Saturday and I am up early for me. There are things to do not least of all is to collect my partners new antibiotics to counter her infection. I get dressed and grab a shopping bag and I am off to the chemist. Its cold and icy, tricky but exhilarating. The chemist is super efficient and I am soon moving on to the brand new Co-op that opened yesterday in the village. The new shop is indeed much bigger and is decked out with new freezers and fridges. I wander around the shop filling my basket with impulse buys like an all day breakfast sandwich and a coke. I add more sensible things to the basket and then look for a paper. Could not find a paper anywhere and then had to ask someone where they had found theirs. The paper rack is of course outside the shop by the entry and I of course had walked past it. Eventually I check out and start out for home.

On my shuffle back home a man stops me and warns me that it is icy and slippery in the shadowy part of the pavement that I am heading for. I thank him and move on till I reach home sound of wind and limb. It did however prompt me to write the following:

498
Huff Puff
Huff Puff
as I plod
through the cold,
ice on the ground.
My bag is full,
partner's antibiotics,
egg noodles and a paper.
I'm heading home
one small step 
at a time.
A stranger, male,
middle aged stops me,
"careful in the shadows
up there its slippery
with ice"
Fuck me I think 
do I look that old.
My face smiles,
my mouth says 
thank you.
Huff Puff 
Huff Puff
till finally 
home. 
                 498 15-02-2026

Once home I eat my breakfast sandwich and take my morning meds. At the winter Olympics the Brits manage to win at last in the curling and the men’s ice hockey begins to get brutal as the stakes get higher. Its a bumper day of sport on TV, international rugby, winter Olympics and of course the fourth round of the FA cup. So I watch Italy succumb to Ireland and then the English get thrashed by the Scots in the Calcutta cup, a more inept performance by the English could not have been possible. So by the end of the rugby the croc pot meal I put in during the morning comes nicely to fruition and the family eat before there is yet more football and ice hockey. However too much sport can drag so my partner and I watch several episodes of Small Prophets a MacKenzie Crook quirky sitcom. There are of course the FA cup highlights to watch by which time my partner has wisely gone to bed. I take my evening meds and go to bed quite pleased with my day.

Sunday and I wake up having slept well. I scribble a couple of things before my partner brings me a hot water. There is time for a chat before I finally get up and attempt to have a shower, but I am thwarted by the water pressure dropping. I am not amused but abandon my attempt but not before I weigh myself, as is my Sunday ritual. I weigh myself once a week, same time same place. I am surprised to see that I have dipped below 100K for the first time in months. Its true that is it is 99.9 kilos but that is definitely below a 100. In frustration I make egg noodles for breakfast and take my meds. As more winter Olympics ice hockey plays in the background I draft the blog while I wait for the water pressure to return to shower levels.

The afternoon flies by as Wales are thumped by a rampant France in the international rugby. The water pressure returns and I have the relief of a shower and all the joys of fresh clothes and deodorant. There is cup football to watch and an evening meal to eat as the Brits actually win a gold medal in the mixed team skeleton. It turns out that this is the second gold medal of the day as we also win one in the mixed snow boarding. This is the Brits best day ever at a winter Olympic Games. So there are medal ceremonies to watch. The evening passes in sport and TV until its time to take my meds and get to bed but before the Tesco order has been adjusted for tomorrows delivery. Once again it has rained almost all day, its a dismal outlook and its a depressing prospect over the next few days. I am hoping to find time to get to grips with the new poetry book I have to read and to get out and about again.

Friday the 13th, a day to play safe on. I wake after a reasonable nights sleep and settle down to have a read before getting up but a friend rings me and I have an unexpected long chat with my friend. Its a good way to start the day. I get up and make a simple breakfast to take my morning meds with. With the kitchen cleared I head for the sofa and the winter Olympics. I had intended to read John Berryman but never made it that far. I spend the morning watching ice hockey and discover that my old favourite team, Arizona Coyotes have become the Utah Mammoth and I toy with the idea of getting one of their jerseys but good sense prevails and I pass up the opportunity.

As the morning goes on I do some research and order some non lactose feed for my youngest grandson, which will arrive tomorrow. It appears he might have an allergy to dairy products. The new frying pan arrives and gets installed in the kitchen. All the time it rains, it pours, it teems and its bloody depressing. its like a dystopic climate crash.

