Friday, its report writing so after breakfast and filling my drugs wallet,I head for the Shed. Before I settle down I of course make sure the feeder is full for Squishy and Squashy. I set my Shed up, light scented candles and set about writing my report. I beaver away, occasionally I pause to watch the squirrels rummaging around the garden. My partner returns from having her booster jab and asks if I would go into town with her as she needs to sort out her glasses that are not right. I break off and we go into town to the opticians. It turns out a good visit as my partner gets her glasses sorted, orders a spare pair and gets an old pair mended. Not only does all this happen but the staff member then provides a 25% discount voucher and applies it to the ordered spare pair. Result; so she will get a very good feedback response.

We take the opportunity to lunch out at one of our favourite cafes. A leisurely lunch with a chance to chat and talk about getting straight for Christmas and our expectations for the early part of next year. It is a useful conversation and sets the scene for the next couple of weeks. It also opens the conversation on how long I propose to continue to work and whether to do something else full time. We return home and I got to the Shed to complete the report. I continue to write and do not notice night fall so that when I finish I look up to to the garden in complete darkness. I phone the house to get someone to turn the lights on at the back of the house so I can navigate my way back to the house. I get back to my “soffice” and then send my completed report off to the team. Its a relief to get it done and I settle down to an evening of film watching and finally getting to the blog. Every so often I have a look at the new pictures and smile to myself, I am pleased I bought them. Tomorrow is a Burton dinner day, unfortunately there will only be four of us but it should be a good meal and meeting.

Thursday, the only thing that is worthy of note is the hanging of the newly acquired Jay Nottingham paintings.

The rest of the day has been dominated by fighting a runny nose, sneezing, itchy eyes and trying to stay competent in the morning meetings and a tricky conversation with a manager in the afternoon. Its waring and tiring. So I go to bed hoping to sleep and be good tomorrow so I can complete my report writing.

Its Wednesday and I wake at 8 o’clock in my hotel room. I had rung my partner at almost 1am in the night to remind her to put the bin out. I had woken up in a start and had the blinding thought that the bin had not been put out again which would have meant having a months worth of refuse sitting in the bin for another two weeks with nowhere to put the coming fortnights trash. My partner was not best pleased and was alarmed by the phone going at that time of night. I had awakened her. I was later told that she had gone out immediately in her dressing gown and put the bin out. A hero. We had avoided the crisis.

So I am awake, I have coffee and I shower taking my time as I know that the art dealers does not open till 10 o’clock. I pack and put the bags in the car before checking out as reception. I had decided to have a light breakfast in a cafe before going to the dealers so I drove into York city centre and found a Cafe Nero for another coffee accompanied by a Tuna Melt. I whiled away the time mentally rehearsing my conversation with the dealer. In my head I had decided I wanted both of the Jay Nottingham paintings having been on the dealers website and seen that they had priced the two paintings the same, whereas other dealers had priced the second one at a higher price. I thought that if I could get both for the same lower price that it was good business. I went to the shop and the dealer recognised me. I told him that my partner had seen the picture on their website last night and that she really liked it and that she really liked the other one as well that was in the window. He offered to get it out for me to look at, which I agreed to. In the conversation I asked if the window one was the same price as the one I was buying and would he do both for an equivalent amount. He agreed, we shook hands and we did the money thing while his assistant began starting the paper work and the certificates of authenticity. They said it would take an hour to wrap them and do all the paper work, so I agreed to come back in an hour. I wandered off and celebrated in another Cafe Nero with yet more coffee and pan au raisin. After an hour of slow sipping, nibbling and telephone call I returned to collect my paintings which were now all wrapped up in such a way as to facilitate me carrying them both. There certificates and the invoice packaged inside. I left and returned to the car. I drove home in the rain.

Once home I unpacked all my bags, have a lunch of soup and finish yesterdays blog. I chat to a friend on the phone and then I settle down to write todays blog. The paintings are still wrapped up. Its an odd feeling, across between feeling I’ve done something wrong in spending the money and the feeling I used to get about being scared as a dyslexic handing in homework (a rare occurrence) because of the crap feedback I would get. Its done now so I guess its time to get them unwrapped and revealed to the world ready to go on the walls.

Well there you go, I guess some people will like them others not so much, but I like them. I like the cleanness of them, I like the fact that the guy was not trained but comes from a line of artists and found his own way to his own style. He is one of the current crop of British contemporary artists.

