Saturday and I wake to coffee and a departing partner and daughter, one to the gym and one to the hairdresser. I get up, have a muesli breakfast, check my messages and then spend time with the garden camera trying to find the right data cable. I succeed eventually and download the latest pictures of our hedgehog. He/she seems to be eating well and avoiding next doors cat very well. I of course start the blog so that I can include the hedgehog update.

My partner returns from the gym and we go off to the garden center to buy meat for tonight’s birthday feast and to top up or egg supply. I wear my Puck Futin hoodie for the first time in to the world. No one comments, why would they, but a couple of people do give me a second look. Bizarrely it turns out that my partner did not notice I was wearing it so was oblivious of any response whatsoever. Mission complete we return home.

The afternoon sees 14 man England lose to Ireland at rugby. A good game but an inevitable out come when you are reduced to 14 men after 82 seconds of the match. From there we move to feast my youngest daughters birthday with a roast meal, chocolate cake and present giving. It is good to sit around the table and chat, reminisce and plan for the future. Eventually I leave the table to finish the blog and to watch the football highlights. I have not trained today and I have feasted so I am not hopeful about tomorrows weigh in. However my weight battle and indeed my cancer battle, are insignificant compared to the battles in the Ukraine that rage through my TV screen at me. There is no good ending to this war, there will be an ending but at a much greater cost than we are seeing now. We either deal with this bully or suffer the consequences. If we are going to act it needs to be sooner rather than later.

Friday and I get up to a small breakfast and a list of chores to do before the arrival of my youngest daughter and her partner later today. I get a load of washing in and draw up a shopping list. However before I can go shopping I prepare a meal for the evening and pop it in the Crockpot. I drive to our local Sainsburys and gathered up goodies to celebrate a birthday. On the way home I fill the car and check my tyres in readiness for going to York on Monday.

Once home I stow the food and have a light lunch while doing the crosswords in todays paper. I then set out to empty bins, hoover around the house and generally clear the house before my daughter arrives. I take a moment to check the hedgehog canteen and replenish the dishes, no time to check the garden camera, perhaps tomorrow. My spoons are running out but I am nagged by the need to at least do some sort of training today. I change into my kit and go to the garage to row for half an hour. Its a few days since I’ve rowed and it took a while to get myself going but in the end it turns out a reasonable session.

So after a few minutes rest I change and wait for my daughter to arrive, which they do almost immediately. So for the first time in a while the family eat a meal together around the table. The family chat and I leave them to it to watch the Wales v France rugby game. A good game. The family drift off to bed at the end of the match and I sit and draft the blog. So this is the domestic life, thrilling in a whole new way.

Thursday and if I was counting antiandrogen days it would be day 79. Of course I am pleased that the antiandrogens have lowered my PSA and I am hoping that they will go on doing so, but I am experiencing more tiredness than before. This means that I can do two main things a day after which anything else is a bonus. I can gym/work, gym/garden, gym/shop, gym/ go to rugby, gym/Shed, gym/hoover. If I do not gym then I can combine any of the others depending on the degree to which I do them. It appears that spoon theory is spot on. In any one day I only have so many spoons of energy and when its gone its gone. I have had to lower my expectations of myself and accept that I need to pace myself but that my well being in terms of cancer means I need to invest quite a lot of spoons into keeping exercised. I thought I would just put that out there in case anyone was thinking of inviting me to Zumba classes.

So this Thursday started with an early start. I needed to move my car so that my partner could go to physio. This done there was time for a marmalade toast breakfast before I hit the work screens at 9 o’clock. I useful meeting and afterwards I did a bit of admin. I umed and arrrd a bit before deciding to go to the gym again. By this time the guy who helps with the garden turned up and was setting about the weeding so he needed to have tea and a chat. I packed my kit but then took a call from a friend who now has a child on crutches after a visit to a hospital last night. A trampoline mishap resulting in ligament damage. We chat for a while as I drive to the gym. The world seems to be giving everyone more to juggle just when they do not need it.

I get in the gym and get a cross trainer so that I can do another hour of “vigorous exercise” as my oncologist would define it. So I do my hour and burn of 605 calories whilst going 8.18 Kilometres, marginally better than yesterday. I spend a bit of time on the weights machines, arms and back mostly, and then head for the showers. I sit in the lounge with my customary coffee and egg and bacon bun whilst checking my social media and recovering. It takes about an hour to get myself recovered and then I am off to Sainsburys. I’ve been promising to try alcohol free Guinness for ages but its never been in stock at Tesco’s. To my vague surprise I find some, so I have a treat to try tonight as I watch more European football. I drive home adn find my Puck Futin hoodie has arrived. Its try on time and of course a photo opportunity:

I replenish the hedgehog food and provide fresh water in the dish so hopefully it will continue to eat and who knows one day there maybe Urchins. I clear the kitchen and with my last energy draft the blog. Tonight I shall watch football, drink alcohol free Guinness and go to bed early, again.

