Sunday, Christmas Eve and I can’t be arsed to weight myself. I’ve not trained for ages and there is little point in weighing myself. I wake to find I have a Christmas Eve present, as has my partner. After a coffee my partner and I don our presents and pose for a picture with our youngest elf grandson. Its one I shall treasure.

After a brief breakfast, I shower and get ready to go to the family four generation afternoon. Unfortunately one of my nieces has to work, one niece is ill and one nephew is down with COVID, the rest of us spend time chatting, sipping coffee and trying to get i-player onto a smart TV from an i-phone. We failed but it replaced a round of Perudo or other Christmas games.

We stay and chat and then we drive home to more coffee and chocolate biscuits before tea. Everyone is tired, it feels like a busy day and I am already spoonless, The efforts of yesterday have caught up with me and so as tea cooks I draft the blog and ready myself for the evening. Its blowing hard outside and as a family we hunker down. I do not know how we will spend this evening but it will end with me taking my meds and hoping that I sleep well and wake up with many Christmas spoons,. Of course I hope Santa is kind and that we have a peaceful day and the joy of presents and celebration. For me I am just pleased to be here and to be able to be with my family and to be able to wish all my friends and loved ones a Merry Christmas.

Saturday and I wake to a plan. There is coffee and meds and then a burst of clearing and organising before my youngest daughter and her partner and new son arrive. My partner and eldest daughter go off to collect the turkey while I continue to put things away and make space. The visitors arrive as I am preping the draft blog. Its not long before everyone is back and sitting around the table having scones and drinks. My new grandson is introduced to the wonders of a high chair and looks like he enjoys being on the same level as us adults.

Having had our snacks I note that the weather is good, in fact it is good Shed repairing weather so my youngest daughter’s partner and I set about patching and repairing the torn roofing felt. We beaver away and I find myself scrabbling about on the Shed roof. I notice that the neighbours have got chickens again, I guess that means we will also have rats and mice again. Perhaps that’s why the fox comes by occasionally. We spend a couple of hours working away and finally get the job done. Its a real relief to have it out of the way, I could not have done it with help so I am very grateful.

After packing the tools away there is cheese rolls and hot water to have while I rest from the effort. I take the opportunity to update the draft blog while I rest and watch a rugby match on TV. My family are out on a walk, I have no spoons for that.

I drift into the early evening and get introduced to Disney+, which is exciting as I find al the old Star Wars stuff along with the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise. There is loads more to delve into and discover. So many Iron Man films. The family dine quite late, my eldest daughter having gone out to a concert with a friend. I am spoonless quite early in the evening and return to the sofa to draft more of he blog, its a family quite time as my grandson sleeps quietly in his travel cot monitored by a camera and sound system.

Tomorrow is a big day as the family is visiting my partners 95 year old mother with the usual Santa run goodies. Once again there will be four generations together, this time celebrating Christmas. So I shall no doubt watch either a film or some television and then head for bed after taking my night meds. I have noticed that there is a parcel for me on the bed which am to open tomorrow morning, my partner also has one. This I think is my eldest daughter playing, I dread to think what she has been up to. I guess the world is wrapped up in is Christmas arrangements now as everyone heads towards the day itself. I’m looking forward to Christmas day, it will be the first Christmas day in decades that I have spent the actual day in my own home with my family.

Friday. I am tired so I will keep today brief. I manged to get a dentist appointment to to have my lost filling replaced today. Big win. Managed to finish the last of the Christmas shopping, another win. Finished Christmas wrapping, definite win. Received present and cards in post, excellent win. Unpacked and erected the high chair for our visiting grandson, emphatic win. Watched football match and all of Vigil. Took my night meds and paracetamol to shift my headache that has been with me all day. Not a win. Went to bed hoping to wake headache less in the morning.

Wednesday I wake to another day when I have to get up to be bright and shiny for a visiting artisan. I get up and dress, eat toast and down my morning meds. I amuse myself while waiting for the artisan to turn up by going through the bumper edition of the Radio Times marking what I want to watch with a Sharpie. I note that I am not the first person to have done this and make my choices diplomatically knowing that i-player will rescue me. Of course there are favourites like the Royal Institutes Christmas lectures for children, which this year are about AI. There is always one of my all time favourite films on and this year does not disappoint as I find that In the Heat of the Night is being screen, as is Casablanca and The African Queen. I do not finish this activity before the artisan arrives. I welcome him in and make him proper coffee. I like him straight away as he takes his coffee as I do, black and no additions.