My partner goes out for an evening with a friend and I settle down to order Indian for myself and my eldest daughter and to watch football. I’ve got to the point of having runout of spoons of energy and need to just cruise through to my bed tonight. I guess the excitement of buying art can be tiring.

Its Tuesday night and I am in York. I came up on Monday to see people and to do the York Christmas fayre. Its been a real pleasure to see friends and old work colleagues. I was beginning to think that I might not do this again, mostly rooted in how I’ve been recently but I realise that this is more to do with my anxiety about this months oncologist review. Its entirely possible that I could start 2022 having more scans and then being prescribed more chemotherapy. It all hangs on whether my PSA level has risen again and the state of my tumors in my hips and the cancer in my lower spine. I seem to have arranged a busy December and I wonder if I have just deliberately kept myself in a “doing state” so that I did not have to think too much about what might await me and what that might mean. However it seems this has moved Christmas on a bit. I can feel a “to do list ” coming on to tie up the loose ends.

Having had a wander around the York fayre I found myself disappointed. There are fewer stalls than usual and most are stacked with food, booze or scarfs and hats. There are no original art stalls like the last time I was here, when I bought a couple of lovely miniatures. I did the loop a couple of times and then found a gem of a stall. Suddenly I was drawn to a small stall where a couple were buying a print of drawing, however it was the main content of the stall that drew me in. I watched in frustration as a couple and the stall holder could not make the contactless payment work. In the end they resorted to old fashioned money. Apparently 5g phone did not like 3g payment terminal. At last they left and I could get to see the bits of the stall that I wanted to. For me it was a no brainer, but of course I cannot tell you what I bought or someone would have their Christmas surprise ruined, but I came away pleased.

My meanderings took me to the Shambles and the attractions at the end of it. People were milling around in a kind of stupefied Christmas COVID way being neither cautious nor relaxed. It was a strange feel, even the merry go round seemed to be sluggish.

Before you ask I did of course make it to the best home made chocolate shop in the world in the Shambles. I bought the family a Christmas treat of the biggest presentation box of their chocolates. It contains one of every type of chocolate they make plus a couple extra of my favourites. I foresee much contemplation and rivalry over the choices to be made.

I drifted around the Christmas streets of York and found myself in York Fine Arts. It has three floors of art. An awful lot of prints but some original works. I was wandering around the floors when a painting caught my eye, I liked it, it was not excessively expensive but when it comes to buying art I am hesitant. There is a working class bit of me that thinks there is something not right about buying art for yourself. I can buy art for others but it seems so strange to buy it for myself. I can always think of other ways to sped the money. It seems a wild extravagance, a bourgeois indulgence. Any way I hung around looking at it until the guy at the counter noticed an came over to chat. We talked and I neckily asked him what his best price was. To my surprise he knocked 10% off the ticket price. I told him I wanted to sleep on it but I would be back in the morning. Later in the evening I sent the link to the store to my partner to see the painting. The upshot is that its down to me. So we shall see. Watch this space.

I moved on to meet a friend to have afternoon festive tea at Betty’s. When I arrived I found people queuing to get in. I’m not one for queuing so I hung around waiting for my friend to arrive. When she did arrive I was guided to another entrance to the establishment. We went up some plush stairs to the what I can only describe as the “nobs” tea room. A pianist was playing Christmas carols and occasionally the Snow man theme song. The sandwich’s were nice but crustless, scones were served with jam and cream, small cakes were provided and my coffee arrived in a silver pot. My friend insisted on a photo of me scoffing goodies for the blog, so here it is.

It was a very pleasant way to chat to a friend and to catch up with each others news. It seems we all have crosses to bear and that life is never simple but it also appears that there comes a moment when circumstances and events adjusts peoples priorities and they become aware of what is actually important to them in their lives. From then on its a balance between managing the inevitable shit that comes to us all and the good stuff, which I have to say turns out to very frequently be the ordinary stuff of life. In my case it is seeing my friends and hearing how they are. We finish the tea and we walk back towards the car park via the Christmas lights. We say farewell and I drive back to the hotel to ring my partner and talk art work.

Coffee is a drink I like but today I am awash with it and it makes me feel crap. So I have retreated to the bar for a pint of lemonade and lime to quench my thirst and to write the blog. The hotel bar is full of young people drinking hot chocolate and older people having a bed time beer. I shall return to my room and add todays picture to the blog and then it’s bed for me. Early start for an art wheeler dealer.

