Friday and I am up early as I am going to London with my eldest daughter to oversee the locksmith putting new locks on my sisters house. I have a quick breakfast and we set off. Before hitting the M1 we stop off at a Sainsburys to get some food for lunch and some cash. The later was thwarted by a non working ATM. We head down the M1. We chat on the way, its a good journey and the roads are clear. Two hours later and we are unlocking my sisters front door.

Its not long before a neighbour arrives at the door and we introduce ourselves. She is under the impression that another neighbour thinks that my sister is being discharged from hospital. I am surprised and ring the hospital. The hospital are indeed intending to send my sister home. I talk to the nurse in charge of the ward and express my concerns, she listens and promises to get the person who carried out the assessment of need to ring me. My daughter and I continue to clean the kitchen and the fridge. We check the post and we sort out a hanging bathroom light and one or two other things. The care need assessor rings me and we have a long conversation the upshot of which is that as my sister is well again, has capacity and has made the decision to return home she will be discharged. There is an issue around access and keys and I agree to tell the ward if and when the locksmiths work is done.

The locksmith arrives and is able to fit a new lock that uses the exiting key, which solves an awful lot of problems. We go and shop to get food in and restock the fridge before I ring the hospital and tell them that the work is done. I have a conversation about timing but stress that I will not be there to receive my sister after 5 o’clock. I ask them to ring me when my sister has been picked up by the transport. They agree.

My daughter and I go to the corner shop for a sausage roll and a drink. As we sit outside I get a call saying my sister was on her way. We go back to the house to wait. We wait and wait. In theory its only a 20 minute drive. In the end there is time for my daughter to return to the cake shop and buy us a treat while we wait. Eventually an ambulance appears and my sister sets off to number 9 across the way as she thinks the house keys are there. My daughter intercepts her and we and the ambulance driver guide her into home.

My sister is looking much much better than she did. We make her a cup of tea and settle down on the sofa to chat. I tell her what we have done and where things are. We make a meal for her and sort out what she has brought back from the hospital. We continue to chat as she eats and has a second cup of tea, Its gone seven thirty by the time we say goodbye and leave to drive back to Leicester. I promise to ring the next day.

The drive home is slow as it gets dark and it starts to rain. As we approach the home junction there are lane closures and we crawl the last three miles. We get home just as the takeaway arrives. I unpack the car and go into eat the Indian. I am very tired and its been an unexpected day. My sister is home unexpectedly and hopefully is resting in comfort for the first time for a while. The account of my day is a short version as there are details that I have omitted, like the conversation with the neighbours.

Saturday and I am brought a coffee and toast in bed, so there is time to enjoy it before moving my car so that my partner can go out. I set about my washing and clearing the kitchen. I take time to feed the hedgehog and then I am of to the post office to send back some goods to Amazon. On the way a friend calls and we have a chance to catch up with how owe both are. It seems we ae both hoping for some time to rest and recover. I send my package and walk to another shop to buy a paper and some food to nibble. Back home my partner returns and after a light lunch and a bit of a ruby match we go off to the garden centre to buy fresh vegetables. Having achieved this we make haste to our favourite garden centre to but some new plants for the garden. We wander around selecting plants and thinking about where the gaps are in the garden beds and pots. With a trolley load of new plants we head home where I set about putting some of the new plants into the front garden pots. I try to ring my sister as promised but get no answer so I leave a message and send her an email as I know she reads my blog and then checks her emails. There is tea and rugby and football during which I start the blog. I am tired, I think am still tired but intend to start back in the gym tomorrow.

Thursday and I wake up at MB3 after a reasonable night. My fitness watch tells me that I slept 4 hours and 57 minutes but has me starting to sleep at 2am. This is not true has lost me at least 2 hours off my total. Nevertheless I still maintain a higher deep sleep ratio than the average. I am usually in deep sleep between a third and half the time whereas the average is about 20%. Clearly my brain is getting a good clear out each night as research shows that in deep sleep the chambers of the brain open up and are flushed through by the various cranial fluids. I like to think that the sewers of my brain are cleanly flushed each night.

I pack and tidy my room before going over to the main centre where I make coffee and finish the blog of the two previous days by adding some pictures and then posting it. Breakfast of toast follows before my 9 o’clock Teams meeting. I do the meeting which is relatively short and not with much content of weight. I finish, pack my backpack and say farewell to the director of the space. I drive home in sunshine.

