Saturday, 1st January 2022, an important day in my life. I have made a decision. After many hours (literally) of jigsawing I have decided to never do another one. I was so taken aback by how many hours I spent today aimlessly putting bits of jigsaw in place, depicting something that did not even match the picture on the box, I realised just what a waste of my life time it is. What is someone with a life limiting dose of cancer doing playing with jigsaws? Wasting their time was my conclusion, so I won’t be doing it again. Having spent the majority of the day jigsawing I have a long call with my sister in the evening, the reconnected landline proving its worth. I catch up with Dr Who, a childhood habit and then watch the latest BBC serial “The Tourist”. I go to bed feeling that I have wasted a day and not got the flying start to 2022 that I intended.

Sunday and its kill Christmas day. First it is weigh in day:

95.8 Kilos, which

official makes me a fat

bastard.

I have managed to put on 2.1 kilos over the Christmas fortnight, which is not good, so as from Monday, tomorrow, I shall restart my eating regime coupled with my exercise sessions. I’m contemplating joining Football v Fat at my local community centre. I might have to wait to get a place but I think I would enjoy playing at a team game even this late in life. Its meant for fat bastards with a BMI over 27.5 so I would qualify. I figure I’m still fit enough to run away from even wobblier blokes. Its a long time since I owned a pair of indoor football boots.

Having weighed in I had a muesli breakfast and then my partner and I went off to the garden centre to get food for today. Nothing like a butchers pie and beans for a filling meal. We also laid in bacon and sausages for tomorrow in case Tesco decides to deliver late. Back home its time to de-Christmas. I get the boxes out of the loft and start the process of undressing the tree in reverse order. My partner dealt with the hall while I pack away “the god in a box” set bought in Barcelona and the nesting nativity dolls we bought in Prague years ago. I am very organised with boxes and packaging for all the different types of tree ornament that we have. Over the years I have collected a large number of drops and these are the ones I like most along with the more recent ones that have been given to us as presents. It takes a long time to reach the naked tree stage. The boxes get put back in the loft for another year. The disposal of the tree is always a challenge in terms of how to minimize the needle drop and the ensuing months of being speared by errant pine needles at unexpected moments. This year I put the garden recycle bin at the front door and saw the tree down in sections which get rammed into the bin. Eventually I am left with the thick end of the trunk which ends up in the garden. There is sweeping and dustpan and brushing a plenty until it is safe to move the TV back into the bay window. All is done, Christmas gone. I celebrate with a can of coke and watch a rugby match.

My evening will be quiet. I have Christmas books to read and the second episode of “The Tourist” to watch. Of course the Tesco order is to be updated. Normally tomorrow I would be having my 28 day injection but because of the Bank Holiday it is delayed till Tuesday so I do not need to start taking my prophylactic paracetamol till tomorrow, so perhaps I can get started on something. I have a project up my sleeve and one or two other things that I want to do. But most of all Mondays are “start again days”, so there is training to be done.

Friday, New Years Eve, I wake to find my partner at work in the office downstairs. I get myself up to make peanut better toast and coffee with my drugs. I have a mission. Today I must get to the chemist to see if they have my injection for Tuesday. Its tricky timing as the bank holiday has pushed my injection date on a day. By the time I have done my washing and stuck it in the dryer it time to go drug hunting. My partner and I walk down to the village chemist. To my surprise and relief the drugs are there including a repeat prescription for my antiandrogens, which have been added on in the assumption that I have forgotten to order them with the rest of my drugs. I am only slightly irked as in the long run it will save me a job. We buy some food at the Co-Op next door and then head home.

My partner prepares lunch but I decline, I think the new drugs maybe supressing my appetite, it however does not stop me taking half a bar of Tony’s Chocolonley with me to the Shed to accompany a mug of coffee. I spend time writing letters and when finished I walk over to the post box. I find that the next collection is Tuesday! This time I am fully miffed, its well before the normal Friday collection time which was indicated the last time I posted from here. There has obviously been an early Friday collection and clearly a buggering off till Tuesday. I return to the shed and Spring clean it. I rearrange some aspects of it, restore my nib collection and empty the waste bin. I promise myself that I will spend more time in the Shed in 2022, it is where I am at my most me. My pen and my ink flow best here.