We get started on the conversation of what we want done. As we chat my partner joins us and we gradually expand our ideas and explore more possibilities. Our drive is too narrow and bump and in our discussions our artisan suggest a rather neat solution. A single metre shaved off the edge of the front garden would enable a stately gateway and sweep to the house. We are happy that any of the tree and shrub clearing work would be done in co-operation with the team that do our trees, it seems a too good to miss opportunity. Once we have talked through our wish list I take him into the garden to look at the current patio and other features that we wish to remodel. He gets it all and ask questions about our neighbours and the possible use of their garage to anchor one feature to. I promise to talk to them and see if they are content with this. I leave him alone for twenty minutes to measure up and make sketches. He mutters to himself as he calculates square meterage. Finally with his numbers and drawings he comes back inside for some final clarifications and questions. Of course I ask for a ball park figure, he looks at me, mutters to himself again as he adds up more square meterage and calculates days, looks up and gives us prices for the individual bits of the scheme. I think this is known as trying to “soften the blow”, but I’m good at in the head sums too and and bounce back a ball park total. He comes back with a “within the range of, depending on” response. My partner and I look at each other, and I swear we both had the same though namely ” thought it would be more”, but neither of us smiles, I just say “that’s doable”. He says these are big jobs so the two major ones are likely to take two weeks each so providing we go ahead April will be the month of the build. He leaves saying that he will go away and work on the quote and some sketches, which we will get after Christmas.

After his going my partner and I have the “I thought it would be more” conversation and then go into “we will wait and see” mode. Lunch follows, during which we draw up the Christmas meal timetable and sort out what else needs to be brought. Once I had sent it to my youngest daughter pinned it to the fridge I was ready for the afternoon. In an characteristic flash of sociability I go round to the neighbours to ask about bolting things to their garage wall. I get invited in and discover a very Christmassy household and jigsaws. As we chat I discover that jigsaws, watercolours and guitar playing are things that golfers do when their golf course is closed due to inclement weather. I spend quite a while chatting and explain the work we are planning. To my relief they have no problem with the proposed gateway as it enhances security of their property as well, so everyone is a winner in this.

I return home to a querulous partner who wondered where I was. After sharing my conversation I emailed the artisan with the news about pining stuff to the garage wall. adn then settled down to rest. It had cost me a lot of spoons, al this social stuff. Tired and wishing to rest I sit on my end of the sofa and watch the conclusion of a snooker match in Germany. It was surreal, no commentary, no crowd, not much of anything, it was like being at the event as the only person in the auditorium. It is amazing just how shit some professional snooker players are. I’m so used to watching the worlds best that I have clearly forgotten that there is a reason why they are the best and they get win things. They can pot the balls, build big breaks and play excellent safety shots. The pair I watch missed their pots, scored lowly and had no idea about safety. In fact one of them bounced the cue ball and a red off the table, I’ve not seen that since being in a youth club! My word they were shit and the game was tedious. Eventually one of them won the frame and the match to absolute silence. No one spoke to each other, they packed their cues away in silence and then just pissed off. A really bizarre experience.

My evening was a combination of food, football and TV until it came to the late film of the evening, the last of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. As ever my timing is out as the film ends late and there is still the kitchen to clear and Daisy dishwasher to set to work. It gets done, I take my night meds and go to bed.

Thursday and I am slow to rise this morning after my late night and feel that today is a low spoon day. My partner brings me a coffee and do my usual check on messages and other cyber litter. Up and dress I wander into the kitchen to fix breakfast and I am confronted by the ton felt on the Shed. It is literally bowing a gale and it has ripped one length of felting off my beloved Shed. There is no question of me getting out there and doing repairs in these weather conditions, I just have to wait it out, it turns out windy and damp all day.

