Monday its August, I wake up thinking about the office floor and my lost seal ring. Not a good way to start the day. I have a protein breakfast and watch a bit of the Commonwealth games. I take a walk to the shop looking for my ring along the way. At the shop I look in the flower bins for my ring as I bought flowers here yesterday. I buy a paper and ask the shop assistant if anyone has handed in a ring and show her a photograph of it. No luck of course but now they are aware.

Back home I feel overwhelmed by the things I cannot fix or cannot find. It is a temporary paralysis so I decide to do at least one or two things that I can control and do. I finish the crosswords of the day and then I fill the tower water butt in order to clean it out and to check that it is working. I discover that there is a leak, most probably caused by the window cleaner using it to climb up to the top windows. Dumb bastard. Anyway I put a temporary plug in and will monitor it over the next few days. I move onto hanging out my washing and then onto pond maintenance. The solar pump needs to be overhauled and cleaned, which I do and get it working again. I clean the pond of fallen leaves and surface weed. A single frog sits and watches me as I do the work. The solar fountain goes back in and I top the water level up. Time for a lunch sandwich and then its onto mending and adapting an old vegetable rack to be a storage rack for my new jewellery tools, which goes into the Shed. With the tools racked tidily I can clean my desk surface. Time to train, its the last thing I feel like doing but its part of the fight to stay well. So I gear up and then get myself into the garage and strapped into the rower. I go for a 45 minute session at my usual resistance level. It turns out to be a pig of a session, really hard and an big effort.

I record the session and then feed the hedgehog and bring my washing in . The evening begins with a meal, more commonwealth games, the drafting of the blog and taking in the Tesco order. I need an early night so that I can get on with the difficult stuff tomorrow. I think sometimes it is necessary to do something other than the immediate perceived crisis. I had a mentor who always advised to have a chat with the frontal lobes when feeling like there is a crisis going on. Asking the question “is this really as much as a crisis as I need to fight or fly” quite often makes me realise that the “crisis” is not one and that there is more thinking and resolution time available than first thought. Today has been that day.

Sunday, another slow start but first things first the Sunday weigh in. I weigh in at 97.6 kilos, which is a decrease of 1.2 kilos this week. At last the resumption of training is beginning to pay off. So today is a rest day but tomorrow it is back to training and sensible diet. So having weighed in its time for a drink and meds and then some chores before walking down to the village shop to buy flowers for our lunch hosts. A friend of my eldest daughter turned up unexpectedly and she disappears for an hour before returning in time for us to drive over to our friends for lunch. We spend a lovely time being fed and and chatting in our friends garden. Then comes the event of the day. The women’s European football final. It goes the distance into extra time and as if a fairy tale was called for England win 2-0. The after party went on for over an hour apparently. So having had a very pleasant day we return home to the humdrum things like the Tesco order.

Alongside all of this is the discomfort and frustration of loosing my seal ring. I realised it was not on my hand when we reached our friends for lunch. I immediately searched the car but it was not there. On my return home I search the house but with no luck. Tomorrow I will search again, and again, and again. For now its meds adn sleep.

Saturday and its a very slow start with warm drinks and chat before getting up to start the day. I cook myself a cheese omelette, and take my meds and then its on with the day. I am set on entering the Poetry Society Spring Competition before the closing date of the 1st of August. There is a set theme to this competition of “Our Houses”, so I dig out a poem from the collection that I wrote back in the 1980s and enter it. I am just about through the process of entering the poem when my partner tells me that she thinks the floor in the office has raised again. I go and look and sure enough there is a pronounced bump under the desk area. Nothing for it but to investigate. I gear up in work trousers and get the tools I need from the garage. It’s going to be a challenge, so I start by removing the carpet tiles and underlay.

At this point I do some google research and reach the conclusion that I am going to have to get a tile up to have a look at what is underneath. The tile proves to be resistant to my probing so I do more research and discover that there is a thing called a grout saw that will do the job. I haven’t got one so I order one at the local Wickes on click and collect. So there is a bit of time to spend before I can go and collect the tool so I open my new Amazon parcel that has arrived. It is my blow torch that I intend to use to help me create wax reduction pieces from wooden moulds. I fill the blow torch and give it a whirl ,very pleasing.

