Its Thursday and I am up early to get ready to go and see the hand, wrist and scar repair woman. First a shower and the taking of my morning meds, which includes another big dose of vitamin D. So clean and full of the sunshine vitamin I drive in the bright morning to see my specialist. She is bright and cheery as ever and looks at my hand and scars then measures them. Apparently I am dong very well. She tells me I am ready for stage two which means that I get a piece of magic silicon to wear on my scares at night under my splint. Each night I am to apply it and then in the morning I take it of, wash it and save it for the next night. I am not sure how this is going to help but i take her at her word and she gives me an instruction sheet with long words on it, over which she writes what it means in real English. She is pleased and so does not need to see me for four weeks, we set a date and I pay her. A considerably less sum than my previous two visits.

I drive home and set about moving pots around in the front garden preparing to turf over one of the beds. I use the sack barrow that I bought for the job and it works beautifully. I am able to move the big pots of irises ( my grandfathers) to around the bay window where it is the sunniest and warmest. Irises like heat on their rhizomes. The job is almost finished when my partner returns home from having her nails done. There is just some tidying up to be done and the jettisoning of old matting and lawn lights to be done and I am finished with the garden for the day. The bulbs are all coming through and there are patches of splendid colour that have survived the work we had done on the drive last year.

I continue to odds and ends that need doing like putting air in the car tyre that is showing low and throwing out all matting and then I am finally done in the garden for today. With everything packed away I return to to the house for a late lunch and find myself writing. In doing so I find my scribblings from yesterday, so I end up with two new pieces, which I share below.

436
It’s twenty-five years ago today
my father died.
A quarter of a century ago
before COVID and many other things.
Never close, I look inside 
and find a void,
rare glimpses of a man distant,
untouchable and untouching.
In the end left to die 
by wife and daughter
because they thought 
he’d be more comfortable 
if left alone.
Sounds like unconscious murder to me.
That conspiracy of the moment,
the easiest path the leads 
to a benign coroner.
A mother and daughter combo
in the night doing what’s right
given his condition.
I sit here with my partner 
and our eldest daughter 
still at home
and wonder if family stories 
echo and repeat across generations. 
Note to self:
Don’t get ill in the night,
especially now the partner
has retired.
					436 05-03-2025

437
I could do yoga – once or twice a week
I could eat less sweets – a ban
I could eat fewer cakes – a ban 
I could read more – less TV
I could write more – less lazing around
I could exercise more – everyday
I could communicate more – talk to people
I could play music – less fantasy time
I could do less “phone” – more real time.
All of this I could do
But on balance my cancer 
Wouldn’t give a fuck.
I just might be more knowledgeable,
And fitter with fewer
Side effects from my drugs,
But I am not curable,
I’m being palliated,
managed and consoled.
How do you think that feels?
Yep, like Crunchies, Red Bull,
Football and violent TV,
flat out on a recliner
watching my garden overgrow
and daring myself to be happy.
						437  06-03-2025 

Having typed up the pieces I draft the blog and throw in my days endeavours and the pieces. Before I know it 5 o’clock rolls round, its time to do my hand exercises, massage my scars and give them a good creaming. I note that the football tonight kicks off in 45 minutes so it will all be over in time for some more of the violent Pennyworth series. If I read this series right this is Batman’s butler prequal. Ingenious no wonder the lead sounds so much like Michael Caine. So I go into the evening mapped out as I head for my night meds and the joy of playing with my new magic night dressing for my scars. Tomorrow I go to the optician for an eye test. As I get older my short sightedness improves, so that I can drive without the need of glasses but I need glasses more and more for reading, so tomorrow is about getting a correct prescription, possible some new glasses. Then I will be equipped to move back into the office space and the opportunity to fire up the new incinerator.

