Monday, and the start of the re-boot of the New Year. I do a muesli breakfast and drugs and then head for the gym. Weekday mornings and afternoons are good times to go, there is elbow room in the changing rooms. I do an hour on a cross trainer, burning 711 calories adn going 7.81 kilometres. A refreshing shower and I sit in the club lounge and sip a large americano and eat a three egg omelette. I take my time and eventually drive home via Sainsburys to get chicken and mince as I am forewarned that Tesco are not going to deliver them this evening.

Home and I clear the kitchen and settle down to select which poems I am going to enter in to the Magma poetry competition. The required admin due to the format required and the entry procedure is formidable. I get the documents prepared and register with the submission portal. Then its time for dinner. I’m feeling tired, abnormally tired for me at this time of day. It could be my meds. I have a flurry of activity to try and liven myself up, I buy hedgehog food, ear buds and send messages and then I flag again. I miss a call from a friend, I become more irritable with the TV, I go to bed and read a Kate Tempest play, Hopelessly Devoted, its prison based and seems ironic. I go to sleep early feeling that today has been long.

Tuesday and I wake up at eight o’clock and feel like I have not slept at all. I get up pull on my “fuck cancer” T shirt and go back to bed. I check my phone for messages and emails and then read another Kae Tempest play; Wasted. My partner brings me a coffee as I read. I finish the play and get up, I feel tired, everything is an effort.

I eat muesli, drink more coffee, clear the kitchen and empty the bins. I pack my gym bag and feel knackered. I recharge my watch and ipod while I play for time and get myself up for going to the gym. I make the gym about 12:30, buy water and head to the changing rooms. I get myself a cross trainer, plug in the ear phones, jack up Rammstein and try to start a session. I feel fucked and it crosses my mind to stop but that’s not how surviving cancer goes. Relentless has to be met with relentless. I will finish this session and so I grit and grind. All that matters is finishing, that will do today. I have a ritual, a drink of water every 20 minutes, it gives me targets to get to and keeps me hydrated. The rest is down to Rammstein and whatever fantasies my pixies come up with to keep my brain occupied. I get there, to the end and I’ve managed to burn dead on 700 calories and gone 7.86 kilometres. Slow but steady got me there. I walk a couple of circuits of the gym floor as I finish my bottle of water and then its off to the showers. It’s a slow one followed by a long black americano in the lounge. I note that my companion is a small and struggling palm, a real one not plastic, I’m impressed and then saddened for it as it seems to me its chances of survival are small.

I go home and have chicken soup, feeling tired and with little motivation to do anything. Tomorrow I shall use the rower in the garage so that I can rest my legs a bit. I do a crossword and put my washing in before retreating to the sofa to catch up with the blog. My ambitions for for the rest of the day are small, firstly get the poems away, eat dinner, go to bed early and perhaps read. Tomorrow is an Elders meeting day and a rower day. Beyond that I will see how it goes, I sense this tiredness may be variable from day to day and clearly affects how communicative I am. Its time to be in the box, to focus and to get through.