Thursday and I wake up determined to rest today and to get some energy back. I go through my getting up rituals, including taking my vitals. As usual my arithmetic is good. I amuse myself by watching some Mock the Week. Finally I get up and clear the kitchen before I make breakfast and think about what I am going to do for the day. I pack my mobile office back pack and head for the Shed. Its been a while since I did this and I am soon lighting the candles and setting up my laptop and new microphone.

I have decided to try and catch up with my correspondence by making video letters as my new microphone produces really good sound. I have just finished one video when my partner comes to the Shed for a chat and to see if I want lunch. So after a quick sandwich I return to the Shed to record the second video letter. My idea is to get more information into a video letter to catch up in news and ideas while I am still more sedentary than I would like. By mid afternoon I feel I have done enough and finish putting the USB sticks into envelopes ready to post. With that done I lock up the Shed and return to the house.

Its a leisurely walk over to the post office to send my video letters on their way. I pickup a paper and return home to do the crosswords. Once again I whip through the crosswords so my brain appears to be working reasonably well. There is an early evening European football match on which I choose to watch while I eat tea. The match goes into extra time and then into a penalty shoot out with the English team finally getting the result. By the time it ends my partner has finished her singing lesson and I am ready to start drafting todays blog. I am all footballed out so hand the magic stick to my partner.

During the afternoon the rest of my books are delivered along with some new pairs of reading glasses. I am still processing all the thoughts and feelings I have gathered from the experience of publishing my two slim volumes of verse. I would still like to find an English publisher rather than be reliant on the Americans but the Americans have produced the goods and I know what to expect with them. There is also something about having an editor which would improve the work a bit but I am not sure exactly what I want from them. Anyway of the next few weeks I intend to prepare another couple of collections, when that it is done I will decide whether to go back to the Americans or not.

So the evening comes to an end and I take my evening meds and resist the temptation to take any more co-codamol. Its almost the end of another week and it will soon be time for the garden scape folk to arrive and widen the drive and rebuild the patio. I am hoping that future Roland will be pleased with today Roland as I sit on the new patio in the sunshine and plan phase two and tend to the garden.

Wednesday and I wake to a house where my partner has gone to work. I do not loiter long in bed, just long enough to do my vitals and think about my day. Once up I clear the kitchen take my morning meds and head for the village café, picking up a paper on the way. I pick the sunny window seat that gives me the best view of the villages central mini roundabout. Its a constant source of drama as cars try to out muscle each other to get around it. As I chomp through my bacon and sausage baguette and slurp my hot chocolate I work my way through the days cross words. I’m on form and zip through them today. I walk home and find post. There is an over seventies driving licence renewal form to do. It tells me I can do it on line. So I set about doing it on line only to find that I cannot do it on line because the DVL cannot authenticate my passport photo and that means I have to get a new photo done. Bollocks is my response to that, but it seems I need to go and get new ID photos done.

In the meantime I fill in the form I am going to have to send and discover I need to get documents out of hiding to fill some of it in, so I am up and down stairs like brides nightdress to gather the info required. I have a long chat with my eldest daughter before my partner returns from work and readies herself to go and visit her mother for the afternoon. With all this done I drive to the photo booth in the local Sainsburys. I get there and find that my money is not sufficient, it is card only, for fuck sake I should have known, money is becoming useless. I drive home and as I get to my house I note an Amazon van parked on the drive, so after circling round the village I return to my drive. There they are in the porch, copies of my new book, the second poetry collection, which I fall upon eagerly and release them from their packets. I really like the cover, these poems are are a bit grim but an honest reflection of what being on the road was like a lot of the time.

I return to my photo mission and drive once again to the supermarket and its card only photo booth. These things are always a challenge but on my second go I get pictures that are adjudged to be acceptable to passport and driving licence agencies. I collect the the hard copy from the slot outside and then buy some mint creams to assuage my craving.

I drive home and start to get ready for the evening. I go to the loo and find I have blood in my urine. I’m just gutted. My response is to drink a load of water, take a co-codamol and get my feet up and distract myself by starting to draft the blog. I have something to eat and then settle down to watch a combo of football and Race Around the World this evening. Of course what will preoccupy me is what is going on with the blood. I am hoping that the old pattern of it clearing quite quickly takes place. So I am in feet up mode, with a lot of water at hand.