Tuesday and I wake into “recovery” day, the day after my twenty eight day jab. I am sore and feeling the usual tiredness and pain. I take my time getting up and spend the morning and most of the afternoon taking things very slowly, but a friend has sent me a present. It is a subscription to the National Theatre at Home. It means I can watch Jodie Comer perform her solo performance in Prima Facie. It is an extraordinary performance, absolutely riveting and a tour de force. How on earth she managed to perform this piece night after night is beyond me. It is one of those pieces that has stayed with me all day and into the following day. By the evening I am tired, very tired, all I am good for is watching football on TV and getting myself to bed to try and get some sleep.

Wednesday starts early with my partner getting up to go and visit her mother. I take advantage of this and also get up early, this afternoon is the planned oncology review. I get into my training gear determined to get back into getting fit. Having taken my morning meds I go to the garage and strap myself onto the rower. A half hour session will be enough today, just to get me moving and making sure I do not leave it too long to train again. Its been five days since I trained so time is passing. It feels like a difficult thirty minutes, it feels like I am not moving smoothly and every pull is a real effort. At the end of the session I am just pleased to have got over the 6 kilometre mark. That will do me for a recovery session as this time in my twenty eight day cycle.

With the session recorded I take a breather and watch The Housewife of Willesden on the National Theatre at Home website. It is a modern reworking of Chaucer’s Wife of Bath. A thoroughly enjoyable way of winding down. My partner returns from visiting her mother and we chat for a while. I now wait for my call from the oncologist. Its at least a two hour slot to wait and in the time I am waiting my partner and I examine the map of England and think about where we might take a break. Eventually the oncologist rings. (Perhaps a good play tittle).

It is not my usual oncologist (he who made a pact with the devil). There are the usual questions and I dutifully report my average blood pressure over the current cycle. I also feedback my GP putting me on a Vitamin D treatment. The chap I am talking to notes that I have been on Enzalutamide for almost two years and drops that most people do two years on this drug but that they think I might go for three years. Now that was a revelation. No one before had told me that so I end the call with the agreement that I will have another three cycles and be sent another blood form with a view to another review in twelve weeks time and that my PSA level will continue to be monitored as the slight rise this time is not seen as significant. So its carry on Roland and get back into the groove for three months.

The evening is slipped into and as my partner is out with a friend dining I cook myself pasta and settle down to draft the blog while watching a pulsating football match. I am flagging and take my night meds knowing that I have to be up early tomorrow to go to see the hand and wrist therapist. All over the last few days I have been exercising and binding my hand to get my hand recovered. I am doing my set exercises and regularly massaging Nivea Crème into my operation scars. It is a kind of background recovery programme that I have running all the time. When it comes to going to bed there is my splint to strap on, so its a twenty four hour process. I am assured that if I do not keep this programme going the scar tissue will pull my finger back down into a crooked shape, so it has to be kept up.

The weekend (Days 157 ad 158 were just full of my youngest grandson visiting with his parents. So there was much playing and feasting as it coincided with my partners retirement. The sunshine and there were ducks to feed and soft play centres to explore. I maintained my steady pace and enjoyed just watching at times as the family played. In the evenings when the young boy had gone to sleep we adults sat around the table and exchanged news and plans, it felt like a family should.

Monday starts with the youngest grandchild and his parents having breakfast and preparing to drive home. He is in good form and everyone seems happy as my partner and I wave them off late morning with a car full of new things, including a rocking donkey. With them disappeared over the hill I get properly dressed and walk down to the GP surgery to get my 28 day jab and my three monthly vitamin B12 jab. However I did manage to trip arse over head again in my own porch. That’s a second trip in four days and I am convinced it is due to my slip on Sketchers with their memory foam soles. My jab never takes long so I am in and out quickly having booked the next jab. This month is a long month and I get two jabs in the one month. I leave the GP surgery and head for the village pharmacy as I have had a message from my GP that my latest blood tests show me to be vitamin D deficient! So I wander into the pharmacy more in hope than expectancy that my prescription will have come through but to my surprise it had. In a few moments I had been dispensed my Vitamin D bombs. I am supposed to take two a week for seven weeks then buy the daily over the counter, lower dose ones. Of course I have read all the symptoms of low Vitamin D, which are all serious (if a bit nebulous) but not tucked away in the narrative that very many Vitamin D deficient people are asymptomatic! It sounds a bit dubious but of course I will do as I am advised but I can’t help feeling that a sunny holiday and the suck on a Tuna would be as good for me.

