Thursday and I wake up as usual, by which I mean I can take my time and go through my usual routine. Vitals are good, messages and socials are fine all I have to do is get and get on with my day. I get into my training gear but there is a lot of life admin to catch up on today, so I have breakfast, take my meds and write a “to do” list. The weather is wet and so my builder badger arrive, assess the weather and leave. No idea when I will see them again given that storm Eowin is on the way.

My “to do” list is long and bureaucratic, which means hunting out papers from the dishevelled pile at my sofa side office and making phone calls and hunting around on the internet. At one point I get side tracked and book tickets for this seasons Motionhouse premier of Hidden at Warwick Arts Centre in in February. The ticket booking was straight forward, what took an age was booking the parking, what an arse ache that was, and time consuming. It is the fifth anniversary of my partner and I’s Civil Partnership tomorrow so there are things to be done for that. I remember vividly a lot of nice thigs about the day. The worst thing was that I had just finished chemotherapy so I had no hair to speak of and a head like a football from the steroid. There was much “putting things in order” at the time as was on a short clock, as it turns out, happily, it’s something the medics got wrong and I am here to celebrate more than five years on. What better way than good food, drink and each others company. I wonder if I can still get into the same clothes that I wore five years ago. I might just give it a shot, jacket will be okay bit I fear an increased waist might prevent it.

I plough on with my “to do” list until mid afternoon and I am flagging and I am getting irritable. In these circumstances there is only one thig to do do and that’s put Radio 3’s Mindful Mix on and write a poem. Its a kind of catharsis that sometimes works. So I fire up the laptop and dash off a few lines, which seems to confirm I am irritated by bureaucracy .

429
The end of another tax year, 
pension dependant yet
the revenue man 
continues to badger
me for self-assessments.
Leave me alone,
let me be
in cancerous peace.
All those years of grind
boil down to numbers
in a statement devoid 
of understanding.
But as I flail through 
the mounds of sofa side
papers, a result of 
COVID displacement,
listening to the babble 
of others from my office as was 
I am filed with resentment 
and not a little rage.
Once I knew where all my 
documents lived, organised,
neat and tidy. 
I feel like I live on the street,
my world in a heap
stuffed into plastic bags
and not even colour coded. 
So the radio plays,
the Mindful Mix and
I write this to calm down. 
I know why the displaced
become terrorists, 
and I have fantasies of 
doing the world a favour
by not missing Trump
by an ears width. 
It seems a more useful thing
than filling in forms.
Woodie had it right,
Some men rob you 
with a gun
others with a fountain pen.
While cancer robs me of my life
HMRC bleeds me dry.
The builders have cried off,
It’s raining,
and I realise just 
how fucking 
irritated I am by it. 
Watch out rowing machine 
here I come,
and to cap it all
it’s in the bloody garage,
in the cold.
I’m on one!

								429 23-01-2025

Indeed I was on one so I do go to the garage and it is cold but I put in an hour on the rower. It turns out a reasonable session and cathartic as hoped, by the time I finish I am out of energy spoons and flop on the recliner to drat the blog, realising that apart from a giant crumpet with Marmite and diet Coke followed by a Crunchie I’ve not eaten much today. Thankfully I ate lot yesterday.

So with the Blog drafted go off to change into something comfortable and look for food before tonight’s big football match on TV. It’s going to be an early night for me tonight, meds and bed so I can party like a pagan tomorrow.

Wednesday and I wake up with a start at 8 o’clock and reckon that I have just an hour to get across town to the hospital for my pre operation assessment. I have time to down my morning meds and head for the car only to find it iced over. After a hurried de-ice I drive off to town leaving the builders who have arrived to sort themselves out. Of curse its rush hour and Google maps takes me into the centre of town to take me out the other side. I get to the hospital a couple of minutes past 9 o’clock, park up and go to reception.

