Tuesday and I am awake early, or at least for me, and I am soon downstairs and breakfasted. Meds obviously get downed as well. I go to the Shed early and message friends, write a brief poem and have a general tidy up of the Shed. I have some new ink and other craft stuff arriving as I am exploring how to extend some of my existing interests. I have tried to use my wax reduction jewellery casting kit but only ever succeeded in making a single pedant for me. My Back Bone pendant which I wear as a reminder and a motivator to keep training. Rather than keep trying to work in the wax directly I am going to try and carve my own moulds in bassa wood and melt the wax into them myself and then smooth and finish them before sending to be cast. That’s the plan and if it works then there will be some weird Christmas presents this year.

I wander over to the post box and return to start the draft of the blog. Its a bit of a distraction as I know the next real thing to be doing is training, that and wrap my eldest daughters birthday presents, which is tomorrow. I do some covert wrapping and then I head for the garage and the rower. I strap in and set off with the aim of doing better than yesterday. I’m going well, possibly a bit too well when I get a call on my pods, so I slow to the equivalent of a rowing jog and chat to a friend who is dealing with a tyre with a nail in it. On arrival at the tyre centre we say farewell and I get back to the hard push of the session. I get to the end beating yesterdays distance and calories burnt, so I am very pleased.

I squeeze out of my sweaty training gear and relax over a dish of chicken soup and update the blog draft. By the time this has done I have properly cooled down. What is not so good is that I have a reoccurrence of temporarily passing some blood in my urine, so I need to hydrate and lower the intensity of the next couple of sessions. I move on to my afternoon, a trip to the shop and continued birthday preparations. I also have from Amazon a package with my new project materials, so they need to be integrated in to my art gear and then over the coming days I can get started. If this phase works and works to my satisfaction I will need to invest in a culinary blow torch next month. I put the bin out for the week and then I am in the Shed doing the crossword. The garden guy turns up unexpectedly so I break off and make him coffee. He sets to and I pay him, returning to my crossword.

The evening starts with dinner and some NCIS before England women take on Sweden in the semi finals of the Euro football championship. England 4 -Sweden 0 so Sunday afternoon is taken care of. For now its an early night in readiness for my eldest daughters birthday tomorrow.