Thursday and its late. I am spoonless and very tired. All I have energy for, is to say that today I finished reading Notes from the Burning Age by Claire North. I also visited the chiropodist for my regular hoof fix, which was delightful and dealt with yet more solicitor correspondence. So I sit full of my night meds and the additional paracetamol that I take before my monthly injection. Tomorrow I rise to be at the GP by 8 o’clock to be injected.
Wednesday, is it to be sofa day or not is my waking thought. As is my growing custom I read for a while before getting up. My partner brings me a coffee and I read a little more. finally I get up and have breakfast and ring Sofology. “Where’s my sofa?” is the gist of my conversation with a nice chap on the help line. He tries to ring the distribution centre but fails to get through. He promises me to ring me back. I put my washing in and go to the Shed to fill my sticker box with newly arrived butterflies. I check the hedgehog canteen, the food remains untouched, I am beginning to fear for my hedgehog. A friend calls and we chat about families, she is on the way to pick up one of her daughters who is vomiting at school, which of course is going to throw the days plans out of kilter. I manage to get my washing out on the line before ringing the Sofology helpline again. This time the woman I talk to gets through to the distribution centre in Doncaster and talks to the woman in charge of deliveries. Good news it’s on its way and the driver will ring my in half an hour with an arrival time. Time to spring into action.
I clear the delivery path in to the house moving pots of daffodils from the door step and move cars around to free up the drive. But the big job is to move the existing furniture out of the way so that the new can be brought in. I and my partner strip the cushions of the sofa and chair and then my eldest daughter and I move the skeletons of the furniture to the hall way. Its a real effort but we got there.
We had just about got everything clear when the Sofology van arrives. MY partner goes off to see her mother and so the van can be moved closer to our drive. Before she goes she negotiates the van drivers moving the old suite into the front garden where later is can be dismantled. To my surprise they agree and do this removal first, so my garden takes on a new look.
As the delivery guys get to work I make them tea and biscuits. They are very quick and efficient and soon the new items are in place. The new furniture makes a huge difference to the room and of course I cannot resist a test run.
I set about putting all the things we had moved back in place and hoover around the house. Once everything is back in place its time to get my washing in and to close up the Shed. I also take the time to add the new pond plants that have arrived to the pond. I go down to the chemist to get my outstanding drugs to find they have lost the original prescription and have to dispense my missing drugs from a second prescription that has been issued due to my GP surgery closing for a couple of weeks to train on and switch to a new operating system. I wait over half an hour for them to sort it out and then they still cannot find all the drugs I am due. Its an absolute clusterfuck. I buy chocolate at the village shop and return home. I’ve just about finished all this when my partner returns home to be followed very shortly by our garden guy who is going to dispose of our old furniture for us. He sets to work on the solid frames and is soon borrowing a lump hammer and a power screw driver. Its not long before I am out there with him lending a hand. We manage to get it into its component parts and then he tidies up. By about 7 o’clock we are done and our guest for the evening has arrived. My partner and our guest go out for dinner while I and my eldest daughter order take away and I settle down to watch football on TV. The Indian meal is good and sets me up to recline luxuriously through the football match. Game over I draft the blog with a growing sense of becoming spoonless, I’ve done a lot of physical stuff today and now it is catching up with me.
Tuesday and it is to be a day out. Firstly as its 7 o’clock I read for an hour and a half before I get up for Its breakfast. A quick shower and I am driving to my friends house who drives us to Kedleston Hall. Its a big old house whose family originally supported William the Conquer and over the generations generations built a huge house and pleasure gardens. In order to do this the family moved an entire village to facilitate the landscaping of the park and grounds. Today its still a very impressive house filled with goodies from all over the world.
My friend and I do the short walk and end up walking through the old church, which is full of the tombs of the Curzon family. Most of the tombs date from the 1700s but there is one marker stone dates 1245 and was thought to be the marker for the fourth Earl/Duke. Nearby is a folly, apparently all good estates had follies.
