Saturday and I am up making teas and and getting ready to go to the chemist to get my injection for tomorrows GP appointment. We walk down to the chemist and pick up the medication and a paper. Back home to drop stuff off and we drive off again to the garden centre to get bacon, lasagne and treats for tomorrow. The garden centre is a strange array of premature flowers raised in greenhouses and likely to die in the still cold weather, while the butcher does a roaring trade and the mini Sainsburys allows us to top up with bagels. By the time we get home and settle for breakfast the morning is almost gone. I eat the remainder of last nights chicken one pot and drink copious amounts of fresh coffee. I go to the shed to check on the garden sculptures I painted yesterday. They are dry so I put them back in their allotted places, to shine. I think they look good. I good decision to do them.

With the sculptures back in position I clean up the desk space in the shed and retreat to the house, where the hoover is waiting to be mended. I get in to the kitchen and find that my eldest daughter has been busy and created a small poster for our fridge.

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One of the endearing things about our household is that occasionally these art surprises appear spontaneously. I set about the sickly Hoover, which of course is actually a Dyson. It works when in its basic configuration but does not when the hose extension is used, its a mystery. So I set about taking it apart and deploy an array of tools and lubricants to free parts of it and inspect the beast. It turns out that feeding the Dyson with pennies gives it constipation. None of my tools will free the coin so I resort to using a stick! It works. A fortune in tools and it takes a bamboo stick to do the job. So after a lot of time and exploring the Dyson gets fixed and of course I test it out on the ground floor to check it works okay. It does and due to all the lubricating and freeing of wheels it glides like new.

So the wizardry over I clear away the tools and get ready to train. Today its the bike so its back to the shed, but I pick up the last garden sculpture that needs repainting and set it up ready to be painted on the shed desk before I train. I put in a big effort and I am rewarded with a good session. I am pleased with this as it is my last training session before resting tomorrow and then the 28 day injection on Monday. It feels like the end of a cycle which has come good. Come Monday and the injection I will have a couple of bad days and I start over again to get back to training well and recovering my fitness. Even though I have started taking Paracetamol the day before and for a further two days the injection still makes me tired, sore and demotivated.

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Having toweled down and slipped on a T shirt post session I set to painting the last garden sculpture. It comes out quite well and I leave it to dry over night.

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I clean up and change before settling down to Lasagne and salad and then watch a documentary on Paloma Faith. Bright and underestimated, typical of a lot of working class people. Often seen as strange, but mostly more up front. I write the blog to the accompaniment of the end of Creed and Rambo Uncut, obviously a Stallone night. Tomorrow is my rest and paracetamol day, I’m hoping for sunshine and a chance to be in my garden rewiring solar panels for the pond pump. Just another lazy Sunday.

Friday, a free day at last, so I indulge in a bacon breakfast, coffee and the usual medication before checking emails and getting on with things. Things in this case means retreating to the shed and writing letters. I am finding new motivation to write by using both pen and brushes. There is something appealing about having pot of ink and a brush to hand when writing. I’m sitting writing the blog with two new brush rests sitting in front of me.

A morning passes quickly until lunch time calls. I have a quick smoothie and set about making a chicken and chorizo one pot for his evenings meal. This one was going to be a long slow cook so it goes into the oven at 1 o’clock to be ready for around 5 o’clock. Steeped in red wine and smoked paprika it will be delicious. My partner returns from her midday walk and collecting my drugs order from the chemist. It turns out that my 28 day injection is not there but they are promising it for Saturday morning. I returned to the shed and and decide to repaint my garden sculptures. I gather up my kneeling figures and bring them into the shed prepare them and then paint them with fresh black concrete paint. They come out well I think.

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I am so pleased with the out come that I decide to have a go at my Buddha head, so I heave the thing in to the shed almost immediately regretting my miscalculation of the weight of it. I get it up on the desk and set to painting it.

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I clear away the paint and wash the brushes out and realise that I cannot go back in the shed and train on the bike without choking on the paint fumes. So today I return to the garage to the rower. I give it a hard 45 minutes on a lower resistance than yesterday and find myself setting yet another personal best for the time on that level. I’ve gone at it really hard and exceed my previous PB by 2 kilometres. That surprises me greatly but confirms that I am at last getting fitter.

