Tuesday and I wake to a departing household, physiotherapist and gym. I make a plain breakfast, take my morning meds and watch the BBC news channel. Its all Iran. I pop my washing into the machine and then I set about filling my drug dosettes for the next two weeks, which means it covers the start of my next chemo cycle, cycle 5, (the half way point). I have to pay careful attention as I have to eke out the daily steroids to get me to the next cycle when I will get more. The dosettes get filled and I recheck them at least twice so I know I have everything in the right order. By lunchtime I am fully organised, washing done and away, drugs sorted, and my mind wanders to amuse itself.

It is a while since I have blogged on the poetry website, http://prost8kancerman.com. So I begin to think about what might to the site. I notice in a news feed that a serving prisoner has an art exhibition in London. The name is familiar so I have a look at the article and find the person in question has at some point published poetry. I go on an internet hunt for the volume but find that everywhere says the book is unavailable. After a long search I find a copy, over priced, but I indulge myself, so with luck I shall be able to write the blog I want to about prison poets and/or poetry. Its is a mini project that will keep my mind ticking over and produce some sort of out put. My partner returns from the gym and whisks me away to the garden centre where I can indulge in a sausage sandwich and a real coffee. Of course with mothers day looming it was a good opportunity for my partner to buy a suitable floral bucket to take to her mothers when she next visits. Back home I catch up with the blog and plan my evening. There is a lot of European football on TV tonight but there is a limit to how much I can watch before I get bored, so I am guessing there will be more Brokenwood Mysteries to watch. My “to do” list is growing and one of the jobs is to take the petrol station and clean the car using the super “do everything” car cleaning bay, so tomorrow when my partner is visiting her mother I shall head for the array of pressure washers and give Elsie ( the car ) a good cleaning. Elsie has been with me now for 7 months and has now just over 2000 miles on her clock from where she started at 95. She is siting on the drive with a full tank waiting for us to take her on a journey, so once I can get the chemo rechallenge out of the way by mid July we shall be off somewhere.

Sunday and I wake from a reasonable nights sleep. There is one aim of the day and that is to get out of the house. I have not left the house since Monday when I went for my 28 day jab. I have experienced extreme soreness and fatigue unlike anything before. It has taken me seven days to recover any sort of energy beyond resting and reading. A couch potato week basically. My partner makes breakfast and we eat together. After taking my morning meds I watch a football match and then make the effort to get ready to go out. I am determined to do the driving an d indeed do, taking my partner to the local garden centre, where we indulged in afternoon jam scones and a coffee. While there we picked up food for tea and some odds and ends. I dove us home and felt much better for being out. I was tired but reassured that I was getting some energy back. Amazon deliver a new play mat for the youngest grandson who might visit next weekend, along with a jar of Berryman’s Chocolate Peppermint Creams. The latter is an attempt to have things I can taste as my taste buds are still not functioning due to chemo. I watch a rugby match and ease into the evening with tea and episodes of Brokenwood Mysteries until I down my night meds and go to bed early, tomorrow I have a chiropody appointment at 9:30 and I am not sure how I will fare. I ask Alexa to set the alarm for 7:30am.

Monday and the alarm I asked for goes off. I get out of bed and head for the shower. I go thorough my showering rituals, I am sure we all have them, and finally I am ready to dress and get breakfast until I realise that Alexa had activated the usual 06:45 morning alarm! It was only 07:09. I went back to bed and stayed there, clear and sweet smelling until 08:15, when I got up, dressed and made breakfast. It was a pleasure driving to the chiropodist feeling a bit more myself than I had felt for a while. My chiropodist is a foot magician, after my time with her my feet are very happy feet and feel terrific, it is one of the best things I do to look after me. I of course book in for my next appointment and then pop into the co-op for a paper, a sandwich and a bag of jam doughnuts.

On my way home I decide to fill my petrol tank, I have about half a tank but decide to fill up on the basis that any petrol I put into my car will have gained in value by the time I get home, given what is going on in Iran. I see it as an investment. I now have 400 plus miles in the tank, which could see me through for a time, perhaps even to the end of the American madness. Once home with my full tank I do the crosswords, eat the sandwich and then catch up with drafting the blog as my partner goes off to the gym to do aqua aerobics. I give my feet a treat by giving them a session on the “circulation Max X reviver”, a device for electrocuting the feet and calves. I have no idea if it does anything but I quite enjoy the tingle of electricity in my feet.