The reception in true hospital style take an imprint of my credit card and hand me a 12 page health questionnaire and a pen then direct me to the first floor pro operation assessment suite. I sit in the waiting room filling in the form. It is at times like these that I am glad everything goes into my phone diary as I have to constantly refer to it to provide dates of various medical adventures. I also carry my current prescription with me so I can fill in my medication details accurately. The pre op nurse calls me and asks what page am on, I am age 5, just to more to go. When she reappears I am ready and follow her into her clinical room. We go through everything I have ticked and she asks me confirm things or to explain things. Once we have flogged through the paper work she explains what will happen on the day and what and when I need to stop taking some of my current medications. Apparently the order on the operation list is decided on the day by the consultant and the theatre team at the risk meeting, so although I will rock up at 11 o’clock with my dressing gown and fluffy slippers I may not get operated on till later on in the afternoon adn then I will have to recover from the anaesthetic before they will let me go, so I could be released quite late on into the evening. Before I go the nurses will instruct me on keeping my wound dry, which might have implications for showering, but I think that will be okay. With the chitchat done I am weighed, height measured, blood pressure and heart rate and stats done. Then as a cherry on top she does an ECG, the fast one I’ve ever had I have to say. IT looked to me like my pqrs wave was in good nick. So that was me done with her so she shuffled my off to the nurse next door who asked who I was and the usual identifiers before taking bloods, a nasal swab of MRSA and sent me off to the toilet to take a swap of my own groin crease for MRSA. With that all done I was free to go.

I let my satnav take me home a new way avoiding the centre of town, the roads were much clearer so I made good time. By the time I got back late morning the builder badgers were cracking on so I made them coffee and went to the village café for a full English breakfast and hot chocolate having grabbed a paper on the way. Its a treat to sit in the window overlooking the roundabout at the centre of the village while eating breakfast and doing the days crossword. Unfortunately the village café is closing for ever on February the third do to the Co-op taking over the plot and cottages to install a bigger shop. Its a shame, I shall miss the quirkiness of the cash only café with no toilet and an array of calorie laddered cakes like no other all made by the cook. Workmen in the village will miss it as they could get breakfast boxes and take away anything they fancied. So life moves on.

The afternoon is well on by the time I get home so I make the builders more coffee and change into my training kit intending to train when the builders leave and and my partner returns from seeing her mother with her brother. So while I wait I write a letter to friend during which a friend calls and tells my about her piano adventure, which includes delivery folk whose van is too big to get down the tiny road she lives on and cannot be bothered to carry of wheel it down the road to her house. The upshot is that she is collecting on from the shop and transporting it herself home.. Nit something anyone get to do often in life. I finish my letter and take it to the post box in my training gear. The builders are clearing up for the day when I return adn soon after my partner returns, by now I am too tired to train and so I draft the blog.

I note that according to the site stats it has over a hundred views today so far, lots from the USA and Germany, I don’t know why this has happened but if you are one of them reading this, thank you. I draft the blog and drift into the evening in hope of a decent football match to watch and an early night accompanied by my night meds. The last few days I have been out of my usual routine and I need to get back to training and focus on some things I need to do, like a tax return, read the meters and prepare for my operation by reading the info that is being sent to me.

Tuesday and I wake up to an empty bed as my partner has gone to work and the builder badgers have also arrived and parked on the drive. I struggle up and make the badgers early coffee and then make my own breakfast. I am barely sentient when I realise a very large builders delivery truck has arrived and is unloading huge bags of materials.

So while the badgers continue to move piles of hard core and filler I get on with a day of writing letters and reading. My day is all letter writing and making coffee for the builder badgers. There is no break until about three o’clock when the badgers pack up for the day as the gloom gathers and they drive off. Half an hour later I am walking to the post office to send my letters and to pick up a paper.

At home there are the bins to put out and some kitchen clearing to be done before my partner returns from work. As I have a paper I do the days cross words which I do wearing my new cardigan. This the garment that was advertised as an Icelandic heavy knit. It is not, it is a cardigan but quite thin and clearly an Chinese knock off. I suspect I will wear it as a garden jersey. I am clearly out of salts and taken out of my stride by two early starts and my lack of training and it is not going to get better tomorrow as I have my pre-operation assessment at the hospital tomorrow morning at 9 o’clock. I need to rest and get back into my routine once I have dealt with tomorrow. For now I will settle for shower, night meds and early night.

