Tuesday, post jab day and I wake up with a very sore and aching injection site. I feel chills and feel quite shaky. This is a day of rest and paracetamol, definitely not one for making decisions or spending money. The bottom line is I spend the day on the recliner taking paracetamol and idling time away doing crosswords, sending WhatsApp messages or responding to messages and watching the news. That’s it until England pay Italy in the European football tournament. The only other things of note was that my friend had to have Onion the family cat put down and Ozzy Osborne went down under his own steam.

451
Farewell Onion,
you have gone
on the same day 
as Ozzy Osborne.
Both have run their course
and in their ways 
lived their lives to the full.
For one a domestic life
for the other a rock star,
but both meant so much 
to those around them. 
One quietly in the bosom 
of a family
the other in the glare. 
One sat gently purring 
the other roaring. 
Both were fun
both independent
but Onion never
bit the head off a bat;
a mouse perhaps 
after all that's  what
cats do. 
                                                   451 23-07-2025

After England had struggled past Italy in extra time in a great escape act I went to bed full of night meds and paracetamol hoping for sleep and relief from the soreness as the following day there are things to do, but not before putting the bins out and setting the dishwasher going, a kind of night time compulsion to start the next day afresh.

Wednesday and having slept quite well I take my vitals, which were okay, and get up as I have the Builder Badgers coming in to correct a fault on the patio they put in. A small job but an annoying oversight. They arrive on time and willingly accept coffee while they size up the problem and then get to grinding off the offending corner that is impeding the patio doors opening fully. We chat once the job is done and then they depart leaving me to get ready to take my car for its MOT. On the stroke of noon I roll my car into the garage, hand over the keys and stroll down to the café in the village. I order hot chocolate, a bacon roll and an fried egg roll expecting muffin sized food. What I actually got was two rolls the size of a pair of breeding tortoise. I munched my way through them as I scribbled lines, firstly what came to me about a dead cat and a dead rock star, see above, and a longer one on where I am at the moment or at least on the day.

452
This jab has been bad,
left side sore and raw,
with all the accompanying
junkie shivers and chills.
It reduces me to paralysis 
unable to think or move
without pain of some sort.
Yet it is saving my life,
my tumours dying
in back and lymph,
although my prostate 
remains the host 
to cancer.
There should be joy
but my capacity is muted
by years of caution,
by years of treading carefully 
and not quite sure what 
was going on.
so I draw my shell around me
trying to maintain routines
and monitoring all. 
It feels like it could 
be the calm before the storm.
I've made seventy seven
surely eighty is possible,
that would be something. 
Around me contemporaries 
fall away,
my youths icons die,
the world changes
and politics become toxic,
nation fractious,
and old power hungry
men display their
insecurities and lack 
of humanity. 
Is this just and old man
getting older and bizarrely
trying to stay?
I don't know 
it's difficult to remain 
reasonable and rational
in the noise of technological
trickery. More difficult than ever
to know what is real. 
The snares of ego 
are all around,
the voice that says,
"blow it all on a new car",
or "get a publisher"
or " a website,"
"monetise your poetry",
and "come and join us".
All I want is Cicero's prescription
of a library and a garden.
It is so loud this world.
Shoosh!

                                                  452  23-07-2025 

I return to the garage and have that moment of joy when my MOT is a pass. I pay and leave for home where I spend a little while distributing home grown plant around the garden with my partner. My spoons (energy) have all but run out so I retreat to the recliner and draft the blog. I feel a nap coming on to prepare me for tonight’s semi final between Spain and Germany in the women’s football tournament. A friend rings and we chat for a while before I set about my evening. Of course Spain wins and I take my meds and go to bed determined to celebrate my MOT pass by training again tomorrow.