Once home I unpack straight away and set about doing some jobs. I feed the hedgehog and find that the heater has been left on in the Shed since Tuesday. Its never simple is it. Try to cut back and shot self in the foot, arsehole! Alongside this I unplug the recalled power reducers as they have been recalled as dangerous. I pack them up ready to go back to Amazon. Once again I try to reduce our energy bills and get thwarted. I have lunch and then go to our local Wickes to buy a spare door bell for London and some batteries for the old one. On the way back I top up the car and lay in fresh water and wine gums for the car. Tomorrow I go to London to oversee new locks being put in. I eat tea and decide that I need a restorative bath. I draw the bath and indulge myself with not one but two happy hippo bath bombs. I wallowed in purple warm water with my bath candles alight on the side table. It was a delicious hour. I get out and settle down on the sofa to watch Rangers play RB Leipzig. Just before it starts my sisters neighbour rings me to tell me that he is going away for a week as from tomorrow. I told him I was coming to London tomorrow to sort out the new locks and would leave him a new key before I return home. I watch the game. Its a good game and Rangers win taking a place in the final. By the end of the match its time to draft the blog and get myself to bed, it will be an early start tomorrow.

Tuesday and today I am due to travel to an Elders meeting in Toddington, Gloucestershire. I set about a toast breakfast and coffee before preparing to travel. The hedgehog gets fed early and I clear the kitchen before I pack my bags put the bins out. Today is the day I fill my two drugs wallets for the coming fortnight. It is one of those maintenance rituals that keeps me on track of where I am in my 28 day cycle. I go to the Shed and write my resignation from the Enabling Environment team. A brief matter of a fact letter , which I duly seal and stamp. I also write a letter to a friend. I move my car and then walk over to post my letters before making myself lunch. I ring the hospital to see how my sister is doing and I am pleased to hear she is improving and that people are visiting her and taking food. I send photos of the doors that need locks to the locksmith and confirm that they will come and do the work on Friday.

I drive off at about 2 o’clock and call into the garage on the way to fill the tank and check the tyres. I also load up with goodies to nibble over the next couple of days. The drive is smooth and trouble free and I soon arrive at MB3. I chat with the director and then go and pick a room in the accommodation block. I unpack and head for the yurt in the grounds. It is a big yurt and contains room for an inner ring of 12 chairs and an outer one of 27 chairs. I sit alone on the outer circle and listen to the birds and wait. I usually write in these times but nothing comes so I just sit and listen and wait. After an hour I take a stroll around the grounds and then join a colleague on a bench and chat for a while until we go up to the main building to meet the other attendees.

We sit by the log burner and wait for others to arrive and then eat a dinner of lasagne and salad followed by chocolate cake and ice cream. Back in front of the log burner we chat and reminisce until slowly one by one we retire to bed. I settle down too tired to blog and find myself drifting off. It is a reasonable night with only one or two painful moments and I drift towards the morning and my Eric Sarte alarm at 7:45 on Wednesday.

Wednesday arrives to the loud dawn chorus and Eric Sarte. Its been a reasonable night. I make coffee and take my drugs including some pain killers as I’ve decided to leave the back support off today. I go across for breakfast and sit with my colleagues and chat. I notice on the way over to the main centre two things. Next doors tree carving and the adaptability of nature in the form of blue tit ingenuity.

We wash up and go to the first session in the yurt. Of course none of the content can be here but it was a real personal pleasure to be amidst colleagues who share so much and have a lot in common. We come to our first break and then move into another session to discuss a project that we have under way. Lunch and more reminiscences of TCs past. We move into the afternoon and zoom sessions. These sessions are important and we as a group try to be useful and thoughtful to and with the people we are with. Both of the sessions give us a lot to think about as a team and what we can realistically offer. We use time after the sessions to try and process the content. Our end time comes quickly and people either hurry or drift away. Two of us are staying over tonight and we will find our way to the local pub to dine and then I suspect, retire early. I have a Teams meeting at 9 o’clock in the morning.

Sunday and I am whiling my time away keeping still and reducing the pain till my appointment time rolls round. I watch half a snooker match, half a football match and half a rugby game. Somewhere in there my youngest daughter arrived. At last its time to go to the emergency walk in clinic. My partner drives me there but cannot come in with me. I check in and expect to wait a long time especially as I am early. I have may back pack with me stuffed with distraction and cancer data. To my surprise I am called in straight away and bizarrely I recognise the para medic as the same one that diagnosed my DVT over two years ago. He is very business like and askes me all the usual questions. He cannot access my latest bloods but I of course have them with me. The outcome is good, its torn or strained muscles, its all soft tissue damage. Voltarol, pain killers and sensible gentle exercise for the upper body is the way forward.

My partner drives me home and we get on with our evening. It ends with me taking more pain killers and going to bed for what turns out to be a trying night as I discover that it is more painful to lay down than to sit up or walk around.