My post arrives including a book from a friend, along with the dreaded council tax notification. The tax bill is what I expected but when I open the book bag I am delighted to find two books. I have heard of both and I might have read one but I do not remember. I now have reading material to see me through till Easter. Its a good place to be.

So with ample reading material I settle down to a jam doughnut and a quiet afternoon until Tesco come a and deliver. Then it is all hands to the squirreling away. I am anticipating tonight’s football cup match as my team “the mighty Brentford” will be playing West Ham for a place in the quarter finals of the FA cup. Of course Brentford lost so I took my meds and went off to bed disappointed.

Friday and I wake up after a reasonable nights sleep to find my partner going to aqua aerobics and my eldest daughter going to Norwich for a weekend party. I finally get up, make breakfast and take my morning meds before settling down to read emails and send messages. I am feeling pretty spent already but go for a walk around the house to get me moving. I Am back on the sofa quite soon and find myself watching the Iranian war coverage. Its depressing but not actually that informative, there is little detail to make sense of what is going on. There is supposed to be devastation but it appears that huge amounts of infrastructure is standing and there is little evidence of military eradication. Perhaps I am too picky and want more from my war coverage.

My partner returns from the gym and joins me. In the afternoon I read my new book that arrived yesterday. It is H for Hawk, a true account of how a woman overcame her grief for her father by buying and training a Goshawk. She had been a falconer before and decided to take on the challenge of a Goshawk as a way to deal with her grief. It is a fascinating book as there is a lot about the history of falconry and the language that goes with it. It is a good read and I am looking forward to completing the book. I am intrigued to see if the Goshawk turns out to be as difficult to train as the book suggests they are. In the meantime my partner is busy dealing with the need to find a new carer for her mother as one of the regular team has suddenly become unavailable. It is a difficult time.

The evening arrives I eat tea and my partner and I watch an international rugby match. Ireland get the better of an improving Wales. I am tired and have no energy left so take my night meds and go to bed. All I hope is that gradually I recover some energy, at least enough for my trip to the chiropodist on Monday.

Saturday and I wake up cold and not sure how I am. My partner and I lay in and drink warm drinks and assess where we are. Eventually we get up for breakfast and after, I start to catch up with the blog. This is a busy sporting weekend, England women’s football team play a world cup qualifier and there are two international rugby games. So for the afternoon I am going to be occupied. Before that I shall be messaging my son and his partner explaining way I am not going to be able to attend their wedding later in the month.

The day sees England beat Iceland in women’s football, Scotland beat France by a record score and England get beaten by Italy in the rugby. A day of surprises ends in chicken curry and an evening of Brokenwood Mysteries followed by night meds and bed.

Thursday and I wake after a reasonable nights sleep but drift off again. My partner brings me hot water and toast and then goes off to do aqua aerobics. I struggle to get up and end up jotting a poem, these are tricky times.

504
My body lets me down,
time slips by
and I don’t care.
Abandoned
like a floating hull
devoid of sailors
left to the currents
and the tides.
This drifting loose 
upon the swells 
under a moon
leaves me directionless.
I’ve no sails to hoist
no trusty oar to pull
just a rudder
that is locked to forward.
There are no tugs 
to throw a line,
to pull me home 
to a port and repair.
So here I am becalmed
and wait and wonder 
if Neptune has a place
for me.

				504 05-03-2026

Eventually I get up, get dressed and find some underwear that does not pressurise my 28 day injection site. I Am walking about with a lump in my midriff the size of a chicken egg and it is sore so tight underwear or the belt line of trousers is a problem. It sounds a small thing but it is a constant nag and most unwelcome when I am feeling feeling crap anyway. So having found comfortable, non pressurising under garments, I get up and try to get going. There is mail for me and when I get it open I find I have been booked in for a CT scan later it the month. Its a Thorax, abdomen and pelvis scan, I guess someone wants to have a look at how my prostate and surrounding areas are doing. No one mentioned this to me at the oncology review so I guess it was an after thought or it is a routine annual scan. Maybe once in the system you get a regular update. It means a trip to the nice new area diagnostic centre for a morning, which I shall do by Uber. The diagnostic centre is lovely and new but a bastard to get to and park.