On retuning home I find my partner has her first retirement drop in visitor sipping tea and having biscuits. I leave them to chat and do the crosswords for the day and take my first Vitamin D bomb for the week and pop one into the dosette box for Thursday. So with my new med incorporated into my meds regime I settle on the sofa and start to draft the catch up blog.

With the departure of my partners first retirement visitor I take her for an afternoon toasted tea cake and a drink at a local garden centre where we chatted about our grandparenting weekend and bits and piece we want to do over the next few weeks. Its mostly clearing the decks stuff and time to ourselves to do things. As I result of this conversation I later ordered more patio tiles to put pots onto and a bright and shiny brand spanking new garden incinerator to burn all the papers that we no longer need to keep. There is an office clear out on our “TO DO” list and much of that involves burning old paperwork and files. The weather forecast is good so there may well be smoke over the garden soon. We drove home via the garage and dropped into a quiet time before the evening comes around.

I can feel my injection site becoming sore and know what’s coming over the next 48 to 72 hours, I can already feel myself getting cold as my body responds to the injection. As I go through the evening this will get worse until I am shivery like a junkie. My only course of action will be to down paracetamol and go to bed and ride it out. I will be pretty useless tomorrow and possibly the day after, which is why I do not arrange anything in the two days after my jab. Now that I have had my GP add in big doses of vitamin D into the equation I’ve no idea if it will effect me or not. Just when I thought I was getting back into a routine it gets disrupted again. Beyond it all is the desperate desire to get back into training properly, this fits and spurts process is doing me no good, consistency is what I am looking for.

The evening arrives and there is a meal to eat before Tesco delivers and the final episodes of Zero Day get watched. At this point I retreat to bed.

Friday my partners last day at work, today she retires and she has gone to work for the last as I wake up. I check my vitals, all good and then my socials. There is time to listen to a new episode of the Infinite Monkey Cage before having a shower and attending to my hand. There is a quick breakfast before I walk down to the GP surgery for my pre-oncology review next Wednesday. All goes well but they take more blood than normal because they want to check that the Apixaban (blood thinner) I am taking is not doing other nasty things to me. So with a few vials less blood than I had before I return home.

In a last minute mission that I have been planning for a while I drive to the garage adn then into town. I know where I am going adn exactly what I want. The usual car park is almost empty apart form the three hoodie guys who are hanging about on the first floor stair well, clearly doing “stuff” by the smell of it and their shifty manner. Of course I adopt my confident stride in my hoody and sun glasses and stroll past them. With the the hoodies out of the way I make my way to the jewellery store where I knew I can get what I want. As I walk in still doing the “I am too hard to bother with” walk an assistant asks me if she can help me. I tell her exactly what I want and she suggests an alternative to one of he specifications, I agree to look. So I Am shown to comfortable desk and she scuttles off to return with a display board of options. I ask for a glass and she goes off to get one taking the board with her, bit untrusting I thought. She returns and I scrutinise the goods. I then produced my gem testing tool, smiled sweetly and told her my gemmologist sister would have ben disappointed in me if I did not check. Thankfully all the red lights came on and it beeped at me telling me it was real. I selected what I wanted and as soon as I did I got offered a coffee, which arrived with chocolates. The woman put it on so I could see what it looked like and the business was done. The item was taken away to be gift wrapped and I then paid and gathered up the certificates and the bill. We chatted a bit and she offered to email an insurance valuation adn I agreed and we discussed issues around insurance. As I was leaving I idly mentioned that I was about to go and brave the ne’er do wells in the car park and she spontaneously offered me a plain carrier bag, which I gratefully accepted. The return to the car park was uneventful as the ne’er do well hoodies had been moved on, I assumed by the security men who were on the floor where my car and the hoodie chaps had been. Content with my mission I drove home.