Monday and I am awake early aware that the Builder Badgers are coming today. I make warm drinks for my partner and I and then get ready for the day. The Builder Badgers arrive so there is a quick strategic chat with them followed by coffee making before I have my breakfast and check my messages and socials. As the Badgers create a spoil heap I start an early draft of todays blog intending to write letters during the day before the Tesco order arrives this afternoon. Its a cold day so I suspect I will also be making a meal. I start to try and write a Villanelle , a form of poem that some of the local poets have been working with. There are very specific rules as follows: 1: it has 19 lines with a specific rhyme scheme, 2:it has five three line verses called tercets and ends in one four line section, a quatrain. 3: the 1st and 3rd line of the first tercet are repeated in the last lines of the following tercets, the 1st line becomes lines 6, 12, & 18 and the third line becomes line 9, 15 and 19. 4: the rhyme scheme is ABA for the tercets and ABAA for the Quatrain. There that’s it a simple sort of poetry by numbers really. Apparently thought up by the Italians or the Spanish. So, here is my first shot at a Villanelle for Villanelle.

428

Oh Villanelle Oh Villanelle how she loves to kill
with any weapon and fashion to inspire
she took their lives in ways to thrill.
This was no ordinary way for blood to spill
nor was it how most gave up the ghost,
Oh Villanelle Oh Villanelle how she loves to kill.
The boots below the tailored twill
would step ruggedly upon a neck
she took their lives in ways to thrill.
no end of ways for hearts to still
liberating souls a darker art
Oh Villanelle Oh Villanelle how she loves to kill.
From acrid poisons to electric drills
Villanelle ran the gamut of invention
She took their lives in ways to thrill.
For body disposal pigs fit the bill
their voracious appetites up to Villanelles,
Oh Villanelle, Oh Villanelle how she loves to kill
she took their lives in ways to thrill.

                                                                             428  20-01-2025

   

There you go poetry by numbers with a hint of literary sarcasm. The builder badgers are done by lunch time for the day and tomorrow they bring in all the new materials and get rid of the spoil heap, so, so far so good. While I wait for the Trump inauguration ceremony, I cannot resist, I write letters only to be interrupted by the Tesco order arriving. With that squirreled away I take my letters to the post office and pick up a paper and return home.

What followed was a scary event: the inauguration of Trump, I had decided to forego the world indoor bowls championship but wish quickly that I had not. The actual “ceremony” was all that you could expect from an infantile 250 year old country, it was the inaugural speech that was frankly terrifying, very right wing, no sign of green issues awareness (drill and be dammed), expansionist (Panama canal reclaim) , authoritarian (no recognition of the complexities of gender or representation) and isolationist ( import tariffs on everything not American). All this in the name of patriotism and “under one God” labelled “common sense”. I should have stuck with the bowls.

The evening starts with the meal I put in the crockpot earlier and then settle down to an evening of drafting the blog and reading while my partner has her singing lesson. As I run out of energy I will find some TV to take me to bed time, night meds and the expectation that I will be up early to greet the builder badgers.

Sunday, a grey misty Sunday and I am woken by my partner with my customary hot water. I take my vitals and then get my breakfast and morning meds. The plan for this morning is to go for a Sunday walk, a better option than the gym, I think. So once ready my partner and I get in the car and drive to the local reservoir. Its a pretty big reservoir and is a challenge to get around. We set off in our boots and begin our circumnavigation of the reservoir. There is a battle field of moles, everywhere we look their little hillocks of fresh soil dot the paths and fields. There are of course the usual birds that come with open water, swans, ducks, coots and moorhens. The hedgerows have been flailed so its easy to spot the numerous birds flitting in and out of them, including several robins. The reservoir walk is 2.5 miles and I think its a long time since either of us has walked that far. We plod on stopping once or twice to recharge and to admire the view, its been a really long tie since we have taken this walk. As we come close to the end of the walk we come across the cormorants. Magnificent birds just sitting there looking out over the water.

The walk finishes with my partner and I recovering in the car before setting off to one of our local garden centre coffee houses. The hot chocolate and toasted tea cake goes down well before we return home. The rest of the afternoon I spend watching snooker and the end of a Harry Potter film.