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The evening is of course started with the delicious one pot followed by a cracking rugby match with Scotland defeating France for the first time in Paris for over twenty years. I write the blog conscious that tomorrow I need to remember to get my injection, mend the hoover and see if the paint has dried.

Thursday, a work day, so breakfast, drugs and crank up the laptop. The IT is still not working as it should but eventually I get to meet with my colleagues for the morning meeting. We try to clarify where we are, how the EE world is and what knowledge we have to pool. In the end we know we can only wait and hold our counsel till others have had their conversations. I have time to write a brief letter in the shed before my next meeting. My IT continues to play up but I get in to my meeting after some fiddling with the tech, much to my relief. It is a quirky session from my point of view but the content was good and I hope useful to the participants.

I decide that our cash deposits are low and head for the local supermarket and its ATM. The car park is all but empty, no one around, its a strange feel. I use the ATM and head back home. I have to psyche myself up to get ready to train. I am finding it increasingly difficult to motivate myself lately but remind myself that this is medicine and climb into my gear. I head to the garage and decide to row at a higher level today. I adjust the machine to a heavier resistance and go for a rugged half hour. As I pulled myself through the time a friend rang and due to the wonder of technology I could have the conversation via my head phones and continue to row. Everyone I know at the moment seem to be cramming more and more into their lives just to keep things going. At the end of the conversation I continue my row and set a new personal best for the time at this level of resistance. The numbers are telling me I am getting fitter and my resting heart rate is decreasing in line with the fitness. I am trying to make the most of this weeks training as Monday is 28 day jab Monday, which signals at least two days of feeling crap.

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I change out of my gear ready for my favourite meal of the week, tuna pasta. Tonight England play Montenegro in a world cup qualifier on TV. It is like men against hamsters, England win easily with a less than best team. I write the blog and do my to do list for tomorrow. If I am lucky with the weather I may get some garden time.

Wednesday, bin day. It starts with a call from a friend who has already been working for hours. I have the luxury of a lazy bacon breakfast and coffee. I spend time with the guy who tidies our garden and then spend hours, literally, trying to get the RCP apps on my phone to work. This included calls from and to a tech guy with limited clarity in what sounded like a bar. The end result is that I now cannot even get into the portal app. My levels of IT frustration plumb new depths. In the end I gave up, life is too short for this level of shit. I retreat to the shed and write some thoughts and then post them. Time to train, so I get into my gear and return to the shed for a gentle hour of pedaling.

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So I close up the shed, change and settle down to tea and a film. A film based on a true story of how a number of young women were killed and because they were perceived as prostitutes the police failed to investigate properly and nobody has ever been held responsible. Tragically the mother of one of the victims was later killed by her youngest daughter as a result of a psychotic episode leaving the victims final sister to continue the campaign. Here we are on the anniversary of lockdown and we choose this film. My partner goes to bed and I am left to ponder the joys of the world, like the new 50 pence piece that was minted in 2020, one of which sits in front of me as I write the blog.

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I wonder sometimes about agendas, differences and why the designer chose a geodome to represent diversity. Dominique Evans, the designer suggests that for her the equal length of the elements symbolise a community of connection and strength. A vision then. Aspirational perhaps, but not a reality. Britain got built (whatever that means) on privilege, inequality, exploitation and repression. Cannot deny that such a mixture of toxic elements does not create diversity.

Its no show plumber day! Tuesday. I get up earlyish and do eggs for breakfast in the expectation that the plumber would arrive any time after 10:30. So to fill in time I did the following:

1. Booked my 28 day injection appointment
2. Renewed my HCPC registration
3. Taped a parcel box for Shri Lanka
4. Tried to reactivate my RCP phone app
5. Baked a wholemeal loaf
6. Read another three essays in the BI-BLE
7. Cleaned the shower head.

Still no plumber so I indulge in noodles for lunch. I’m getting irritated and I can feel I am working up to a training session. Instead I read and drink coffee in feint hope that plumber man might still arrive. Of course he doesn’t. I guess he is telling me to stick my shower work as I have not renewed my boiler service agreement with him. Its time to get myself into the garage and work off my irritation.

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WOW I am impressed with me, this is a tremendous personal best. I must have been really pissed off with the plumber. This betters my last PB by over three kilometres and its the first time since 2019 that I have burnt over a 1000 calories in an hour. This is good stuff. Can I really be ill? Can I still do this and have cancer? Is this some cruel kind of trick? Clearly I can as the cancer is not a fantasy, I’ve seen the scans. All I can do is go on making this as good as it can get. I head for a warm bath to ease the muscles and of course I indulge in a bath bomb while I read.