We lunch and continue to chat before visiting the second hand book shop. I scan the shelves and find nothing and think for once I am going to get out of a book shop with out one. I was wrong. I spotted the books displayed above the shelves and there was my prize. The collected poems of Clive James, not someone whose poetry I knew very well. I cannot pass up such an excellent bargain and buy the book.
When I get home later I read some of the poems and I am stunned by them. If you have a moment read One Man to Another. Perhaps I will put it here in the future. The actual house is an amazing display of wealth and power, trees were grown in curves in order to make curved floor boards for a curved corridor. That’s indulgence of wealth. Dotted around the house are volunteers who are ready to tell you anything you wants to know about the room you are in and there are people in costume. One in particular is dressed as the famous house keeper that showed Ben Johnson around the house. She looked uncannily like the portrait of the woman that hangs at the bottom of the stairs. She was full of interesting facts about the house keeper and the history of the family. A final cup of coffee and a biscuit and my friend drives us back to her house were I pick up my car and drive home. Running through this day are the attempts to verify that the new sofa is going to be delivered tomorrow and that it is okay to chop up the old one. These efforts fail adn the expected phone call does not emerge. The result of this is that the guy who is going to chop up the old one cannot do it and kindly agrees to come again tomorrow if the new one arrives.
I arrive home to have the difficult conversation with the sofa chopper and then run my oldest daughter to the late chemist to get antibiotics for her possibly infected toe. Finally the family are able to sit down to eat and move into the evening, watching TV, knitting, reading, putting bins out, washing up and finally for me to take my meds and go to bed having drafted the blog. Its been a long but full day. It does me good to get away from the house and into the fresh air to see new places or things. I’m frustrated about the sofa but apart from that its been a good day. Hopefully things will go smoothly tomorrow. Although the day is a good day I reach the end of it spoonless.
Monday and I wake to the family at work in the various nooks and crannies of the house. I read for an hour and then get up for breakfast. I clear the kitchen and then I go to the Shed and settle in for a letter writing session. I write all morning until my partner tempts me out with a bacon sandwich. The post man has been and there is a new book for me from a friend. It is Jostein Gaarder’s Sophie’s World and it looks interesting. So I now have plenty of reading material to keep me going for a while.
There is nothing in the post for me about my up coming MRI scan so I ring the hospital and ask if they have a date for me. I am not hopeful and not expecting anything but a kind man tells me I am up on the 8th of May at 10:45. So a result, which pleases me. I return to the Shed and continue to write letters until I have nothing else to say. Rather than close up the Shed I pull out a couple of small of canvas boards that I had worked on years ago inspired by looking out a plane window as we landed in Spain some years ago. I start to complete them using the calligraphy ink that I was given at Christmas. I get so far and decide to leave it to dry. I pack up the Shed and return to the house. A quick trip to the post box and I am back home on the sofa reading. Out of the blue Tesco deliver four hours early. It would seem that life is random as just after that the sofa shop rings to say they cannot deliver tomorrow to which my partner says that can’t do that and they relent and phone back to say they will deliver. However they also say that they will ring tomorrow. It remains to be seen if they do. I check the hedgehog food and find it untouched. This is mildly worrying but I replace the food with a fresh dish. I check my seedlings in the greenhouse and water them and then I have a bit of a chat to them and zip the greenhouse up as tonight is going to be a frost.
My evening see mem eat and then reach the end of series one of Murder in the First. Almost time for bed and meds but first I draft the blog. I’ve not trained today as I just did not feel up to it, hopefully tomorrow I am on form as I am going for coffee with a friend.
Sunday, I wake late thinking Chinchilla and go and weigh myself. I am 0.5 kilos lighter this week at 97.5 kilos. I am surprised but I’m content with this. I think I am settling for keeping my weight stable rather than constantly reducing. When I was reducing down before I was able to train hard, however if I train that hard now I piss blood so there has to be some moderation. I also haven’t cut out all treats like, there needs to be some pleasures in life and for me sweet things are one of them.