Time to collect my grout saw so I and my partner drive to Wickes. The pick up goes well and we return via the garden centre to pick up some bacon. Once home I get to work on the office floor tiles. I saw out some grouting and manage to get a bolster underneath it and ease it up. Unfortunately it does not come up in one piece. What I find underneath is a bit of a surprise, its red sand. Clearly the building of houses in the 1930s was very different from today. My concern is that the sand is damp, I think. So I will need to get someone in to look at it for me. Time to read the house insurance.

There is nothing more I can do with the floor now till its been seen by someone who knows what they are doing, so I pack away my tools and set the issue aside for the day. I reset and get my new blowtorch into my Shed and also feed the hedgehog. Time to train. I get changed and get myself into the garage. I set up for a half hour row at my usual resistance. It turns out to be very hard. I’ve run out of spoons and so the half hour is hard work. A typical end of week session.

Kit off and session recorded its early evening and time to eat. I start to draft the blog as I watch some of the Commonwealth games, mostly swimming. The evening will be quiet and some more research on building techniques. Tomorrow is weigh in day, lunch with friends and then of course the final of the women’s Euro football championship. A busy day.

Friday and its a poetry day as my blow torch is not arriving till tomorrow. So a muesli breakfast and I am settled on the sofa office with both laptops fired up. I decide to submit some poems to the Poetry Society Poetry Review. I decide on what I will send and then set about trying to use the submission link. I format the poems I’ve chosen into a single document and then fill in the on line form. It goes relatively well until I am asked for my membership number. What follows was hours of frustration of as I try to find my number. In the end I send a pleading email to the society and give them my details. To my surprise I get a reply by the end of the morning so am able to send my submission. I have sent five of my poems into the dark and will not know the outcome for at least three months. Having completed the first submission I ready another four poems and enter them for the Winchester Poetry Prize. I ready the poems and then sort out my fees via Paypal, which turns out to be a nightmare. Eventually I think I have manged to pay and get a receipt number that I have to include in an email to the competition. I compose my entry email and get it sent off. Its lunch time and I have spent all morning in front of screens. So more of my poems are out there and likely to become more of my Herod’s children as I call my rejected poems.

I lunch on soup and watch some of the Commonwealth games. It then comes to the point where I cannot ignore the need to train. So I get ready and get myself into the garage. I strap into the rower and decide that today I need to do an hour at my usual resistance. I set off at a reasonable pace and manage to keep a reasonable pace all the way through. It turns out to be a good, if demanding session.

It takes time to recover from the effort of the session and to record it in the daily food and exercise log. Then its time to change and cook tea, which goes okay. I eat while watch more Commonwealth games and then draft the blog. I have little energy left but need to feed the hedgehog and then just veg out till sleep comes along.

Thursday and it starts with a fried egg sandwich, coffee and meds. After a bit of tidying I retreat to the Shed and set about my latest project of trying to make wooden moulds for wax reduction jewellery. This means a lot of new skill acquisition, experimentation, practice and trail and error and new tools to master. The blow torch arrives tomorrow. So there is a transformation from my writing space to my work bench.

I spend all morning in the Shed learning the early stages of how to chisel a design into a piece of wood. Its a steep learning curve especially the feel of the tools against the wood, however time flies. The first thing I am aware of is my partner giving me a newspaper and asking me if I checked the bread before I made my fried egg sandwich this morning. I obviously looked quizzical as it was then explained to me that the loaf had to be thrown away as it had gone green.

A bit more work and then I feed the hedgehog, get my washing in and change in order to train. I really do not feel like it today but having not trained yesterday I need to push through. I get into the garage and set the rower up for a 45 minute session. The aim of this session is to get to the end in reasonable shape and not pass blood afterwards. It goes slow and controlled and as a session it is what is needed.