Of course there is admin to do, like getting it on the calendar of family activities and treats and checking that I am available that day. As it happens I’m due to be going to the theatre that evening to see Mama Mia. I am hoping by then I will be up for it. With the admin done I check out Easter having realised during the scan admin that Easter this year is early at the start if April. I guess I will need to think about what if anything I will be doing. With Easter checked I start to draft the blog. I put a new picture of Rocket at the head of the blog. I wanted a more active, aggressive Rocket pose to emphasise the need to fight, so I found one and then cropped it to make it more “in your face”. Whilst doing this my partner returned and made me lunch. So the afternoon starts with more blog drafting and a girding of the loins to try and do something. I return to the misery of not beg able to taste anything. I have the most appalling earthy taste in my mouth all the time due to the chemo fucking up my taste buds. Not quite how the oncologist put it but it is what it is, fucked up taste buds. I can do cold and warm, the rest is “flannel”. I just hope my taste returns soon, I miss good tasting food and the ability to quench my thirst.

In the afternoon I try to get myself going. I go for walking on the spot for a few minutes whilst holding a 5 kilo weight in each hand. After that I plug in the circulation reviver and zap my feet for thirty minutes at 60% just to give them a bit of a kick start. I then settle down to read a poetry pamphlet that came to the surface when I was tidying the pile of books at the side of the sofa. The poetry is really good but it is not my style. I recognise well written, constructed and creative poetry but for some reason it does not touch me. It does prompt me to write a poem of my own.

505
A tip toe round the tricky stuff poet,
full of tangential adjectives 
and illusions to cruel subtleties.
All nods and winks and introjections
that point a possible way
but averts the eyes at the last
when face to face with reality.
It’s kindness turning it’s gaze away
so as not to witness the implacable
nature of life passing through
and on without the reader.
Its form is flowing, never stopping
to view too close,
to capture conclusion 
only the impression of moving
inevitably towards
what cannot be borne. 
Its impressions 
brushed over and over
till the feeling is 
that something 
was there
but not quite clear what. 
It’s a harsh compassion. 

					505 05-03-2026

I return to drafting the blog before I descend into the evening, a meal, the last of the Brokenwood Mysteries and an early night. Night meds with or without paracetamol, which I think I am superstitiously beginning to think helps me sleep. Its Friday tomorrow and I feel I have wasted a week laying around trying to get better, tomorrow I need to try to exercise again and electrocute my feet, now there is an ambition for you.

Tuesday was a grim day. I did not sleep on Monday night due to how sore my 28 day injection was and how my body responded to it. Coupled with Fridays chemo session the two came together in a perfect storm. By the time I woke up on Tuesday morning I was knackered. I lay in bed until late when my partner bought me a hot water and toast before she went out to lunch with a friend. I spent my afternoon napping and trying to get myself organised but mostly eating. I realised I had not eaten much on Monday so I tried to eat regularly in short bursts during the afternoon. My go to foods at the moment are, toast (obviously), egg noodles and whatever I can find to stick in a roll, on this occasion sardine and tomato fish paste! I was in no way able to read or write so I think I watched the new series of Mock the Week on a streaming service and listened to the Silly History Boys podcast doing the Song of Roland, which I thought was apt, until my partner returned from her jaunt.

I slipped into the evening by watching the England women’s football team beat Ukraine 6-1 at the 5 o’clock kick off and then completed my serial eating with Nando’s Mac and |Cheese with a portion of pirri pirri chips. Not the best culinary delights but just the plain stodge I craved, followed with ice cream and mandarins. The saddest thing in all this is that it all tasted like flannels as the chemo robs me of my sense of taste for a few days. By the end of all this I figured I had made up any short fall in my calorie intake over the last couple of days. TV provided an episode of Silent Witness and two Brokenwood Mysteries before I pushed off to bed downing my night meds on the way. Before laying my head on my pillow I drank a couple of dissolvable paracetamol in the hope they would aid me to sleep. It had been one of those survival days when the chemo takes charge and dictates what is possible.

Wednesday morning and its 6:23am and I have slept through, the paracetamol worked! I feel like I have slept. Of course I allow myself a lay in just to make sure I am okay, but I do feel improved, not top notch but better. My partner brings me a hot water before she goes off to see her mother with her brother and I attend to my messages and emails, along with catching up with the news. I think about going to the pub for breakfast but soon find I am not ready for that, so I make a bacon sandwich and take my meds before catching up with drafting the blog. While busily tapping away my new business cards arrive, the ones I designed and ordered on Monday. It was a sort of occupational therapy via Pronto print when I was feeling so crap on Monday. Its the same process that saw me buy a baseball bat and become an ordained internet priest on the same afternoon during a similar down moment.