I return to the house and check the evening meal that I put in the slow cooker earlier. Its doing just fine so I change in to my training gear and go to the garage to row. Its a real effort to make myself get ready and to go to the garage, I am beginning to think that the new drugs are making me tired but it could equally be my going to bed late. I like to have time for me at the end of the day which invariably means I am the last to go to bed. Perhaps in 2022 I should find another evening routine. I get into the garage and get strapped in and row for half an hour. My intention was to take it easy but as always as I warm up I speed up, so what was meant to be a loosening six kilometres turns into a bit of a sprint at the end, with a final distance over seven kilometres. It will do as the last one of 2021. I run a bath and soak in a bath bomb bath listening to a music request programme.

This evening started with dinner and then I retreated to the sofa to write the blog, send Happy New Year messages and respond to those I am getting. I will inevitably Hootenanny into the new year and then wake to my new self imposed regime. My pixies will get drunk and career around my head for a couple of days and I will settle down to a new routine. I should set myself some New Year Resolutions so here we go:

• Stay alive
• Be kinder
• Notice the ordinary
• Contribute
• Spend more time in the Shed
• Train regularly
• Eat protein and fruit, low carbs.
• Enter some poetry competitions
• Keep writing letters to friends
• Buy less on Amazon
• Learn how to plait my own hair
• Play guitar more.
• Tend the garden
• Feed the squirrels and the birds.

That should keep me occupied for a while while I make my way back into the world.

Thursday and its a relatively early start as my partner is taking her brother to see their mother and to do some business. So after scrambled eggs, coffee adn drugs I wave her off and then find myself trapped by the jigsaw. The family do a big jigsaw every Christmas, it has become a tradition and it also means it solves a present conundrum. I beaver away at the jigsaw and I am joined by my eldest daughter for a while. We get so far and leave it for my partner to finish as is the tradition. When she returns home she does indeed complete the picture.

On realising how long I had idled away over the jigsaw I get changed into my training kit and head for the garage. I meet my daughter and we decide to erect her Christmas present which is a piece of gym equipment. It like a giant 3D jigsaw. I grab my socket set and get going. First of course there was checking that we had all the bits, not an easy task as matching the pieces with the illustrations provided. It takes a while as we adjust the flooring to an even surface and start to build. It goes slowly as we check and double check each step carefully ensuring we are using the right fixings first time. Eventually we finish the job and the pull frame is complete and in its new position. So we now have everything in the garage that will allow us all to train properly at home.

Having completed the building task and cleared away all the recyclable packaging I train for half an hour on the rower. Its a reasonable first session back on the rower and is a suitable easing back session.

The evening follows with the last of the festive football, writing the blog and beginning to research poetry competitions and how to enter them. There are a couple with dead lines coming up. I found them via the Poetry Review which I now get as a member of the poetry society. So this is my new project, which I shall take at a measured pace. In the meantime drugs, sleep, train, focus. I need Shed time.

Wednesday, bin day, however before I can get into that excitement I wake to find my partner in pain. So it was warm drink and hot water bottle time. There is a dishwasher to clear and breakfast to have. My youngest daughter is up and around preparing to go home today. My watch press arrives and I put my partners watch back back into place only to find that the second hand has detached from the central spindle. A cruel irony. I fulfil a fortnightly chore of filling my drugs wallets, and order my next injection realising that I’ve left it a bit late to order the prescription. It going to be tight on time given the New Year bank holiday is coming up. It’s cancer life admin and its a pain in arse.

My partner gets up having taken some pain killers and makes bacon sandwiches. We hug our youngest farewell and wave her off. I am itchy in my being and need to train. I get like this is I haven’t trained for three or four days. The excess of Christmas goodies only serve to reinforce my “itchiness” and my fears of putting on weight, an anxiety fuelled by the possible side effects of the new medication. I decide to go to the gym.