I am struck by my buying such overt signals of Ukrainian support and link it to a comment I made at yesterdays Elders meeting. I said that I thought it is important for things to be visual, that there should be reminders in the environment so that people could not avoid the conflict and the realities of war. I realise that there are parallels between the blog and the clothing. It is the sense of relentlessness that I experience with cancer and in what the Ukrainian people are experiencing. Anyone who experiences cancer, I believe, experiences that sense of constant threat that never leaves one alone. The Ukrainian people are living with that sense of remorseless threat day and night with no sight in end. I find a ray of hope in all this. No matter how I fight or battle I will ultimately loose, on the other hand the Ukrainians can win, if not in the short term ultimately they can. So for me I think the keeping the relentless conflict visible is a way to acknowledge what is being experienced.

Wednesday and its drugs and Elders meeting day. I get out of bed to a coffee and muesli breakfast and then fill my drugs wallets for the next two weeks. At 11 o’clock I log on to join the Elders meeting and of course we talk about the situation in the Ukraine. We are a nice group of educated, caring people but we struggle to find a contribution to make. I express how appalled I am at the difference between our governments response to the humanitarian need and the kindness and compassion of the German people offering room in their homes to Ukrainians arriving by train in Berlin. We manage crisps in Calais and no where to get a visa or anyone to get one from. During our discussion someone pointed us in the direction of the woman who offered Russian soldiers sun flower seeds to put in their pockets so that when they died flowers would grow. I have put below the video and the transcript of what she said. My kind of woman but I have to say the soldier did try to be polite, I wonder what he thinks he is doing. As someone in the group said that’s a classic reality confrontation.

Full transcript

Read the transcript in full below:

Woman: Who are you?

Soldier: We have exercises here. Please go this way.

Woman: What kind of exercises? Are you Russian?

Soldier: Yes.

Woman: So what the fck are you doing here?

Soldier: Right now our discussion will lead to nothing.

Woman: You are occupants, you are fascists! What the fuck are you doing on our land with all these guns? Take these seeds and put them in your pockets, so at least sunflowers (Ukrainian national flower) will grow when you all lie down here.

Soldier: Right now our discussion will lead nowhere. Let’s not escalate this situation. Please.

Woman: What situation? Guys, guys. Put the sunflower seeds in your pockets please. You will lie down here with the seeds. You came to my land? Do you understand? You are occupiers. You are enemies.

Soldier: Yes.

Woman: And from this moment, you are cursed. I’m telling you.

Soldier: Now listen to me…

Woman: I’ve heard you.

Soldier: Let’s not escalate the situation. Please go this way.

Woman: How can it be further escalated? You fcking came here uninvited. Pieces of sh*t

The group will try to do something to support colleagues even if it is only to offer a space in which to talk and exchange ideas and information. We will see how it turns out over the next few days. We end our meeting and go our separate ways. For me it is going to the garden to see if the hedgehog has eaten of the food put out fresh yesterday. It is good news one of the little dishes is empty, I note it is the more moist food that has been eaten so I replenish the dish with some Prickles meat treat. I also dig out the dog bowl that has languished in the garage for a long time, give it a clean and fill it with fresh water. So now the hedgehog has water as well as food if it hasn’t found its way to the pond. I look up some hedgehog information and discover that my belief that baby hedgehogs are called Hoglets is wrong, they are in fact called Urchins. I like the ideas of Urchin hogs. Its time to go to the gym while my partner goes to see her mother with her brother.

The gym is empty. I have the changing rooms to my self and there are only one or two people on the gym flor when I get there. I get on a cross trainer and start my hour. It is painful adn hard going. This new medication is taking it out of me and my energy levels are low. It feels as if I can only two major things in a day at the moment. I can work and gym , or garden and work, or garden and gym, or work and work but what I can’t do is any more at the moment. That is without factoring in reading or music playing or Shed time and Shed time lays at the heart if my future plans for correspondence and the poetry coyote.

So the hour is tough, I burn only 601 calories and go 8.08 kilometres. This is a reasonable distance but a lousy calorie loss. I shower and recover in the lounge with a coffee and an egg and bacon bun. I deal with emails and WhatsApp messages and as five o’clock closes in I drive home to an Amazon delivery of replacement mop heads and a widow cleaners card. Kit into the washing and I settle down to my evening, I’m not hungry so I draft the blog. I am finding at the moment that if I leave the blog to the late night then I’ve not the energy to do it or at least to make a reasonable stab at it. My evening will be a soupy one and a footbally one, after which I shall retreat to my bed and hope that I sleep. My new medication, that I take at night, works its work on me during my sleep, or lack of it, so I wake up feeling tired and needing time to get myself going. It feels as if my daily store of energy spoons is decreasing. This is the practicality of the relentlessness of cancer, to which I can only respond by equally relentlessly resisting and remaining engaged.