It turns out that the DPD delivery driver is as bad as the EVRI delivery drivers. Neither of them are able to get to the front door or the porch and can only drop the packages over the gate. So when I go to look for my package I find it dropped behind the car on the drive, no wonder I did not spot them on arrival.

I thought when designing it I did not know which “me”, pre or post chemo rechallenge, to put on the card but in the end decided to add both. They are both equally me just the adaption that allowed or allows me to deal with my current situation. Same person who pens the poetry but the packaging is just different, so who sees me as what is a mystery really. So I now have 250 cards to distribute and a neat little card holder so that I can carry 25 cards with me at all times. Of course there is some sanity in this apparent madness. I shall use some when I go to the States of Independence literary day at De Montfort University later in the month and I will give some to my publishers who will also be there. I am also intending to go to a new monthly poetry evening at the Leicester University later in the month so they will be useful there as well. At worst it is a vain frippery at best a conceit that might be useful.

By lunchtime I am wilting again but it is a lovely sunny day so I may take the camera and sit in the front garden, in the sun, and take photos of the birds that come to join me. Nothing comes to visit me so I give up my photo hunting and end up watching the rest of Bridgerton with my partner for the afternoon. I am now up to date with the whole Bridgerton saga. It was an easy transition into the evening and the Brokenwood Mysteries followed by football and night meds before bed.

Monday, jab Monday so I am awake quite early knowing I am going to shower and have to wander to the GP surgery later. My partner brings me hot water and toast before she gets ready to go out to meet friends. I shower and get my “going to the GP and then pub” bag ready and then set off in plenty of time. Its a slow totter of journey, I’m still feeling the effects of chemo on Friday, not a surprise really, but I always under estimate how much it knackers me. I get to the GP surgery and log in expecting to wait a while but the nurse calls me in quickly. I am soon full of the thick depot that will last me the next 28 days. I was going to go to the pub for a late breakfast or early lunch but I felt so shit I chugged back home and slumped on the sofa with a Red Bull and Alexa playing me relaxation music.

In these situation I am prone to do odd things and in this case I designed and ordered business cards that proudly proclaim I am a poet with a mobile number, email address and poetry website. Bright red cards with both versions of my photo on. It was a moment of “fuck it why not” it is after all what I do most now. I am amused by my own vanity. Further more being impatient I have ordered them “in a rush”, why not? Having go that out of my system I scribbled another poem that seemed to appear as a consequences of the morning.

503
I’m just so fucking tired of it,
Chemo Friday, jab Monday,
I totter to the GP,
nurse fills me with meds,
I chug back home,
to drink Red Bull alone.
I’m desperate 
with myself 
to be better than this, 
to be out in the world,
making being alive
worth the effort. 
I know this is a low point,
a nadir of resistance
but it irritates the fuck 
out of me
to be like this.
I’m probably best left
alone for now,
until some sense returns
and I recover some form of 
agency.
In the meantime 
I order business cards
with “poet” on.
Vanity to the last.
					503 02-03-2026

With my initial “spleen” vented I draft the start of todays blog and contemplate the task of revealing the cast of my hands that I made yesterday. It will be my afternoon challenge once I can summon the energy to find some food.

The whole cast gets exposed and has an initial clean but is now set aside to cure for as long as possible. It is clear that this is a first go. Some bits have turned out well but other parts are clearly distorted and due to me not being able to hold my hands steady in the latex as it set. If I were to do it again I would use a single hand and ensure a more comfortable posing position. So I shall return to the cast in a few days and see what can be done with it.

I clear away and then eat tea feeling worse as the day goes on. I return to the blog and wait for the Tesco delivery. Once squirreled away there is a Brokenwood Mystery and then I am off to bed, taking my night meds and hoping to sleep through to the morning. Tomorrow will be a slow day.

Sunday and I wake up at 8:30 and think I will get up and have an earl start to the first day of March. The next thing I know it is 11:30, and I wake up feeling quite distressed that I have slept so long. I get myself together and put away my fresh laundry before making an early lunch. While tucking into my egg noodles I watch River Dance on Sky arts and get quite hooked on it. Eventually I shake myself and get out to the garden to refill the bird and squirrel feeders. By the time I return to the comfort of the sofa my partner is engrossed in the episodes of Bridgerton. As an alternative I retrieve my hand casting Christmas present and set about casting my hands. There is a prolonged process of reading the instructions and being clear what the time limits are. Once started the process has to be done quickly as the components go off within two minutes.

