Tuesday and I am the first one up and making warm drinks. Before getting up properly I take my vitals, they are not as good as I wanted, my blood pressure is slightly high. I decide to abandon my planned morning of training, shower fixing and other stuff to take my partner to the gym so she can do her aqua class. Before we get going I get to use my new car hoover to get rid of the crumbs from yesterdays long drive. Once at the gym I settle down in the members lounge, order a bacon roll and begin to do some life admin and some preparation for tomorrow’s oncology review. I have some paracetamol and then scribble a poem.

462
I sit in the gym lounge
and ponder on life admin
while my partner bobs about
with the water mafia. 
A band of women, fierce 
and not to be messed with.
It’s the headache that nags
and the background noise 
that makes me uncomfortable
as I try to capture where I am. 
I thought being the chauffeur 
would be good, followed by lunch
but now I am not so sure. 
I’m here to avoid training,
cleaning shower heads
but maybe missing the delivery 
of Man to Man. 
Its the lack of the definitive
priority for most days
that niggles away, 
a blunted sense that anything, 
anything at all matters. 
It’s as if life can be left 
and nothing will really matter,
perhaps it doesn’t.
						462  16-09-2025 DL Gym lounge

My partner reappears and I drive us to a rural centre for lunch and a look around the various outlets and come away with a box of grass seed. Its another opportunity to drive Elsie and to get used to her handling. On reaching home I find the padlocks for the new gate bolts have arrived and to my delight there is a box of my new book. I am really excited and soon have them open and in my hands. It is a special moment to hold a new book in my hands and this feels like a book not a pamphlet.

I send my publisher an email saying I have the books and thanking them for their hard work and asking them how we take things forward. With the books tuck away I watch the World Athletics on catch up TV until the evening arrives when there is tea to eat, football to watch and the last episode of Coldwater to watch. Along the way I start to drat the blog. All day I have had a head ache, which is unusual for me, and I wonder if I am withdrawing from the caffeine in the Red Bull I’ve been drinking lately, not a lot, but I have not drunk coffee for a long time now, so my theory feels tenable. I take my night meds and go to bed hoping for sleep and a good oncology review in the morning.