Its dentist Tuesday, in fact its early dentist Tuesday, so I am up early and into the shower. Can’t go to the dentist smelly. It takes a lot of spoons (energy) but I feel refreshed and outside world ready, even if I am just walking a few hundred yards down the road. Having scoured my teeth I miss out breakfast and a few minutes after my partner has gone to work I walk down to the dentists. I have a short wait, during which I continue to read Cosmicomics by Calvino. The main character seems now to be in the present but remembering the formation of crystals in the development of the planet. I am quickly called in and my dentist sets to work. There is a lot of work to do to prepare for a long term crown solution to my missing filling of a front tooth. As the work progresses I feel more and more shaky, a combination of the work being done, anxiety and shakiness. At one point I have to stop, I’ve had become very cold and I think I was experiencing “tattoo flu”. My dentist is extremely good and attentive and notes when I need to slow down but gets on with the job, giving my a commentary on how much is done. At last she says “last ten minutes, all the major stuff is done. ” There is one last scan to be done so that the external company can 3D print my new tooth. Its an amazing bit of technology. Then I am done and I think every one is relieved that we got through it. I am shaky and leave via the receptionist who takes for half the fee for the full work being done. I’m due back in two weeks to get my new tooth stuck in.

On my way home I buy a paper, a load of soft sweets and a Lucozade to get some energy into me. On reaching home I hunt out my metal straw in order to drink the Lucozade as my mouth is still very numb from the dentists anaesthetic. I accompany the drink with a few jelly babies. As I wait for the sugar rush I do the days cross words and watch in the background the Post Office Enquiry. One of the Fujitsu system security men who wrote court “expert” witness statements is being torn into shreds by the lawyers. This is the most blood bath like session I have seen to date. When they break for lunch to mop up the blood I make myself filled pasta for lunch. After lunch Andy Dunks continues to be given a torrid time about his court statements that helped convict some postmasters. Once again it is clear that no one explained to this poor guy what it means to be an expert witness in a court of law and the principals of not going beyond one’s own direct knowledge. Clearly the lawyers manipulated some of the “expert” witnesses so ensure risk and blame were shifted off the post office. I start to draft the blog as I continue to recover from the morning. I clear the kitchen and return to waiting for the Tesco delivery as the rain stops and the weather brightens up. I am cheered up by reading the paper and noting that there has been some one older than me to have written and published there first novel. Previously I was aware that Mary Wesley publisher her first book at seventy two but Shirley Hughes wrote her first full length novel at 84 and her last on at the age of 94. I am tempted to start my novel Albertine’s Revenge.

By the mid afternoon I am getting twitchy that Tesco have not delivered. I put the bins out for tomorrow and note a Jaguar is parked, the owner points to small retriever type dog running down the road and asks if it its mine. Apparently it had run out into the road. I think its our neighbours dog so I knock on their open and ask my neighbour if he is missing his dog. He is and so the adventure of Mable starts, At one point there ae at least three cars parked up and the driver plus me and my eldest daughter trying to get a very skittish Mable to come home. Mable has no road sense and at one moment the traffic on the village main road comes to a standstill. Mable is still running around the block when Tesco arrives to deliver to us. As Tesco man unloads our order Mable is reunited with her owner. There are lots of thumbs up all round and the good Samaritans move on. My Tesco order is squirreled away and I return to continue seeing the Fujitsu chap be systematically butchered. Its real lamb to the slaughter job. After the excitement of the Mable chase and everything else in the day I get to the end of the afternoon without much energy left.

I guess my evening is going to be lazy and filled with reading and SWAT unless I start Albertine’s Revenge, but before I can do that I need to re read some Proust. Perhaps the warmer weather will arrive and I will finally get out on the patio and light the chimenea.

Monday and I wake up after another torrid night, mainly not feeling well, in particular my gut. I had been up and down all night and taking meds in the night. When I woke up finally I was feeling strung out and tried to rest before taking my vitals. My vitals all came up normal so I check my messages and then get up. All I can face is toast and honey with a warm drink which I take onto the patio where my partner is reading. I try to relax in between fixing the sun shade and looking out over the garden.