As I pulled in my partner was standing at the front door sunning herself with a cup of tea. So this was the start of retirement for her. I smuggled my plain bag in and then joined my partner on the front step in the sunshine and took in the moment but not before I had captured her sitting in the sunshine, on the step with her tea, which I thought was a great image to encapsulate the start of retirement.

After sunning ourselves we went off for a bite of lunch at a nearby garden centre and then we moved onto a super market to buy provisions for the visit of our youngest grandson and his parents. Hopefully we have enough now to comfortably feed everyone. Once home its time for a scone and to start to draft the blog for the day. Tonight I take my partner for a retirement celebration meal after which I will anxiously wait until my blood results come in just after midnight. Its a long day but one that has a lot of important things in, celebration and the continuing battle with my cancer to stay around as long as possible, and I think I am doing okay.

STOP PRESS: Midnight, my blood results are in and although they are roughly the same as always my PSA has risen marginally. Not ideal. I’m banking on a smoother routine after my next oncology review on Wednesday the 5th of March.

Thursday and all the household has gone out by the time I have checked my vitals, my socials and my messages. My vitals continue to be good, this is the golden phase of my 28 day cycle before the next jab on Monday. On getting up I get into my training gear and then make a light breakfast and take my morning meds. Before I can do anything else there is a pie to make for tonight’s tea because that was what was agreed when we planned the meals for the week. On looking in the fridge I found I had minimal stuff to work with apart from the turkey mince that was going to be the base. So I scrat around and find enough veg to put with the mince and get going. The key to this pie will be what sauce it gets cooked in, so I whip up a paste of chicken stock cube, mixed herbs, a dash of tomato paste, a dash of Worcestershire sauce and mix it together with a drop of hot water. When it is a nice paste I add white wine and brandy and let it stand while I prepare the other ingredients. with the potatoes for mustard mash bubbling away I start on the pie filling. In goes the turkey mince, garlic and mixed herbs to seal the mince and then I add the chopped vegetables, and once its all softened I pour in the sauce and let it simmer for a few minutes before getting is in the pie dish. The mustard mash get spread over the filling and that’s the job done. I clear up the kitchen, load the dishwasher and go for a bit of a break, having set the Gobbler pie to one side.

I spend time doing some research on a plan I may or may not have time to enact but then its time to go and train. I really do not feel like training and I take my time wrapping my still healing operation scar on my hand up, but I eventually get in the garage and set myself up for a 45 minute row. It is tough from the start and I wonder why that is but I press on till the end with music in my ears. By the time the 45 minutes are up I am knackered. I retreat to the recliner and log the session in my journal. Its not until l do this that I realise I have just rowed a Personal Best by 2 metres! It may only be 2 metres but it still counts.

By the time I’ve started to cool down my partner has arrived home from her penultimate day as a working person. We chat for a bit until our eldest daughter also returns home and I pop the Gobbler pie in the oven and begin to draft the blog. The Gobbler pie turns out well and is soon devoured so for me its back to the blog as the TV provides a backdrop.

Tonight is an evening of preparation as tomorrow I have to go to the GP surgery to have my bloods taken while my partner goes to work for the last time. There are plans for a meal in the evening but there is a lot to do before our youngest grandson arrives on Saturday with his parents. There is a lot to fit in and its going to require some concerted effort. The little one is on his feet and walking independently so the house has to be made safe. Its going to be a fun long weekend.

Wednesday and I wake and go through my usual routine of taking vitals and checking my socials. I can hear my partner in the office downstairs tidying up last issues of work before retiring on Friday. On getting up my first thoughts are to get the plaster off my hand and see what progress my operation scar is making, It’s a real luxury to be able to wash my hands normally and then to have a look to see how I am doing. I am doing okay apart from the swelling of the joint that is persisting and one line of the incisions that is taking longer to heal than the rest. I sterile swab my hand and then redress the remaining bit that has yet to heal with a smaller plaster than before. With that done I moisturise my hand and scars. I’m now ready for the day.

