Sunday and I wake to find it pouring with rain so I take my time getting up. I check my vitals first before breakfasting and then getting ready to go and find a Christmas turkey. I drive my partner to our local garden centre in pouring rain where we head for the in house butcher. We select what we require for Christmas and put our order in. Before we leave we collect some other food and veg and then drive home in the unrelenting rain.

Back home I put my washing in and settle down to watch football and rugby. I have things to do but frankly I find myself lacking motivation, tomorrow is my injection day and by mid afternoon I have started to take some paracetamol. This is part of my routine that ameliorates the side effects of the injection. I am expecting to have a rough two or three days as a result of the interaction between my injection and the chemo. It will be a time when I try to rest and finish off my Christmas shopping over the net. Apart for a face to face conversation with my youngest daughter and sorting out my dried washing I do nothing this Sunday. For now I ease my way into the evening with a little more rugby and Strictly. I feel uneasy and anxious about the coming couple of days but rely on my routines to see me through.

Saturday, yesterday now and already becoming a blur. Age or medication, I’ve no idea. I do remember taking, my partner to the coffee shop at a garden center in the afternoon to get a break and have a chance to chat and plan. I also recall paying the tree people for their work and then spending a lot of time on the internet giving my credit card a thorough work out for Christmas. In the evening my eldest daughter took me for my birthday treat, we went to see Dave Gorman at De Montfort Hall.

It was an excellent evening, we were right up the front of the flat stalls and had an excellent view of him at work. His brand of humour is unique and unusual in the way it uses what is available on the internet and in the media generally. A lot of laughter, maltezers and ice cream later we drove home. The only thing that marred the evening was the drive there. My favourite into town route was suddenly barred by cones and meant finding another way to the venue, which was a pain in the arse but we still go the venue with time enough to do battle with the parking ticket machine that refused to coins despite having a slot to do so. Once home I took my night meds and opened up the laptop to draft the blog but was just too tired, I did not have the spoons for it so went to bed.

Saturday I wake and have a coffee to get going when my partner asks why the shower down stairs is not running hot. I investigate, I test, I concluded, the hot water valve on the mixer bar is fucked. So I text and ring our local plumber, no response of course because its Saturday and he is semi retired, this does not however stop him putting “emergency and maintenance plumping ” on his business card. I guess emergencies are all relative depending on day of week and weather conditions. So on a rainy Saturday a broken non life threatening broken shower value is probably not worth the effort.

I eat breakfast, take my meds and then start to draft the blog, catching up on yesterday. A friend sends a link to a tracker App, which means I can watch his progress on his journey up from Plymouth to the venue for our meal later. I’ve not seen this before and I am fascinated by it as I zoom in and out to him zipping along the M5. This is a great App and will get him to show me how it works when he arrives. Strikes me as a really useful thing to know how to do.

My dinner with friends it a delight and it is really good to see them. I drive home to an evening of Strictly and Crossing the Lines, before I down my night meds and go to bed. Its been a good day but one that has drained me of spoons. I’m too tired to do anything else to the blog, it will have to be enough.

Thursday and its raining again as I wake up. This is day two of cycle 7 and its starting to be a slow day right from the off. I go through my routine message, email and cyber litter sifting. There is nothing of note in all of this except the bill from the tree man who was working here yesterday. I eventually get out of bed and have breakfast and begin to make a plan for the rest of the res of the day. There are some messages to be dealt with from the solicitor.

Noon rolls round all too quickly. I and my eldest daughter walk down to to the village pharmacy and shop to gather up some food but also my next drugs order including the coming Mondays injection. In anticipation of the injection weekend my eldest daughter and I round up as much paracetamol as we can. The household has run out so by the end of our trip we have gathered up four packets of paracetamol, that should see us through. I take a quick trip to the post office and get stamps for my partners Christmas cards. Once settled in home again I watch the penultimate edition of Steph’s Packed Lunch, eat a sandwich and continue to watch the COVID review. Boris is continuing to be quizzed and wriggling like a worm. The KC representing people with Long COVID could get nowhere with Boris who just kept saying that the best way of dealing with Long COVID was to stop people getting COVID in the first place. He was unable to say anything constructive about Long COVID in its own right. By the end of the hearing today Boris had done nothing to change the view that he is a slimy toad. Apparently such phrases as “utter bollocks” and “fucked up” are to be considered unpolished language designed to encourage freedom of speech and to widen the range of opinions given in government.