By the end of the evening there are no English teams left in European football and more importantly my urine appears to be clear. I take my night meds with a load of water and take another co-codamol just to help me through the night. I am pleased that my second book has become a reality but now I intend to take a break while I prepare some more poems into collections. It feels as if I need to reflect upon what I have learnt and what I want to do differently in the future. Tomorrow is a rest day.

Tuesday. I have slept quite well again and attribute this to the co-codamol. I quickly take my vitals and check my book shelf on the Kindle Digital publishing site. I also check the Amazon site. To my delight the paper back version of my second collection of poems is there to be bought. I order some so that can get copies in my hands as soon as tomorrow. It is that feel of a book in my hands that is so visceral and affirming of the reality of the books existence.

I have little time before I need to go out so I take my morning meds put a few things in a shoulder bag , swap the cars round on the drive and then go off to meet my friend. As I am a bit early I order a couple of bacon rolls and a pot of hot water and wait. The bacon rolls are not very good but they fill my stomach. My friend arrives and we sit and chat till the mid afternoon, taking in the odd drink and toasted sandwich as required. Its a while since I have had a chance to talk to someone outside the family, not counting the stranger at the Murder Mystery evening in a noisy room, and so it is nice to have time and space to be able to reflect and share ideas. We have a mutual love of books and have exchanged books in the past but usually it is my friend who supplies me with new authors. We share the same love of Japanese literature and have similar likes in general when it comes to books. So conversation is easy and we have a shared work history that goes back to the early nineties and several therapeutic communities. It is good to have someone who knows me well enough to ask the awkward questions about how I am dealing with my cancer and all the stuff that goes along with that. Eventually by mid afternoon I begin to run out of spoons and need to go home, we say goodbye and go our separate ways.

Once home I sort my bag out and start to write the blog when the garden guy turns up. He is starting to move plants from the front garden where the drive is going to be widened and put them in their new locations according to the plan I drew up. It’s a shame that the work is being done at this time of year as it means moving pants at a bad time for them, but it cannot be helped. I am hoping that we won’t lose too many. After our chat I find I have missed a call from a friend who I have not had a chance to talk with for a while and by the time I know she will have picked her daughter up. And so I slide into the evening with no appetite for an evening meal, I shall read and perhaps watch TV this evening and snack before bed. As it turns out I end up watching Top Gun, geriatric, the last Tom Cruise pilot film. I take my evening meds and return to the blog. Tomorrow, if I am lucky, I will get to see my new poetry collection, that’s worth getting up for. It feels like I am learning about how to put things together so I am hoping that the coming book is better than the last one in terms of feel and presentation. I will take a break before I put more of me out there and spend more time constructing any future collections, except perhaps the next in the Cancer Years series.

Monday and it is a fresh week and I wake determined to make a fresh effort. So there is a quick check of my vitals and I am out of bed having breakfast with my partner. My partner goes off to do her thing and I set about recycling a load of stuff that has been jettisoned from a cupboard clear out. With that done and morning meds taken I drive off to my local Halfords to buy new windscreen wipers for the car. On a whim I ask if some one could fit them for me. Yes they have some one who can do that adn I am quizzed as to whether I am a Halfords Motor club member. I instinctively answer yes and give the guy my email address. It turns out I am a member and have a five pound off voucher to come of the cost of my purchase and a free 10 point vehicle check owing to me. I tell the guy I’ll have the lot and go and pull my car under their awning just as it throws it down with hail! The poor bastard who had to do the fixing and the checks was not amused. My car passed all its checks and got its washer bottle topped up for free. I drove off with my new wipers working a treat and Reginald my new blue lizard air freshener clinging to the windscreen.

Once home I retrieved the garden camera and started the lengthy and laborious job of going through the the captures one by one to see what has been found. Its dull most of the time as it tends to go, pigeon, pidgeons, black bird, pidgeons, more pidgeons, squirrel, cat, pidgeon, pidgeon, cat, squirrel. What I am hoping for is a glimpse of hedgehog as just before hibernation time I buried a dead one in the back garden and not seen one since. I fear there may not be hedgehogs in our garden any more. Suddenly there it is, hedgehog, looking bright and perky and strolling around. I am so pleased to have a hedgehog back in the garden. The hedgehog appears on a couple of nights as does a small fox but not together.