497
I’m sick of rain,
It does nothing but,
and I just watch
as my garden grows
verdant.
There is no let up 
from day to day, 
hour to hour
it is persistent 
and its boring.
When I am feeling off
and fatigued the water 
just dilutes my joy
and what resolve 
I have.
My couch is dry
from where I watch
football, rugby and skiing
in a deluge.
How I crave the sun,
to feel warm and 
to venture outside
without fear of being a 
drowned rat.
Should I be building an ark,
Collecting animals
or proposing housing 
on a flood plain?
It brings that kind of madness. 
A glimpse of a dystopian
warmer earth. 

				497  13-02-2026

My afternoon is full of exciting ice hockey and shit Great British Curlers, who seem to have forgotten how to play. All the time it is throwing it down with rain. By the early evening I am being the chef again and bake smoked haddock with savoury rice and feed my partner, who now knows that the cause of her illness is a campylobacter infection. Tomorrow is a trip to the chemist to pick up the new antibiotics. As it continues to rain the evening is filled with drafting a short blog entry and the men’s figure skating. A procession of adolescent pipe cleaners, all bendy, jumpy and slippery. Eventually I clear the kitchen ready for tomorrow and then I set my sights on my bed, meds taken I retreat and hope for a good nights sleep. Most of all I hope for a day with no rain.

Thursday and I wake up after a reasonable nights sleep. I must be feeling perkier as I make myself a favourite fried egg sandwich to accompany my morning meds. I clear the kitchen and and then retreat to the recliner to watch winter Olympics. All morning various couriers deliver packages, my partner has obviously been busy while recovering from her bad gut. By mid morning the dining area is full of parcels. Not wanting to be left out I order a new frying pan as the old one is getting beyond being serviceable.

The post arrives and in amongst the usual fliers there is a package addressed to “Tufty Woodward”. I open it and find a Dockers Hat. My friend from Durham has sent me a new hat in response to my hair falling out due to chemo. Its a brilliant hat and just what I needed, warm, close fitting and plain, unlike the various ice hockey hats I have. I of course wear it immediately, it lifts my spirits.

Also in the post is a poetry book that I ordered a long time ago. Its John Berryman’s 77 Dream Songs. Apparently he won a Pulitzer prize for it. On the other hand he committed suicide at the age of 57 due to a combination of mental instability and an attendant life style. I start to read the poems but it is clear from the off that I will need time to focus and read them properly. They are a series of poems about Henry and what affects him. Henry is both Berryman and not Berryman but with all the fault lines of Berryman. I anticipate an interesting read.

At lunchtime I make myself soup and watch my first ice hockey game of the day. The speed at which the men play is incredible, as is the physicality. By the end of the afternoon I decide to get off my arse and cook a proper meal. So in the late afternoon I set about making a pie. I have a standard recipe but today I make a plain mince filling with a plain mash top in the hope that my partner might be able to eat some. When my eldest daughter returns home the pie gets popped into the oven and twenty minutes later everyone is tucking into pie. I am glad I made the effort and feel much better for a proper meal. My partner was able to eat some, which I take as a good sign.

The evening is initially taken up watching the British ladies curling team painfully lose to China. The four person curling is boring and lacks any real excitement. It is all about spoiling the other teams efforts so it lacks creativity and any real competitiveness. With the painful curling out of the way I watch Brentford (my team) play Arsenal. Its a tough match and ends in a draw, an excellent result for Brentford. I draft the blog and clear the kitchen before taking my night meds and heading for bed. Tomorrow is Friday the 13th so I will be taking it steady.

Wednesday and I wake after a good nights sleep. Its mid morning by the time I get up and make a plain breakfast and take my morning meds. My first job of the day is to fill my drugs dossetes for the next couple of weeks. Its a fiddly job but keeps me on track with my drugs and helps maintain a structure to keep me organised. In the background people are throwing themselves about on snow boards on a half pipe. Eventually I get dressed in fresh clothes and tidy away the drugs packages and then order more meds and hand sanitiser from Amazon. I catch the news, which I have not seen for days. It turns out that there is a big shooting in Canada, nine dead and some injured. While in London a thirteen year old is being quizzed for stabbing two youths. So the world is still violent and senseless. Amongst this the usual sacking of football managers and political mud throwing.