Ah the joys of soaking and reading. Eventually I get out of the soak and eat tea while my body relaxes further. I write the blog early, or relatively early with a view to an early night. Tomorrow its back to the shed and the garden and maybe some work. Bollocks I’ve forgotten its Tuesday the day bins go out! So out to the cold. Brrrr.

Monday, I’ve slept in, a poetry over dose late last night meant I went to bed late. A simple breakfast of muesli and I head for the shed, firstly to write a bit of my own poetry and secondly to sort out the garden pots. For the rest of the day I garden and take the occasional call from friends and colleagues. I manage to gather up my pots and tidy up areas at the top of the garden that’s been a wilderness for a while.

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At midday I pop out to post my mornings letters. Then its back to the garden, a quick cup of soup and its back to filling, planting and deploying pots. I tidy up the mallow and replace one of the palms. By five o’clock I have pots planted up and dispersed around the garden, filled with summer bulbs. I tidy up and retreat to the shed with a coffee just as a friend rings for a chat. It is a good end to a busy physical day. I note I have done over 10,000 steps so I am going to count this as a rest day with activity. Just time to catch two frogs at the same time in the pond.

Time to wash up and eat tea before settling down to the third place tie in “Only Connect” and following that up with “Unforgotten” ( or remembered as I pedantically keep insisting on). Of course the most important event will be when Tesco rock up between 9 and 10 and deliver the household from starvation. We will as a household behave like nut starved squirrels and hide the food as quickly as possible and then settle back to our preoccupations. I look forward to the silent house and time to read again before finally tucking myself away to bed to rise tomorrow to my new to do list.

Sunday, my day of rest, so it starts with the Sunday weigh in. I skip on the scales, hold my breath and look down for the moment of truth.

90.3 Kilos

The same weight as last week. I will take that as a win. I will also take the weekly treat. So the weigh in done its time for breakfast and a first treat of croissants, jam and fresh coffee. A quick call to my to youngest daughter and then I build the new garden chair that is going to be located in the front garden as that is the sunniest place in the garden. So as summer progresses I am more likely to be found sunning myself in my front garden idly awaiting the post man and reading.

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Having got the chair in place it was time to get to the garden centre and get some compost, a pie and my treat of white chocolate cheesecake. Back home I stash the compost and settle down to watch the end of a football match, while my weekly wash tumbles dry. My afternoon takes me to the garden and the greenhouse where I sew more seeds as I begin to gear up for Spring.

I close the greenhouse up and leave it to do its magic. I watch Leicester beat Manchester united in the cup and then eat pie for tea and while away my time till the new series of Line of Duty comes on the TV. Then it’s blog time. So my lazy Sunday comes to an end with me updating tomorrows Tesco order. Do I feel rested and ready for a new week, not really. I’m restless and tired of it all, a functional mute.

Saturday arrives and so a brief lay in before a lazy breakfast. I’ve finished my antibiotics so to day is a normal meds day and of course the Saturday ritual of filling my weekly drugs wallet. Having fed, drugged and completed the census form I get myself into the garden and start to gather up the pots around the garden that will be refilled for the coming spring and summer. I try to sweep the paths clear but find I am badly in need of a garden broom, which I promptly order from Amazon. I trim back some of the shrubs and stake others and have a general tidy up. The cherry trees are growing and edging towards spring blossom so I cut some of the ties tethering them to their initial stabilising stakes. I note the seeds are germinating.

I am satisfied with my mornings work and retire to the sofa to watch the international rugby. Italy of course are pounded. I change into my training gear ready to watch England loose to Ireland. Amazon deliver me a very pleasant surprise, a book of poetry. I shall spend part of my lazy Sunday to read them.

At the end of the match I dash to the garage and put in a session on the rower. I am mindful that the crucial rugby game of the competition is on TV at 8pm. I have a cracking session and I achieve a new personal best. Go me, I’m surprising myself.

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There is time to change and then I am back on the sofa eating tea and watching an enthralling match between France and Wales, which the Welsh narrowly lose. After the excitement I write the blog to a background of football highlights. Its weigh in day tomorrow and if it goes well I intend a lazy day, some seed sowing, luxury bath and time to read. I also hope that I might come across a bag of mini eggs to have as a treat.