Before I can finish my perusal of the captures Tesco arrives and its a well organised running of the trays and unloading in the kitchen that takes place. Just as I am putting away the last of the weeks goodie my partner returns. The last of the order is squirreled away and I return to viewing the garden camera captures. So feeling pleased my partner and I go and indulge in a snack and a drive down the road from us. We chat about odd things but agree that we need to shift our Tesco order to Tuesdays as it fits in with our routine better. Once returned home I start to draft the blog.

The early evening skies clear and although still windy the day brightens up. I am suddenly tired and return to reading my Italo Calvino books. We eat tea and ring my eldest daughter for a chat. I had not long finished chatting when the Americans ring up and ask for the code to get into the Amazon publishing account. On checking my phone I find the code there and pass it one. I settle back to watching Traces on i-player until I get an email saying my latest collection, The Travelling Years has been put up on the Amazon platform, of course I immediately go into Amazon and see if it there and sure enough the Kindle version is available and that the paper back is in review, which means it will become available over the next couple of days. Apparently it will appear on my IngramSpark account soon as well, which is an American platform. I am really chuffed and once again cannot wait till I get physical book in my hands.

The end of the evening comes around and I take my evening chemo meds, update the draft blog and get myself to bed as tomorrow I am meeting a friend for coffee, or in my case hot water and a bacon roll.

Sunday and I am roused by my partner eager to get on with the day as my eldest daughter has a scan today. I am brought toast and hot water. In an effort to contribute I book a Tesco slot and fill a basket of goodies for deliver tomorrow, with that done I take my vitals, which are all good. I seemed to have slept well last night but I had taken a co-codamol, which may account for it. I am tempted to consider taking one each night but that is how an addiction gets started I guess. Once up, there is a plan to make, in the end it is decided that I shall chauffer my daughter to the hospital for her MRI scan and my partner will food shop. The cars are moved to facilitate this. So starts my day.

I thought I would share the poem that I took to the poetry Stanza yesterday. There were some pretty bleak contributions yesterday so of the two poems I took I chose this one to present to lighten the mood. It seemed to do it.

376
I’ve got a bladder stone,
Two point two 
By one point two centimetres.
I’ve seen it on the scans,
You could spot it from space
My first thought:
“That’s fucking huge!”
followed quickly by 
“that’s going to hurt”.
The doctor chap explains;
“we can smash it up”,
And once again I think:
“that’s going to hurt, a lot”.
Back at home I am 
wondering just how long 
is the waiting list
for the demolition.
I decide to make friends
but chums need names
so I caste around for something benign.
There are several candidates,
Watts after the rolling stone,
Sisyphus plagued by his ball,
Wayne after The Rock Johnson.
None feel right.
Perhaps Eric after the girls pet pebble
in “What we did on our Holiday”
Finally I have it.
Uluru, 
After all it is a rock down under.
It made me smile,
and pals are supposed to do that.	

								376 04-04-2024
 

I plot the course to the the local hospital where the MRI is to be done and note that I am now happy that the car has pulled itself together after its run into town yesterday. With that done I can take a break and start the days blog. Yesterdays, like so many, was written about midnight when I have very few, if any , spoons left to do such things. The result is a tired and short, and probably uninformative, contribution, which highlights the mundanity of the daily life with cancer and the vicissitudes of dyslexia. I am still processing yesterdays experience of having someone asking me to sign a copy of my book. It was the fact that someone out side of family and friends had bought a copy, it is just hard to register, especially as it is poetry. Then being asked by someone else, who I would call “a real poet”, asked to buy a copy. It is strange to think of my slim little book sitting in someone else’s home, on a shelf somewhere amongst other books. Although I always wanted to publish my poetry for friends and family to share parts of me that they do not get to see I never really thought about other people reading them and seeing those parts as well, and I have to say its odd.