I have been thinking about whether to enter the Poetry Societies members competition with its theme of counting, so as I look out over the garden and wonder if the few spots of rain will turn into a deluge or not I begin to think about words and shapes and colours. Eventually I start to jot in the back of my “Ins and Outs” journal. By the time I am ready to stop I have three more things scribbled down. Below are my initial drafts. I have no idea what I will do with them or whether I shall just leave them alone and move on.

400

Like my poems life is curated,
it is by filling the abacus
that I know the days
since cancer took me.
Now my life is a plethora of numbers,
singularly or in pairs they see inside.
"Is my arithmetic good" I ask
after every vial of blood,
pot of urine or dollop of poo.
My life is innumerated, recorded
so that I and others may tend me.
All my ins and outs in digital,
averaged, plotted and watched
for waning and ebbing.
Life is moonlike, changing shape
dependant on reflection, angles
and the tremulous rotations
of a system trying to maintain
it's dynamic equilibrium.
By these calculations
I gauge how many more 
mathematical days I have left
to count.

                                                                    401 15-07-2024

401
Every little effort,
the smallest movement
drains me. 
I wonder if  I am  talking
myself into weakness,
abandoning the positive mind set,
and settling from something
less than me.
Is there some deep seated
vein of self pity 
or longing to be nurtured
woven into my being.
All those years of exploration,
reflection and challenge, missing 
the mark out of trying to avoid
the uncomfortable pain
of being me.
I thought I was doing my best 
when in fact it was my unconscious
that has done a better job
and let me achieve the conscious
world I craved. 
Now it seems that when death is on the cards
neither can be hidden from 
each other. 

                                                                   401 15-07-2024

402

Chiminea made for onomatopoeia
amidst the mumbling of innumerable bees
and the furry flea filled flicking 
of squirrel tails.
This is what drizzles out of my dazed mind
when serious soul stuff is all gone. 
Sitting in my garden having cooing
competitions with pidgeons
and wondering where the wildlife
has gone.
Not the feathery, scaly kind of nature
but my own.
A head full of pixies
that would drain brandy,
eat the hottest curry and throw
themselves around on roller blades.
Those stay up all night
argument days talking
drunken shit and feeling clever,
well I never
thought it would come to this;
thinking froggerel and 
writing doggerel
in my garden sanctuary.

                                                      402 15-07-2024
                                                       Foot note; Shakespeare made up words why shouldn't I? 

Just before lunch time Amazon deliver five kilos of peanuts with the shells on. I have decided that my squirrel needs to work for his nuts and to enhance his diet with roughage as well as a lot of protein. I store the nuts a way and fill the feeders, strewing a few peanuts around to encourage the wild life to work a bit for its rewards. My partner and eldest daughter go out for lunch and get myself soup and cheesy bread as I cannot face going out today. I just want to rest being aware how fatigued I feel and that I am due at the dentist tomorrow for phase one of a new partial crown. I dine and start to draft the blog with the Post Office Enquiry going on in the background. Sir Stephen Lovegrove seems to be competent but his claim not to be aware of the postmasters convictions and the Horizon problems seems unlikely in this modern age of risk and awareness. The enquiry day comes to an end and I continue to draft the blog as my partner and eldest daughter return from lunch.

The biggest challenge this evening is going to be what to eat. At the moment food appears not to be my friend, so plain and simple is the way forward. Hopefully the evening will be simple with a diet of SWAT to watch. My watch word is to be kind to myself.

Saturday and in a fit of energy I take my partner to the garden entre with the best breakfast menu once I have filled my drugs wallets for the next two weeks. I take her in my car determined to drive and to give my car n airing as I’ve just re-taxed it. To my relief no warning lights come up and the car drives well. The restaurant at the garden centre has few people in it, which is good so we are shown to a table where we order breakfast. I go for the full gardeners breakfast and a pot of hot water. My partner and I chat until the food arrives by which time a party of at least two families arrives and is seated adjacent to us. They are going to be married in a couple of hours time apparently. At least one combination of people round e table are going to be. My Gardner’s breakfast is good but the pot of hot water is not so good and has a funny look and tasty about it. As the wedding party get noisier the more uncomfortable I get so we leave but buy a hanging basket on the way out.