My day is listless, I am not sure what I want to do or whether I feel like doing anything and as I result I drift. I do the odd chore, open a couple of Christmas cards and read the Radio Times. By the time I’ve had lunch I am no better so I take my vitals and have a nap with Alexa playing me mediation sounds, rather nice, but I feel I should be a ball of pre Christmas activity. My response is to do a secondary wave of Christmas internet shopping, small, hopefully fun things and one thing I hope no body has bought me for myself. I start to draft the blog, wondering why I am still doing this but I know the reason why, I just have moments of self doubt occasionally. As I catch up on he drafting a friend rings, a very pleasant surprise as we have not spoken in a while. We of course talk about family preparations for Christmas and how things are going generally. The conversation is punctuated by my friend popping into the post office and then a shop to get a Christmas cake, so our conversation comes in a trilogy. I like that, it feels like I am out and about by proxy, I know full well that over next seventy four hours I am going to out and about myself shopping and visiting so its nice to join in with someone else doing it. We conclude our conversation and I return to writing the blog. I have a headache and resort to paracetamol before my evening begins. I’ve heard nothing from the book team to date and they are closing for Christmas tonight until the new year so I guess I need to be patient till 2024 before finishing the process and hopefully seeing my modest poetry collection published on Amazon.

The evening is upon me, there is festive TV and back series on i-player to watch. Christmas Roland will thank today Roland if he gets his arse in bed early tonight, which I think has to be the aim for today. As I go to bed I find my temporary tooth filling has come out, so tomorrow I need to try to get an emergency appointment with my dentist, I am not optimistic. It appears there is to be no let up in the seasonal aggravation and perturbations.

Tuesday and I wake into practical day, which means I need to get up have breakfast and take my morning meds before the plumber arrives. I manage all this before the plumber turns up and starts to work out the house water system. Eventually we get all the appropriate water sources turned off and he sets to work taking out the old shower and putting in the new one. One cup of tea and an hour later the new shower is in and working. I pay the plumber in crisp notes and wish him a merry Christmas.

My morning continues with the sorting out of my tax papers during which friends ring to say they are going to drop by. My papers come together around lunchtime just as my friends arrive to drop off a presents. We sit and chat for a while and bring them up to date with what has been going on for us. They are not able to stay long and soon head off. I get in to the garden and fill the squirrel and bird feeders before draining the water butt again. I am not feeling particularly good today and settle down to rest. The evening rolls around as does an early football match. I’ve already moved the car so Tesco, who are running late, can deliver and put the recycling out. Eventually Tesco deliver and Christmas goodies get put away before I have time to draft the blog.

By the end of the evening and I have taken my night meds I have a sense that my cancer is beginning to affect me more. I’m feeling tired and my gut is off. I think there is traces of blood in my urine. Its difficult to know for sure and of course it raises my anxiety. So I finish the draft blog and take myself to bed hopping that sleep will help.

Monday and although I woke early I managed to contrive to not get up early. I’m not sure quite how it happened, there was no great amount of cyber litter or messages so I guess cognitively pottered for a while. When I did get up I made myself boiled eggs and toast. I’ve come to the conclusion that soft boiled eggs are beyond my culinary skills, they are never quite right and I end up feeling dissatisfied with my efforts. It’s disappointing really as I have such god fantasies about how much I like boiled eggs adn soldiers. I take my meds and set about life admin.

My intention was to complete my tax return for the last tax year but realised that the accounts book I thought I had has in fact been used for the previous tax year. So I order a new ledger and set about ordering my papers in my over stuffed in tray. By lunchtime and the departure of my partner to see her mother I am all admined out. Just as I am about to spring into action I get a phone call from New York, it is a guy who is welcoming me to the Amazon Writers Clique. He tells me he has my manuscript and that someone will call me later to talk about things and that he will appoint a project lead who will contact me. He confirms the tittle of the collection as The Cancer Years and also asks if I am on WhatsApp, I confirm I am and we say goodbye. I then wrestle the Christmas storage boxes back into the loft and end up feeling quiet knackered.