At the appointed time I drive my eldest daughter to our local community hospital for her MRI scan. It is only fifteen minutes away and the MRI portacabin is easy to spot as soon as we drive into the car park. My eldest gets up the steps with her crutches and I retreat to the car to wait for her. It is not a long wait before she reappears having had her scan. As she is hungry we call into a garden centre on the way home to grab a snack.

Once home I begin to watch a rugby match and also realise that the hot chocolate I had might have been a mistake. I’ve noticed of late that milk or milky drinks seem not to be acceptable to my gut. Whether or not this is related to my meds I do not know but it seems to have developed over the last few months. I indulge in a lot of rugby as I recline and wait for my stomach to settle. By the evening I am feeling better, certainly better enough to eat tea. About that time a friend tells me that an old colleague from the therapeutic community days has died after a long illness. His wife was one of the original staff team that I opened the community with. To my shame I misremembered her name. I got the beginning letter right, “J” but again that is the curse of my dyslexia. It is increasingly difficult to lose old colleagues, I’m not sure why, it just is.

My evening sees me indulge in a new series of Midsomer Murders followed by the Olivier Theatre awards and the final bits of the blog. I take my evening meds and go to bed hoping for a peaceful night. The coming week is the one the Americans have promised to deliver my second book of poetry. I am quietly excited but know that these things often take longer than promised.

Saturday and it is potentially a busy day and it turned out to be so. After a toast breakfast and my morning meds I go back to getting my car sorted out. I hook the battery up to charge it for a couple of hours while I sort out what I am going to take to the poetry stanza. Before I can drive into town I take the car to the local garage to check the tyres. My warning lights on my dashboard are still on by the time I park up back home. When I leave for the journey into town the warning lights have magically disappeared. So all is good with the car at last.

At the poetry stanza, at which there are only seven of us, I am taken aback when one of the group produces a copy of the Cancer Years: So Far and asked if I would sign it for her because she had never known anyone before who had published a book. It was such an out of the blue experience I was not sure what to do for a moment and then of course I signed it. The meeting went well and again I was surprised when another of the group asked if I had a copy of the book I could sell her. As it happened I did, so we did business. I drove home in profit and having had a good reception for my poem this month.

Its a fish and chip Saturday so its a walk over to the chippy and then an evening of Rom Com film. It was one with Emma Thomson in it which elevated it. Football highlights and night meds later I have time to draft a brief blog before taking myself of to bed. It feels like this has been the first “normal” day I have had for along time, I hope I do not pay for it tomorrow.

Friday and I wake up with a to do list in my head. My partner has gone out to work so I spend a bit of time doing my vitals and watching a bit of Lee Evans, what ever happened to him? Once up its breakfast and a quick visit to Amazon to replace the hair brush that mysteriously disappeared at the weekend when I was away ay the Murder Mystery. Being a creature of habit I bought the same one I bought in March 21, that’s one of the hidden delights of using Amazon as a main supplier of “stuff”, you always know how long you have been able to keep it before it disappears. No doubt the old one will turn up now. I message a couple of friends and then I set about one of the major tasks, the checking of my tyres.

It turned out I have a problem. My car stuttered to start up achieving it on a second go, and then on comes the same warning lights as I had before. I drive around the block but the warning lights remain. Back on the drive I pop the hood and check my battery with my new battery tester and find it is down to 48% which is low enough to trigger the warning signs. So I hook up my battery charger and have to wait to see if this works as it did before. In the meantime I have a past lunch prepared by my eldest daughter and then I begin to select which poem I am going to take to the Poetry Stanza tomorrow.

On looking at my recent writings I find most of them are some what down beat after the last couple of weeks difficulties but I eventually settle on two. It is my habit to take two to the Stanza meeting so I can offer something depending on my nerve. I run off the ten copies of each that will be required and squirrel them away in a folder. My eldest daughter has made me lunch so I am able to sit and take a time out before putting my washing in. My afternoon is spent writing and making letters to send to friends. I quick trip to the post office rounds my afternoon off before my partner returns from work. Todays crosswords are done and I drift into a sunny evening. All that is left for me to do this evening is to unhook my battery charger from the car and sort out my washing. Thankfully the evenings are lighter so I can give my car battery as long as possible on charge. I shall need it for tomorrow’s trip to the Stanza.