It is ridiculous but this simple activity has tired me out. When I get home I hang the hanging basket out front and retreat to the recliner for a while, whilst my partner goes off shopping for fruit and veg. Apparently chocolate eclairs count as veg. There is some life admin to be done and post to be read but it all seems manageable. I watch the women’s Wimbledon final and all the emotion that goes with it. There is the natural glee and despondence of winning and losing, which is fine, what I cannot take is the desperate manufacturing of extra layers of emotional meaning and story that bloody Claire Balding tries to wring out of every moment and every opportunity. Any hint of relationship with someone dead is squeezed to get the most “televisual” human story out of it. The winner probably just wanted to go and celebrate without all the morbid shit that Balding is dragging up. With the final over there is the men’s doubles to watch in which there is a Brit in one of couples. When the Brits team finally win as an unseeded couple beating a very pissed off looking seeded pair of Australians (He He!) the Brits Finnish partner blubs and blubs and blubs. The Brit of course maintains an appropriate demeanour of joy with out hysteria, as it should be, after all it is tennis not a matter of life and death, no matter what Clare bloody Balding tries to make it.

The evening meal follows, which is where I discover that a chocolate éclair is a fruit. Some where in this early evening time I find the energy to lay a fire in the chimenea on the patio thinking that I might light it later and enjoy the full lighting and comfort of the new patio. It is a fantasy that remains just that, a fantasy. Having bought season six of SWAT my partner and I settle down to watch several episodes before my partner goes to bed adn I clear the kitchen before going to bed. I am taking my night meds when I notice on the news that some one has had a go at shooting Donald Trump, but failed. Why has it taken so long is my question, not that shooting people is a good thing ever but given America and its mass weaponry tinged with its current polarisation I am surprised no one has had a go before. So having taken my meds I go to bed.

Sunday and I have had a shit night where I resorted to taking a co-codalmol at three in the morning to get to sleep. The result is I wake up with birdcage mouth, cricket ball gut and feeling as tired as when I went to bed. Eventually I get up and make my partner and I warm drinks and we read and chat for a while until my partner gets up to make breakfast while I check my vitals. My vitals are okay. Breakfast is close to being brunch and by the time it is eaten and I am settled the garden guy turns up with his petrol mower to annoy the neighbours before he goes on holiday to Greece for a while. I’m now looking forward to the men’s Wimbledon final and of course England taking on Spain in the final of the European Football Championship. A friend has bought me a “Wreck this Journal” as a birthday present and I start work on it by tagging pages that need things stuck into them and numbering the pages as well as breaking the spine of the journal as instructed. A brutal first move for a book lover to do.

I now have two thing to turn to when inspiration is low, a reminder that nothing flows unless the tap is turned on and selection of taps to try. All very useful as I keep working away at the third collection of the Cancer Years poetry series. Having started the wrecking process I try to catch up with drafting the blog. In the background there is the arrival of princess Kate at Wimbledon and of course bloody Claire Balding instantly comments on her recent cancer treatment. Time for lunch.

Post lunch the Wimbledon finalists come on to court but my partner and I head for our favourite garden centre for plants. We arrive to an almost empty garden centre and have the run of the place. Its the end of season for bedding plants so its possible to buy entire trays for cheap as chips money. My partner and I load up a trolley and are soon heading home with a boot full of goodies. Once home the trays of plants are unloaded and the planting begins as Carlos Alcaraz wins Wimbledon. The raised beds have been moved by the garden guy this morning along with having cut the grass and make the ideal place for the new plants. There is a concerted burst of planting and watering and pretty soon the plants are all in new homes. Its beginning to look like the garden is being retrieved after the chaos and damage that having the new patio being built created. Slowly but surely the garden recovers, with a little help.

By the time all the plants are in and the tools are cleared away I am spoonless and return to the recliner. All I can do is watch the end of a Bond film and add to the draft blog. It’s two hours to go before the big match so I am hunkering down and preparing for the evening meal and then the game afterwards. I am not optimistic but hopefully I am proved wrong.