I fill the car on the way and get a bit of a shock at how much it actually costs in these post Brexit Pandemic days to completely fill the car. So with a full tank and right pressured tyres I drive to the gym. Once again the bar and restaurant is closed. Its beginning to wear thin and will be accruing some less than complimentary feedback on their non existent services. I change and get myself a cross trainer. An hour later I’ve burnt off 650 calories and gone 8.15 kilometres. I shower and sit in the infertile lounge finally checking my emails, messages and apps. Friends have messaged me and phoned me, I feel rude not to have checked earlier or replied. I drive home and the decision is made get a take away as no one want to cook. The evening drifts into football and Shirley Valentine as I write the blog.

It occurs to me that I do not like these festive times, these landmark, punctuations in life. There is something in the unconscious as well as the conscious that nags, that voice that says this could be your last one. Of course the temptation is then to think that it has to be the best one yet, a really good one to go out on. I wonder how often others think that and never voice it. Anyway it is the quiet regularity that affords me the time to think and write that I value the most. In the coming year I intend to pursue some more of my favourite activities. How well this goes might be determined by just how much the cost of living goes up as the Russians starve us of gas, the arabs oil and our politicians of integrity and public welfare.

Tuesday and I wake late as does the rest of the household. After a slow rise we all eat breakfast and drink coffee. I get some of my Christmas gifts together and head for the Shed. I rearrange my desk top and take a photo of it before settling down to write a letter or two, which I post later.

I watch the squirrels and as I do so I notice that that the garden is coming back to life. Those bright green spears have started to poke through the soil and announce the arrival of a new growing year. Spring is here and it looks set to gallop at pace. It always gives me pleasure and a sense of renewal. It will soon be time to get back into the garden and give nature a hand.

• 

• 

I return inside and then set about replacing the battery in one of my partners watches. All goes well. Old battery out, new battery in and then the back will not click back on. No matter what I try it refuses to go back in place. So I have popped it into the freeze to chill it a bit and hopefully shrink it enough to click back on to the watch. Whilst I wait for freezing to take its toll I settle down with a coffee and Panettone and join in the family jigsaw activity. Its a fiendish 1000 piece one with a lot of detail so there is much head scratching and deliberation over a prolong period of time.

Dinner of home made pizza follows. Tonight there will be football, reading and drugs. If I am lucky I will be able to get the back to go back on the watch. I am feeling that I am having trouble focussing at the moment and I am not sure if it is the medication or just holiday lethargy. Go again tomorrow.

Monday, up, coffee, scrambled eggs, more coffee. Then an amazing day of absolutely nothing, almost. Well nothing that could be considered enriching. I did manage to have a phone call with my sister who explained that she had slept over much of Christmas, which explains why she did not answer the phone yesterday, so that’s good. I also organised the recycling for collection on Wednesday. My most creative activity was organising my bath bomb Christmas collection in order to store them in the airing cupboard. I watched a rugby match on TV, put a few pieces in the 1000 piece jigsaw the family have started and organised my Christmas reading gifts and notebooks. Exciting eh? That has to be my last “lazy” day, I need to get moving, reading, writing, that sort of thing. Oh I forgot, I did my washing today as well. It’s hardly the stuff of a no holds barred battle with cancer. That is the really tricky bit of all this, its all invisible, all very ordinary everyday, and it lulls me into inaction and seduces me into the everyday normal. This has all come from my sense that I have started a new medication and I feel absolutely no different. No signs of side effects (a good thing). I therefore think I’ve been waiting for something to happen and it has not, so I need to stop waiting and get on with life. Tomorrow has to be a get on with life day.

Saturday, Christmas day. Up to toast and coffee. Then it was organising a Christmas meal to be driven over to my partners mothers. During the cooking time a friend who is working on Bermuda rings me to wish me happy Christmas, a really nice surprise. There are messages from friends and family wishing me and the family Christmas wishes. The cooking goes well as does the subsequent loading into my car. The family drive over in two cars and by 1 o’clock the food is on the table and we sit down to a Christmas meal. The group includes my partners mothers carer. We eat, present presents and lazily chat. It comes to time to go home and once there we relax and watch TV for a while. People drift to bed in anticipation of tomorrow, which is going to be our Christmas. During the evening I try to ring my sister but the landline rings out adn does not go to voice mail so I try her mobile, it goes directly to voice mail. I send an e-mail to let her know and eventually go to bed.

