Saturday and the last week end of the year 2023 dawns. I wake and I feel rough, I’m not sure why I just do and that’s never a good way to start. Its a wet and miserable day again and I do not fancy it. After some initial chores and tidying I retreat to the sofa and what turns out to be a log Tv day crammed with football and rugby. I nibble food while I watch and my partner goes of to have her hair done and return. Game follows game until a take away evening meal, which heralds a binge watch of the Diplomat. As the day goes on I begin to feel a bit better and finally end my day with Tina Turner in concert, my night meds and bed.

Its days like this that are hard to take. With the best will in the world I was not good for anything. Its the sort of day your average self respecting Troll would accuse me of gutlessness, of lacking moral fibre and of being a quitter. Its difficult to explain, in fact I find it impossible, my only response is to take paracetamol in hope of a lift adn to try sleep well at the end of the day and hope for a better tomorrow.

Sunday New Years Eve. I’ll be buggered if I’m having another day like yesterday. My partner brings coffee and we reflect on the year we have had. The first thought is that it has been crap, my sisters death and the consequent all consuming life admin that went with it, my cancer not being amenable to radio therapy and the new bouts of chemotherapy to start with. More recently the issues around my partner being able to find emergency care for her mother has been a challenge as was having the injured carer stay with us before she could return to Greece. There were of course the usual perturbations of home ownership like a boiler that failed, appliances that died, and the minor irritations of broken gadgets and chattels. Neither of us escaped the year with out other injuries, aches and pains and neither of us are as we want to be. Having recounted to ourselves the downs and challenges of the year we of course noted that this was the year our newest grandson was born and our youngest daughter became a mother safely and that my son and his family, including two other grandchildren are all alive and well in Sweden. These are priceless gifts. We have many things working in our favour, like not having debt and being able to contemplate making the house good for future us. We also have friends that care about us, with whom we can share things. Having had our brief reflection on the year we decide to have breakfast out.

Of course before I get ready to go out I weight myself, it being a Sunday and the last of the year. I have not trained since the 16th of November, it slips by easily, and I have comfort eaten over Christmas, as a result the scales tip at a massive 99.5 kilos. Yep I have crossed my threshold of totally unacceptable. It is clear I need to train and stop the sweet stuff, tomorrow of course as I have one day of this year left. I drive my partner to the garden centre with the best café, and we indulge in a proper full English gardeners breakfast accompanied by warming hot chocolate. Its a pleasant morning spent chatting and continuing our planning of for 2024. Venice is the aim for my partner’s sixty fifth but as always there is my cancer to be worked around. We return home and walk to the village shop. All I want is a bottle of coke so I can see the new year in with a non alcohol rum and Coke. Its a simple wish.

Home and into my loungers I watch my home town rugby team win and then start to draft this end of year blog as Zulu plays in the background. So the last evening of the year begins. There will be food, last minute indulgences, messages of happy New Year and then night meds before bed. The New Year will arrive in the morning and for me that means getting back to the fight. Denial, exercise and reclaiming my place in the world and of course becoming England’s foremost vanity poet. Hootenanny!