Saturday, a slow start that gets to breakfast, drugs and weekly filling of the drugs wallet quickly. During breakfast our vegetable delivery arrives, so post breakfast clear away we stow the vegetables and fruit. Then I am into my working gear and we make a planned trip to the garden centre to buy bacon, sweets and a plant for a friend. Once home I get into the garden and prepare to lift the old stepping stones and set out the new ones. I get the new ones down in the new line and realise I am at least three short. Its one of those oh bugger moments. So I get in the car and go with my partner to our alternative garden centre (the cheap one) to get more new stepping stones, more grit sand to bed them, and a small alpine plant for one of the shallow planters. In an moment of realisation we also get three rolls of turf to repair the grass where the old stepping stones will come out. Home again and I return to the garden and lay out the new slabs to complete the pathway. Time to dig up the old ones with my trusty pickaxe. Oh yes I have a pickaxe and I am not scared to wield it. So after a little pickaxing I have a neat set of holes in the lawn and a neat line of new ones.

• 

• 

So I work for a long time filling the old holes with compost and cutting turf into the spaces, watering them in and hoping for the best. I beaver away perfecting my technique as I go along until finally the holes are gone.

I decide enough is enough and pack my tools away. As a last moment of aesthetic relief I plant a small rockery plant in a shallow planter that once held one of my many doomed bonsai trees.

I return to the house, dump my work clothes and watch the semi final of the FA cup while eating tea. A dull game so I settle to watch a film, The Mauritanian, a true story of the defence of an alleged terrorist in Guantanamo. It is the background to me writing the blog, being mindful all the time and that I have yet to train today. Another late night is in the offing. Tomorrow I get to go to see friends for a meal, I wonder how I will do.

Friday, an early morning hospital appointment so I am up and ready to go by 8:45. My eldest daughter accompanies me on the drive into town. I drop her off to return a university library book and I walk down to the hospital. I’ve showered and dressed up, of course I have. A real shirt and trousers with a smart coat. I’m looking good apart from the cerbacious cyst, (that’s the hope), that glows mountainous on my cheek, the reason for my hospital visit. I’ve been referred by my GP into the cancer pathway just in case the facial volcano is cancerous and an off shoot of my metastatic prostate cancer. The up side is that the nhs gets it collective arse moving to get you into a process in two weeks. So I get to the hospital and don my mask as I wander down the familiar corridors and make my way to the maxillofacial department and present the receptionist with my letter and questionnaires. I sit down and get my book out of my backpack. I’ve played these hospital games before so I have come equipped. So I open my book and settle down.

So I’m just reading an interesting meeting between a secret masseuses and a drug dealer at a dire party when I get called to the consultant. I am put in a chair that seems designed to make waterboarding easy, but I am only asked questions to start with. The usual stuff, how long, how big, is it sore, as I say the usual. The consultant puts on gloves and then gets to measuring and fondling the lump like a gardener rolling a bulb between their fingers to test the solidness of it. So we chat some more about my mouth and jaw and I am taken for a walk to the specialist x-ray department up stairs. I stand with plastic in my mouth, my ear stud out as two boxes rotate around my head and making whirring noises and finish actually whistling a tune. I return to the maxillofacial waiting area and pull out my book again, but before I can get back to the interesting masseuse and her new found drug dealer crush, I am called back into the consultant to view my jaw x-rays. The consultant is happy that there is nothing going on in my jaw so her view that my lump is cheek based is confirmed. She decides to make an appointment for me to have the lump scanned and biopsied. They make an appointment for me there and then with the ultrasound department for next Wednesday. I am now free to go, they will make an appointment for me in two weeks time to get the results of the ultrasound. In the words of the consultant, “It looks like a horse but could be a zebra, but I reckon its a horse”. Apparently if it turns out to be a “horse” they can exorcise it. Oh good I think and wonder exactly what they means but I am patient and can wait to find that out. I could google it but a bit of me likes a surprise. I walk back to the car and get home to find that my daughter has just arrived home having caught a bus which broke down. I get the joy of an Amazon delivery, my new red training boots, actually they are my posing footwear to go with my new shorts.