Sunday and its the families Christmas day. Its up to coffee and toast adn then we start the opening of our presents. This always takes a long time and invariably there is a break for coffee. Life is generous. Everyone ends up with collections of new, all of which is thoughtful and useful. The families generosity to each other is great. Amidst the presents there are games and toys which include inflatable antlers to be worn and hoops to be thrown at them. In the background a dinner cooks. The family sits down for the second time in two days to a turkey dinner and a flaming Christmas pudding. There is a period of post food napping and then as the kitchen is cleared the family discover the fun to be had from another of the Christmas toys. Soon there are targets being hit and foam bullets flying around. We settle down to a new board game where we collect coloured dice and create scoring patterns. We play for a long time dipping into a box of chocolates brought on a trip to York. We nibble and at one point my partner takes a call in order to do some family business. Eventually everyone is played out and we retreat to the lounge to watch some TV and generally laze. The family go to bed and I am left to watch the football on i-player and to write the blog.

I realise that this blog is not overflowing with the details of a Christmas but I am tired, part Christmas and I think part medication. Tomorrow I need to train, integrate my new gifts and begin to read my new books and plays. Perhaps some Shed time.

Friday, Christmas eve. Its an early start as the turkey has to be collected and additional vegetables to be bought. So I am up and at it quickly this morning, a postpone breakfast and get in the car with my partner and drive to the garden centre. We make straight to the butcher in a deserted garden centre, literally no one around, at least not punters. We select big packs of bacon and sausage meat before presenting our Christmas club card and collecting our turkey. We stow the meat in the car and return to the vegetable stall outside and pick a sack of potatoes and extra veg. Another couple of bags for the boot again and then another return to the shop to pick up alternative puddings and some odds and ends. We drive home and unpack the car, putting the turkey in the Shed to keep it cool till the 26th when it will provide the meat feast for this families Christmas dinner. Tomorrow we will be taking a complete Christmas dinner to my partners mother and dining there. On boxing day we will have our at home Christmas complete with presents and early alcohol intake, except me of course.

I make myself a bacon bagel and a coffee, take my drugs and settle down for a few minutes. Both my youngest daughter and her fiancé are still working at their laptops and will do so till lunchtime. A friend rings me and talks golf and golf bags. I discover that some golf bag trolleys have battery driven wheels. I am mildly appalled and amused by the the thought that it rather defeats the golf as exercise argument. I’m at a loose end so I decide to go to the gym and abandon my plan to train in the garage. I drive to the gym and get myself a cross trainer. 65 minutes later, a lot of very loud Rammstein and not a little cancer anger and I find myself delivering a personal best. 744 calories burnt and 8.9 kilometres done. Its a bit of a surprise, I wasn’t expecting such a performance. I get showered and look forward to a coffee and a muffin but the bloody bar is closed again. I am miffed and drive off. I fill the car on the way home and when I arrive give myself coffee and minces pies.

I watch a lame Christmas film until dinner and then the family sit and dine. Everything gets cleared away and I retreat to the lounge to write the blog and wait for my evening drug time before an early night. I can feel myself flagging and less articulate as time goes on.

Thursday and I wake up. First thought is to check myself over. Any signs of side effects? Nope just a craving for coffee. I get up and have a muesli breakfast and then empty the house bins and get the recycling up to date. I unashamedly potter, check emails, WhatsApp, Post Office Tracker and the dishwasher. I decide to train early and get myself to the gym. An hour on a cross trainer spends 715 calories and gets me 7.81 kilometres. Post shower I get into the club lounge and treat myself to a large americano and an after eight muffin. A moment of quiet indulgence. I am still not aware of any side effects and begin to think I might have got away with it. Of course side effects tend to take their time.