I and my partner have coffee in bed and then we get up and make our respective breakfasts. We then make our Sunday face time call to our youngest daughter, who is now 27 weeks pregnant. Its a long chat as we bring each other to speed with what is going on in the respective households as there is much going in both. Preparing for a new baby to arrive, readying the house, managing a recovering grandparent and keeping track of my sisters estate are just a few of the things going on. At the end of the call my partner gets ready to go to the gym intending to drop off a birthday present for our two year old grand niece.
Of course once my partner goes off to the gym I set about mending the under unit kitchen lighting. I run through the usual checks and in the end conclude that it is the actual light housing that is no longer functional. No alternative to going to the local Wickes to pick up a replacement housing. I drive to Wickes clutching the body of the dead light. Once at the store I search the lighting shelves and find the modern equivalent of my dead light. Unfortunately the size I want will not fit the cabinet I want to fix it under s.o I have to look for an alternative, As Wickes do their own version I get two of them and return home with them. I test the replacement before fixing it in place, All goes well and son there is illumination under my previously dark kitchen cabinet, Once again the work surface is fully illuminated. I pack my tools away and settle down to watch international women’s rugby. Wales get turned over by the French as expected. I switch to watching the FA cup semi final. Its couch living, I know and my only excuse is that I have a busy week in front of me.
My couch living goes on into the evening which includes a meal, coffee adn chocolate. I get too full of sweet stuff (I have my limits), and go into the kitchen to clear it. I spend time clearing the kitchen and getting it morning ready before I return to Murder in the First and then meander towards my bed via my meds. I’ve a busy week ahead of me so as always when faced with a busy week I batten down the hatches, watch my diet after a weekend of indulgence and then train hard, write lots and move forward. There is lots of death and illness washing around at the moment and I wonder just how much I have soaked up and made me wonder more about my own situation.
Saturday and I wake up early and make drinks for myself and partner. I read for a while as my partner snoozes. We chat for a while and then I get up and go to the chemists to collect my monthly drugs haul. I put my prescription in on last Sunday and still the chemists have not got all my meds. I come away with just my injection which is due this Friday. the chemist is increasingly under pressure as the new housing estates in the village are placing a bigger demand on the villages infrastructure and services. I return home with a paper and bacon.
My first job is to fill my drugs wallets for the next two weeks. I find I have enough so drugs to do this and soon I am fully loaded for the fortnight to come. There are bacon sandwiches and coffee for breakfast along with some interesting mail. I am pleased to find a letter from a friend in Scotland and put it to one side so that I can give it the time and attention that it deserves. There is also a small box containing fresh pod weed and a larger parcel that yields up my new ice hockey jersey. I wasn’t going to buy anymore ice hockey jerseys but I could not resist an English one for about £20. It puts Milton Keynes into my collection.
First job is to get the pond weed into the pond so I go into the garden and drop it into the pond. While I am there I cut back last years growth on the ferns so that the new growth is freed up. I stake a shrub that has collapsed and then re-net then pond. Back in the house I make another coffee and sit and read my new letter. As always it is full of interesting news, observations adn thoughts. I am not feeling at my best but get ready to go to the garden centre to shop for fruit and veg.
My partner drives us to the garden centre and we shop for our fruit and veg. I’m not feeling particularly good so when we return to shop at the butchers I wait in the car. We return home and I head for the sofa to rest and watch the women’s international rugby match, which leads me onto the FA cup semi final.
An evening of food and Murder in the First, night meds and bed past midnight hoping to be tired enough to sleep deep and peacefully.
Thursday and it starts with one of those phone calls you do not want. The alert service rings to tell me that my partners mother has been found on the floor adn the carer cannot move her. An ambulance has been called. Before I can ring my partner she rings me and new discuss the options given that we are being told that the ambulance could be up to two hours. As it turns out the ambulance arrives and the para medics decide that hospital is the best option. A a result my partner picks up her brother and they go straight to the hospital. They spend the rest of the day there until the evening when eventually they return home with the carer, who I drive back to my partners mothers home, accompanied by my eldest daughter.
As for me I did little apart from retreat to the Shed and write letters and visit the post box. I found the hedgehog food had not been touched so renewed it and made a mental note to check it tomorrow. To my pleasure my new book arrived, another Claire North novel, Notes from the Burning Age. I’m looking forward to finding the time to read it now. I take my night med set the dishwasher going and go to bed.