My evening moves on to tea followed by a taxiing of my partner to a friend for coffee before settling down to a football match. I’ve done bugger all today really, I’ve not read, not trained, not gardened and written nothing, but I have discovered that its good that jam doughnuts come in bags of five. In effect this has been me marking time on a very rainy day. My eldest daughter goes out with friend so I spend my evening watching football and Mock the Week. What remains is to draft the blog, take my meds and get a good nights sleep.

Wednesday and welcome to cycle seven of my second bout of chemo. Remember this is not a cure this is palliative care, I had to sign papers to say I understood this. It’s the “their doing their best best but we cannot cure you ” oncology clause. So I wake up to a coffee with my partner already up and about around the house. It is she who greets the tree folk who have returned to load up the logs from yesterdays tree felling and to stump grind. Before I can get up my partner is already helping our injured houseguest wash her hair. When the cost is clear I get and my partner makes me breakfast before I get myself into the shower. I’m tired this morning and things take time. There is nothing in the post for me so I catch up with filling this weeks drugs wallet with the first days of cycle seven chemo pills. As I am in admin mode I also pay the invoice for the work done to our boiler. Thankfully the boiler is now tickety boo and keeping us warm and supplied with hot water.

Noon arrives and I drive my partner and I to a lovely little restaurant in a village not far away. Unfortunately it is one of those posh villages with “historic history” and no bloody parking. What parking they have got at this time of year is taken up with Christmas stalls filled with crap that no one really wants. I’ve learnt my lesson, if we do this again I’ll Uber it. IN the end I drop my partner off at the restaurant and drive off to find a side street to park in and then hike back to the restaurant myself. Its a posh restaurant full of nice country types with the usual accessories, so I am not sure that my “fuck cancer” T shirt and long white pony tail that spills over my shoulders once my beanie is removed, is viewed as quite fitting in with the rest of the clientele. The restaurant staff are of course polite and attentive. The meal is excellent and I in effect have a Christmas dinner including a minimal serving of sprouts, just the two, but it makes me feel festive. By the time I have gone through the Christmas pudding I am up for a black coffee and an Armagnac. Over our lunch my partner and I take stock of Christmas and our unforeseen circumstances and chip away at a plan. By three o’clock we are done, pay the bill and march off to find the car. There is a bit of me that wants to build a huge five story car park in the middle of their village and clad it with murals of Morris dancers and Maypole dancing. It would of course have a community of rough sleepers or traditional tramps living in it so the gentle folk of the village could knit mufflers for them and take them broth, while the local parson could mobilise his parishioners to make a special effort at Christmas to take one for the festive season. Any way we drive home through the end of school traffic.

Once home I go into the garden and look at the back of the house without the trees, it look big and open. Taking the trees out has made a huge difference. I retreat to the sofa as my partners brother arrives to talk family business. I take a well earned post lunch nap and wake up in the dark, I do believe my own snoring has roused me. I start to draft the blog and drift toward the evening. No doubt I will rue the sprouts later but for now I am content enough to idle time until Shetland is on. Shetland comes and goes and its time to prepare for bed, so its my night meds which includes the first of chemo cycle 7, setting the dishwasher going and a bit of last minute tidying.

Tuesday and this really is the day the tree men come, it is also the last day of Cycle 6 of the chemo. I’m still in my dressing gown trying to book a lunch slot at a local restaurant for tomorrow when the first of the tree folk arrive. I met them at the back door and point at the trees that need to come down and they then start to produce a prodigious array of chainsaws. I leave them to gear up while I finish my booking and then have breakfast. My partner has already got our house guest’s on the way. I do my vitals and dress, preparing for the day to come.

Soon there is the whirr of chainsaws and I am completing my blood pressure Excel spread sheet for the end of this cycle. My vitals are generally good so my cycle averages are good. My arithmetic continues to give good logic. Pretty soon I am working to the background whirr of an industrial chipper. I know how I would get rid of a body, the machine is a real beast and chips huge chunks of wood. A human would be wetter but no trouble for this beast of a machine. My partner makes them tea before going off for a birthday coffee with a friend. Once she has gone I wrap her presents and write the card in preparation for tonight. The post man brings a welcome letter from a friend which I read with coffee and a slab of fruit card. Then its my turn to go out as I leave I note the tree folk are pretty nimble.

