Saturday and it is to be a busy day. I get up and take my morning meds and get ready to drive my partner to her mothers house. We arrive and met the carer who is still staying there while my partners mother is in hospital. We spend time measuring the bed and the stair lift. My partner collects clothes for her mum and then sees the house is in order before it is locked up . The carer returns home and my partner and I return to ours. There is time for lunch before getting ready to go to the States of Independence literary event at De Montfort University.

I drive into town and park up so that I can walk down to the university with my partner. I am suffering and finding the effort of walking very difficult. We book in and then we walk down to the rows of book stalls. There are so many self published books of all kinds, especially poetry. It makes me realise just how getting to the top echelon is a matter of career and knowing the business. At base I am okay with this as my poetry is out there and my family can access it if they want to. I spend time chatting to Rulers Wit. My books are on their stall, which is nice to see. I give them some of my new business cards and talk about a timetable for there next collection. My partner and I go for a drink and then return in time for the open mike session. The hosts ask that each person confines themselves to three minutes, which the first poets do but then people start reading extracts from their short stories. Some of them are insufferably long. I am enraged as I think it is unbearably rude for people to ignore the three minutes and to make others wait so long to perform. Some of the poetry was interesting but there are some people who should just not read their poetry. At least one or two good poems where ruined by the flat and mumbled delivery of the poet. I was going to put myself up for a poem or two but the session ran over by so much that by the end all I wanted was to get out and get home.

The walk back to the car was painful, I am huffing and puffing and really struggling. By the time I get home I am shivering and trembling. I feel chilled and cold and hunker down on the sofa under a blanket. My gut is in uproar. I eat tea and then settle down on the sofa. My partner microwaves the lavender bag which I clutch to my chest to try and get warm. I half watch some TV but eventually go to bed fully dressed trying to get warm. It is a distressing time as I try to get warm and to sleep. My gut is disturbed which means I am to and fro to the bathroom. At one thirty in the morning I am up and taking paracetamol. The next thing I know its five o’clock. Then its suddenly 10 o’clock and I realise the clocks have gone forward an hour.

Sunday and my partner has brought me hot water and my eldest daughter has gone to comi com. My partner goes to see her mother in hospital and I drift in and out of sleep. I scribble a poem.

509
Inert,
I have nothing.
It’s all too much,
the effort insurmountable
to push words
onto paper.
This state is illusive 
and will not be caged
by this pen
this ink.
If this is defeat
it is a tame beast
where only the head 
sees into the future.
There will be poems
but not in this
flat land
where erosion works
to hold me still
and make me wait
with the future
as an act 
of faith.
				509 29-03-2026

By the time my partner returns I am getting ready to get up. I take my meds and eat the toast my partner makes me. Once up I settle into my sofa spot and start to draft the blog while watching the Sunday afternoon rugby match. The rest of my day is slow and a time of rest. Tomorrow is my 28 day injection that always knocks me backward for at least 48 hours, so given my vulnerable state I am not looking forward to the coming days. This is a tricky time.