Tuesday, what a day for today spring has sprung. Apart from the joys of having my two monthly foot papmpering and get spring feet, my new Ukrainian support sweat shirt arrived, I spent time in the garden for the first time and best of all the hedgehog is awake. Yes all this and there are pictures:

So what can I say? In the face of the horrors of the Ukrainian war some how nature goes on finding a way. Regardless of what Putin does the real processes of the planet will keep moving and inevitabley take Putin to the earth or flames. However the same is true for all of us, the question is will we go from causes Putin or causes nature?

Anyway today I have jogged along with nature and may or may not train today but will watch tonights football match. I admit I slipped a smidgen of work into the morning but not a huge amount. I also had a good call with a friend this afternoon and talked about how COVID continues to plague us. My partner got a COVID contact alert today from what looked like a guenuine nhs portal. It asked her to get a PCR test and that she could get a home one sent. It then asked for a £1 and bank details at which point I found you could order one free from the nhs. It was a scam but looked very convincing. This world can be a pig at times, holding on to the good and being kind can be a challenge at times, but lets face it which of us hasn’t wished piggy Putin dead in the last 12 days?

So today was not the day I was expecting but its turned out differently good. Spring has put in an appearance, and if its good for hedgehogs it will do for me.

Monday, here we go again, I wake up feeling crap again so I get myself up and coffee’d. I get my washing in and then pack my bag for the gym. I weigh myself as I did not have time yesterday. That turns out not to be a good decision, or at least a disturbing one. I weigh in at 97.1 kilos, that’s the heaviest I have been for years. I am concerned but know I need to knuckle down and sort out my eating. I can no longer indulge in treats. I’m pissed off with myself as I have made my situation worse for myself. So starting today its operation “eat careful”. I can now no longer reward myself for training with sweets, chocolate, hot cross buns, scones and biscuits. Its back to fruit.

I get to the gym and find that all the cross trainers are taken. As an alternative I hop onto a bike and pedal 65 minutes away, I burn 625 calories and go 23.81 kilometres. It feels a while since I cycled and my body reminds me of the fact. I do the hour adn head for the showers adn then the lounge where I order my usual coffee and egg and bacon bun. I rest a while, check messages, make calls and arrangements. Business done I drive to our local Sainsburys to buy a new milk pan and pick up some bathroom cleaner. I was hoping for a Vileda mop head replacement but like Tescos there are none, it would seem the company is struggling right now. I drive home partly satisfied.

Home and the washing goes in the tumble dryer and I head for the Shed. There I do todays crosswords and rest. My next chore is to fill the bird feeders. Bye late afternoon I am done. I unload my ironing but before I can do anything with it Tesco deliver. So there is a quick interlude and then I am back folding up my washing while watching another historical episode of The Fugitive. My evening will be food and football and hopefully an early night.

Sunday, its cold and grey to start with and I wake up feeling decidedly groggy from the meds. My partner is up and brings me coffee quickly followed by a bacon bagel. A chat ensues and we decide to go the zoo, Twycross zoo, which is not far from us. We decide to go as a family so we get ourselves ready for the trip, including getting my hair braided for the day.

So of we went to the zoo having booked our tickets on the zoo app. We arrive and are taken aback by just how many people have turned out, families everywhere, all wearing more clothes than us and many in wellies. I think we sorted out quite quickly that we might be underdressed. Getting in was tricky to start with as their IT system could not find my order number. Eventually we were ushered to visitor services who had an older IT system that found us. We wandered off into the zoo to seek animal moments. There were some good moments but generally the animals looked miserable, cold and much of the zoo had been affected by COVID.

There were apes, a rhino and gorillas but all looked cold and bored and by about two o’clock so were we. We headed for the food court and drank coffee and nibbled sandwiches while watching the snow leopard wander around its enclosure and looking like I felt in lock down. Its that universal same old same old experience of being cut off from what is natural and normal. Enough was enough and we drove home. It was a better day than sitting around or going to the gym but somehow the experience was saddening to see how the zoo had been affected by COVID.

I settle down to watch half a rugby match and then drift into the evening where I eat tea against a background of TV. There is Peaky Blinders and then the news full of the Ukrainian war. I try to draft the blog but frankly it is difficult when everything is invaded by the inhumanity of war. Nothing is beyond being newsworthy and there is scant regard for peoples privacy or dignity in their struggle to survive. Our news machine is as self interested as any other and when it takes up the moral higher ground it also looses its sense of humanity.