Sunday and a very late rise.We drink warm drinks and watch the snow fall before getting up for breakfast. Before I eat I weigh myself for the first time in a fortnight having been away last week and busy this week. I am expecting to have packed on the weight. I weigh in at 92.5 kilos, just a gain of 0.3 kilos. This is a result. I am not sure how this has happened but I will take it. I venture into the garden and refill the squirrel food box. I am rewarded later in the day as both Squishy and Squashy arrive along with a third squirrel to feed from the box. My garden is still trying its best to lift my spirits as my fuchsia bears witness to.

I pack for the journey north as I am going to York tomorrow to meet old colleagues and friends. I discover to my chagrin that I cannot wear my winter Oxford Bags as I am too fat in the gut. I was warned by the McMillan nurse early on that I might get a bit of “a girlie belly”, it would seem she might have been right. Having sorted out my clothes I get down to cleaning out the fish. Its a bit of a pain but the fish enjoy seeing the world again and having a full tank. Hopefully I will not need to do this again before Christmas. I move onto doing some cleaning and doing more organising of Christmas presents. Suddenly it throws it down with snow.

My youngest daughter face times us and we chat about her weekend and of course Christmas stuff. No one knows what anyone else wants and seem to be at their wits end as to what to do. The reality is that no one actually wants more stuff and experiences that are COVID proof are few and far between. Ina moment of madness I emailed the link to get the Jack Vettriano prices of his currently available work. To my surprise I get a reply with an electronic catalogue. Many of the pieces were labeled as “price on request”, however the lowest price painting was £20,000 and the ones I liked were £75,000 and £85,000. So unless I win the lottery I will never own or gift a Vettriano.

My evening rolled from Dr Who to a shower to Show Trial to football highlights to blog. Too many of my evenings are like this, so I am glad of the break tomorrow, it will be good to see people and I am hoping to solve some Christmas present puzzles at the York Christmas market. There is always chocolate heaven if all else fails.

Saturday and I wake to SNOW, the first of the year, and its blowing cold. So a warm drink in bed while watching the snow and then its time to get up. While my partner cooks breakfast I load up my pill boxes for the next two weeks. Breakfast is good and leads to a chat about what we need to do to resolve the pantry cock up that means we have no main meals in the fridge. So as a priority we derive to the local garden centre butches to pick up a couple of meals. Its cold but the sleet has stopped and the roads are clear. Once home having had to take a detour to a locally closed road I set about putting the evening meal into the crockpot. Then its time to do the Christmas cards. I go through my list and my address book. This is an annual ritual where I realise who I have lost contact with and who has died. As a result my Christmas card list is getting shorter. In the world of cyber communication it almost seems impolite to ask for peoples real addresses so I have a group of people who will only get an electronic card. I take a trip to the post box and deliver my Christmas cards into the safe keeping of the Royal Mail. I catch the end of the women’s Barbarian match, which is followed by a special news conference by Boris about the new COVID variant. So its all back into masks and testing the incoming. Having watched the presentation it was time to prepare the rest of the evening meal. My evening was Strictly, of course and then a film about the true story of how a crooked american bank that was laundering drug cartel money was brought down. Another day I have failed to train. I end up the day feeling frustrated and unreasonably irritable.

Thursday and its up early to do a full team meeting at 9 o’clock but not before I spill the the remains of my coffee over the bed and have to trip it. Straight into the washer to form a parallel activity for the da. The meeting turns out to last all morning. There is always admin to pick up afterwards and so it was this day. Lunch and then more house hold chores to do. Amazon delivers more Christmas and a couple of power saving gizmos that need plugging in around the house. I’m intrigued to see if they reduce my electricity bill as they claim. Time for the gym and my first exercise session before going on the writing course. The gym appears to be empty but almost all teh ockers have a padlock on them, it would appear that people. men in the case, are just leaving stuff in lockers over night or longer. In effect people, men , are claiming lockers. Its this boorish, self centred, couldn’t give a fuck attitude that puts me off men altogether. Me I change, train, shower and get out in the shortest possible time. I am bored by all the people, mostly men, just packing on the armour. I manage to drop 715 calories over 7.93 kilometres on the cross trainer, that will do me. I drive home to an evening of tuna pasta,euro football and three episodes of a series about Madeline McCann disappearance. All my years of being a forensic psychologist tells me there is something wrong in all this but I am not quite sure what yet. I never got to the blog, I was knackered and needed to sleep.