I settle down to have a quiet moment and to watch a bit of snooker. No one cares about the German masters, no commentators and no crowd. The match I watch has a world ranked player in it but the standard of play is appalling as if no one can be bothered. My partners friend arrives and I make her tea and chat until my partner returns. My partner and her friend go out for a meal and I scuttle down to the local co-op to get some cash from the ATM. I need this to pay the plumber tomorrow when he rocks up to install the new shower. When I finally return to my laptop I find I have a a new WhatsApp message from the publishing folk. I am pretty sure this is a chat bot, but it tells me its sending me three questionnaires about my project. I get the questionnaires and set about completing them. It takes most of my evening. There are always things people think you know when you don’t, like what different fonts look like and what size books are. I had to measure a book to pick my size. So this took up my evening. Eventually I get the forms completed and send them back. I WhatsApp the bot (Ted Baker, got to be a chat bot) and tell it/him that I’ve emailed the the forms. To my surprise he acknowledges that they have arrived and tells me he is going to send me a couple of style examples to choose from in the next few days. By the time my partner and friend return I am all project admined out.

My final chore of the day is to complete the changes to the Tesco order adding in Christmas goodies and then drafting the blog. I down my night meds and go through my me pre bed rituals before finally climbing into bed, very tired and very curious to how my book project adventure is going to turn out. I will either be pleasantly surprised or deflated but unless I try it I will never know. If it turns out okay I will have found a vehicle for my vanity. Lets face it the members of my poetry stanza are the real poets and writers, I am just taking a short cut to my ego, but it would be nice to have a couple of small collections of my poems to leave behind me. I take inspiration from Billy Connelly who no one had heard of in England when he started out. His first move as to book a Croydon Hall, a big venue and take the risk of it turning out okay. He went down a storm a never looked back.

Saturday. I wake up eat toast and meds. I spend my morning erecting the new Christmas tree and get the Christmas boxes out of the loft. I then wrestle with the tree lights for a long time until they festoon the tree. I am on a tight timetable and dive into the bath in readiness to go to the poetry Stanza.

I am sitting on the sofa and I realise I do not have the spoons to drive into town and attend the poetry Stanza. I just cannot face it. I put the poems I had printed out ready for the meeting back in the file and I changed out of my poetry clothes. After a while of sitting staring at the tree I get myself together and start to hanging things on the tree. That’s what I do for the afternoon, resting at odd times. Eventually I get to the end of the process and stop.

Everyone in the household is tired today, my partner has a cold so in the evening we order in and Indian meal and settle down to watch the Strictly final. The great British public predictably do not vote for the best dancer but the one they think has tried hardest. True underdog favouritism. There follows some late evening kitchen clearing and meds taking before I go to bed. I’m edging towards Christmas but I am disappointed in myself for not getting to the poetry Stanza meeting but I have to accept that there will be days like this.

Sunday, my partner and I drink coffee in bed and plan the run into Christmas. With that done we eat toast and take family present to my partners brother. Its a quick Santa drop before we go to the local garden centre to get pies and veg. On returning home I find the garden guy has turned up for the last time before Christmas. He is fed coffee and we chat for a while and then he gets on with the final pruning and clearing for the year. I set about putting arrangements in place to publish my “The Cancer Years” poetry selection. I’m using the Amazon Writers Cliché service. So I’ve bought my publishing package and sent my zip file of content off. I now wait for the call about cover design and other admin bits to be sorted. After this I am wall to wall rugby matches until the evening. My evening passes quietly until I draft the blog for the last couple of days. I appear to be low in energy at the moment so as I down my night meds I hope for a good night sleep and to wake up with a renewed reserve of spoons.

Friday and another end of the week. I deal with my messages and cyber litter before a bit of on line banking. Life admin done I get up, get dressed, have my meds and go for breakfast at the local café. I have picked up a paper so I can do the crosswords while I tuck into my food. I have not brought my glasses so stare myopically at the clues and make my best guesses. As a result it takes me longer to work through my usual dyslexic attempts but I get there in the end only being tripped over by the name of a double breasted overcoat, which it turns out is called an Ulster. I collect cash from the Co-op ATM and then wander to the post office to get wrapping paper, and mail boxes to complete my Christmas sending.