Monday, bank holiday and I wake up quite late propped up. There is a coffee waiting and I sip it as I assess how I am. I get up and check my emails as usual and find my partner and youngest having breakfast. I do toast and coffee and set about getting my washing done along with some other chores. In no time at all its time to go to the pub where I booked a table for lunch. We arrive slightly early and have to loiter till the doors are opened. Once in we hunker down and order our meals and talk about the family and what we all need to do over the coming weeks. Its a good meal and a good conversation. We return home and we wrestle with the obstinacy of a laptop to hook up with an external monitor, usually adn easy peasey job but impossible on this occasion. My youngest daughter leaves to return home and I set about feeding the hedgehog, filling the bird feeders and bringing in my washing. I’m about done for the day and out of energy, my back is not sharp but aching and its a bit draining. I get back to the sofa and watch TV while drafting the blog. Tonight will be an early night as I intend to drive to a meeting tomorrow and stay overnight so I will need all the energy I can muster. So the last 72 hours feel like they have been a bit of a roller coaster with blood test that tell me I am still in the fight and then back pain that re-stimulates all my fears about kidney failure and cancer growth, finally the relief that my pain is soft tissue. So now its about pace and continuing to move in a manageable way.

Saturday, I am up the blood results are in:

Its the all important drop in PSA that is the crucial score. I am relieved that it is going down again. My kidneys and liver are good and the rest of the systems are holding up well. Now is the time to keep training and paying attention to my diet.

Time for a leisurely breakfast and then my partner and I go off to buy a new i-pad. Its of course Currys we go to and we wander around and look the goods over. The deal gets done and we head for the gym. Rather than head for the gym floor straight away we sit in the lounge with coffee and and have a long chat about where we are and managing what is going on for us. We eventually get up and go to the gym floor to get a machine. I cross train for 50 minutes and manage to burn 554 calories and travel 6. 36 kilometres. My back is hurting a bit. I shower and return to the lounge for coffee and a cookie. We drive home and have a sandwich before getting ready to go out for the evening.

I drive my partner and I to the pub where we are to meet friends we have not seen for two years. Its very busy and car parking requires all my skills to get the car into a parking space. We get our table and wait for our friends to arrive. It is as if nothing has happened, we settle back into catching up with each other and sharing our news. It is a lovely evening and very good to renew the conversations. Before we leave we get another date in the diary. Given our ages and the fact that my partner is the only one still working full time we all appear to have very busy lives. There is clearly no shortage of things to be doing be it supporting family with new babies or just maintaining a fit and healthy life style. We say our farewells and drive off to our respective homes. My partner goes off to bed and I start the blog but the pain in my back is getting worse and I am tired. I give in and go to bed.

I am up again at three o’clock in pain and taking paracetamol. All my old fears about my kidneys resurface but I know from the blood results that things should be alright. I return to bed but wearing an old wrap around back support to try and ease the pain. I doze fitfully until the morning.

Sunday. My back is hurting. I make drinks and take the back to bed and start the Dr Google routine. Of course once I start that all sorts of possibilities are revealed to me. Kidney problem is still my best bet, kidney stones to be precise, followed by muscle tear, but I think that unlikely. Of course a relationship with my cancer comes to mind and I wonder about spread. In the end I ring 111. It took what felt like an age to wade through all the information intended to deflect me elsewhere but eventually I got through to a very helpful person who ran me thorough an assessment. There was a brief pause while she consulted a clinician. I was to see someone in 12 hours and she found me an appointment for 5:30 pm today at a health centre on the other side of town. So I have breakfast and continue, and extend last nights blog draft. I shall while away the day and try not to fantasise too much before my appointment. It could be an interesting end to the day. As the nurses in Jamaica would say as they waved me off from the dialysis clinic “See you on the other side”!

Thursday and I wake up in the hotel, there is time to blog before breakfast. I m soon in the hotel dining room feeding myself and watching my fellow diners. The one next to me was a bit taken aback when I swore vehemently when my unstable table caused me to spill my coffee. I was not amused, which the woman next to me became aware very abruptly. Full of hotel food I return to the room, pack my back pack and then check out. Its a short walk to Prescot Street and the home of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. I check in and make my way to the new café downstairs. My manager joins me and we do my 1 t0 1 there. Its a constructive and supportive meeting and we arrange my future. The rest of the team join us and we chat. This is the first time we have been face to face in over two years and it is a real pleasure to see each other. We get a tour of the remodelled facilities and then settle into our meeting room for the rest of the day.