Friday I’m awake and aware that the household is already up. I have breakfast and then walk down to the local shop to get a paper and to get some cash from the machine before taking my partners car to the garage to fill up and check the tyres. Back home I find there is some solicitors letters to deal with which means another trip to the post office. My new watch straps arrive so I spend some time getting the new strap onto my watch. I have to swap strap bars to do it but I get the job done My partner returns from her physio appointment and then goes off to see her mother in hospital. I continue to draft the blog before getting myself into the garage to train.
The garage can be a hard place sometimes and it took me a while to get going today but I set myself the task of going for an hour on my cruise level. It went okay in the end with me burning 800+ calories.
I get out of the garage and find a message from my partner from the hospital where her mother was admitted last night with reopened fracture of the spine. The message is brief and just says “They are discharging her!” I guess there is now going to be much organising and checking that everything and everyone is in place.
The evening sees my partner returns and me cook tuna pasta for tea. We settle down to a quiet evening evening of TV rugby and Have I Got News for You. I draft the blog and then clear the kitchen before downing my meds and going to bed for an early night.
Wednesday and the sun shines, I feel instantly perkier and get up for breakfast, coffee and my morning meds. My rising goes unnoticed so a little later my partner brings me another coffee mistakenly thinking that I am still in bed. I empty the dishwasher and check my messages and emails. I am sunshine energised so plan a trip to the gym. Kit packed I drive to the gym. Once there I get up on to the gym floor and set a cross trainer up for a 55 minute session. Today I have got Rammstein in my ears, loud and driving which makes the time go by quickly. Its a good session and I burn off 500+ calories over 5+ kilometres.
After my good session I shower and find a comfortable space in the lounge and settle down to a large coffee and egg and bacon bun. I spend time catching up with messages and writing my up to date to do list. A friend sends me a picture of her in her back brace which looks like a super hero outfit. I drive home via a local garden centre. I had thoughts about buying plants for my stock of garden pots but when I wandered round the centre I was not inspired. I came away empty handed and thinking that I would sew more seeds in the green house and grow more of what I want. Once home I update my training and diet journal and watch the end of a snooker match.
My partner returns from seeing her mother and we drift into the evening with a meal, a quick check on the hedgehog food state and then I indulge in another European football match. I need to find a new book to read to rescue me from TV and football. I shall go to my bed tonight having taken my night meds and hoping that tomorrow brings me sunshine, it makes such a difference to me.
It is Tuesday and I have a Four Weddings and a Funeral moment when I wake up to find it is 10 o’clock. I wasn’t expecting that. Just as I am emerging my partner brings me coffee. I bumble around for a bit before making myself a fried egg sandwich and more coffee to wash down my meds. The sofa providers ring to say they cannot deliver our new sofa tomorrow due to sick van drivers. That is so disappointing but we reset the date for Wednesday next week. There is some post to deal with including some items related to my sister’s estate so there is a mini flurry of emails between me and the solicitor.
A some point I pop outside to recycle some papers and notice an array of new flowers that have come out in the sunshine. It constantly amazes me how one day there appears to be nothing and then the next there is a profusion of blooms. Of course I reached for my phone and took pictures.
Lunchtime comes round and I graze and down more coffee before heading for the Shed. I have a missed call, which is always a surprise as I am usually welded to my phone. The Shed has a surprise for me. Out of nowhere a peacock butterfly flaps about. I get pictures but then the butterfly proves to be difficult to get out of the Shed. Eventually I guide it out into the world. Its a lovely creature. I’m hoping for more to appear.
This is the first time I have been in the Shed for a while so I settle in and prepare to write when a friend calls. It is a lovely surprise and we chat for quite a while as she drives home with a new TV. My friend sounds “springish” and is happy that she may soon return to work after a tiring battle with long term COVID. There are signs that eventually her body is beginning to recover its powers of renewal. This good news and been a long time coming so I am really pleased for her. We say farewell and I return to my writing and working. My letters complete I lock up the Shed and take a short walk to the post office to send my missives on their way.