• 

• 

I’ve just had enough time to play with my new boots when the the guy we use to look after our trees arrives. We go into the back garden and I point out what I think needs doing, he listens attentively and then expertly and gently explains what actually needs doing and what makes good sense for the trees long term welfare. We chat for a while knowing that almost any quote he gives us we are likely to accept, his arguments about the work are so good. He leaves promising to send a quote soon. Time for me to get my washing in and to get ready to train. I go to the shed as this is a cycling day and clamber onto the bike with my training mask on. The heater is on full blast and I soon heat up to the point where I start to shed layers of upper wear. I notice that I have a degree of what I think is termed gynaecomastia or in lay persons terms I’m growing tits. The rest of the session seemed pointless after that. What is the point if all the effort I put in is useless against the chemical side effects of my treatment? Sexless and becoming a thing. That’s a major realignment of self image to be done.

• 

• 

• 

Post training I order the family Indian take away and wait for it to be delivered, which it is surprisingly quickly. My evening finds me folding my washing to put away, clearing the kitchen, watching Have I Got News For You and writing the blog. Tomorrow is a day I will spend in the garden laying stepping stones and training for the last time this week.

Thursday and a work day so its up, eat and log on. My first meeting is with colleagues and enables us to catch up and review where we are in the work. It is a useful space to keep a balance as we move forward. I have a little time to prepare before I host my weekly open forum. I do this in my training gear as I am determined to train early today. As usual the session passes quickly and is stimulating. I check emails and buy a new pair of casual trainers to go with new shorts I have on order. I am optimistic about a sunny summer. I clear the kitchen and retire to the garage to row for half an hour. I up the resistance level to the highest level I’ve tried to date. It is an effort and my arms complain at the extra effort.

• 

• 

I return to the house and see the gardener arrive at the same time a friend rings for a chat. A good way to wind down from the training and emphasises the loss of face to face conversation. The family eat tea and then I and my partner swap the cars around so that my car is available in the morning for the trip to the hospital tomorrow. This done my partner prepares for her singing lesson and I check the paper work for my hospital visit tomorrow. Then I watch a football match that ends in time for me to watch The Great British Sewing Bee on i-player. I am hooked on the whole process of watching people create clothes, it is such a basic skill. It must be one of the most ancient crafts alongside hunting, cooking and growing stuff. At some point someone had to join two skins together to create a covering. After that it was an evolutionary force from survival to social flaunting. I write the blog earlyish so that I can have a bath in anticipation of tomorrows medical adventure. Although I have been busy today I feel the day has been mainly flat, I find myself wanting to be in my garden or in the shed typing up my poems, perhaps my priorities are shifting. Most of all I miss the real world of people in the flesh, so our planned outing on Sunday to meet a friends for outside scones is an excitement. Strangely when I read the blog back I find the subtitles of the day are missing and they are the moments of contact through calls or WhatsApp messages. Somehow the personal contacts seem too personal to share and I feel the need to keep them to myself. I think there is something in there about treasuring the interpersonal more than ever before and therefore wanting to hold onto them. So if your phone call, WhatsApp messages, email or text is not here it is because I’ve hoarded it away as a treasure.

Wednesday and its Elders meeting day and my second jab day. So a quick shower, after all you cant go to have a jab without smelling sweet and wearing clean underwear, breakfast and I log into the Elders meeting. It lasts an hour and a half and is people who are a delight. They are experienced, thoughtful and compassionate people mostly of an age and continuing to be inquisitive and wanting to make a contribution to the field of care and therapy. I always come away from these meetings with much to think about and a deep sense of thankfulness that I have such people in my life. Today was no different. In the middle of the meeting I get a phone call from the hospital asking me if I can go for my appointment on Friday rather then Monday. I eagerly agree. I end the meeting and move to lunch and getting ready for my jab trip. I take the car to the garage and check the tyres before driving to the medical centre in the next village. I am very early but it is no problem, there are no long queues as before and I walk straight in, Usual questions and info sheets and then at precisely 14:42 I am second jabbed. I am told not to drive for 15 minutes, I last ten. Instead of going home I head for the local garden centre and by a dozen new stepping stones and a couple of bags of sand to bed them in. As I am hauling them from the boot of the car to the garden a friend calls so I sit in the front garden chair and chat in the sunshine. I welcome interlude from the garden chore. I return to stacking the new stepping stones. I notice new flowers that have opened up in the garden and pause to take pictures of them.