The meeting goes through its agenda of updates and specific items till lunchtime when we return to the café for more food. At our return I give my colleague the birthday present I had brought with me. The rest of the meeting passes quite quickly and soon its time for me to leave. I get into the underground and make my way to St Pancras. I am feeling tired now and I ache so I am very pissed off when I find my ticket will not let me on a train until 7 o’clock. I am tired, hurting and had enough so I dash to the ticket office and upgrade my ticket, what is more I upgrade to first class. Its a fortune to do so but I just want to get home in the most comfort I can. I dash back to the platform and just manage to get on the 5 o’clock fast train which will get me into Leicester just after 6 o’clock. As a result of getting into first class I get a free bottle of water and short bread. Such are the luxuries of first class travel, it used to be free wine.

I get to Leicester and make my way to the taxi rank. There are a lot of Italians around as Leicester are playing Roma in a semi final first leg this night. I get a taxi who quotes me a price which is at least £5 over the usual but I do not care, I just want home. The driver is fast and delivers thrills along the way but I am pleased to pay him and get in home. I strip and change, feed the hedgehog and then sit on the sofa to watch the football on TV. I go to bed totally spent.

Friday and I am up early as I have bloods to do at the GP. Its coffee, meds and the walk down to the surgery. I am in and out quite quickly minus a bit of blood. I pick up a newspaper, kitkats and grapes as I return home. Just as I get back to my front garden I get a call from a friend so I sit on our garden chair and chat. We talk about how work is now more expensive and getting out and about is costly and how we both ration our energies at the moment. We say our goodbyes and I go in and stow my shopping. I ring the hospital to find out how my sister is. The nurse runs me through what is going on and I pass this on to the rest of the family. I have a work meeting to prepare for and log in on the appointed time. The meeting goes well and I come away with some admin to do. My partner goes t see her mother, my eldest daughter goes to the gym and I have lunch and then have my half hour afternoon nap. Feeling a bit more spoonful I prepare the evening meal, set the dishwasher going and feed the hedgehog. I set about trying to organise a locksmith and a glazier to put my sisters house right. I email local providers and wait for responses. My last meaningful task is to do my April invoices and get it sent off knowing it will not get seen till after the bank holiday Monday.

My evening starts with a phone call from my youngest daughter who wants to talk about my sister and when people are going to visit her. She also raises issues about what my sister might be needing in terms of night clothes and personal items. My daughter may come to see us on Monday. We eat tea and settle down to watch the evenings rugby match, which turns out to be a cracker. We follow this up with Have I Got News For You and then we watch the first in the new series of Great British Sewing Bee. Its a joy. I shall now meander to midnight and see if my test results are in.

Wednesday and I am up early to move my car so that my partner can go to work. Its the first time in ages that she has physically gone to work and not just popped downstairs to the office. So after a toast breakfast I am free to prepare for the training session I am leading in the afternoon, to pack for my trip to London and to do all the chores I need to do in order to be away with a clear conscience. Its a slow start but I get underway with the training preparation. A friend calls me. We have not spoken for a while and it is a real pleasure to talk with her. She is still battling long COVID but her daughter has got better enough to return to school. We have a long conversation about income and the perils f shopping and how we shop around for the best deals on food and how we navigate the tricky choices between own brand foods and name brands. Some are tolerable others are not so brand names become luxuries to be bought only when special offers apply. Lockdown, COVID and the current inflation has taught us much or at least accentuated what we were doing already to provide for our families. I continue my morning of chores and preparation. Lunch is simply soup and anxiety as the training slot approaches. I organise my travel back pack, I’m going light today but need to check I have clean underwear, my meds and a present for a colleague. It do quite well but when I get to London later I discover I have no hair brush, which for a man with a luxuriant pony tail is a critical oversight.

At 2pm I am hooked up to my laptop starting a training session. Its an Enabling Environment session in which we are revising the standards of Boundaries and Development. I split the session into two 50 minute sessions so that we all get a break and I have time to check the new slides go up properly. The session goes okay, I have a chatty sort of style and tend towards a supervision type interaction where I just encourage people to share their experiences and ideas. It seems to work okay. My major gripe is how much I hate Teams. I just do not like the format. I get to the end and with some relief sign off.

