Thursday and my final waking up in a hotel bedroom, I’m tempted to just go but I go to the restaurant and make toast and coffee just to sustain me on my way. With everything in the boot I settle my bill and get under way. Its a nightmare, the sun is so low in the sky that it is blinding making driving a real challenge. Its such a pain I stop at the first service station and buy a pair of sunglasses, this was a stroke of genius and transform my driving experience. All goes well and I arrive home in the late morning to find the gas fire service man finishing up. So my first act of home coming is to open up my wallet and pay him for the work. At least now our gas fire works and we can huddle round it in a Christmassy way should we wish to. I unpack and set about some of the Christmas preparation including preparing for Saturdays Stanza meeting. By the time of the early evening I have run out of spoons and idle my way through the evening till its time to take my evening meds and go to bed.
Friday and I start my day quite perky knowing that I am going to be going to the hospital to collect my next three cycles of chemo therapy pills. Having done my vitals I get up and get ready to travel into town. Mid morning one of my nephews calls in to deliver a Christmas present and have coffee. My partner and I sit down and chat over coffee with him, my partner showing him some of the old family photo graphs. My partner reminds me that my nephews partner had asked for some of my poetry books for Christmas so I gather up a set and sign them for her and them over to my nephew. It was a lovely Christmas surprise to see him and brightened my morning no end. After he leaves my partner goes to physio and I drive into town to collect my meds. As usual I park up in a central hotel and walk down to the hospital pharmacy and to my surprise the whole pharmacy has been rebuilt and is now light and airy, most importantly is now efficient and effective. I was in there for no more than ten minutes before I was walking back to my car clutching my meds and knowing all I need to do now was keep going till March when my next Oncology review is.
Once home there is more Christmas prep to do. I go to the post office to buy more posting boxes and a paper. I put another set of poetry books together, sign them and box them up before returning to the post office to send them on their way. With my partner returned we walk down to the village co-op to buy food and for me to replenish my cash supply as its likely that the garden guy is going to turn up tomorrow. With the shopping done we return home, me to do the days crosswords and for my partner to unpack and put together the new carpet cleaner that she has been craving forages. It appears to be like a giant jigsaw with all sorts of pipes and wheels, quite Wallace and Gromit. With the crosswords done I attempt to finish the preparation for the Stanza meeting tomorrow but I hit a snag my, laptop freezes up on me so I spend a lot of time bringing it back to life and functioning at some sort of reasonable speed. With it back in order I run off my poem for Saturday and put them together with the solid part of my presentation.
The evening its time to watch TV and do the meal planner for the Christmas visit of my youngest daughter and her family and with that comes the last minutes changes to Saturdays Tesco order. The evening sees me watching TV again and checking my Christmas lists and doing the odd chore including the organisation of the back up larder to accommodate all the Christmas stuff that has probably been over ordered. Finally I get to watch a bond film, take my meds and go to be late.
I wake up on the Winter Solstice trying to remember all the actors who have played James Bond I get them all apart from Daniel Craig. So my first words of greeting to my partner are “who played the latest Bond”, which is a quirky early morning greeting. As my partner gets up to go to shopping I take my vitals and realise I am on day 2 of Cycle 20 of my current chemo therapy pills, it’s onwards to mid March or early April. My vitals are good. I get up, eat toast, take my meds and then settle down to catch up drafting the blog. This takes the morning until its time to go to the Poetry Stanza.
The Stanza meeting goes well and its good to meet face to face. My contribution is the last and unusually I am asked to read my own poem to the group as it is a personal message to the Stanza adn is attached to a package of my books. It is a thank you to the stanza for helping to contain the stuff that has come out of me over the last “bastard” of a year. It was a gamble on my part but I am pleased I have done it.
Back home I slip into a waiting routine for two things to happen, the first is the Christmas truck parade through the village and the second is the late scheduled Tesco order. My partner and I eat tea as we wait. Eventually the truck parade arrives.
After a lot of noise and lights the parade passes and it remains for Tesco to deliver, which in time they duly do. Most of what I ordered is there but I seem to have over estimated the amount of wipes my youngest grandson is going to require over Christmas. Packing everything away is a challenge even though I had prepared the overflow space in the store. All that remains now is some odd bits of shopping to do and some co-ordinated food preparation. By the time everything is done its time to update the drafted blog and take my night meds to get myself to bed.