There is some regular TV Friday night stuff I watch so for me the evening slides along till its time to do my evening meds and try to get a nights sleep. The last couple of days have been relatively good so I am hoping my luck holds for the weekend. The forecasted weather for the weekend is rain free so I’m hoping I might get into the garden and do some tidying up before the grounds folk turn up in a few days time.

Thursday and I wake late after yesterdays long day but exciting day. My partner brings me hot water and I go through my morning rituals before getting up for breakfast. I still have last nights opera in my head. In particular Carmen’s card aria as it is known in which she sees her own death, I thought it was one of the most powerful parts of the while opera, despite other parts being being more popular. Then another extraordinary days starts. I check my Podcast supplier (Podbean) and discover an old colleague and friend, to whom I still write, is on the latest podcast. Of course I watch it with interest and I am surprised when I get a mention. What was really lovely was to see my friend looking well but most of all being her usual thoughtful and insightful self. It is good to see and hear someone still holding the same basic values about how people should be offered the chance to change in an environment where there is an acknowledgement that we are no better or worse than each other. It was a special start to my out of bed day.

I had not long finished watching the Podcast when I received another out of the blue surprise. A large envelop arrived in the post addressed to me in a hand I did not recognise. When I opened it up I found not only a letter from a friend and old flat mate from late teens, early twenties, but some sketches of me that he had done while sharing a flat. I had shared a flat with two friends who were architecture students while I was a lab assistant at the local Polytechnic. This friend and I spent New Year in Paris together in the late sixties, I think it was the first time I flew. I was never aware that he ever sketched me. He was going through old portfolios and thought I might like them. Indeed I do, and here I am.

The idea that something like this has survived all these years is just lovely. All this time something of me has been in the world with out me knowing and it brought back so many memories of youthful living in a small upstairs flat above the landlords son and wife who would on occasions have seismic rows and throw dishes of food at at each other and up the walls. I guess they were just working out their cultural differences, he was Pakistani and she was Irish, clearly a potent mixture in this instance, but I cant help thinking that this contributed to our low rent at the time.

I clear the kitchen and make lunch before starting to draft the blog. It is time I caught up with my correspondence having been prompted by this mornings events. I end up writing a couple of poems, not good ones, and then fall asleep with a head ache. I wake up in time for tea and an evening of football disappointment and then night meds and bed, I have become spoonless in no time at all.

Wednesday arrives and at 7:30 I sneeze myself awake. So awake I stay and carry out my getting up rituals, including my vitals, which once again are all good. I lay around injecting fun into the morning by watching a compilation of Milton Jones on Mock the Week, where does this man get his wit and ideas from? Finally I get out of bed and get breakfast. I review the required ingredients for tonight’s beef crockpot one pot stew and to my chagrin I find that there is no red wine in the house. A load of other booze, left over from Christmases and birthdays much of it now vintage given that I’ve not drunk for over five years now lingers in the booze hide away, so faced with this lack of ingredient there is nothing for it but a walk down to the village shop. It is only about ten thirty as I present the check out guy with a paper, two bottles of cheap French red wine and a bag of jelly babies. I could almost hear him saying “poor old bastard” as he watched me load my haul into my BIGSPD (British and Irish Group for the Study of Personality Disorder) conference freebie bag. Seems like an age since I did anything so intellectual as attend a conference.

On arrival at home I find a parcel for me, It is, at last my 15 copies of the Cancer Years from the publishers. I eagerly look at them and note that these copies have my name, in full, printed down the thin spine of the cover. I am chuffed. I leaf through one and note that one poem in the book is not in the contents page. I also notice that two of the poems have the final digit of their number in superscript. How did I not notice that? I will tell you how, because I’m dyslexic, that’s how. I check the editions that came from Amazon , which do not have my name on the spine and sure enough the same omissions are there. so there are now two versions of my book. I’ve no idea if in years to come one will become valuable, probably not.