I go to the post office to send my Christmas cards and then pick up my car and drive into town. As usual I park up in a town centre car park. I’m on the second floor and as I walk out I notice a young person curled up in the corner with the usual survival paraphernalia. As I pass by the young woman say hello. She look about fifteen. I walk down to the hospital and go to the pharmacy. One of the pharmacy workers takes my details and starts to hunt for my prescription. This is not a successful hunt for a vey long time. This pharmacy is just not organised, there are numerous people who are waiting for a long time for their prescriptions. Eventually they find my bag of goodies and hand them over. It feels a longer walk back to the hotel car park. I pay my fee and return to my car. I leave and drive to a Sainsburys where I acquire a birthday cake for my partner and then home.

The tree folk have left for the day leaving behind a giant set of draughts in the garden. Tomorrow they will return. The evening comes around and the family eat and then do birthday cake and presents for my partners birthday. I clear the kitchen and then settle down to watch a football match. A strange game where England thrash Scotland 6-0 and fail to qualify for the euro nations semi finals and the Olympics. My partner and I then watch a couple of episodes of Crossing the Lines before going to bed. I find time to draft the blog, which is probably a bit disjointed as I feel drained now.

Monday I wake up to find the household ahead of me, this is tree day. A single text message changes all that, the weather is so wet the Arboreco team postpone their day up our trees. Tomorrow will have to be the day instead. So my day starts with toast and morning meds and then my partner and I set about planning the day and making sure that our house guest is okay. There appears to be an ongoing boiler problem so we have no hot water, in light of that my partner goes to her brothers to have a shower.

Well what is a chap to do in these circumstances, there can only be one answer; Christmas cards. As I result I spend all morning and part of the afternoon writing cards. Always interesting to note the thoughts and feelings that run alongside this task. There are moments of not knowing what to put in a card and others flow easily. I have of course got my list form the last five years, which has been amended over that time. The dead of course do not get cards, they are easy, but then there are those who seem to have fallen off the communications radar but not out of the address book. Further are those who have declared their hand by declaring that they just can’t be arsed for what ever reason or have chosen charity over the individual. I just decide to send to everyone in my address book because I am ethically and philosophically lazy. This year poses a unique question, do I send cards to the Scottish branch of the family. In previous years my sister has sent them cards and maintained some sort of contact. As the last of my generation on the London born side of family it probably falls to me to at least make the effort to maintain some sort of link if not for me then for the grandchildren who might want have an interest in the extended family. So that means another dive into my sisters address book.

At this point the boiler guy arrives. I do my best to explain what is going on. He checks what is going on and says “Ah”. He turns down a coffee and gets on with prodding the circuit board in the boiler. I leave him to it and renew my card task. After a few minutes the boiler guy gives me the thumbs up. Apparently having put in a new three way valve there is sometimes enough residual current to trip the really sensitive control boards in the boiler systems. This is so common with our particular boiler that the manufacturer has produced a specific new part to overcome this problem. Basically a capacitor that soaks up the additional current. My boiler man has added the part and tested the system so now the boiler switches on and off as it should.

Before I get back to the card task I check that our houseguest has all she needs and I find myself recommending a couple of books to help while away time. Having checked that she is good as can be I head off to the garden and remove all the things that might impede the tree folk tomorrow. So washing line, bird feeders, bug hotels, squirrel feeders and hanging baskets all get moved and tucked away. Finally I remove the trip hazard of the power lead to the Shed. I return to the Christmas cards and the radio, inevitably more Infinite Monkey Cage, before my partner returns home from greeting the new carer for her mother.

So another evening starts. No rugby, no football, no snooker, its going to be free view Crossing the Lines and some sort of preparation for tomorrow as its my partner’s birthday, and also the day Cycle 6 of chemotherapy ends and the day I need to collect cycles 7,8 and 9 from the hospital pharmacy, which I can only do in the afternoon. There is of course the excitement of the Tesco delivery to come as well. I end my day moving cars to facilitate the tree boys in the morning, then its night meds and off to bed.

Sunday I wake up and of course weigh myself. To my great surprise I once again weigh in at 97.3 kilos, that the third week in a row that this has happened. So I have a stable weigh at the moment for which I am thankful. My partner brings me a coffee and tells me that the carer who broke her ankle is being discharged from hospital this morning. So the day starts with finishing off the preparations for her to stay. At the same time I switch the temperamental boiler on to get the house up to the right heat. There are still some small things to do to make sure our house guest will be comfortable. Alongside this is the need to repark the cars and clear the pathway so that people can get in and out. My partner adn I have just finished our chores and sat down to a coffee when the ambulance arrives with our house guest on board. She is accompanied by two crew who clearly have a great deal of experience in moving people in and out of houses. They take one look at our front porch and know they will need the lifting chair.