• 

• 

• 

I clear the kitchen and then end up cooking the evening meal. I delay training to let my food settle and watch a football match on TV. By the time it ends its getting late, still there is training to be done so I head for the shed and an hour on the bike. Training at night is a strange experience looking out over a dark garden with solar lights.

• 

• 

• 

I return to the house and find the family all gone to bed so I settle down to write the blog. Its been a busy day and tomorrow will be the same.

Tuesday and its late, busy day. So this is likely to be short and sweet. After a muesli breakfast I headed for the shed armed with a can of 7 UP, two packets of mini cheddars and a laptop. I got set up at my table and resumed typing up the poems that I have in a lever arch file that constitute the first two hundred and something poems that I wrote in my youth. All morning I sat and typed until I needed a break at which point it was lunchtime. When I went to the house it was empty as the household had gone for a walk but there was post and what a great delivery this was. There were plants that I had been waiting for, a letter from a friend, my hospital appointment paper work for Monday ( apparently I’m going for a maxillofacial, sounds like a vaguely dodgy massage parlour) and most dazzling of all was a training top that my friend had made and sent to me. By any standard that is quite a collection of post to get. Of course I immediately potted up the plug plants and got them under cover in the greenhouse. It was then back to the shed to type up some more poems. I persisted and now I am down to my last (which are actually my first) 50 poems. A few more days and I will have all my poetry digitised. Then perhaps I can get them into book form, beware if I do you could be getting the most narcistic Christmas present ever.

I make the mistake of popping into the house and find another box of plants in the porch, so its back to the garden to pot up more plug plants and to put the trays of pre arranged summer flowering bulbs into suitable troughs. I return to the shed to get a breather when a friend calls and I am able to thank her for her terrific gift. I promise to give her feedback on how the top performs when I train in it later. Its her daughters birthday today so there is much excitement and fun to be had. I close up the shed for the day and return to the house, where I make up a file for the Maxillofacial paper work and fill in the forms that I need to take with me next week. By the time I finish my partner has made tea so we sit to eat, time is getting on. I change in to my training gear and watch a football match before heading for the garage to do a 45 minute session on the rower, it is my new tops first outing. I set a personal best for the time and resistance level, so the new top clearly works.

• 

• 

After my session I put the bins out and settle down to write the blog. Tomorrow is a big day, I have a meeting with colleagues in the morning then in the afternoon I am off to get my second jab. It will be the day I complete my smug card.

So another week starts, I wonder what it will bring. Coffee and then muesli before retreating to the shed. I reorganise the shed a bit and integrate binoculars, field identification charts and Chinese character books. The intention is to get back to typing up my poems, spurred by an incessant nagging in my head that I’ve got over confident with my cancer. Having lost weight, got fitter, lowered my heart rate and become more active I’ve become lackadaisical about my diet, too much sugar, and fallen into assuming that I have all the time I need. As a result some of the priorities that came to the forefront when I first got diagnosed and went in to chemo have been slowly abandoned or pushed into the background. Recently my partners mother going into hospital and more recently my partners brother becoming ill suddenly and requiring urgent intervention has sharpened my sense of my own threat. So I am trying to get back to my original priorities, hence the clearing of my desk space in the shed. I settle down to write a letter before my lunch time meeting. A get a text message telling me the hospital appointment for my facial lump is to be Monday morning and for me to confirm my attendance, which I duly do. Another thing to get into the dairy, another skirmish in the battle.

My meeting rolls around and I spend two hours with colleagues checking out where we are in our various areas and thinking about how we move forward. Some agencies are easier to work with than others, which poses us some interesting issues. The meeting ends and I grab some food before walking with my partner to the post box and then taking a turn around the village to get some air. We just get home and Tesco deliver. I discover that my partners brother was taken into hospital again yesterday but was discharged in the middle of the night to return home. So I’m not surprised he has not responded to my messages. We cook tea and sit down to an evening meal. A brief rest to let the food go down and I get changed to train. Back to the shed I do an hour on the bike as night gets blacker.

