Thursday and it starts with a fried egg sandwich, coffee and meds. After a bit of tidying I retreat to the Shed and set about my latest project of trying to make wooden moulds for wax reduction jewellery. This means a lot of new skill acquisition, experimentation, practice and trail and error and new tools to master. The blow torch arrives tomorrow. So there is a transformation from my writing space to my work bench.

I spend all morning in the Shed learning the early stages of how to chisel a design into a piece of wood. Its a steep learning curve especially the feel of the tools against the wood, however time flies. The first thing I am aware of is my partner giving me a newspaper and asking me if I checked the bread before I made my fried egg sandwich this morning. I obviously looked quizzical as it was then explained to me that the loaf had to be thrown away as it had gone green.

A bit more work and then I feed the hedgehog, get my washing in and change in order to train. I really do not feel like it today but having not trained yesterday I need to push through. I get into the garage and set the rower up for a 45 minute session. The aim of this session is to get to the end in reasonable shape and not pass blood afterwards. It goes slow and controlled and as a session it is what is needed.

I give myself a bit of recover time and then change into some travel clothes as I am going to give my eldest a lift to her circus skills sessions. I drop her off and return home to a fish cake tea and begin the blog as the TV sows the the opening of the Commonwealth Games. A full Brumie extravaganza of post industrial imperialism. Tomorrow I shall train again and once again reject the urgent referral by my GP to the urology department. Clearly my GP is either ignoring or has not seen the advice from my oncologist. The oncologist is clear that urology have nothing to offer me in this situation. The last thing I want is to be is stuck in the middle of a doctors pissing contest. Mind you my diagnosis is now, and I quote, “Metastatic castration-resistant prostate carcinoma”, I’m not sure I’m not just a bit pleased to be “castration resistant”.