Wednesday and welcome to cycle seven of my second bout of chemo. Remember this is not a cure this is palliative care, I had to sign papers to say I understood this. It’s the “their doing their best best but we cannot cure you ” oncology clause. So I wake up to a coffee with my partner already up and about around the house. It is she who greets the tree folk who have returned to load up the logs from yesterdays tree felling and to stump grind. Before I can get up my partner is already helping our injured houseguest wash her hair. When the cost is clear I get and my partner makes me breakfast before I get myself into the shower. I’m tired this morning and things take time. There is nothing in the post for me so I catch up with filling this weeks drugs wallet with the first days of cycle seven chemo pills. As I am in admin mode I also pay the invoice for the work done to our boiler. Thankfully the boiler is now tickety boo and keeping us warm and supplied with hot water.
Noon arrives and I drive my partner and I to a lovely little restaurant in a village not far away. Unfortunately it is one of those posh villages with “historic history” and no bloody parking. What parking they have got at this time of year is taken up with Christmas stalls filled with crap that no one really wants. I’ve learnt my lesson, if we do this again I’ll Uber it. IN the end I drop my partner off at the restaurant and drive off to find a side street to park in and then hike back to the restaurant myself. Its a posh restaurant full of nice country types with the usual accessories, so I am not sure that my “fuck cancer” T shirt and long white pony tail that spills over my shoulders once my beanie is removed, is viewed as quite fitting in with the rest of the clientele. The restaurant staff are of course polite and attentive. The meal is excellent and I in effect have a Christmas dinner including a minimal serving of sprouts, just the two, but it makes me feel festive. By the time I have gone through the Christmas pudding I am up for a black coffee and an Armagnac. Over our lunch my partner and I take stock of Christmas and our unforeseen circumstances and chip away at a plan. By three o’clock we are done, pay the bill and march off to find the car. There is a bit of me that wants to build a huge five story car park in the middle of their village and clad it with murals of Morris dancers and Maypole dancing. It would of course have a community of rough sleepers or traditional tramps living in it so the gentle folk of the village could knit mufflers for them and take them broth, while the local parson could mobilise his parishioners to make a special effort at Christmas to take one for the festive season. Any way we drive home through the end of school traffic.
Once home I go into the garden and look at the back of the house without the trees, it look big and open. Taking the trees out has made a huge difference. I retreat to the sofa as my partners brother arrives to talk family business. I take a well earned post lunch nap and wake up in the dark, I do believe my own snoring has roused me. I start to draft the blog and drift toward the evening. No doubt I will rue the sprouts later but for now I am content enough to idle time until Shetland is on. Shetland comes and goes and its time to prepare for bed, so its my night meds which includes the first of chemo cycle 7, setting the dishwasher going and a bit of last minute tidying.