The evening comes around with food and time to catch up with drafting the blog while TV provides some media wall paper. It has to be an early night today as once again we have the builder badgers in to continue the block paving around the house and putting in a bin stand, so that means getting up at 8 o’clock and sorting out the car parking. Its going to be a demanding week. So tonight its finalising the Tesco order and making sure that I have everything organised for my week, which includes my pre operation assessment.

Friday and I am woken by my partner saying there is a chap at the door with a water meter in his hand. I am instantly in war mode as I am not having a water meter in the house. I ask pertinent questions and ascertain that the meter in the street that was put in back in 2019 as a replacement for an old style stop cock has come to the end of its working life, because the lithium battery has gone flat. Once I had got that I indicated my understanding and watched the two man team dig around the access flap in the street and responded to them when they waved to me when they had completed the job. I returned to bed to do my vitals and check my messages and socials.

I finally get up and make some breakfast before checking that the builder badgers are on course to arrive on Monday. I do some chores and just as my partner finishes work at lunchtime with the intention of us going to lunch I get a phone call from the electrician who wants to drop in to look at the kitchen lights that are not working. So delaying lunch I hang around for the electrician who arrives quite quickly. After some unravelling of the light fittings he determines that the transformer is dead. He researches what replacement is required and the cost. He checks the price with me and puts everything back and leaves promising to contact me as soon as the new part arrives.

My partner and I go out for lunch. We go to a farm that is a antiques centre as well. After a very strange route we arrive adn head for the tea rooms. The most notable thing is the stench of farmyard manure. We do however decide on the farms shepherds pie and warm drinks. Having eaten we do not stay to peruse the containers loaded full of old stuff surrounded by the pong of farmyard. Back home we put the cover back on the garden swing seat and pop to the shop to get a paper and confectionary. Of course my first activity is to do the days crosswords.

The evening rolls round and I consume a film and a TV series. Its all very vegetable on a sofa but I also spend some time getting ready for tomorrows poetry Stanza. Eventually I get to do my night meds and get to bed.

Saturday and its Stanza day, I make warm drinks for myself and partner. I check my vitals, which are all good, and look at my messages before getting up for breakfast. I start to print off today poems while my partner goes out to lunch with a friend. Its time to fill my drugs wallets for the next two weeks, a fiddly job but one of the routines that keeps me organised. The Stanza time comes around and I log in, there are quite a lot of people on the zoom meeting today so as I log in at 2pm I find several people already there. So for the next 3 hours I listen to new poetry, read my share out loud and have my contribution critiqued and commented on. There are some really bright people in this group and their interpretation are fascinating. I guess I am slowly becoming one of them, which may or not be be a good thing. This session has some really lovely poems in it, so it feels like time well spent and a good brain feed.

The meeting ends and I settle down to catch up with the blog and sink into the evening. There is food, conversation and TV before it gets to medication time and bed. Tomorrow I must train, where is the question, garage or gym?

Thursday and I seem to be returning to the pattern of my body only wanting to deep sleep in the mornings. That’s not just an impression but something my fitness App is picking up as well. I think it may have something to do with where I am in my 28 day injection cycle. It appears that I fall asleep quite quickly, probably out of fatigue, but then wake up about two hours later to then spend the next four or five ours not able to settle. At about 5 in the morning I then drop into deep sleep which may last, on and off for the next 5 hours. Its a real inconvenience as it means I am getting up late.

So after such a night I check my messages and socials, have a quick look at the news and adn take my vital. So today it is welcome to CYCLE 21 of my “new” chemo. I have been on the current chemo pills since June of 2023, so that’s 19 months. From what I have read that’s quite a while for this particular chemo, and my oncologist has given me enough to last till the middle of March. So all I can do is keep taking the tablets and monitoring my physical arithmetic. My regime of training seems to be helpful, but I still have to balance my energy each day, some days are low energy days others seem to be better but not anywhere near my old self.