After a careful and well choreographed entrance we are able to get our guest into one of the recliners and settled in. We chat for a while and then move what needs moving to her room. After feeding her healing scrambled eggs and toast my partner and I go to the garden centre to top our fruit and veg supplies along with a visit to the in house butcher. While there we take a pause and think through some of the things we need to be doing and what our options are. We do this over warm drinks and a scone until we think we have a some options sorted out. With that done we peruse the artificial Christmas tree options. My partner has been very clear that we were not ordering off the internet if we had not seen the tree in the bark, so to speak. There were a large selection of artificial trees, some with snow, some with lights, some with stands, some with out. We took our time as we weigh the options. Firstly we decided on the quality and type of foliage. Of course we knew the height required as we had premeasured. With those decide it was a case of selecting shape and density of the tree. Finally we made our choice, and of course being us we picked quality and the price that went with it. My partner and I loaded it onto a trolley and wheeled it to the checkout, where we found someone to help take it outside to load into the car. I had hoped that it would go across the back seat. No such luck. So finally we manage, in the rain, to get the seats down flat and the box in. We drive home in the rain and leave unloading the tree until we can do it in the dry.

I settle down in the lounge with our quest and chat for a while until I sort out another heater to make sure everyone is able to be warm all the time. My partner cooks us all tea and then its time to get or house guest upstairs to her room and settled in. I clear the kitchen and then catch the tail end of Strictly not being a results show due to one of the contestants being dropped by the professionals in rehearsals and breaking his rib.

The evening drift into TV and eventually evening meds and bed. Tomorrow is going to be full on, as the tree folk are coming to do their work, the boiler man will arrive in the afternoon and I’ve just noticed a kitchen strip light is not functioning. Some where in there Tesco will deliver and we will all begin to getting used to a new household for a couple of weeks. Big day tomorrow.

Saturday and I wake to a day of ice outside. There is coffee and toast to start the day. I go through my ritual of filling my drugs wallets for the next two weeks. My daily meds taken I start to get the spare room ready for our house guest who may join us today or tomorrow from hospital. I start to get my sports clothes away and then its a case of hoovering the house through . Once again I ring the boiler people and arrange someone to come and check why the boiler is not turning off. While I am at it I get the tree people to confirm they are coming on Monday. Its clearly going to be a busy day. I do all I can to tidy up before I need to rest with a coffee. In my journey to the compost bin to get rid of some old fruit I notice that already there are bulbs poking up in one of the tubs, apparently Spring is here already.

I break for coffee and soup with snooker in the background. Its time to do more house pre adn to strip the spare room bed. A bit more rugby and then I pop round to the neighbours to tell them that Monday is going to be a bit noisy as the tree people set about taking our trees out of the back garden. They seemed happy enough. Back home out of the chilly night I return to more rugby.

The evening will be one of shear laziness and relaxation. There is Dr Who and Strictly to see me through adn some other nonsense until the football highlights arrive. If I am feeling the need to be productive I might write my Christmas cards. I have half a mind on tomorrow when there is food shopping to be done and some organising to ensure our busy Monday goes smoothly. So for me its night meds and hopefully a good nights sleep.

Thursday the 30th of December. A shit day. One of those days when everything seems to be against a serene and peaceful life. With my partners carer in the hospital with a broken ankle my partner spends a day with her brother trying to find a solution to her mothers twenty hour care. The boiler fails again and that needs to be sorted. My oncology review goes as quickly as usual but ends with my prediction coming true. I am prescribed three more cycles of chemo and a scan in the new year. There is a lot of admin to do around my sisters estate. By the evening everyone is tired and retire early to bed.

Friday starts with difficult thoughts about the day before and decisions to be reviewed and changed. I ring the boiler folk who agree to send an engineer in the afternoon. I get up take my meds and start to try and organise myself as my partner prepares for another difficult day. I get ready for the boiler person to arrive and start to finalise some of the solicitor paper work that needs doing. My partner and her brother work on finding suitable care for their mother and the boiler man turns up early. Eventually a trip to the post office sees the end of the solicitor admin. Later my partner returns. The evening comes around quickly and the tiredness of the past two days catch up with me. I draft a short blog, compact and a reflection of the fatigue of the last two days. I take my meds and go to bed knowing that tomorrow there is an effort needed to prepare the house to possibly receive the injured carer as a house guest for a while. It is going to continue to be a busy and challenging day.