Book fun over I set about making the beef stew for tonight. I’m quite well kitchen trained so I soon have the meat in a bag with seasoned flour ready to seal and piles of chopped vegetables. I also hunt through the fridge for the dishes of spare stuff that seem to appear from time to time. It all goes into the crockpot followed by the sealed meat. Then comes my secret sauce most of which is red wine of course. By eleven thirty it is all nestled in the slow cooker set for six hours of slow coaxing of its flavours. The kitchen is cleared and I settle down to check I have the ticket for tonight’s trip to the Opera. I discover that I have printed out on A4 the tickets that clearly say ” Show this on your phone” , so that will be fun. I also find that I have failed to book parking. I get onto the website and book a space and down load onto my phone the ticket. Can I find the bloody thing in my phone, no I cannot. I hunt around for ages in all sorts of files and apps I did not know I had and get asked to chose options I do not understand. Eventually I manage to make them images that are in my galley app, that will have to do, but I have a sense that there are more “techno savvy” ways of doing this”. Exhausted by my efforts I have a sandwich and start to draft the blog for today with some opera playing in the background. I may not get a chance later as Carmen does not finish till gone 10 o’clock tonight. It is the Ukrainian Opera company and full orchestra that are performing tonight so I guess the place will be packed. I’m tempted to wear my “Puck Futin” ice hockey hoodie.

It is a wet and miserable day that my partner has gone out in to see her mother. I am working up the energy to shower and to decide what I am going to wear, when the carry cases I ordered for the banjo and guitar arrive, so after getting through the forest of packaging I slip them into their new protection and return them to their stands. It feels comfortable to have them snuggled safely in this inclement weather. Now I can get on with the day.

Showered and clean, my partner returned there is a brief wait for the beef stew to come to its best. I relatively rapid devouring of the food and we are off to the opera, me with my new Loops in my pocket in case the bar noise is too much.

A last entry for the day. The opera was brilliant and I feel uplifted. Night meds and bed with a warm glow for me tonight and I did not need to use my Loops. This has been a good day.

Tuesday and I wake with my partner left for work. I do my rituals including my vitals, all good there. I get up and dress then fix a quick breakfast. Having cleared the kitchen I turn my attention to the long neglected guitars and banjo sitting patiently in the library/music room which is now actually my eldest daughters study as she ploughs her way to a doctorate. I tune the my instruments up and then spend a lot of time playing them and finding out what I can still and what I can no long manage. As my hands stiffen with age and lack of practice I am surprised to find that the Stratocaster is the easiest to play because the action is low on it and has a narrow neck which is easier to barre across. I polish the instruments and order new covers for two of them as they are getting tarnished as they are at the moment. By the end of the morning I am out of finger skin so return them to their home in the library. At some point I need to plug the Strat into the Peavey amp and indulge in some nosy practice.

I make lunch and then Amazon deliver my new Loops. They are a form of ear plug that that attenuate the background sounds so that conversation in noise areas is easier. After my experience at the weekend when I got overwhelmed by the crowd noise at the Murder Mystery evening I thought I would give Loops a try. My choice is to ft the smallest ear piece as my right ear canal is very slim and it turns out a good choice. I will get the chance to test them out at the Opera tomorrow night. The hope is that I will cope with the pre bar crowd better than I did on Saturday.

Well the time for indulgence is over. Oh! Before I forget it is National Unicorn Day, something that has appalled at least one friend. I get the kitchen done and cleared the recycling before getting the bins our for tomorrows collection and notice as I am doing it that my front garden is a swath of forget-me-nots. A blue sea of small blue face like flowers covers most of the beds as the bulbs push into the sky. All of this is self sown, clearly nature knows what it is doing.

The afternoon passes as I try to ensure my poetry numbering is up to date. For some time I try to find the words to acknowledge the poems I have written in the past which have gone for ever but do not succeed, instead I fill the squirrel feeder with the newly arrived peanut supply. I always find a period of concentrated “puttering” always helps. The evening arrives with the return of my partner from work. I am hoping for reading and football time this evening but I’m not sure it will turn out like that.

In the end I get to see football but also a film with opera singing at its heart. It has warmed me up for tomorrows visit to the opera. I take my night chemo meds and retreat to bed or read briefly and then endeavour to settle into a nights sleep.