After my checks I take a shower and then return to sorting out the poems for Saturdays poetry Stanza meeting, it appears that quite a lot of us have poems we wants to present including some new people, which is exciting. I have breakfast, clear the kitchen and then get ready to go to the chiropodist. It is my bimonthly pleasure, which I look forward to. So I arrive early and spend some time on the phone till my chiropodist is ready for me. She has a brand new chair that is colour co-ordinated with the treatment room, which is very relaxing. I wipe off my socks and get in to the new seat, which feels like getting into a rocket ship and is very friendly. My feet get a warm dunking in some magic fluid and then she sets to work on my feet with an array of tools. Its a great feeling and then there is the final rub down with a cream to finish to all off. My feet sing with joy as I pop my socks and shoes back on. It’s a delicious feeling and lifts my mood no end. I pay my bill and spring heel back to the co-op car park, where I pop in and get a paper and a sandwich.

Back home I get to work on the days cross words. This goes well again although there is a word I have not come across before, which is always nice. You always know the compiler is struggling a bit when the definition of the word starts with “archaic”. I am feeling clean and fresh but know I need to train so reluctantly I get into my training gear and head for the garage and the rower. Its a temperate 6 degrees. I set myself to row for 30 minutes as I know that sessions at this end of the day tend to be hard. I get going and by the end of the time I have gone 6+kilometres, so its a reasonable session.

Once recovered I change in to lounge wear, record the session in my journal and hit the recliner to star to draft the blog. Tea follows and tonight it will be the the final episode of Blindspot for ever. It will be a relief to get it over and done with. I’m going to have a rest from binge watching series for a bit it can all too consuming, especially when there is still good poetry and books to read from Christmas. I will how ever sneak in a televised football match in as well tonight, I find I can stream the football with the sound off and still watch what ever is on TV, or even read. So that is my plan followed of course by my night meds and the hope that I can shake off my current sleep pattern. Its unrealistic to think I wont get up in the night, my prostate cancer and medication see to that, but it would be nice to sleep soundly enough to be able to get up earlier and have more of my day.

Wednesday and I am just about awake when my eldest daughter hands me a phone and on the other end is a woman, who turns out to be a nurse, asking where I was at 9:30 for my pre operation assessment. It turns out that the letter from the hospital has not arrived. We have a quick chat and confirm contact details and she says that the booking bunnies will will be in contact wit me. I just have enough time for breakfast and the morning meds before a person from the bookings department rings me up. There is another brief conversation and I get a new appointment for the same time next week.

So onto house chores like clearing the kitchen and then after a quick lunch I start to write letters. I also find that the Poetry Stanza members are sending their poems for Saturday’s meeting. I download them and put them in a folder and return to deciding which, if any of my poems, I am going to submit. After some thought I decide on one of my more recent ones that is in keeping with what is being submitted by the other poets.

425

My poems are the whore house
of words.
Driven by desire 
to be seen as I sink.
Bought and paid for 
like a funeral mass.
A vanity that is all, 
can’t help myself.
These are fleeting pleasures,
more masochistic
bound up in knots
and thrashed out
to divert time
and compensate for
what’s been lost.
I’ll hang about 
on literatures street corner
showing a bit of ankle,
not brave enough 
for full on
tits and teeth,
until there are 
no more punters,
no tricks to turn.
I shall lounge
in the snug bar
of the last saloon
wrecked and waiting,
deserted by my pimp
and idly scribbling
on the back of
beer mats
and wondering if
there are benefits 
for this old 
slag.

							452 07-01-2025

With the decision made and sent I return to the letter writing. Once I have completed my writing I go to the post office and send them off and getting a paper. Once home I settle down to do today crosswords. The evening comes around with a meal and then some football. At the end of the evening I draft the blog, take my meds and think about tomorrows visit to the chiropodist and the need to train again.

Tuesday and I wake to the sound of my partner going off to work, so I check my messages and socials before taking my vitals, which once again are good. I get up and get into my training gear before making myself a giant crumpet breakfast and taking my morning meds. The garage has warmed up a bit since the last session so I set myself up for an hours row. Once the machine is set I get going. Its a tough session to start with and it doesn’t get any easier, so by the end I am dripping in sweat and just pleased to have made it. Its an average session but I have made 11+ kilometres and 700+ calories burnt off.