I thought I was doing well until it came time to put my hands into the first latex mould. It was necessary to hold my oiled hands in the bucket of latex until the green liquid turned blue and became the solid mould. The instructions said it would take 3 to 10 minutes for the latex to set. So I am standing at the kitchen table with my hands in the casting bucket watching my phone timer. Firstly my phone timer screen blanks so |I have no idea how long I am standing there. There is no sign of anything tuning blue and my back is beginning to ache as I try to hold my hands still in the bucket without touching the sides. It seems to take an age until the green latex starts to turn blue. Eventually the liquid hardens and I can feel it form around my hands. In good time I am able to ease my hands out of the mould.

With the mould made I have to make the plaster to fill the mould. It is against the clock again, to minutes tops from making the plaster to pouring it into the mould. I set to work and soon I am ready to pour. Its a tricky process but I get the mould filled and then there is a period of “jiggling” to ensure any air trapped in the mould is expelled. I put the mould bucket to one side to set and will revisit it in the morning to release the whatever has set. I am intrigued to see what turns out, especially as I was wearing my rings.

Tea time comes around as does the evening TV and my chance to catch up with drafting the blog. It will be an early evening, early night meds, the final Tesco order adjustments and then bed because tomorrow is a 28 day jab day. Yep tomorrow I will head for the the GP surgery mid morning to be jabbed and then wait for the post jab symptoms to kick in. It will be grim 48 hours, so looking after me will be a priority. I might be quiet for a little while.

Friday, chemo day so my partner brings me a hot water and toast to start my day while she goes to the gym to do aqua exercise. I spend my morning writing a rhyming ditty as a present for my [partner, prompted by an earlier conversation. It takes me all morning as writing rhyming stanzas is something I do not do vey well. However by the end of the morning I have printed it out and packaged it as a pillow present.

At lunchtime I take my second lot of chemo steroids and then set about organising the uber to get us to the hospital. I have packed my usual survival bag, book to read, power pack, journal, reading glasses and of course Kit Kats, most important of all my chemo travel wallet with all my chemo documents in. At two o’clock the Uber arrives and my partner and I pile in and go off to the hospital. On arrival I buy bottles of water and an all day breakfast sandwich before we go up to the waiting area outside the chemo suite. I eat my sandwich and at a quarter three I go for my pre-emptive piss and then try to nap as my partner gets going with her knitting. Three o’clock comes and goes, they are never on time and its not until about forty minutes later that I get called in.

I get into a booth and so the routine starts. All my vitals are checked and I am surprised how good they are, blood pressure 128/71, SATs 96% HR 114 ( a bit up). I get preloaded with my anti allergy meds and then sit for thirty minutes before the main infusion of Yew tree goo poison is started. It takes an hour to get the stuff into me so I sit and read Susie Dent’s Guilty by Definition, a quirky book about a team of lexicon experts working out a murder mystery. Its full of old and rare words so its quite fun to read.

The hour comes around quickly with the help of the book and a couple of Kit Kats. I am soon unplugged but there is a short delay while the nurse made me out a new blood form for the next session. So with my new blood form and the steroids for the next cycle tucked away I leave the chemo suite and head straight away to the loo. Feeling comfortable now I collect my partner and we make our way to the hotel opposite the hospital. There we pick up the Uber home.

Once home I change out of my chemo outfit. I am determined not to become a trainers and T shirt chemo rat. There seems to be a tendency to drop into this casual look and I do not like it. I understand why it happens because comfort and ease of access to arms is crucial and training gear fits the bill. I am determined to wear some of my good clothes just to get some use from them and to give myself a boosting reminder that I can still look reasonable even if I do not feel it.

Once I changed I cook egg noodles and a jam doughnut follow up before settling down to watching Brokenwood Mysteries. I flag quite quickly and so its not long before I’m taking my night drugs and heading for bed.

Saturday arrives and I feel groggy and so my partner brings me hot water and a couple of rounds of toast. I finally get up and get dressed and begin on tasks. My first was to be putting numbers on the newly arrived food recycling bucket, however when I went to the garage to get the sticky numbers for the job, I blew the extension light fuse when I tried to turn the light on, so I had to replace the starter on the light before I could continue my previous job. I spent time carefully sticking the numbers on the recycling bin. By the time I have finished my chores and cleared away its time to watch the midday football match, which was followed by a rugby match. By tea time I am feeling tired from the chemo again and so after eating I set about catching up with drafting the blog before resorting to more TV and finally working up to night meds and bed.