Nope I was right to be pessimistic, England lose 2-1 with a tepid display. Nothing for it but to watch an episode of SWAT followed by the BBC prom of Verdi’s Requiem, which seems most apt. I take my night meds and go to bed hoping for a better nights sleep. Onward into a new week and still fighting to find some equilibrium, some confidence in my body, and a sense of some sort of wellness or at least recovery.

Friday and I wake up having have a much better nights sleep. I check my vitals and they are okay. There are no messages or cyber litter that needs to be done so I get up and make breakfast. My morning meds are taken and I note I still feel under the weather. I am beginning to thing that this is related to the growing cocktail of drugs I am taking. In particular my gut, which seems to be particularly sensitive at the moment. I am trying to get in to proper clothes everyday and not slob about in lounge wear. My first move of the day was to finish reading Prospects by Kate Wilson and send her an email telling her how much I had enjoyed it. My second chore was to nudge the landscapers about when they are going to deliver and fix our new gates.

By the time Wimbledon starts I am fed up with myself and start to tidy my little corner of the world, putting books away and repositioning the garden camera. While I am in the garden I fill the bird feeders and put the few peanuts I have left in the squirrel feeder in the hope of seeing him/her again soon. The garden is still providing splendid flowers, mostly due to the hard work of my partner and the garden guy. I empty the water tower and discover that the middle tank is not filling, meaning that a replacement tank is needed if it is going to work at full capacity, it will however continue to work as it is for a while.

By the time I have finished my excursion in the garden I am breathless and tired. I get myself a decaf coffee and retreat to the recliner in the lounge where a couple of men are slogging it out in the Wimbledon semi finals. I root out my jotting journal and write a “thing”, possibly a poem trying to capture my frustration of how I am at the moment. The important thing for me is that I am trying to get myself creating again. Of course the aim is to create the third collection in the Cancer Years series.

400

I go back to 
"to this pen, this ink"
as my starting point.
It cuts away the blankness
of a virgin page
and a listless mind.
This discontent with self
and sense of distance 
from where the being 
wants to be.
Ill at ease with body
and struggling of mind
it is difficult to find beauty,
energy and direction. 
Bogged down in desired recovery
and feeling a disappointment
to all those trying so hard 
to love and nurture.
Here on the page 
lays the battlefield
with its cover and camouflage,
trenches and emplacements.
Having escaped from the wreckage,
a survivor swimming upwards
hoping the breath holds out
until that lung filling moment
when air washes the face
and life is affirmed
with a gasp. 
Not a last gasp 
but a babies first,
life assuring
full of the journey to come.
So up I swim
straining for the surface.
It hangs in the balance, 
I hold my breath
and hope it lasts. 

                                                                        400 12-07-2024

I scribble some other bit and pieces but it is senseless and I stop, enough is enough. My partner returns from an afternoon of pampering and talks to our youngest daughter and our grandson. A friend rings me and we chat for a short time, catching up with what is going on in our families and with ourselves. The evening arrives and I start to draft the blog while the evening meal is prepared. There is no plan for the evening, I guess I will see what comes along. What will come along are meds and bed with the hope for a good nights sleep again.

Thursday and I get up after a torrid night. Real difficulty sleeping but in the end succumbed and took a co-codamol at 2:30 in the morning. So this morning I get up make breakfast take my meds and shower with enough time to rest for a bit before I go the dental hygienist appointment. I feel like crap, tired and shaky but I’m determined to get it over and done with. I am hoping it will help get rid of the bad taste in my mouth that I think my meds are responsible for. So I start the blog and then rest for while.

My visit to the dental hygienist was mercifully short. I made it quite clear that this was not one of my good days so they got on with it. I returned home picking up a paper on the way back where I spent time doing todays crosswords. A late lunch for me before I watch two excellent semi finals at Wimbledon. I am feeling less well as the day goes on so by the time my partner returns with her friend from a day all I want to do is rest.

