Sunday and I wake after a night of terrible nightmare. I dreamt of the house being invaded by men demanding that they do work on the house, a real bunch of vagabond brigands. I stood up to them adn told them to fuck off and threw them out and off the property but not before they had damaged the front door and porch. Eventually they left in a trotting cart. It left me distressed and I woke shaken. I think it was a cancer dream, the symbolism of being invaded and being made fearful all felt very cancerous to me. I got up cleared the kitchen put out the recycling, half checking the door and porch as I did so, and then retuned to bed with warm drinks for my partner and I.

After sharing my nightmare we got up for breakfast and face timed our youngest daughter. My partner went to the gym, my eldest daughter to a friends to work. I spent time reading a poem a member of the poetry stanza has sent me and then replying to his accompanying email. Alone in the house I start an early draft of the blog as I gather up my courage to go to the garage to train, spurred on by the horrific fact that I weighed in at 100 kilos this morning. I am appalled at myself, that I have let my fear do this to me.

I go to the garage and strap myself into the rower. I set the session for thirty minutes, set my activity monitor going and set off. I am working at about 75% of my capacity, its hard but I push through. I can hear the wind howling outside as the latest storm comes in. I make the end of the session and I am just glad to get there.

Having finished the session I record it in my journal and then head for the garden where I wrestle the cover back on the garden swing seat as the wind whips up. Back indoors I change out of my training kit and get a drink and a sandwich after going to the bathroom and being relieved that I have not passed blood. I settle into watching a rugby match as the house around me rattles in the ever increasing wind. My partner has retuned from the gym and quietly stitches together the grandson’s cardigan as I continue to draft the blog to the background of rugby. The evening meal is taken as a family and then we watch Vera while the storm intensified, rattling the house. I take my meds, finish off the blog and go to my bed hoping that the remaining items required to see my book come into being arrive soon.