Thursday and I am awake early knowing the electrician is coming at 9 o’clock and he is invariably early. So I am up and clearing the dishwasher, recycling, and cooking toast. The lovely buttery toast gets washed down with orange juice and my pre chemo meds, which means a big wodge of prophylactic steroids. Right on time the electrician arrives. I chat to him about changing a set of lights to LED from halogen. He shows me some lights that will do the job and we agree to use them. He gives me a quote for them and the instillation and we agree to do the work. There is the normal chat about weather, global warming and the positioning of the gulf stream over the coming months. My electrician then leaves saying he will see me in a couple of weeks time. I shall be sure to monitor the position of the gulf stream until I see him.

With the lighting sorted I get ready to drive my partner and eldest daughter to the gym. I am still taking great delight in driving “Elsie” the new car. At the gym my eldest daughter grabs a computer position and I and my partner go to the beauty parlour to have out nails done. My partner is having feet and hands done but I am indulging in a hand massage and having my nails done. I discover that my beautician is Fijian and going to a wedding in Australia. With my hands in a smiley state I book my partner and I for a repeat in four weeks and pay the bill. I then take refuge in the gym lounge and start to write a new piece for the poetry website about John Berryman.

With the piece nearly finished my partner appears and we have lunch together. There is nothing like a hearty bacon roll when one is craving protein. My partner goes off to have her hair done and I return to my blog on John Berryman. When I have got as far as I can get without publishing I move on to draft the blog for today. I tip tap away until my partner appears with her new hair cut. A brief wait and our eldest daughter appeared enabling us to drive home.

Once home the afternoon is all but gone so I finish off the blog entry I was preparing for the poetry website. I get it done and publish it. http://prost8kancerman.com. I turn my attention to the daily blog and get to the point where the evening begins with a Bridgeton catch up, yes really Bridgeton, and then I slide into the evening, football maybe, Brokenwood Mystery’s maybe, more Bridgeton perhaps, but by now I am feeling the fatigue of being out and about and I feel myself settling down into a slower mode. It will no doubt slide towards my night meds with enhanced steroids and finally bed. Tomorrow is chemo rechallenge day so I need to be strong and organised.

Wednesday and I have a night disturbed by the most appalling wind! I might have to change my name to thunder arse. My gut was in turmoil so clearly something I ate or drank after being on toast for two days had disagreed with me. At the moment I am putting my money on either chicken soup or diet coke. But whatever it was I am back on toast today at least until tea time. My partner brings me hot water before she goes to see her mother for the morning. When I do get up I find I am alone in the house as my eldest daughter has gone to work.

True to my diagnosis I make toast for breakfast and wash down my morning meds with orange juice, so far so good. I try to read but get no where and end up watching The Big Bang Theory and catch the wedding episode between Sheldon and Amy, an iconic episode. Once through the episode I write a bit and deal with my emails and messages.

502
Dissociated and dampened
sitting and waiting to be better.
The outside world
not somewhere I want to be,
where everything is an effort,
where I used to belong
but now no longer me.
Not the me in my head,
the healthy, energetic one
who could fight and play
all the hours of the day.
This sofa hermit has no view,
no energy, no drive
apart to stay alive.
This self is on the edge of tears
and fears decline,
a drop into a pit
that blackly yawns 
to receive. 
This is a starving human,
losing its humanity 
in the fears of disappearing
and no one noticing.
The world goes on 
and always will
with or without me. 
					502 25-02-2026

By the time my partner has returned I am feeling more chipper and go for yet more toast for lunch. To my surprise the oncology team ring me early to do my oncology review. The whole thing takes no more than thirty seconds. The chap on the other end tells me my PSA is down, which I knew, and he is therefore authorising me to do the next cycle on Friday. And that was it. Very underwhelming really but the bottom line is I am moving forward. With the medical stuff out of the way I and my partner walk down to the chemist and collect my regular medications. From there it was onto the new enlarged village co-op to use the cash machine. Tomorrow the electrician is visiting to sort out my kitchen lights and at times he likes to be paid in cash. While I’m collecting real money I also pick up some more Lucozade, which my body seems to tolerate, and some other things that I think I might be able to eat. It was a brief walk home where I finally get to finish reading John Berryman’s 77 Dream Songs. I then promptly fall asleep until my partner feeds me tea. Feeling renewed I draft the blog and then settle down to watch The Brokenwood Mystery’s. My evening ends with my meds and bed.