I give myself a bit of recover time and then change into some travel clothes as I am going to give my eldest a lift to her circus skills sessions. I drop her off and return home to a fish cake tea and begin the blog as the TV sows the the opening of the Commonwealth Games. A full Brumie extravaganza of post industrial imperialism. Tomorrow I shall train again and once again reject the urgent referral by my GP to the urology department. Clearly my GP is either ignoring or has not seen the advice from my oncologist. The oncologist is clear that urology have nothing to offer me in this situation. The last thing I want is to be is stuck in the middle of a doctors pissing contest. Mind you my diagnosis is now, and I quote, “Metastatic castration-resistant prostate carcinoma”, I’m not sure I’m not just a bit pleased to be “castration resistant”.

Wednesday and its my eldest daughters birthday so after a quick shower and breakfast, meds included, we go off to our local Bird Garden. So we got to know some new friends, drink, eat and chat about PhD stuff. So without any more to do here are a few of the birds we saw or met.

Its a matter of timing with the bird garden. Get them early and they will accept food from your hand and some will seek to play or walk all over you but when it gets full later on they are full of food and do not want to play, just sleep. We got our timing right so had ample time to feed and play. When they had had enough and the place was getting full we decided to eat and chat. We spent several hours there before walking back home, I did remember to book the cars in for their MOTs.

Once home it was time to clear the kitchen and feed the hedgehog before going to a local restaurant to have a birthday meal. An Italian meal that was extremely tasty and gave me the opportunity to have one of my favourite deserts, affogato, a delicious combination of a shot of expresso to pour over ice cream. A super combination. We return home to the traditional card and present opening followed up with the indulgence of a very chocolatey birthday cake. I sit and watch Germany beat France to become England’s opponents on Sunday. I return to the blog and then prepare for tomorrow. Its been a good day with time to chat with my eldest daughter and to eat out as a family. Meds and bed.

Tuesday and I am awake early, or at least for me, and I am soon downstairs and breakfasted. Meds obviously get downed as well. I go to the Shed early and message friends, write a brief poem and have a general tidy up of the Shed. I have some new ink and other craft stuff arriving as I am exploring how to extend some of my existing interests. I have tried to use my wax reduction jewellery casting kit but only ever succeeded in making a single pedant for me. My Back Bone pendant which I wear as a reminder and a motivator to keep training. Rather than keep trying to work in the wax directly I am going to try and carve my own moulds in bassa wood and melt the wax into them myself and then smooth and finish them before sending to be cast. That’s the plan and if it works then there will be some weird Christmas presents this year.

I wander over to the post box and return to start the draft of the blog. Its a bit of a distraction as I know the next real thing to be doing is training, that and wrap my eldest daughters birthday presents, which is tomorrow. I do some covert wrapping and then I head for the garage and the rower. I strap in and set off with the aim of doing better than yesterday. I’m going well, possibly a bit too well when I get a call on my pods, so I slow to the equivalent of a rowing jog and chat to a friend who is dealing with a tyre with a nail in it. On arrival at the tyre centre we say farewell and I get back to the hard push of the session. I get to the end beating yesterdays distance and calories burnt, so I am very pleased.

I squeeze out of my sweaty training gear and relax over a dish of chicken soup and update the blog draft. By the time this has done I have properly cooled down. What is not so good is that I have a reoccurrence of temporarily passing some blood in my urine, so I need to hydrate and lower the intensity of the next couple of sessions. I move on to my afternoon, a trip to the shop and continued birthday preparations. I also have from Amazon a package with my new project materials, so they need to be integrated in to my art gear and then over the coming days I can get started. If this phase works and works to my satisfaction I will need to invest in a culinary blow torch next month. I put the bin out for the week and then I am in the Shed doing the crossword. The garden guy turns up unexpectedly so I break off and make him coffee. He sets to and I pay him, returning to my crossword.

The evening starts with dinner and some NCIS before England women take on Sweden in the semi finals of the Euro football championship. England 4 -Sweden 0 so Sunday afternoon is taken care of. For now its an early night in readiness for my eldest daughters birthday tomorrow.