Back home I start up the laptop and begin to draft the blog to the background of the world snooker championships. Tonight there will be European football, and not a lot else, except of course last minute meds.
Monday and I struggle to get out of bed after what feels like a crap nights sleep. Eventually after drifting in and out I finally get up at 10 o’clock and down a bowl of muesli and a coffee along with the morning meds. Apparently I’m going out for lunch. I try to ring the specialist prostate cancer nurse with no joy. I am suspicious as there should be some kind of message service. On checking the number in my phone against the information card I find it is in my phone wrong. I finally redial and get a message service that wants all sorts of identifiers. My message is duly full of information before I get to leave the message I want to leave. Now its another waiting time. My post arrives and every single item is recycling, clearly there is something wrong if all I am doing is throwing the majority of my mail away as junk. To fill the time before I’m taken for lunch I start to draft the blog and in doing so I realise what a cranky mood I am in. Perhaps a cultured lunch in town, the Tesco delivery and a training session will oil the wheels of the chirpier me.
I had forgotten to include over the previous couple of days that I had checked my garden camera for my hedgehog. Not only did I find my hog but I found it with it annual lover. Its quite rare to capture two hedgehogs together as they a solitary beasts and only come together in the spring to mate. Last year I was fortunate enough to get it on camera so I was surprised to get it again this year. Its a sure sign that spring has sprung and indicates that there is still a hedgehog community alive and trying to thrive in the back gardens of Desford.
My partner takes me to lunch in town, actually that’s not quite true as I drive us and pay the bill at the end of the meal. However my salmon starter and tagliatelle bolognaise was tasty and the conversation worthwhile. Once home there is barely time to recover when Tesco comes knocking and delivers. Only one change this week, I get 24 eggs rather than the 18 I ordered as they have run out of boxes of six. Its a random world but I am sure we will eat them.
I return to the sofa and read an article on stereotactic ablative radiotherapy in the Sunday Mail of all places. Apparently a Belfast hospital has found a way of using high dosages of radiotherapy in five sessions as opposed to the usual 20 sessions it takes. They inject a spaceOAR behind the prostate to protect collateral damage to the bowl by the radiotherapy and prevents in continence from the high dosage. I am under no illusions that this will be available to me when I go to my appointment on the 18th of May. I think I am in for the 20 sessions over four weeks no matter what if they accept me for treatment. I guess I take heart that gradually medicine is taking its finger out of men’s arses and doing something useful about prostate cancer.
My partner goes out to meet a friend and to go onto the local speedway meeting. Its a first for her but her friend used to accompany her father to the meetings for years before he recently died. I’m looking forward to the outcome. For my part I am gearing up to go and train despite the fact that my very lunch is having a soporific effect on me.
I always surprised by the way I can distract myself from doing the difficult things. This evening I chose to clean the windows in the lounge. In fairness to me I am fed up with looking at the windows and thinking I’ve fallen foul of glaucoma. I rummage through a cupboard and find the relevant cleaner and then set to. The difference is blinding enough for a St Paul effect. Satisfied I go and get into my training gear but even then then the resistance is there so I decide to look at what is on at our local concert hall. There is a concert that has both Schehrazade and Rachmaninov’s piano concerto No.2 in it. Irresistible so I book tickets. A night of wordless brain feed, what could be better. I finally make it into the garage still feeling sickly full of my lunch and the pineapple juice I washed it down with. I set the session for an hour on my “jogging” level and set off. There was a point when I thought I wasn’t going to make it with out throwing up but I got through it and ended up doing a reasonable session once my stomach had closed down. So over 12k and 800+ calories burned. That will do nicely.
Cool down takes place on the sofa while I up load the pictures to the blog and continue to draft it. My evening will now drift as I recover. This drifting will see me lounge and fill my environment with the equivalent of culture fast food, trash media and thoughtless wall paper until my partner returns from her first speedway meeting.
When all is said and done the only thing that actually mattered today was that I got a response to the message I left for the specialist prostate cancer nurse. My required scan referral has been made and accepted but yet to be dated. So far so good then.
