I get up and make breakfast and take my morning meds. The oncologist could ring any time between 11:30 and 2:30pm so I have to find an activity to keep me occupied while I wait. As I scroll through my news stream, which is mostly adverts and old news rehashed in the most sensational way I come across the BIBA, Best Indie Book Awards. I suspect it is an American money making scam but I am feeling devil may care and go to the website. I enter The Cancer Years Anthology: Man to Man in two categories at $65 a throw. The awards are announced in the Autumn, I do not for one moment think I am going to get anything but I really do not care. With my distraction done I read more of Oranges aren’t the only fruit. My partner returns but still no oncology call. Suddenly the phone rings and the oncology registrar is talking to me.

Normally the call lasts about 30 seconds if I am lucky but this registrar is positively chatty. He asks about my fatigue and how I am coping and we have a conversation. He tells me that my bloods are good and the drop in my PSA is good. He also notes that my kidney function is improving (there goes my excuse to have a glass of red wine), which seems to please him. He gives me the go ahead to go to cycle 5 on Friday. When I tell him that I have a CT scan on the 25th of March he suggests a face to face meeting for the next review, I eagerly agree and note that this will be a mid point review. The phone call ends and I come away feeling that I have been listened to and not played “how long can I keep the oncologist on the line”.

It is a lovely sunny day and warm so my partner is in the garden opening the raised beds and pottering around trying to cut the lawn edges. The trimmers are old and blunt so the activity does not last long. I join her in the garden and get the old Flymo out of the storage shed. Its not been out for years, not since we got a garden chap in to do the lawns. I plug it in and get nothing, only one thing for it and that is to take it apart and give it some care. I gather up tools from the garage and set about getting the “hood” off the machine. I eventually manage this and then clean the motor and oil all the bearings and the main shaft connected to the blade. I put is all back together again and try it once more. It works and when I test it on a small piece of lawn is cuts admirably. There is no stopping me now, I get the garden waste wheelie bin and start to mow the lawns. The smell of new mown grass is lovely and I keep going till I need to sit for a moment to rest. My partner comes and takes over the mowing while I do the grass box emptying and together we complete mowing both the front and back grassy areas. Its a job well done and makes the garden look so much better. Over the next couple of days the lawns will dry out a bit and regain their even green look. The mower goes back into the storage shed and I tidy up my tools and the other odds and ends that I needed to move to get the mower working.

With everything away it is time to retreat to the sofa and cool off and look forward to tea. There is an early evening football match in which Newcastle get thoroughly thrashed 7-2. My partner and I watch the penultimate episode of series 11 of The Brokenwood Mysteries and then I watch Liverpool win their European match. I take my night meds and set the dishwasher going before going to bed feeling tired but pleased to have got the jump on the garden.

Thursday arrives and it is still sunny. My partner brings me a hot water, which I manage to spill and so get up quicker than I had anticipated. I make breakfast and take my meds. Todays meds include the additional pre chemo steroids that are supposed to help protect me. I get them down me and then I clear away the rest of the tools I used to mend the mower yesterday. The garage where the tools are kept and which is also a gym is in a very untidy state so it takes a while to get some order back into it. Finally I am satisfied and suggest to my partner that we go to the garden centre to get new edging shears.

The garden centre is too much of a temptation so we soon have a trolley full of plants as well as a new pair of edge trimmers. There is time for a raspberry milkshake and a pee before we load up Elsie (the car) and drive home. With the plants stowed I head for the sofa and start to draft the blog for the last couple of days. I also download another poem for Saturdays poetry stanza. Todays poem really catches my verbal eye and reminds me strongly of a Gill Scott Heron track called “The revolution will not be televised”, a 1970 track. Its a great track so I share it with you.

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The poem by a fellow member of the poetry Stanza reminded me of the Gill Scott Heron tack but it was inspired by a Speech by Mark Carney the Canadian Prime Minister. Its a masterful summary of power as it is today and the option for the middle power nations. It contains the brilliant line: “If we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.” Its 16 minutes long but it is well worth the effort. I wish I could share the poem that came from it but it belongs to someone else. The video starts in French but very briefly, what follows is well worth the wait. Sit down with a coffee and a red wine and enjoy someone telling it how it is currently.

My partner goes out to lunch and I write the blog, drink Red Bull and measure up the area in the garden where the swing seat is. I have taken of its winter cover and now plan to have a deck put in for the swing seat to stand on properly. A friend calls on her way to do Easter shopping in her lunch time, apparently she found chocolate in the back of the pantry that dated back to last Easter, I am amazed, how did that happen in a household with small people in it? I return to contacting a man about a deck. In the afternoon I sit on the swing seat and read thinking that tonight I shall watch the last available Brokenwood Mystery. A new search for a drama series will soon be under way. There will be night meds and pre-emptive steroids before sleep tonight. Tomorrow is chemo rechallenge day, double day time steroids and the Uber to and from the hospital. Its not my favourite day but Cycle five takes me half way through the rechallenge. I’m still here, vertical and above ground and intend to be for a while yet.