There is some puttering to do, so I spend time replacing light bulbs, emptying the dishwasher and other small but necessary chores. Of course there is always a hitch, which means that something takes longer than it should, in this case the front glasses of the lights I’ve changed will not go back in and by the time I have resolved the problem I’ve broken a thumb nail hideously, which of course demands more time and attention. By the time I’ve finished fannying about its time to go to the village pub for breakfast, which is now lunch, grabbing a paper on the way and dropping by the chemist for more sterile wipes.

I relax in the pub and enjoy my hot chocolate and eggs Benedict while I do the crosswords for the day. Its a pleasant way to have something that I would not do for myself. The local groups who have met for coffee or snacks chat about village affairs and delve down memory lane at every opportunity. Today it was the Co-Op moving to a new site and of course someone can remember when that happened in the next village down. You could sit in this place and just listen and petty soon have a comprehensive knowledge of the history of the village. This village can proudly boast at last one murderer and one international rugby player. I do not think they know they have a poet yet.

I return home and start on my “to do” list. Reading the meters is my first contribution to the smooth running of the house, so I use my phone to photograph the meters and then send the reading via the App on my phone. I calculate the usage from the last readings and take a sharp intake of breathe as I know that the usage this February has taken us beyond our budget, however as its been a cold February and the last month we will need to be quite so dependant on our heating I am content that we will be okay. I type that as it pours down with rain outside and things look a bit nippy.

Having sent my meter readings off I have a quick look in the garden to see how things are getting on. The garden seems to be getting on with it as the peonies are showing and lots of early spring bulbs are flowering alongside the Hellebores which seem to grow freely in my garden.

There is a lot more going on as nearly all the pots are showing signs of bulb activity, so if I am lucky we should have lots of daffodils and narcissus out in bloom soon. Although the potted Iris are shooting strongly it os difficult to tell at this stage if they will flower or not, they need warmth and dry weather for that to happen, which at the moment does not look likely. I start to draft the blog for the day while my partner visits her mother in the afternoon. I’m expecting a friend of my partner to arrive at some point so I postpone going to the Shed until tomorrow. For now I read and seek inspiration.

I decide to put my latest rough poem out on my PROST8KANCERMAN YouTube channel to see if there is any response and to see how it sounds, so I put in here to save regular blog visitor going to YouTube to hear it. It is more off the cuff than usual, I’m not sure if that is good or bad, or if that is relevant.

Tuesday and I wake to my partner getting ready to go to work. She goes off to a retirement lunch and I take my vitals, that are all good. I have woken up with the same “itchy scratchy ” feeling which prompts me to scribble a rough poem.

435
There's a lot bubbling about
making me feel itchy and scratchy inside, 
my partner retires this week
and says farewell to her managers today.
Today the second anniversary of my
sisters death, 
still unpacked, unscattered in my wardrobe. 
I'm sleeping in a finger splint 
after the operation that has left me with
a Harry Potter across my palm.
All this and my cancer quietly 
gnaws away at me,
darkly threatening to over run me
at any time my resolve runs out. 
Still I count my energy in spoons
and wonder if I have enough
for each day in this changing world.
So I lay here
listening to meditation music
planning my resolution of the 
spoon to "to do" list equation,
trying to balance on tip toe
to reach up and out
to stay engaged and carry on. 
There is little room for fripperies
if my energy is to last the day, 
train I must to hold off chemo 
side effects
to be able to say 
"I stand".
To write and capture it all,
to understand,
to make meaning
and continue to build my personal universe
that sees me through
a changed world.
It would seem the sickle and 
the stars unite
to caste a deeper shadow 
to what should be light
in which I try to navigate 
my way into the night. 

                                     435   25-02-2025         

I do not often write early in the morning, so the above is probably a bit odd. Having got that out of my system I get up and get into my training gear and take my morning meds. With my earbuds in and music in my ears I go to the garage and the rowing machine. I make the decision to do a forty five minute session and see how my hand holds up. I get going and at the end of the session it feels like my hand has done well. The figures are reasonable, so I am cheered.