• 

• 

• 

I return to the house and settle on the sofa to write the blog and then I notice. I am not wearing my seal ring. I always wear my seal ring, only when I row do I not. I was riding therefore it would have been on my hand. I search the room but cannot find it. No other choice but to get my head torch on and search the garden and the shed, it must have come off during the training session. So I spend time wandering my garden with a head torch on and then searching the shed’s every nook and cranny. No luck, I return to the house and search the lounge again. I sit, I think, and I am about to go out to the garden again, its now 12:30, and I think about changing to train. Its a long shot but worth a try. I go to the back bedroom where I change and look around on the floor, nothing. More in desperation than hope I pick up my jeans and stick my had in the pocket, eureka! There it is nestling in a handkerchief. I feel relief and joy. I know why it has happened. Since losing weight my fingers are slimmer and when I am cold the ring slips off my second finger and I have to move it over a finger to keep it on. It as clearly slipped off my cold thin finger when I changed to train. I return to the blog and finish my account. I drink a reflective non alcohol beer and retire knowing that I have no work tomorrow and that I have a chance to return to my poems and letter writing. Somehow it seems more important than ever to keep Rocket fighting and to stay engaged in the war against my cancer.

Sunday, weigh in day.

90.4 Kilos

That will do me. That is cheesecake worthy given the past week. So after coffee we have a substantial breakfast and plan the day, but not before we have rung our youngest daughter. We chat about the process of buying a house and the pressures of organising next Christmas on a commercial basis. Apparently its even trickier this year. I message my partners brother to see how he is doing having been discharged home after having spent time having a bleed om the brain dealt with. Apart from being tired, having some interesting sensory experiences the worst thing is not wanting to eat. It is so serious that he does not even fancy a bacon sandwich, which is an indication of how serious things are. Having cleared the decks my partner and I head for one of the local garden centres. We navigate the one way system and pick up a climbing rose on the way. Whilst we stand in line with our trolley in the elements it snows. We finally get past the tills and collect our prepaid bags of compost and drive home. So then the fun starts. I find some trellis and fix it to a wall and then dig out a large hole for the rose. Once in the ground the stems get separated and tied to the trellis. First job done so now its onto getting the new wisteria settled into the big planter in the front garden so that it can begin to climb the front of the house and cover it in a drapery of flowers. After much muck moving and refiling I get the wisteria into its new home. Again it feels like I am planting in hope and the frustrations of confinement. Like a prisoner who eases his arms by growing what he can where he can while waiting freedom.

• 

• 

Having completed the garden tasks for the day my partner and I go in search of oregano at the local Co-op. It looked like we were out of luck until the assistant literally rummaged around at the back of a shelf and found a jar of the stuff. We added ice cream and a paper and headed home muttering about the be-tattooed scumbag who barged into the shop with out a mask, and his woman and child. Tolerance out of the window, up against the wall. Where are the army when you really need them? Any way once home I make olive bread or at least put all the ingredients into the bread maker, push buttons and then set it going. At about ten o’clock tonight I will know if all my button pushing has worked. With things being tidied and cleaned I start to write the blog before tea. The olive loaf turned out okay, hurray.

Saturday, coffee, fill the drugs wallet and eat a bacon bagel. Then its off to the garden centre to get cheesecake, crisps and lasagne. Home to watch Leicester Tigers beat Newcastle in a cup quarter final. During the match I get a delivery of a wisteria. I unpack the wisteria and put it into the greenhouse to overnight. With the weather that is coming I expect I will keep it in the greenhouse for a while. I return to the rugby and watch England women beat Italy by a vast margin. Its time to get ready to train. I’ve decided to go for an hours row at a higher resistance as I am not sure I am working hard enough in my sessions, either that or I am getting impatient with progress or lack of it. I get into the garage and before I start my hour I have a call with a friend who is out walking and getting some time for herself. It was good to chat but it left the sense of what is missing in life at the moment. That normal ability to speak face to face and weave a conversation following all the cues that are available, even the silences. We say our farewells and I start my hour at level 6; new territory for me. To my surprise it goes okay.

• 

• 

I head for a bath bomb bath and soak my fatigue out of me. Tea is lasagne and salad followed by a film, Turks and Caicos starring Bill Nye. It was okay and was followed by football and writing the blog. In the holes in the day I acquired new cargo shorts in anticipation of the summer and an upgrade to my wardrobe. Alongside this I bought new bedding for both sizes of beds in the house and a new garden furniture cover. These moments of acquisition are semi spontaneous, an idea appears in my head and the IT takes care of it, it is quite disturbing really and why I like the shed with its lack of wi-fi. However it is a way of avoiding dithering. Need a garden furniture cover: done. What could be easier. Need an AK47, trickier, but probably doable, just not on Amazon.