The evening is passed with catch up TV and a brief update of the blog, Mainly I finish reading Prospects by Kate Wilson. I take my night meds and go to bed hoping that tonight I will be able to sleep. It seems my body is taking its time recovering from my operation. Perhaps am just being impatient.

Wednesday and I wake after a reasonable nights sleep but still feel fatigued. I do my vitals and find they are reasonable, not brilliant, but reasonable. I usually listen to whatever meditation music my smart speaker wants to play me when I do my vitals, it provides a period of relaxation or reflection but this morning on a whim, and I am not sure where it came from, I ask my speaker to play me some Incredible String Band. not really thinking that it will have any. To my surprise it does and I spend quite a long time listening to the randomised tracks from some of their albums. I saw this group live with a group of community charity volunteers that redecorated old peoples houses lead by a bloke called Peter Warren, who was inevitably nicknamed Peter Rabbit, at the Festival Hall in 1968. Same year I saw Hair performed in London with the same group. Psychedelic Folk was the tag at the time and very underground at the time with Williamson and Heron being the strange couple who made up the core of the act.

After a suitable period of hippy recollection I finally get up and dress in hippy trousers and T shirt (it would have been tie dyed back in the day) but now a hand made present. I make breakfast and take my morning meds still feeling a bit delicate. I have to keep reminding myself that it is only four days since my TWOC (Trial Without Catheter) and although things are going well I need to be patient with myself. I start to draft the blog as the lunchtime Wimbledon start approaches. Of course I am focussed on tonights semi final match between England and the Netherlands. Its a a way of so I need to shake a leg and do something this afternoon that earns me the game tonight.

I go to the Shed for the first time in ages and write letters and even make it to the post office. I have earned my lazy evening in which England reach the final of the European football competition. I take my night meds and go to bed, tomorrow I face the dental hygienist.

Its Tuesday, and I’ve had a tricky night due to a bad gut. In the end I give in and take a co-codamol which allows me to sleep until my partner has gone to work. I think I am at the dentist at 10:15 so with about an hour to go I have a shower and get myself into my jeans and something outdoor appropriate. No time for breakfast but I do measure my vitals and they are good enough. Checking in at the dentist I discover that my appointment is not until 10:30 so I settle down in the waiting area and read some more of of Kate Wilson’s Prospects. I am enjoying the book, especially the wry humour being poked at rich show business America. So although I have yet to finish it I would recommend it to folk. A holiday read perhaps?

Dead in 10:30 I get called into the dentist. I have returned to my usual dentist who has been away on maternity leave having her first son. She knows me and the family well so there is some catching up to be done. When the talking is done we get down to the business of my lost filling. After some prodding and poking I am presented with the options, a quick patch up and hope or a longer term partial crowning solution. We chat about the pro’s and con’s and I go for the longer term solution, which means I get an x-ray today followed by two appointments. One to do the foundation work and the second to stick the the new crown in. I also agree to a hygienist visit to get my teeth back up to scratch after the recent dip in tooth care. That will be Thursday, giving me a rest day.

On the way home knowing I have a plan I drop into the village shop to get a paper, nibbles and some cash. having got home with my bag of swag I clear the kitchen, put the bin out for tomorrow and do todays crosswords. I do not feel like much to eat so nibble some pub mix and then have soup while watching the business end of Wimbledon unwind. Feeling more comfortable I watch the tennis until I realise that the men’s quarter finals are going to be long games. At this point the gas boiler service men arrive. I say men but one of them looks like a school boy, clearly this is the apprentice. He is asked by the older guy if he has done a boiler like ours before. Apparently he has so he is given the honour of doing ours. Neither of them want a drink so I leave them to get on with it while I return to the tennis. The slug fest continues at Wimbledon as I listen to the master and the apprentice giving my boiler the annual going over. Eventually the master pops into the lounge with my certificate of boiler worthiness and tells me all is in working order and that the “magno filter” had very little in it, which means my radiators are sludge free. I’m proud of our system for doing so well. The master and apprentice leave in the aptly number plated van and leave me to get on with drafting the blog and watching the tennis.