Once home I rummage through my hide away place for the things I need to send and armed with my newly acquired wrapping equipment hide away and elf like wrap. Soon I have a rattling post box to send. It is heavily taped up with gaffer tape and hopefully impregnable by prying hands or inquisitive rodents. I am soon back to the Post Office and sending the parcel on its way. That’s it for now, all I need to do is my in house wrapping and the decorations. So my afternoon is a wrestle with the new artificial tree and the annual trip to the loft to retrieve Red Sonia ( our beloved tree topper), God in a box, ( our nativity set from Barcelona) and three, possible four generations of baubles, gewgaws and droplets. There is of course the annual wrestle with the tree lights to be had, where I generally disappear into a blue cloud, muttering FFS frequently and occasional y getting a belt of electricity for my pains. In fairness I should not stick my fingers in the bulb sockets to see if their is current but it seems to work. I draft the blog before I start just in case.

The tree is up, but I run out of spoons. The evening is all about eating, watching TV and taking my meds before going to bed. Tomorrow is poetry stanza day and Strictly final day. There is a tree to dress and other odds and ends to do. I am hoping for many spoons.

Wednesday and a big day in my household as our injured house guest is due to go to hospital to have her plaster removed and then, accompanied by her son, on to a hotel before flying home to Greece on Saturday. However before any of that can happen I have to get up, have breakfast and morning meds. My injection site is still sore and I am not at my best but as I have a plumber coming at 9:30 to look at our knackered downstairs shower. On the dot the plumber turns up and I lead him through to the offending shower. He looks at it and tells me that basically its as cheap to replace the whole unit rather than bugger about putting in a new thermal regulating bar. We chat option and ratings for potential new fittings and then he goes. I immediately do my research and order a new fitment to arrive tomorrow. God bless Amazon. I’ve gone for one of those rain showers that also has a hand shower with it, very modern and in stainless steel. Very posh, so it will look good, whether it works or not is a different matter, we shall see.

My eldest daughter adn one of my nieces go off to town to breakfast and to collect our house guests son from the railway station. In the background I am aware that there are packing and travel activities going on. I am writing Christmas cards and brief notes to accompany them to the Scottish branch of the family. My sister used to do this “oiling of the family wheels” but this year it falls to me. There are two generations of our family now that have had no contact with the other branch of the family so I am inviting my generation and my children’s generation to join in the family tree project. I just think it would be useful for my generations children and grandchildren to at least have a map of where they came from. So I busy my self trying to find the right words. Before I can finish there is news from the estate solicitors that some of our instructions have been carried out, which comes as a relief and a step forward. There are still some snags to sort out so some more admin is required. I’m doing this when my eldest daughter, niece and house guest’s son arrive back from town. The son of course wants to see his mum as soon as possible and is lead up stairs to see her. Almost immediately my brother in law also appears to say goodbye to our house guest. There are drinks and chats much of which is about clarifying timetables and arrangements. Eventually our house guest comes down stairs and waits in the lounge until her taxi is due. We have bought a light weight wheel chair for her to use and take with her, a strange but useful Christmas present. When the time comes I wheel her out to the back door and after a bit of jiggery pokery mange to get her to the front drive. Its bloody cold and a knot of us stand on the road side making small talk while waiting for the taxi. We wait and wait and wait and wait until there is a message to say the taxi has arrived. Only then do we find out that the house guest has booked a taxi to arrive at number 7, the wrong house number. There are calls made and then more waiting until the taxi arrives. Packing everything into the boot is fun to watch as a clearly pissed off taxi driver struggles to get the the walking frame, wheelchair and cases into the boot of his nice new car. What amused me was that he closed the boot of the car by pressing a button in side the boot rim. When it would not close there was a lot of rearranging before another button push, and then another and then another, in the end the driver just push it closed manually like we all did back in the day before we thought pressing a button was cool. A grumpy driver told us to order an estate car next time. We waved them on their way and went in doors to the warmth, happy that they were on their way home ultimately and happy that we could now settle down again and prepare for Christmas. Come tea time we celebrated with fish and chips.