Now my adventure starts. But before I can get going I get parcels delivered. More hedgehog food, picture frames and best of all a surprise chocolate cake from Bettys. It is a gift from a friend and old colleague to ease the current strains and stresses. It is a lovely gift adn just the lift I needed. It will be a treat fro my return from London on Thursday. I order an Uber. My first time. I use my newly down loaded app and to my surprise and relief the techno works. So I am ferried to the station in luxury. My electronic phone ticket gets me onto the platform and I get an earlier train than I booked so I arrive in London at 6:30. I brave the tube and clamber out at my station to find my way to the hotel. Its a short walk but already I am back to not liking London especially now it has rampant psychopathic cyclists zipping about and worst of all silent, illegal electric scooters. Its just one big hazard. I get to hotel, check in, make my room and phone my colleague who is in a hotel a few minutes away. I walk to his hotel and we pop across the road to an Italian restaurant. A small, very Italian restaurant, London classy sort of place. We eat a really nice meal of freshly made pasta and sweet goodies as we chat work, history and of course football as Liverpool are beating Villareal tonight. My c0llleague walks back almost all the way to my hotel with me before we part way and I return to put myself to bed. Its been a long day and I am tired but its been a real pleasure to eat out with a colleague for the first time in years. I write the blog in the morning before I go for breakfast. Go me!

Tuesday an exciting day to start with as I am in front of the laptop and talking to a team in Australia who are bidding to build and put in place a therapeutic Community. Its a stimulating conversation and it was particularly good to see some colleagues on the call. For the first time in ages I walk to the village shop, buy a paper and stop off in the café for a bacon and sausage. When I get home my partner is still experiencing pain in her arm so she cancels work for the afternoon and we set off to Leicester Royal Infirmary A & E. Its was an experience. Long waiting times, packed rooms, the odd person queue jumping by collapsing in the waiting room, hats off to that person. At some point I was not allowed to accompany my partner so I wandered the hospital, snacking at various points. At last it was off to the x-ray department. A brief wait and then it was back the tent, yes tent, in the car park. Good news, no breaks, no chips and no cracks. So we had established that it is tissue damage, we can deal with that. We drive home.

Back home there is time to write a card to my sister and get it posted, feed the hedgehog, clear the kitchen and get the bins out and then its time to draft the blog. I’ve still got a to do list untouched but it will have to wait as I work my way through the priorities. What I’ve not shared is the lovely card I got from a friend I sent The Little Prince to. It is a lovely picture so I share it here.

I note along the way that life is being a challenge at the moment with an awful lot going on for family and friends. It seems that everyone has their plates full at the moment. Interestingly when there is so much going on the blog is getting briefer a sure sign that my energy is lower than usual. I guess the temptation is to withdraw and minimise engagement but I think that is not the best way to go. So I shall try and give the blog more attention.

Monday and I get up to toast and coffee before trotting down to the GP to get my monthly injection. It goes reasonably well and I collect a paper on the walk back home. I do the cross words and then go shopping for window lock keys and the things that Tesco tell me they are not delivering. I indulge in a bacon and sausage sandwich before returning home. There is a curtain rail to put back up, and my sister needs a radio and some art books sent to her, and I hoover through the house while my washing gets done. All in all its a busy day. I train on the rower for half and hour, it goes reasonably well.

I take a long bath and try to ease out my aches. The evening is food and then TV. I am tired and sore from the injection. I draft the blog, briefly as tomorrow I have a Zoom call with a team in Australia about prison therapeutic communities early in the morning, now that could be fun.

Saturday, I wake to find gifts of teas and bath bombs from a friend. A good way to start the day and much appreciated. My first job is to find my sister’s ward at the hospital. I ring and unlike last night I get straight through and ascertain her ward and talk to her nurse. I later found out she is in a room of her own, I suspect she is being isolated as a precaution until they ascertain her COVID status. The nurse says she was admitted to the ward at 5am, which means she spent almost 12 hours in emergency. I share her location and the ward number with the neighbours and indicate that I am more than happy for people to visit her.

There is practical stuff to do while my partner goes to the gym but we manage to watch the second half of a rugby game together later. I train on the rower in the garage for the first time since 11th of March. It was hard but I managed to finish the session.

My partner makes tea and the family settle down to watch a film for the evening. I watch the football highlights adn go to bed. Tomorrow we are driving down to my sisters house to make sure it is secure and to tidy up after the hurried departure.

Sunday we drive to London in good time and get in to my sisters house. My partner, eldest daughter and I set to and clean, tidy and organise some of the house. Where the police broke in the glass from the back door was still strewn all over the kitchen floor. We beavered away for several hours filling the bins, changing bedding and clearing the decks a bit so there was room to move. By early afternoon we had run out of bags and to be frank energy. We packed away locked up and said farewell to the neighbours. The drive back was slow due to at least two accidents on the way. We stopped for a break once we got to Northampton and then continued home. We had coffee, I fed the hedgehog and uncovered the garden furniture so we could sit outside for coffee. My partner went for a well earned bat h while I and my eldest daughter ordered take away as no one could face cooking. As we wait I draft the blog. Tomorrow is injection day so it will be paracetamol and bed for me.