Having recorded the session I removed the plaster from my hand and headed off for a shower where I could thoroughly wash my hands without plasters or bandages. Once fresh and clean I attend to my scar. There is still some scabby bits that I dare not pull at so I disinfect and Nivea cream the top of the scar and put on a smaller plaster. I suspect this is going to be a daily ritual for a few days.

With the hand care done I start the draft the blog before getting myself lunch. A busy morning. I try to relax by listening to Mark Steeles In Town but after a couple of episodes I decide to put the bins out and to weed through the front drive flower pots. I have a pair of claw gardening gloves and they are just the ticket to weed out the flower pots and to rake through the surface soil to aerate them. It is clear that many of the pots have Spring bulbs in them that are just beginning to break through the surface. The Iris’s in the big pots are also shooting but they need to be put against the south facing wall to warm them up and encourage them to grow and possibly flower, but I doubt they will as they had such a disturbed summer and winter. They are quite sensitive flowers and need it to be just right for them to flower. Its been too wet for them this year I think.

As I am just finishing my partner returns home with arms full of flowers from her retirement lunch with her managers. I help carry some in and then return to sweep the drive clear of the dirt from the flower pots. We sit and chat about my partners day and I read her cards as we wait for the Tesco order to arrive. Right on time the delivery arrives and there is flurry of activity and rapid squirrelling of goodies. The problem of buying items when they are on a good offer can sometimes me a stock pile accrues, so I discover packs of baked beans I did not realise we had with the result that we could live for a month on rice and beans for a month if the Trump, Putin alliance decide to hold the world to ransom for the rare earth metals in the Ukraine. The Rum Tint Pup duo will have lot to answer for. With everything squirrelled away I continue the blog as the darkness of evening descends and I have the difficult decision of whether I watch football, more Pennyworth or find something else to occupy me before I take my night meds and go to bed hoping to wake up with enough energy to train again and to go to the Shed to write letters, a true test of my mending hand.

Monday and I wake to the knowledge that I shall be taking the final bandage off my hand today and possibly just putting a plaster on it, or not. My partner brings me hot water to drink and I check my vitals. I get up for breakfast and meds and then I set about removing my last remaining hand bandage. It still looks a bit gruesome but I clean it up and for the first time since the operation I am able to wash both hands. I rub it down with a sterilising wipe, run Nivea cream into the scar and then put a plaster over it. I think its going to take a couple more days to get it fully healed.

Having sorted my hand out I get ready to go out with my partner. I drive us to a garden centre where we discover a Waitrose which instantly solved what we would be eating for tea. It was an impressive garden centre but like the others it sells almost anything other than plants, I guess there is less effort and risk involved in selling almost anything that you have to grow. Naturally we had lunch amidst the dozens of others who had exhausted the range of plants available and had lost interest in all the other goods available. In fairness we found some children’s books for our youngest grandchild.

Once home I set about getting my new journal ready as the current one is into its last week. With my life admin done its time for another round of hand exercises and joint compression. Unexpectedly I feel myself running out of spoons and spend time drafting the blog while my partner does singing practice before her singing lesson tonight. I have one last throw of my remaining energy and I unpack my new sack barrow and use it to move the newly delivered bird and squirrel feed to the back garden shed where I decant it into the storage bins and fill all the feeders. At this point I am truly out of energy spoons.

The evening was a mindless film and more Pennyworth before taking my meds and going to bed very tired. I have felt itchy and scratchy inside all day and not sure why. I have that restless sense of self dissatisfaction that I cannot put my finger on, something is roaming around inside, I just have to give it time to show itself.