It had been a strange day, it ended with my eldest daughter going to Jiu Jitsu, and my partner and I watching football and the third series of Crossing Lines. A strange experience as all but three of he original caste had disappeared since series two. There was very little explanation of why they had gone beyond going home or the in implied fact that the unit they worked for had been closed down. The reality was of course that the first two series had not got good ratings so the producers decided they need to rehash it. They rehashed it so poorly it never made a fourth series. Any way after downing my evening meds I headed for bed.

Thursday and I am up, dressed, breakfasted and medicated in time to get to the chiropodist by 9:30. Its happy feet day, I really enjoy my happy feet days. The chat with the chiropodist, the warm soak of the feet followed by the meticulous attention to my hard pad and nails, all finished off with an oiling, it is delicious and a genuine pleasure. Damn good value for money. If your wondering what to buy someone for Christmas buy them a chiropody session voucher. My feet sing with delight after I’ve been done, its the best £32 I spend on a quarterly basis. I am almost sad the sessions do not last longer.

Once home I am into heavy “Puttering”. Puttering is a word a friend introduced to me by sending me an image with a definition, I share it with you below.

Given the definition I am not sure one can be “heavily” puttering but it seemed appropriate to all the little chores that needed doing to return the house to its normal stats post house guest. So after my pedal delights I pottered and puttered for quite a time retuning the guest room to its natural state, my drugs to their draw, my clothes to their wardrobes and washing to the laundry. Having started from the top I worked down to the lounge and cleared out my end of the sofa, which frankly had become a bit of a shit pit. I returned books to shelves, rehouse boiler papers, returned other objects to their rightful places and filed the estate papers along with all the other documents I inherited. Only once my self maintenance structures were back in order did I stop to check the blog and discover that Tuesdays blog had been left hanging. I set about putting that right and then started to draft up the blog to bring it up to date. By 4 o’clock I’m just about up to date, so I take a breather for coffee and to plan ahead. All this done around Amazon delivering things and me arranging for the plumber to come and fit the new shower next Tuesday morning. Already it is dark and the evening approaches. I have an eye on Friday as the day I need to do things in the garden, have some Shed time, sign up to self publish my first poetry book and start serious Christmas decorating. But first the evening beckons. I get to the end of the evening with a final putter and my night meds, then retreat to bed, remembering to post the blog this time.

Tuesday and I thought it a day to rest as my partner went to work. As it turned out it was not a restful day. Once having had breakfast and morning meds I settled down to type a letter and finish off Christmas shopping. The shopping went well and so did the letter. A long letter to a friend. It was when I came to print the letter off that my day turned to rat droppings of monumental size. I tried all things printery to get the bloody thing to work. I tried on two laptops and the main system all to no avail. My eldest daughter assures me it worked for her this morning, but for me, no. It even refused to print a test page from the App on all machines, At times it would say “printing” when it patently was not and then flash up a cheeky “error cannot print document”. Of course I tried other documents, I’m not daft. I plugged and unplugged several times, I ran the trouble shooter several times from different devices and still it refused to print. I was eventually persuaded that it is defunct. I’ve research how much a new one is. They are as cheap as chips, the catch is the ink. They do not make my printer any more and changing machine and ink cartridge will be a bind as we have our ink on a supply agreement. I foresee high blood pressure and aggravation coming my way. In the end I give up and have a late dish of chicken soup.

Just as I am microwaving my late lunch one of my nieces appears with my eldest daughter. It appears that my eldest is running off and scanning documents for our Greek guest so that she can fly home as soon as possible. Its nice to see another face in the house. After they go off to scan and send stuff away I have a flurry of activity as its bin day tomorrow. I scurry around and empty all the house bins and then rollout the wheelie bin for collection tomorrow. I feel spoons ebb away and retreat to the recliner to think about printers and begin to draft the blog. As I do so I realise that I’ve not read the letter that came in a Christmas card from an old friend and colleague. An opportunity to make real coffee and read a letter does not come around often and is a real pleasure. The day is already dark and is also wet so I indulge in my coffee and letter.

The rest of the day disappeared in a blur and I clearly got distracted. I find this blog draft on Thursday afternoon and I am surprised that I have forgotten to finish it and post on Tuesday. Tuesday was a day after my injection so its quite possible that by the evening all I wanted to do was sit and watch football and Crossing Lines before crawling off to bed. Maybe I’m just getting tired.