Friday, a slow start but there is a work call to make in the morning, so its a swift breakfast and I am in front of my laptop. The meeting is a useful and leaves me with admin to do. By lunchtime i am finished with work, eat a light lunch and go to the Shed to write letters. Having written at last I walk to the post box adn send my letters on their way. Its home and then my partner and I go to the gym. As soon as I step onto the cross trained I know its going to be a tough session and so it proves to be. I burn 695 calories and go 7.37 kilometres. A shower and then a lounge coffee before going home to an Indian take away and an evening of rugby and the end of Click Bait. I recommend Click Bait to anyone who wants to know how to go “catfishing” and thinks that social media is only of the young.

Saturday and its dull and cold so there is little incentive to be getting up and leaping around. We get up and have breakfast put a meal in the crockpot and then grit our teeth and go for a walk at our local duck pond. We chat on the way and then head for the garden centre to buy a Sunday pie and bacon. We return home and watch Tigers loose to Saracens. An evening meal and then we discover Bordertown, a Finnish drama with a strange but gifted detective in the lead. Its dark, minimalist and dour but interesting. It is strange but I watch these dramas and decide if I would fancy living there or visiting. Young Wallander ensured that I will never voluntarily go to Malmo. Bordertown has convinced me I have no desire to go to Lappeenranta in Finland. I was also disappointed that there was no mention of my favourite Finnish football team Honka.

I have a real sense of waiting for Spring to properly arrive. I am training regularly but making no effort to really control my diet hence my weight is stuck around 96 kilos. I just want to feel the sun on me and have that sense that I no longer need my winter fat. Is this a delusion and an excuse for laziness, I’m not sure, but I do miss that sense of shorts and T shirt time.

Thursday, I wake up feeling groggy, its the usual these days, just the result of the new antiandrogen. I’ve a meeting at 9 o’clock so its a quick coffee and drugs adn then I am in front of the laptop talking business. A couple of colleagues are unable to make it today so it is mostly focused on my new service that I met with yesterday. So the meeting is useful adn we end on time releasing me to head for the gym.

The gym is almost empty, just some familiar faces, fanatics and older people like me staying alive. Its back to the cross trainer today and its a grind, my body really does not want to do this but its medicine and Rocket needs support. I do the hour burning 709 calories and going 7.79 kilometres. I make myself do some weights work on the machines. A swift shower and then into the lounge for more coffee and an egg and bacon bun. I take my time and let myself recover as I check messages and e-mails before driving home. I do however spend a few minutes before leaving to order soem anti Putin merchandise, which I will share on the blog as soon as it arrives.

As I drive home a friend calls adn we chat about how her recover from long COVID is going. It is of course slow as the real world continue to make its every day demands of work and family life. We talk about how the war in Ukraine is affecting us. That combination of anger and desperation is an uncomfortable feeling. Once home I unpack my kit and set off to the village shop. I need the steps and a paper. The reality is I get my walk but additional chocolate biscuits, chocolate and grapes. I retreat to the Shed to read the paper and do the cross words while I nibble my way through a mystery bag of Maltesers.

Early evening and my partner and I eat tuna pasta before I go off to collect my eldest daughter from her circus class. It will be an evening of football and early sleep, I’m not fit for anything else and my body is already protesting the exertions of the day. I think my intentions to rebalance my activities is timely. Today is world book day, I should at least make the effort to take a book to bed tonight.

Wednesday and its off to the gym asap despite the crap weather and the rain. So after coffee and drugs I drive to the gym. A few sturdy souls are there already, mostly ageing blokes and younger women. I guess we are all avoiding something. Me? I am avoiding crowded changing rooms, intolerably mouthy macho blokes and sitting in my “Soffice” for a morning. My legs feel tired and I resort to a recumbent cycle thinking it would be easier on my back. I stop after 10 minutes intensely irritated by my stupidity. I had forgotten to strap my Fitbit to my trainers thereby losing steps to my step count. So I put my oversight right and continue to pedal for the rest of the hour. I eventually burn 568 calories over 22.89 kilometres. My body is not pleased when it finds the showers tepid, but it gets itself to the lounge for coffee and egg and bacon bun. I think I am becoming addicted to the gyms egg and bacon buns.

I get home, unpack my kit and make more coffee as I settle down to get ready for my work call at 2pm. The call comes and goes. It is productive and a while ago it would have kindled some fires of motivation in me but, nice as it was, the joy quotient was low. I follow up the call with some admin work and make up February’s invoice to send off. I’m still waiting for January’s to be paid, not an unusual wait. So I arrive at early evening with not a lot in my head except the vague thought that I miss the Shed, gardening and that there is more football on TV tonight. I am aware that I have not read anything for ages and that my pile of “waiting to be read ” books is now seven books tall. I’m beginning to think that I’m starving myself of stimulation and that can only lead to one thing; becoming a boring old fart. Now that’s something to be avoided, I would not like to think I am losing my curiosity.