Saturday, It was a day of sporting indulgence. One football match and two rugby matches and an evening of Pennyworth, the current binge watch. There was a quick interlude to chat to the garden guy and to eat. The main event of the day was to remove the bandaging on my palm and begin the process of cleaning and creaming my palm scar regularly. The use of the compression bandage is now more frequent along with a new hand exercise. So as I watch my day of sport I am regularly attending to my hand. It looks like my scar is healingly. Just one more day and I can take all the bandaging off. I ended my day with night meds, strapping on my night splint and looking forward to a lazy Sunday.

Sunday and I wake up after a disrupted night. It takes a while to settle when I am wearing my finger splint. I am hoping that it will become easier over the following five to six months that I have to wear it for. After taking my vitals I get up and then have breakfast with my partner. There then follows a lengthy period of clearing out my sofa side office area and then I moved onto junking all the out of date medications and reorganising the ones I need to keep. Its a sobering experience to find how much out of date and not wanted medication was lurking in draws and cabinets.

So having finished the clear out and the reclaiming of the lounge I set about organising the coming week’s menu, necessary job given that there is a lot disruption due to my partners retirement on Friday and a visit by our youngest grandchild and parents next weekend. With the logistics done and amendments made I watch the international rugby match of the day. With the game over it’s time to catch up on drafting the blog as the night darkness drops and the evening starts. I just want an early night so that I can get to tomorrow and get my hand free of bandage. It will feel a real landmark in my recovery and signal time the real start time to get going on my fitness recovery.

Friday the day I swore I would train again. I wake up after a restless night and go through my usual rising routine and ring the GP surgery to book my 28 jab that is due on March the 3rd. At first they seem confused but after some toing and froing the GP reception staff finally got it and so I now have my slot. With that out of the way I check my vitals which are all good. I get into my training gear. Its psychologically important to do this as because once I have it on there is no going back. Stopping only to take my now late morning meds I grab my new sailing gloves with the long fingers and head for the rowing machine in the garage. Thankfully the weather is milder so the garage is not as icy as it was 22 days ago when I was last able to train on the rower. Figuring out how I co-ordinate all the button pushing that needs to be done to get going takes a while in full finger gloves but I get there and I am soon off on a 30 minute row. Bugger me I am stiff, it only takes a few days for me to seize up these days and lose fitness, it’s quite perturbing really. So I grind out the session, changing my grip to minimise any damage to my still healing hand scars. I get to the end with relief and feeling knackered, but I have kept the promise to myself to train today. Its a very average session but I will take that. Just under 6 kilometres and under 400 calories but it has got me over the 100 mark on my fitness App. So a job done.

I head for the couch and record the session in my journal and then snack on Marmite crumpets and Red Bull, I have not quite mastered the balanced and well crafted weight loss diet yet, especially as I top it off with a Crunchie. As I let this potent combination settle I prepare for a shower by gathering up the necessary sandwich bag, gaffer tape and newly delivered Nivea cream. My partner and I are going out with fiends for a meal tonight so I feel I ought to make the effort although I might have over done it on the Nivea cream having misjudged how big a pot is. It turns out that 400ml is big and I thought I’d have two to be on the safe side.

The shower, the hair drying and the creaming take longer than expected but I am ready for the rest of the day ahead. My partner returns from he physio and plaits my hair before we go and have a snack at the nearest, and cosiest garden centre tea room. There is time to chat about my partners impending retirement plans before we return home, she to nap and me to draft a bit more of the blog.

I spend more time reading Paul Muldoon and Harry Martinson’s Aniara. I suspect I might have nodded of before it is time to get ready to meet our friends at a nearby pub for an evening meal. It ages since we have seen them and I am looking forward to catching up with them. I can feel the urge to write but I am not sure what. Its a feeling I get sometimes when there is “Stuff” washing around inside me but I do not know what it is until I sit down and write, but it has to be the right time. Its a strange sensation but usually my head lets me know by suddenly dropping a phrase or a couple of lines into my head and then its time to write. It can be awkward as it can happen at any time with the result that I can end up scribbling phrases or lines on anything I can lay my hands on, anywhere at ant time. I just have to be patient with brain while it sorts itself out and then waves the green flag at me to go.