Back home I find my youngest daughters fiancé has arrived. I have soup and sort out my kit. My partner ends work and we walk into the village to do some shopping to top up our food stores. The one thing that was not available was Christmas wrapping paper! On my return I walk over to the other village shop with my eldest daughter to discover a veritable cornucopia of wrapping papers. After a while I drive my eldest daughter to her circus skill session. I wait for the hour and then drive us back home in time for dinner.

The evening, post meal, is spent wrapping a few errant presents and then writing the blog against the background of poor TV. The intention is to get an early night as tomorrow I need ot be up early to go and collect the turkey and other bits of food we have ordered from the butcher at our local garden centre.

Tonight was my second dose of Bicalutamide. I discovered today that this drug is used to stop or slow down “Tumour Flare”. I guess the rising PSA is an indication that the primary tumour in my prostrate is “flaring “so the intervention is timely. I am glad I acted decisively. All I can do is now is settle into Christmas and go with the flow. Messages from friends are supportive and kind as they prepare for their Christmas festivities. It seems Christmas is in full bright and shiny swing.

Wednesday the 22nd of December. I get up and make myself muesli and coffee. As usual I check my emails and messages. I do a bit of Goole research and then get ready to drive to the hospital to collect my new drugs. The drive was fine apart from my SatNav taking me on some imaginative new variations on the normal route. However I get there and instantly recognise the place, especially the car park. Being a good citizen I went to the Pay and Display to get a ticket. FUCKING COIN ONLY! What organisation in this day and aged of advanced IT has coin only parking machines, the nhs thats who. I grumpily go to reception and ask directions to the pharmacy, who kindly send me off on a long jaunt. The pharmacists was not the cheeriest but delivered the neat little packet with my name on it.

I get home and put my new drugs into my drugs wallet for the coming week. The big decision was whether to put them into the night or day section of my dispenser. The pill has to be taken once a day at the same time. I pick the night section. In my head I decide that I would rather take them at night. I will risk them disturbing my nights, which are already disturbed. A friend suggests that I wait till after Christmas to start the new drugs, I understand the logic and the sentiment but when I think about it my rising PSA is a reminder that cancer never rests, is relentless, does not take time out. Having decided to go for the new drug now it seems illogical to delay starting, I cannot wait, cancer is not. Having sorted that I have soup for lunch and get my kit ready to go to the gym.

I drive to the gym and find myself a cross trainer. I set Rammstein to loud and get on with the session. It goes well, very well in fact as I achieve a personal best. 735 calories and 8.75 kilometres at level 11. Go me, this was unexpected. I have a shower and have already decided to reward myself with a large americano and an after eight muffin. This hope was dashed as the club bar was closed. Yet again they have not got the staff to open it. Its shit service and symptomatic of the job market at this time. For the second time today I grumpily go back to my car and drive home. I find there is a paper so settle down to do the crosswords until dinner is ready when we all sit down to the meal. As a family we are looking forward to the Celebrity Great British Sewing Bee and post meal camp in the lounge to watch. The winner produces a Dior type best garment but then his mum is a couturier designer and had advised him on the choice of pattern to use. Had he really never sewn anything before? Call me cynical but I have some doubts.

Against the background of the last episode of The Girl Before, where the message seems to be white blokes are shit, I start to write the blog. I’ve decided to change the header as this feels like a new period in my challenge. Undoubtedly this is a new phase with a fresh aim and that is the re reduction of my PSA levels. Its going to last at least for two months to the next oncology review and then maybe for a further period. It therefore seems appropriate to acknowledge this and change the blog heading. If all goes well and my PSA does drop then perhaps I can go to As Good As it Gets Phase III. It remains to be seen. Its coming up to 11 o’clock, which is the time I’ve decided to set as my evening drug time. Previously I just took my evening meds at whatever time I decide to crawl of to bed but with the introduction of the Bicalutamide there needs to be a constant time. So I shall take my first dose in a few minutes and then potter about for a while before taking myself off to bed. My intention is to train again tomorrow, so lets hope there is no nasty fast onset of side effects. I would be lying if I said I was not anxious, I am. Into the dark.