The tennis is taking a long time and I drift preferring instead to read. It is not until late afternoon that I realise that the first semi final of the European football championship is on tonight. Spain take on France it should be a good game. I feel like writing again although I am not quite sure what yet, I suspect poetry, inspired by a quote that a friend sent me as a personalised birthday gift. I am also aware that the Americans want me to sign up to having my books as audio books, at a price of course, but I am unsure about it. It is something to reflect upon. As it turns out Spain wins, I take my night meds and go to bed hoping for a slow Wednesday to rest in.

Monday and I wake up early after a reasonable nights sleep, but for some reason I cannot get back to sleep even though I feel tired. I get up and read more of Kate Wilson’s Prospects before making breakfast and take my meds with a coffee. My partner gets up and we spend our mornings organising, cleaning and doing washing. There are things to organise like a visit to the dentist. I have lost a filling but because I have been preoccupied with my other woes I have not got round to getting an appointment. The practice answers my call promptly and to my amazement offer me an appointment tomorrow morning! Now there is a result! I will have to give my teeth a special scrub tonight and in the morning.

My partner takes me for lunch to our favourite garden centre. Its a quiet little place and suits me. I’m already tired so my partner and I are quiet but it is good to get out for the first time since I came back from my TWOC (Trial Without Catheter). On returning home I set about clearing out the draws of the two welsh dressers that are in our dining area. They are full of old Christmas cracker games and debris that has shoved in to them along with tea towels and aprons. It takes a while because there are always those tricky “should I or shouldn’t I ” throw stuff away. Eventually I end up with a bag of stuff for the dustbin. With that done I get a call from the company that service our boiler confirming that they can come tomorrow afternoon to do the work. So I have gone from having a free to having a full day of maintenance toped off with a Tesco order. By the end of the afternoon I am almost out of energy so I change for the evening and eat tea.

The evening I am hoping for is a binge watch of the Turkish Detective and an early night now that I have a busy day tomorrow. My anxiety is that I won’t sleep but that’s a bridge to be crossed if I get there.

Sunday and I lay awake for a while, before I make warm drinks which my partner and I drink as we chat for a while before getting up for a simple breakfast. I get my meds down me and then my partner and I start to work on the garden as we still have flowers to put in and of course the two Japanese Acers that I have been given for my birthday. I focus on getting the new house number put onto the the new gate pillar as my first job. Once I had got all the tools out and organised it was fairly straight forward job. While I did that my partner finished off the arrangements of pots along the front bay window. All that remains now is for the new gates to be put up and some stump grinding to be done in early August.

With the front of the house sorted for the moment I help my partner in the back garden where she has beavered away at potting up the remaining plants. I pot up the two new Japanese Acers to go in either side of the patio steps and then set about moving all the remaining pots off the grass areas and stowed away. There are the odd brick and bit of stoneware to get put away. After a short drinks beak there are some last minute pots to move and then I am done. There are no more energy spoons in the locker so I clear away everything I’ve used and have a look around the garden and make a mental list of things that need doing.

With everything put away I have a lunch time sandwich and settle down to rest while drafting the blog to the background of Wimbledon and the British Grand Prix. The evening arrives when I am out of spoons but I hold on to watch a documentary about Pavarotti. Just brilliant, no wonder I love opera so much. I still think people who can play an instrument or sing are special people. I take my night meds and go to bed

Friday the 5th of July and its TWOC day (Trial With Out Catheter). So I am up early going through my new routines hopefully for the last time. I choose easy to remove clothes before getting a couple of rounds of toast down me. As a precaution I take a prophylactic co-codamol as I m not sure how gentle a process taking the plastic piping out is going to be. With my loins well and truly girded my partner drives me to the clinic.