Wednesday, first morning without the boiler, so I’m not getting up any time soon. I hunker down with coffee, toast and a new poetry book that a friend has sent me. However dead on 9 o’clock I am on the phone ringing the people who installed our heating system pleading for an engineer to come and rescue us. To my great relief they are able to send someone between and 12am and 4pm. With a sense of relief I settle down to read Beyond the Brink is the Beginning, a collection of poems by Richard Wain. The collection is a themed one around hope for the future rooted in faith in nature and interpersonal recognition of each other. I think that’s the message. I read the whole collection and all the notes that come with it. Its a strange mixture of feelings that I am left with. The sentiment is good but it feels naïve to think that somehow nature will lead to a self repaired better world and all we need to do is recognise it and the sameness of each other. I could not help feeling that the the tipping point for humanity has come and gone. It made me aware of how powerful the natural processes that drive humans are and that they are beyond the real consciousness. Its like the old example of earth worms. They are crucial to the ability to create viable soil and therefore crucial to the food production for humans, however the worms just do what they do without any idea or conscious appreciation of what they are doing in relation to the whole system. So it is with humans. True we have some appreciation of some of our process and relationship with nature, but I would contend we are still unaware of the fundamentals to the extent that humans can adapt quickly enough. An interesting start to the day and not yet out of bed.

Finally I get and choose my clothes for a cold house. As a result I drag out my super thick jumper and layer up. Looking like an Inuit I go to the Shed to retrieve the electric fan heaters that are stored there.

The garden is frost covered and looks attractive but would of course kill me if I linger too long. Back in the house I set the up to warm the working members of the household while we all wait for the engineer to arrive. I go to the sunny lounge and start to draft the blog before reading the stricken boiler cupboard for easy access by the eagerly awaited engineer. Lunchtime arrives so as I settle down I become aware that there is a tense telephone call going on. It turns out that my partners carer has fallen over and broken her foot. There is a short period as everyone making decisions on what is best to do. The upshot is my partner and eldest daughter are whisked away by my sisters brother as they head off to deal with the situation. I remain at home waiting for the boiler engineer to arrive.

So while I wait I check the mail and find things that need to be dealt. So I send photos of letters to the solicitors and try to understand some advice that has been provided. In the end I send more emails to the solicitors in essence asking idiot questions and declaring my ignorance. While I am doing this admin the engineer turns and starts to give my system the once over. It appears to work. Sods law really, one moment not working and then being fine when the engineer looks at it. Like going to the doctor to find the pain has gone.

My partner rings and tells me that her mothers carer has been attended by a large number of paramedics and that she is going to hospital. My partner and her brother have decide to stay with their mother tonight, while my eldest daughter goes to the hospital with the carer. I prepare to travel with a bag of clothes for my partner but my niece has agreed to pick them up and take them over along with her fathers requirements. She picks them up and I settle down to keep a watching brief on what is going on by messaging my eldest at the hospital. My youngest daughter rings me and I update her. I take the opportunity to order an Indian take away so that I am fed if I need to go anywhere. The evening is full of messages and conversations. My eldest daughter is being a star at the hospital as she hangs on for the carer to be taken up on the ward once her fracture has been plastered or booted. I keep checking the boiler and the radiators to ensure the boiler is still working. The temperature of the house is taking a long time to recover as the temperature outside is dropping rapidly to minus 2. Inevitably everyone enters the waiting phase as we wait in our various situations doing what we can and seeing what happens next.

The evening goes on in this fashion for sometime. I am sitting at the home base beginning to prepare for my oncology review tomorrow. It a phone appointment so I need to be clear about what it is I want to ask and discuss. I’m expecting the arithmetic to be good enough for me to be given three more cycles of chemo and perhaps be seen in person in the new year. This would at least give me a clear run at Christmas. I need to get back to training at some point but I noticed the display on the row has gone blank again so there is a battery juggle to be done. For the moment I watch Shetland and await news from the hospital. One o’clock rolls round and my eldest daughter is still at the hospital with the carer as she goes for yet another x-ray. Its going to be a long night for my eldest and the rest of us. I take my night meds and settle down to wait for my eldest daughter.