I record the session in my journal and then set about clearing the kitchen and emptying the dishwasher. With that out of the way I have room to make a turkey mince pie. Turkey mince is pretty bland so I pile in a lot of veg, chilli flakes and a sauce with white wine, herbs and brandy in it. There is a moment of respite as the pie filing bubbles away and the potatoes for the mash topping boil. I take the opportunity to have a chunk of panettone and a glass of Lucozade to see me through the afternoon.

The pie comes together like an A team plan and sits and waits for the end of the day. I crack on and put the bins out and then sit for some time deciding which poem to take to this months poetry Stanza. I fail to decide adn instead go for a shower followed by a session on my partners eye sauna while listening to restful music. I do my nails and put the oven on ready ofr the pie just as my partner returns from work.

With the post meal debris cleared away its time to start to draft the blog. It another mundane day in the life of this cancer fighter but one that has been navigated well. There is a football match on TV involving my favourite team tonight so I shall watch that on my laptop without sound whilst watching whatever my partner has chosen as an evenings entertainment. There will be night meds and a last look at possible poems to present before sliding off to bed and another nights sleep. I will probably go with 426

426
Fuck me I am addicted to Crunchies
Chocolate covered honeycomb
A blast from my childhood
come back to haunt my adulthood.
Once big enough to satisfy 
but now a weedy runt of a bar
the cunning confectioner 
sells them in multi packs,
one for now and now 
and now and now. 
I could walk away 
I could honestly 
because I know 
that down the aisle
Frys Turkish Delight 
lays in wait.
This poem cost me a Crunchie,
my conscience a smidgeon
of guilt.
Compared to my 
 other sins 
it’s a pleasure, 
especially when washed 
down with a 
Red Bull,
diet of course!

							426 09-01-2025 

Sunday was of course a rest day, with third round FA cup football matches to watch after I had lazed in bed in the morning. With my vitals taken and my morning meds taken I was alone in the house as my partner and eldest daughter went off to the gym. With some time to spare before the football I drafted a letter to the reviewer who had reviewed my collection, The Cancer Years: So Far, thanking him for the kind and unexpected review. I wrapped copies of the two further collections in the series in bubble wrap and prepared the package to go tomorrow. Not sure what to expect, perhaps nothing, but I thought the guy maybe interested in the development of the series. He may not of course give a toss, so whatever it is, I will live with it. With that done am ready for for a good football game and I got one.

So after extra time and the thrill of a penalty shoot out it was time to eat and continue watching the series Blindspot. It is coming to and end thankfully as the story line is becoming more comic book as the writers struggle to get to an ending that could be feasible, I fear it is a series that has got beyond them and I sense an inconclusive ending. Its all fantasy to bed time, night meds and the final clearing of the kitchen before I get to bed.

Monday and I wake after a good nights sleep to my partner up and busy, She brings me hot water as I take my vitals and organise myself. Breakfast is simple accompanied by my morning meds, and then I am off to the post office to send my package of letter and books to the reviewer at the Lancet who reviewed my first collection. There is a bit of a stumble at the post office as it turns out that I have not got the right post code on the packet. I get it sorted with the help of the post person and return home with a paper.

On returning home I get my washing into the machine and settle down to do the days crosswords. I zip thorough these again as my washing chugs away until its time to go out for a snack at lunchtime. My partner drives us to a small garden centre where I can indulge in hot chocolate. I am not very chatty, today is an effort but I get through the snack and walk round the the rather run down garden centre, including their cut price Christmas decorations. I miss a call from a friend but catch up with the voice message later. Having bought nothing we drive home where I shove my washing into the tumble dryer and then take time to catch up drafting the blog. This is being one of my mundane days, where everything is an effort and I am short of energy. By half past three I am ready for a chunk of panettone and a go of my partners eye mask sauna.

I slide into the evening and while my partner is at her singing lesson, half way through my football match the Tesco delivery arrives, so I am solo taking in the weeks goodies and playing squirrel. Post squirrelling my partner and I watch more of the increasingly improbable Blindspot. So I drift into night meds and an early night. Its been a day of sluggishness and a sort of itchy scratchy ill contentment, feeling like I am surrounded, tomorrow I shall train it out of me.