Saturday I wake up and immediately think about the poetry stanza. I take my morning meds and then start the preparation for the poetry stanza. I run off the copies of the poem I am taking and tidy up my papers. When the time comes I drive to the venue. There is still a wedding going on, where they are doing post service flower throwing and photos. Other Stanza members arrive and eventually the vicar ushers us into the actual church where we eventually have our meeting. I hand over a couple of hardback copies of my collections to the person who wrote the Foreword to both the collections.

The meeting goes well although not as many as we thought would be there are. There is a wide range of poems, some of them being worked on over time and some of them fresh. It is a constant delight the range of things that people find inspiration in. From stamp collections to walking holidays and ballet. I get to read the ballet poem based on The Rite of Spring and find that reading it aloud is a fun thing to do. My own creation, a rip off of a Shakespeare sonnet. Apparently I betrayed myself with some “too posh” words. First time that has ever been thought of me. One or the poems contained some definitely unchurch like language which was fun to hear in the environment.

563 (18)
Shall I compare you to a summers day?	
                                                                                     Yes I compared you to a summers day.
Thou art more lovely and more temperate .
                                                                                     You are right fit and kindly.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
                                                                                     Cruel weather can ruin nascent flowers in May,
And summers lease hath all too short a date;
                                                                                      and summer may not last long;
Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,
                                                                                      even with some very hot days
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
                                                                                      there are many cloudy times
And ever fair from fair sometimes declines,
                                                                                       when glorious full blooms wilt badly,
By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimm’d.
                                                                                      either by chance or global warming.
But thy eternal summer shall not faded
                                                                                       But your good looks don’t wrinkle
Nor lose possession of that thou owest;
                                                                                      and you do not lose your allure;
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
                                                                                      it looks like death will avoid you,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest.
                                                                                     even though you get older.
So long as men can breathe and see,
                                                                                       As long as I respire and have sight
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
                                                                                        you will be a looker and always will be.

					563 (18) 12-10-2026

At the end of the meeting I drive home and arrive in time for Strictly. The evening passes with Strictly over and then episodes of Reacher before taking my meds and going to bed.

Sunday and it takes a while for me to surface. In truth I lazed all the day apart from the walk to the village shop with my partner to get food and a Sunday paper. There is a women’s football match and some American football to watch. Of course the evening has more Reacher before I go to bed feeling that some how the day has slipped through my fingers.

Monday and I wake up with a cracking headache. This is the day I was going to start training again. As I get up I am not feeling the best so get into my training kit and then I have breakfast late while I wait for the paracetamol to kick in. There are some small chores that I do and then do the cross words in the paper that my partner brought in. After a simple sandwich lunch I gird my loins and head for the garage and the rower. Its been 16 days since I last trained, having been on holiday and done injection week. I get onto the rower, put Sophie Ellis Bexter’s kitchen disco session on the hear phones and start to pull. Like all first sessions it is a tough one but I grind it to the end and end up content with with the figures.

I take a well earned shower and slip into some sloppy clothes. Once tidy I start to catch up with drafting the blog for the last three days before tea after which my partner disappears for her singing lesson. I shall read and investigate what new TV drama series is available. Of course there will be night meds and then a rush to bed. The challenge now is to keep up my training and my amended diet that goes with it. No more sweets, puddings, biscuits and other sugary goodies. The aim is to loose weight and get body fit for Christmas. This is more of a relaunch post holiday. At the moment I weigh in at 104.1 kilos, I must get down to the mid nineties at least by Christmas. I need to drop at least one underwear size!