Thursday and a tricky nights sleep. England had lost the night before in the usual English way, too timid in the end. I had spent some time in the spare room trying to get to sleep but by morning I am back in bed and taking my vitals. My vitals show my hart rate back don to normal and my blood pressure doing okay for a 78 year old. I must get back to training on the rower again. I must be feeling better if I am even thinking about training. I eventually get up and make breakfast and take my morning meds. I check my messages and find more poems being posted for Saturdays poetry stanza. As I check my socials I have the Stones in my ears and it prompts me to scribble a quick poem based on the fact that my eldest daughter has introduced me to The WIldhearts, a punk band that is still very active. They are an uncompromising group whose lyrics preclude them from ever being played on Radio 2, or any radio I should think, however I enjoy them immensely. Here is my poem.

546
Hurray for the Wildhearts
and their driving fuck you
raucous music.
Punk in adulthood,
still raw and anti the man.
Not a Radio 2 favourite
even if they do spell
Cunt cuntze
to get their 
disc sleeve printed.
As they proclaim,
“there’s always some cunze in the way”.
Its the language of my streets,
my adolescence and probably
most of my adult life.
Its a shot in the arm
to find my thirty something
daughter is a fan
and she was happy enough
to gift it to her father.
I can feel a live gig
coming on.
Elbowing my way 
into the Mosh pit 
I might just recapture
the innocent joy 
of thinking things
can be simple
and its okay to 
point the finger 
at the nice people.
All I risk is being 
hit with a rolled up
Daily Mail. 

						546 16-07-2026

I still cannot decide on which poem to take to the poetry stanza and decide that I shall decide tomorrow. In the meantime I relax and draft the start of todays blog looking forward to the afternoon when I am having my nails done. The cross of St George and the football are definitely coming off my nails today. I still cannot go back to having my “subtle sparkles” on my nails as I’m still in chemo and likely to be so until at least August 13th.

With my nails done and the decorations removed I wait for my partner in the gym lounge and idea away the time by doing the Tesco order. Once my partner arrives we return home where I sit on the patio while my partner snoozes on the swing seat. By the time we are both ready to eat no one wants to cook so we order in a take away and eat out on the patio. The rest of the evening is spent on the patio chatting, planning and watching the bats zip about. Time flies by and at 11pm I clear away, take my meds and get myself to bed. I am conscious that its three days to my next set of bloods which will determine whether I get to do Cycle 10 of the chemo rechallenge. It is also three days to my regular 28 day injection so the beginning of next week is a crucial time.