For the first time in a while I write, prompted by my reading of Dante’s Divine Comedy. Apparently “Comedy” in the its fourteenth century meaning is the opposite of tragedy. It is the journey from pain and sorrow to joy and salvation, so Dante’s journey through hell to purgatory and then to heaven fits the genre.

496
It feels like I should write,
my being is low 
there should be poems.
Chemo bites hard,
my energy low,
my anxieties high.
A recipe for words,
but no, I am mute,
all I can hope for is 
comedy as Dante wrote,
to end in joy and triumph. 

						496 11-02-2026

I start my afternoon drafting the blog and assessing the weather. It rains and while it rains I cannot get to my rain terrace and guttering that I am going to adapt. Today the men’s ice hockey gets under way, which I shall be watching in an array of my own ice hockey jerseys. As it happens my youngest daughter rings me and we chat about how the household is doing in terms of recovery and agree that we will not be ready to receive guests this coming weekend, perhaps next weekend. We chatted cars and M.O.Ts for a while and the pros and cons of new tyres alongside new com rods. Of course we talked about the grandsons and how they are. After talking to me she rang my partner for, I guess, a similar conversation.

My evening progresses with snow boarding and football, but I find myself nodding off as I still have a sleep deficit. Eventually I draft the last bit of the blog and settle down to the rest of my evening before I go to bed hoping for another good nights sleep.

Tuesday and it was a long and interrupted night so I wake this morning knowing my day is going to be slow. I make a treat of a bacon sandwich for breakfast along with my morning meds. I still cannot taste anything properly, which is a drag. I check my messages and emails and then settle down to read Dante’s Divine Comedy. And that’s what I do for the rest of the day until mid afternoon. I finally reach the end of the epic poem with all the insights of Heaven revealed. Its a strange read, very well translated by Clive James but the references to people and myths are very 13th century as is the philosophy content. So I have time for soup and a bagel before I start to watch the winter Olympics ice hockey.

Later in the afternoon I get a email purportedly from a friend asking me to buy an Amazon gift card. I think I am being scammed. My partner is still recovering from norovirus and by early evening the doctor has promised a visit in the next six hours, so I ease into the evening by drafting the blog and thinking about what I shall eat this evening while watching a football match. Today saw the Brits blow all their chances of Olympic medals so as a nation we are keeping up the image of a decidedly non winter sports nation.

It is being a difficult time so my efforts at writing a sensible blog are somewhat constrained. Its difficult to find the energy at the moment to be creative and to be objective about what is going on. I need to find energy from somewhere. At this time it feels that all I can do is conserve my energy.

Monday arrives and I wake up once again on my own as my partner is still recovering from norovirus. I check my mail and messages and then get up to make a simple breakfast, take my morning meds and put my washing in. With the kitchen cleared I settle down to read and watch more winter Olympics. The days viewing can be summed up by “the Brits blew it”, no medals, no wins, no nothing. As I watch the Brits fail and some ice hockey I continue to read Dante’s Divine Comedy. I am onto the last section, Heaven, which I am afraid to say is turning out to be as boring as I thought it might be. The usual Free Will catch 22 and loads of traditional thirteen century history and myth. The usual Man fucked it up but if you do as your told you can win the happy jackpot.

By mid afternoon I am ready for fresh pasta after I have filled the bird feeders and topped up the squirrel feeder. I’ve also opened the covered raised beds and the mini green house, just to air them out a bit and hope the pots dry out a little. Later I close them up for the night. With my washing dry and folded I slide into the evening and more TV sport, reading and drafting a short blog for the day. All day I nibble at things and try to drink fluids but my loss of taste due to chemo makes this a chore. This again turns into a resting day in which I try to keep the place organised and a good environment for everyone to recover in. It is maintenance at the moment and a marking time to allow everyone to get better. Its a slow process so its a case of keeping things simple. Tomorrow hopefully sees things get a bit better, slowly does it.