On arrival we get shown into the familiar waiting room, it is here I wait to see the oncologist on the rare occasions he deigns to see me in person. My partner and I check our phones while others around us chat and I notice some have little blue lidded jugs of water form which they are drinking. The conversation around us is strange with one person asking who won the general election and another not being sure. No one seemed to know that Keir Starmer had just won a landslide Labour victory over night. I get called in after about half an hour. I am lead to a clinic room, number 17, where I am greeted by a nurse, a student nurse and a healthcare assistant, all women. I recognise the nurse as the one who taught me how to self catharise myself when I came back from my Jamaica kidney failure adventure. Without putting a too finer point on it the removal of the catheter was a perfunctory yank and mop up process after which I was sent back to the waiting room where I was given my on blue lidded jug of water to drink, slowly, and shown where my personalised urine bottle was by the toilets. I was instructed to return to the clinic room when I had used my bottle. So I returned to amusing myself in the waiting room until I experienced “a good urge” as instructed by the nurse. Inevitably such urges take their time until at last I was able to bound into the clinic room and go “Ta Da” at which point the assistant scuttled off to measure my out put while the nurse scanned my bladder to see how much I had retained. All was acceptable but the nurse insists I repeat the process. Clearly it was a two strikes before you are out process, so I return to the waiting room and take my partner to the maternity unit coffee shop for coffee and a chocolate bar. We walk back to the waiting area and find that most of the other people have gone or are on the way out. Its tricky knowing when your getting the urge post plastic piping but eventually it becomes all to clear and fairly soon I am back in clinic room 17 going “Ta Da” again. The same routine follows and this time I am declared even more satisfactory and told I am discharged. Back in the waiting room I wait for my discharge letter, which duly arrives with the relevant arithmetic and advice in it.

My partner drives me home, however I had forgotten just how much water and coffee I had drunk in a short space of time. I am not going to elaborate beyond saying that I was mightily relieved ( no pun intended but accurate) to find a disposable bottle of water in the car, which I could refill in a somewhat urgent and acrobatic fashion. Once home I was able to get my breath and relax a little. My partner then had to ferry my eldest daughter to another hospital to have a scan. While they were away I settled down to Wimbledon and then a quarter final of the European football competition. During this time various parcels and packages arrived for me which I neatly stowed for tomorrow.

The evening was seen through with fish and chips and a second quarter final which ended late due to going into extra time and ultimately a penalty shoot out, which France won and in so doing put Portugal out. By this time I was floundering for energy but watched the Last Leg Election Special before taking my night meds and heading for bed. Despite my successfully liberated state I chose the spared bed again just in case my body was not yet ready to go through a night without adequately alerting me that I needed to pay attention to my comfort. I settled down to what proved to be a fitful night but the morning arrived having been navigated successfully.

Saturday! Happy Birthday me. 76 today. I wake up bagless but I’m experiencing phantom bag syndrome, I guess it will take a couple of days for my body to get used to not having the catheter. I join my partner in our room and we have warm drinks and a bit of a chat as we usually do on a Saturday morning. Wrapping myself up in my dressing gown I have breakfast and when my partner and eldest daughter have gone shopping I attempt to tidy up a bit and organise the meds admin. I have loads of stuff to get rid of now and washing to be done. Some of the stuff gets shifted but nicest of all is responding to the happy birthday messages from friends and family. I open the cards and parcels that arrived yesterday and send my messages of thanks. The luxury of the morning is to shower and once again feel clean and refreshed before settling down in the lounge to draft the blog while Alexa plays me meditation music. When my partner and eldest daughter return they give me the new book that as been delivered. It is Prospects by Kate Wilson , on of the people with whom my partner and I spent on an Arvon writing course a couple of years ago. I am eager to get on and read it as Kate was a bright and witty person who was very acute in her observations.

I shall put here what I think once I am into the new book, but for now I am content to read, watch Wimbledon and wait for England’s match against the Swiss tonight. I feel something nudging me to write something but I am not sure what it is yet, but occasionally I get the sense that there is something brewing in the depths. The evening arrives and I suffer the torture of watching England win on penalties and then eat birthday cake and open presents. I am very fortunate and feel loved and cared about. Eventually I get to take my night meds and finish drafting the blog. I have run out of energy and I am still feeling like my gut is off by the time I go to bed but I have a new tree to plant and a garden to tend as well as a new slate house number to put up outside if the weather gets better. For now I count my blessings and hope for sleep tonight.