Friday. Up at 7 to take the antibiotics. Back to bed till 9. I’m not sure what I do with the morning apart from eat muesli and stare out of the window. I notice that next door is having a delivery and I realise I am suffering delivery envy. I’ve nothing ordered and not expecting anything and I feel acutely peeved about it. I ‘ve not got the time or the inclination to dig about trying to understand it I just feel the disappointment. I’m even more pissed off when the postman delivers the mail. Its all for me! I do not open a single item as everyone of them is an advert/catalogue/begging letter (charity guilt tool) and they go straight into the recycle bin. I realise that this is not a good place to be so I take a car to the garage to fill it and check the tyres discovering on the way that the village has the power company digging up its main road and creating havoc with temporary lights. I return to the village an alternative way and then take the the other car to fill and check its tyres. So now I’m all cared up and no where to go. My partner and daughter went out for a walk and to bring lunch back from the chippy. A friend rings and we chat COVID, sugar and sewing until the food arrives. So a rare lunch at the table. Its been a long time since I indulged in chips so I ended up feeling fuller that I had done for a long time.

Shed time. I change into my training gear and open up the shed. I write a letter and take a short trot to the post box. Back in the shed I experiment with some ink and brush work, but it is not a great success, something that needs more work. In desperation I climb on the bike and give myself a good work out, so good I fall short of a personal best by a meagre 200metres.

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I get back to the house and run a bath. I note that I am pissing blood due to the effort I put into exercise session. According to my oncologist if I push too hard it irritates my prostrate, hence the blood in the urine. My stance is I’m far more irritated with my cancerous prostate than it can be irritated by me. My bath is bath bombed and I enjoy the warmth and aroma of it while I read David Jason’s second volume of autobiography. Once sated I get out and join my partner in the lounge. It is Comic Relief night but also a rugby night so my evening is a mixture of sport and comically packaged charity appeal. It comes to an end and I write the blog against a background of squabbling vaccine spokesman and journalists, its a depressing backdrop of agendas and bickering, mostly rooted in the perceived haves and have nots. The overall sense is that England is doing well compared to the rest of the world. Tomorrow thank goodness is nearly all rugby although it would be nice be able to get into the garden and get some organising done.

Thursday rolls around again. Its a usual Thursday but starts with a phone call from a friend whose birthday it is. It was good to hear how someone was planning to celebrate and indulge in the midst of COVID lockdown. A fast bacon breakfast and then I am back in front of a screen for the first time today. A useful meeting with colleagues. Once over I head for the post office to send my son a letter. I always giggle quietly to myself on entering a post office wearing a beanie and a mask. I’m so tempted to shout “hands up” and see what happens but I restrain myself and just pop my letter on the scales. Home to a bowl of lunch muesli and back in front of the screen to host an open forum, to which two new people attended. A good and interesting session which leaves me staring into space for a while afterwards. The guy who tidies our garden has been and gone, having drunk tea, raked lawns and trimmed bamboo. Its time to train and I get in to my gear and head for the garage to row. I do 45 minutes and get a new personal best for the time. Go me, that was unexpected.

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Training over I change and settle down to an evening of European football alongside my Scottish colleague on WhatsApp. As his team spiral to a defeat our exchanges get more terse and mildly xenophobic. By the time it had descended into a Saturday night brawl the game was gone. So for all the wrong reasons the evening turn out to be unusually entertaining. The fun over I start to write the blog to the background debate about vaccines, Europe, and looking for people to blame and noting that COVID is re-ravaging parts of Europe. I hanker after my garden, sunshine and friends and ponder on whether the email I got saying I do not have to shield from the 1st April is genuine or whether this is a result of a bored apparatchik having an April fools joke. It reminds me of the civil servant who thought it was fun to create Minimum Use Of Force Tactical Intervention (MUFTI) as the tittle for the training given to prison officers to manage violet behaviour. A mufti being an Islamic scholar who may issue fatwa or nonbinding opinions on law. At the time of its inception the common rumour put around was that MUFTI meant subduing the unbeliever, hence the perception that someone was making a gratuitous joke of the role of the prison staff. On that note I close the blog and wander off to bed hoping to sleep for more than two hours at a time, one of the side effects of my meds. Fun eh.