Sunday and I have slept quite well. From the off I know I have lost my sense of taste and spend time reading Dante’s Divine Comedy before getting up. I manage to get to the third book, Heaven, so I am intrigued to see what Dante’s idea of Heaven is. I get up and make my partner toast and tea and see how her recover from the norovirus is going. With my partner settled I make myself toast and take my morning meds. Having eaten and cleared the kitchen I watch the Winter Olympics, knockout snow board sprinting and women’s down hill. Both full of falls and close finishes. So I spend my morning engrossed in sport with only the odd spot of reading and message making to keep me occupied. By lunch time I am Olympic’d out and swap to football as I consume my lunchtime tuna pasta and a Red Bull.

I am waiting patiently for some things I ordered from Amazon, but my heart sinks when I see that they are delayed and that Evri are the delivery service being used. Evri are useless, they are always late and loose stuff not to mention their driver/ delivery folk are the one group of people who seem incapable of getting through our front gates and if they do are not fit enough to get to the front porch and just leave stuff by the bins. In a word: Useless.

This needs to be the last day of lazing around, there are things to do. Once Tesco deliver the family order this evening there is nothing else to do but get on with life. It is ages since I wrote a letter so I need to get back to that and open up the writing Shed. Time also to start some exercise, preferably swimming. Of course there is Dante to finish and new poems to find. I am awaiting my personal Spring, which seems to be lagging slightly behind my garden. For now I draft the blog and go to full the bird and squirrel feeders before seeing what the evening brings alongside the Tesco order.

Friday and its Cycle 3 day of the Chemo Rechallenge. I get up early and take my morning meds including pre chemo steroids. All I can manage is buttered toast and soem hot water. I settle down to read more of Dante’s Divine Comedy and during the morning I read my way from Hell to Purgatory as the narrator and his guide Virgil wade through the the various levels of punishment and torture as they are imagined by Dante. At lunch time my partner and I eat beans on toast as I watch another winter Olympics ice hockey game. It is soon time to load up my chemo survival bag and get ready to Uber to the hospital.

I choose an ice hockey jersey to wear to Chemo as it offers warmth and access to my upper arms for the blood pressure measurements. The Uber arrives quickly and drops us off at the hospital with plenty of time to walk through the hospital to the cancer unit. I hand in my “dance card” to the receptionist and my partner and I go to the café to load up with drinks and chocolate to see us through what I know will be a longer session. We find a couple of chairs in the waiting room and settle in, me to reading more Dante and my partner to read and continue knitting my new jumper. A nurse appears, never a good sign when things are quiet and announces they are running an hour behind, which instantly makes my pre-emptive piss I’ve just had redundant. Back to Purgatory and the waiting. I finally get called at about quarter past four and find myself in chair 18 again. The team are short staffed and it takes time to get round to me and my initial blood pressure taking. Eventually the nurse appears to put my cannula in.

Before I can get going on the chemo I have to have pre chemo antihistamine and steroid injections via the cannula to stop me having another allergic reaction like last time. With the injections in there is to be a thirty minute wait before the chemo can start. Of course I read and wait. With the thirty minutes up the nurse returns and hooks up my bag of Yew tree gloop and gets me started on my chemo proper.

So I settle back to being chemo’d and reading. And so it goes for an hour until my machine beeps and calls the nurse to give me my last six minutes of saline. The session has been long and I have packed my survival bag away not having touched the can of Coke or any chocolate. Mostly from fear of needing a piss over this long session. A new nurse takes out my cannula, attached a fluffy cloud to the back of my hand and pissed off. I assumed that was it for me so got myself together and headed to the toilet for a well earned piss. My partner and I walk over to the nearby hotel and I order an Uber and by luck one is there already having just dropped off a punter to the hotel. The adjacent rugby ground is already open for the evening match.

On getting home we eat risotto for tea and slip into the evening of favourite TV, however my partner suddenly gets an attack of diarrhoea and it leads to vomiting as well, clearly she has gone down with something like norovirus. So a difficult night starts for my partner, all I can do is provide fresh water, warm cushions and encouragement. I do get an early Tesco delivery booked in so we can deal with shopping over the weekend. So it is a fitful night as I listen out for my partner as she copes through the night.

