Monday, Jab Monday. I wake to see snow and sleet outside and prepare to do my Nanook of the North impression, getting up taking my partner tea and then putting on several layers, finished off with my prison anorak, grippy boots and Shark gloves. Having taken my morning meds I walk down to the GP surgery. In a very short time I am called in by my usual nurse who is very chatty and business like. She hunts around my right lower gut area trying to find a non lumpy bit to inject into to me. She pinches a bit of my fat and goes in. The injection takes a while but then it is done and I am sporting a fluffy cloud of cotton wool and tape. I put all my layers back in order and wish her a merry cheerio.

As I am out and about I walk to the village shop and buy a paper and more crumpets, which I have taken a liking to recently. Once home I am out of my boots and anorak and toasting crumpets for breakfast. As I have a paper I set about doing the three daily crosswords, two are relatively straight forward but the third one proves to be sticky. Eventually I crack it and feel chuffed that I got there on my own, no google. With my social media and messages checked I move on to domestic tasks, which includes putting tonight’s meal in the crock pot. I am doing a version of chicken and chorizo with mixed herbs, a chicken stock based source with white wine and brandy. Its all a matter of luck how these meals turn out, depending on what is in the fridge on any given day. I found some of the worlds smallest parsnips in the fridge so they have gone in almost whole, something I’ve not done before, so it remains to be seen if the whole thing works or not.

With the kitchen cleared I am beginning to feel my post jab shivers starting so I take myself off to the lounge and settle down to read Tomas Transtromer’s collected poems entitled The Half Finished Heaven. This was a gift from my son in Sweden in response to my request for Swedish poetry for Christmas. I spend all afternoon reading the collection and about him. His poetry is direct and clear, which I like but unfortunately I nod off a couple of times, a result of getting up early and the jab, not the quality of the poetry. Tomas Transtromer is a Noblel Prize winner who died in 2015 and well know in Sweden, I’d never heard of him. The translation is by Robert Bly an American and what caught my eye is that there is a book of Transtromer’s and Bly’s correspondence over some twenty six years before Transtromer had a stroke. I suspect I shall seek it out as I am always interested in letter writers and people who stay in correspondence with each other.

I should perhaps mention that Transtromer was a psychologist who spent many years of his life working with young offenders, it is perhaps this similarity in us that draws me to his work. This a collection that I shall read again. My partner returns from the gym and joins me to read in the lounge as I start to draft the blogs. Tonight she will have her singing lesson and I will fight off the shakes from my injection. As I draft this I can feel myself getting shivery and nibble Croccantini to keep my blood sugar up and of course for comfort. Croccantini are thin hazelnut biscuits dipped in chocolate, very moreish.

So the plan is to keep warm, eat the crock pot meal, watch something mindless on TV, take my meds and have an early night in the hope that I will sleep okay. The first night after my 28 day jab tends to be a bit of a battle as the injection site gets sore and my shivers get more pronounced. My best line of defence is to be kind to myself and to take paracetamol.