Friday, yippee its a work free day and time for breakfast and retreat to the shed. There in the shed I write letters and nibble elicit chocolate root ginger. I like my shed because it has my only flat desk space where I have my pens, brushes, ink and sealing waxes as I want them. All around me are my favourite books, correspondence and art materials. On the walls the art that friends have sent me and on the book rest my file of poems. Behind my chair is my exercise bike. In this shed I can sit uninterrupted and in private, either active or in power save mode. It is in this space that I allow myself to think the unthinkable and find the words that come closest to expressing it, or the symbols, daubs and strokes that try to do what the words cannot do. This shed sits in the garden which surrounds me with green, growth and a myriad of creatures, resident or passing through. This space is laptop and wi-fi free, it is civilised.

So lunch comes and goes, friends travel south, post arrives and life churns on. In this break our youngest daughter messages to say she and her partners bid for a house has been accepted. We of course ring to say congratulations but of course there is a long way to go till they step through the door of their own house and being a sensible person my daughter was being measured in her joy. On checking my emails from work I find the first edit of the podcast I recorded a couple of weeks ago. I sit and listen to me talking about my life and my work with a sense of fascination and repulsion. It is a strange feeling I get when I think it will be public in a few days. I post my letters from the morning and prepare the evenings meal, a chicken and chorizo one pot that goes into the oven while I change to train. Back into the shed I try to find a radio station that is playing music but all I get is tributes to the dead Duke of Edinburgh who died at midday today, so I train to Spotify, which keeps playing adverts so I junk it and just train. Not a bad session, just one more session to go for the week.

• 

• 

• 

I return to the house and check the one pot, almost ready. I learn that my partners brother is being allowed home although the MDT has not met to decide on their next treatment options. Clearly they think the risk is manageable, he was waiting to be picked up by his son to return home. I guess they will contact him when they know what they want to do. The family eats, I watch football and then write the blog. No contact from the hospital regarding my referral for my face yet. I am feeling distracted and not sure why.

Thursday and its up early to get to the GP at 9 o’clock. Breakfast is provided by my partner, my favourite bacon bagel, grapefruit and coffee. I set up the laptops for the training workshop I am co presenting at 10 o’clock before getting myself off to the GP. I go through the usual routine of checking in and then hanging around at the back door to be let in by the doctor. I sit down in the doctors room on a socially distanced chair and the doctor brings up my records some distance away from me. We chat the usual how big, is it sore, how long conversation after which the doctor measures my facial cyst/boil/blocked gland/tumour/thingy, he then grabs hold of it to appreciate how solid it is. He goes back to his desk and asks me more questions. The outcome is that he refers me to the head/neck and throat team to check whether my lump is cancerous or not. I should hear in four working days, and he gives me a printout with contact numbers and the rules of engagement. I thank him and leave.

Back home I log into my training session and chat with my co-presenters before the sixty attendees log on. So dead on 10 o’clock we are off and running. That’s me until 3:45 in the afternoon. For me the training is only interrupted at lunchtime when I host an open forum for an hour and then return to the training session. So a full on screen day, and although we use cyber polls, word clouds and other techno devices it is still a struggle to sense what is going on in the “cyber room”. It is tiring and unpredictable, but like all things it passes. It comes to an end and the team do a quick debrief before we head off in our different directions. I get into my training gear and get into the garage and strap myself into the rower. 45 minutes on level 5 taken slowly and concentrating on rhythm, whatever the outcome it will be a personal best.

• 

• 

Tea, live football and then the blog. An additional pleasure today is a letter from a friend that I save to read in the comfort of solitude as the rest of the household goes to bed. During the day I have dipped in and out of my WhatsApp messages to see how my partners brother is doing in hospital. Late in the day we find out that the procedure from yesterday was not totally successful and that the fistula has only been partially closed. The MDT is to meet and discuss what they need to do next and weigh up the pros and cons of further intervention. So my brother in law has to wait for a couple of days in hospital while while the team make up their minds what to offer. So the waiting will go on for a while. All the while the clock ticks, wanting to spend time with people continues and the ocean remains stubbornly far away.