Saturday and I am up to see how my partner is. Dioralyte is the first thing to do and then I fix my breakfast so I can take my meds and post chemo steroids. There is time to watch some Winter Olympics and our mixed curling team continue to win. I clear the kitchen and then start to draft the blog while watching firstly the men’s down hill and then a midday football match. Its a day that leads onto two international rugby matches, with brief breaks for reading and eating. I shall not be going to the theatre tonight while my partner is ill so hopefully my eldest daughter can find someone to go with.

By the end of the day my brother in law and one of my nieces went to the theatre in I and my partners place so the tickets did not go to waste. To counter my loss of taste due to chemo I order Pirri Pirri chicken and watch a terrible film before the football highlights. In a final burst if energy I clear the kitchen and then make changes to the Tesco order for tomorrow. I take my night meds and the last of the chemo steroids and tidy up the draft blog before checking on my partner who is still recovering from her norovirus attack, and taking myself to bed. Tomorrow it will be time to take stock and see try to keep the resting and recovery going on.

Thursday and I wake very late, this is not good as today I start my pre chemo additional steroids. Its midday before I get to eat and take my medications. I feel less than well and all I can do is do my routine tasks. I find the energy to settle my out standing debts and begin to make plans for my next collection of poetry. My publishers are beginning to think about an audiobook and the editing of my next collection, which I am looking to publish at the end of my chemo rechallenge in mid July providing all goes well.

By mid afternoon it is becoming clear that I am not going to make Swan Lake in the evening, I am fatigued. In a last ditch attempt to rouse myself I have a shower, which is good but I am still not up to the ballet tonight. I watch an ice hockey match and have tea. I wave my partner and eldest daughter off to the ballet and I settle down to draft a brief blog before watching TV. Tomorrow is tricky, I must get up early to have my pre chemo meds as quickly as possible and then get ready for the chemo session in the afternoon. This is not a good feeling but I am hoping that after all the activity this week I will get the weekend and the following week to rest and recover. If all goes to plan I will start some exercise again, this is the most crucial thing for me at the moment.

Wednesday the 4th of February and it oncology review day. My partner goes to see her mother after bringing me a hot water and leaves me to get up, shower, have breakfast and settle down to await my phone call, expected anytime between 10:45 and 13:45. Only the NHS could give themselves a three hour slot and think that it is reasonable. Its the price I pay for not insisting that I have a face to face appointment. So after toast and orange juice I settle down on my end of the sofa, now illuminated by my new reading lamp, to read Dante’s Divine Comedy. So I spend my morning sinking down the pits of hell meeting the sinners of the world and witnessing the various punishments that Dante could think up.

I am still reading Dante when my partner returns home and makes me beans on toast for lunch. I am still ploughing my way through hell at 3 o’clock when I finally get a call from the oncologist. I go through my list of things, blood results good, the PSA has stopped rising, my haematuria has not shown up since 10th January, and I am still vertical. I ask if its normal to loose my sense of taste and I am assured that it is but I am advised that fizzy drinks sometimes does the trick, including lager. “Including lager” was a bit of a surprise but I now have medical grounds for giving it a go. I wonder if Guinness is good. The outcome is that I am good to go for chemo on Friday but they will give me an injection pre chemo to make sure I do not have an allergic reaction again. Result! Post call I start to draft the blog. In doing so I discover that in my tired state last night I did not post the blog I wrote yesterday, I take this as a warning sign to pay attention to my fatigue levels and to get myself to bed earlier of a night.

By 4 o’clock I am faced with the fact that I’ve done bugger all except read and wait for a telephone call so I head for the garden and go through my rituals of filling the bird feeders and perusing the flower beds to see what is coming up and what needs to be done. Its almost time to be blood and bone spreading to feed the beds and to root out some of the self sown flowering raspberries that are galloping about all over the garden. I note I am feeling better today. I still have a sore lump in my midriff from Mondays 28 day injection but I know that will ease over the next couple of days. I am hoping I am up to speed for this Saturday when I have a theatre treat to attend and then I have a week to start to do some exercise before we have visitors at the weekend. It feels like there is a way forward with good things in it.

This is a tricky time, the six nations rugby starts tomorrow as do the Winter Olympics including ice hockey, I predict being ensnared by curling.