Monday, and I wake to my youngest daughter still being with us. We have coffee and breakfast as she prepares to return home. I wave her off at about 10 o ‘clock and set about getting ready to train. After doing some chores I go to the garage and strap into the rower. No mucking about, this is resurrection Monday so its going to be an hour at my normal resistance level. My oncologist commented that once you stop exercising how difficult it is to get back to it. He was right and I am furious that I have let myself go and put the weight on. It is true that I have had COVID, a UTI and a kidney infection in the last 66 days so I am probably fortunate that I was as fit as I was prior to those events, however the weight has piled on and that was not helped by my sweet tooth. So strapped in I set off. An hour later I have enough left in me to sprint the last two minutes. This is a good start to my renewal.

As I row I am able to reflect on where and why I am at the moment. I’ve mentioned already how angry I am with myself for letting myself go despite the illnesses but all I can do is go from where I am. Basically that means training regularly and controlling what goes in my mouth and the amounts of it. On the face of it that should be simple but it means confronting my habits and the internal dialogue that goes with all of that. At the end of the day it comes down to an act of will.

My other thoughts whilst grinding out my hour was about what having really retired actually means. The loss is the work environment with all the people I used to interact with on an almost daily basis. This is highlighted by the fact that I wake most mornings to the sound of my partner talking to work colleagues over the internet as part of her working from home. I makes me realise that I need to make sure I put effort to keep my relationships with family, friends and old colleagues. I need to find new ways to keep communications going and to go on building relational histories with people. I know that this will be different for different people but I need to attend to this or they will die. I remember watching a farming programme in which a 90 year old guy explained why he still got up early everyday to get involved in the family farm. He had observed how so many people stop and just stare or watch the world, in his words “people waiting to die”. I think he was right, it is an insidious peril that awaits the retired as it is tempting to become someone in the world not of it, and to wait passively for it all to come to an end. I found myself actively wanting to be 75, one year at a time will do me with my condition. Every year is a victory. For me to get there I need to work not only on being the poetry coyote and being fit but also on the quality of the people in my life. I am not sure how I am going to do this yet, I am sure there is a self help book out there somewhere, although if I am lucky I will be spared that, so some of you might experience my efforts at this, so bear with me.

Training and reflection over I change and make myself lunch, yesterdays excess pie filling, and watch the last of the World Athletics Championships on TV, only to be interrupted by Amazon delivering and then close on their heels, Tesco. So there is food to eat and things to be doing in the afternoon, which starts with drafting the blog. The evening is taken with entertaining a visiting friend of my partner and catching up with Lucifer. Tomorrow’s priority is training, writing and thinking.

Sunday, Coffee, Croissants and failed pie making. A day of kitchen chemistry which like so many experiments look nothing like the picture. The up side is that I got a kitchen to myself and more time with my family. So we eat, talk and while away time together, in the case of my partner and youngest daughter they get to go shopping and browsing for hours. We eat dinner together, settle down for an evening of TV and then bed. Achievements of the day, fed the hedgehog, booked a weeks holiday, topped up the bird/squirrel feeders and draft the blog. Tomorrow I start again.

Saturday and an early morning drink and chat with my youngest and then its time to go shopping for food at the local garden centre. I take a picture of some more flowers that have come out and providing food for the pollinators.

We decide to treat ourselves to scones and a drink before shopping for cards, bowls and veg. More convivial conversation and then onto the shopping. With our goodies stowed we go home where my partner an youngest daughter set about throwing out clothes and organising the wardrobes. I go shopping again for the ingredients of a chicken and brie pie for tomorrow. Its cranberries and pink pepper corns I am primarily look for. So a quick trip to Sainsburys and I find my resources easily. Home and world athletics for a while until I cannot avoid the shame of training any longer. I change and I am so irritated with myself that I decide to go for a full hour session. I have not done a full hour for 66 days and I cannot be afraid of it any more, what will be will be. So I get in to the garage, strap myself in and set out. The intention is just to complete the hour. The result is good for a first time after two months.

I change and recover with a bit of Ninja Turtles and then eat tea with the family. There is just time to feed and water the hedgehog before settling down to watch the final football quarter final and some more athletics. The 100 meter hurdlers fall like nine pins. I move onto the football and sink into the evening and draft the blog along the way. I am interested to see how my body responds tonight.