Friday, its cold and blowy in the world and I am reluctant to get up but I do, to a muesli breakfast and coffee. I do my usual e mail check and see if there are any messages or me. There are always loads of crap emails to delete and as this is Black Friday there are a lot more to get rid of. At about 10:30am I get a call from a friend adn we talk sewing and Christmas preparations for a while util I hear my partner calling i distress from the office. I find her on the floor of the office apparently having fainted. She tells me her leg and groin hurt while she was sitting working and when she moved it to relive the discomfort she felt great pain and it would seem passed out, hitting her head on the way to the floor. Slowly she recovered and was able to sit up before getting into the lounge to rest. She recovered quite quickly and took her blood pressure which was spot on normal and her pulse was normal as well. We had hot drinks and I went to the shop to buy bread and other bits that we needed while she rested having rung work and told the that she was signing off for the day. Our eldest daughter cooked us lunch and we ate together while theorising what had caused the mornings faint. My partner returned to the lunge to keep warm and I cleared the kitchen. I have a few moments to read a letter from a friend in Scotland. Her letters are always thought provoking and it reminds me that I still have not made it to the Shed to write any of my own letters this week. I know that I shall return to the letter again when I have some time to reread it properly and do the thinking it provokes. At 2:30 I took my daughter to her circus skills session and then went to Sainsburys to get some items we needed. I also stocked up on their very good large sponge and green pad dish cleaners. The Tesco ones just do not cut it. I get home to find my partner asleep in the darken lounge. I down a cup of coffee and an iced bun and start the blog, thankfully my keyboard has an illuminated key board so I can type at my “Soffice” as usual. I reflect that I have done none of the things I intended to do today, so the fish still need a clean, my report still needs to be finished, no one has a letter arriving; except me who got a lovely letter from a friend in Scotland. The garden beckons and needs some late autumn care, Squishy and Squashy need there food box topping up and I still have presents to buy and cards to send just for starters. Its dark now and there is an evening meal to prepare.

My evening goes quickly as I watch a rugby match and then juggle TV with surreptitious Christmas buying and organising. The weather is blowing up and sounds grim. Its due to get worse and continue into tomorrow, so I plan to do Christmas cards, sort my drugs and generally have a day of domestic warmth and comfort. For now its clear the kitchen, watch the end of the ice hockey game and then get to bed.

Wednesday and I am up early to move my car so that my partner can go to work! I have an early breakfast and take a call from a friend before settling into my 9 0’clock meeting. It is a review meeting with the programme manager, it goes well. I then spend the next three hours trying to get the materials I need to deliver a training session in three hours time. The materials I want are blocked by the Share Point so I have to ask colleagues to email the material. I am fortunate and my colleague obliges. I find time to put a meal in the Crock Pot A quick lunch and then I am back in front of the screen delivering my session. It goes quite well and the attendees are talkative and join in. At the end of the session I feel quite pleased and glad I got through it okay.

My evening is a mixture of football, Shetland and Christmas organisation. I finally get to the blog but I am wiped out and it is an effort, it is such a difference from last week when I had the energy to write creatively. Tomorrow I have a team meeting to attend, the thought is draining.

Monday, the return to earth and the joys of the world of IT. An early morning call from a friend is very welcome and it is good to hear how the recovery from COVID is going. It is a slow process but at last it seems to be gaining pace. I spend the day reviewing new evidence for Tuesdays accreditation review of a TC service. There is a telephone call in the afternoon for the team to discuss the review. My evening was spent trying to sort some of Christmas out. Thankfully Amazon deliver to Stockholm which makes it easier to get things to my son and grandchildren in Sweden. I go to bed tired and frustrated that I cannot get into my web pages as there has been a security issue at WordPress. I try to follow the instructions sent to me but they do not work, or I do not work, either way I went to bed miffed.

Tuesday, I am up in the shower quickly. Today is a review day, so its coffee and toast and then I am into the world of Teams and doing an accreditation review for the day. I am recognised by one of the residents from a previous job, always a bit tricky, but it went by okay. All day I listened, asked questions and conferred with colleagues. It is exhausting trying to listen to a room of people on Teams and hear both the said and the unspoken. I get to the end of the day and I am very tired. I make notes and then spend my evening continuing to organise things for my partners birthday and Christmas. I try to get into the website and get success at last. The format has changed and there is a new navigation system, so it takes a while. Tomorrow is another busy day, a meeting and then I am running a training session. This is so far from my experience of last week, it is a rude awakening. I’ve not trained yet and my body is letting me know, I need to do something soon.

Monday was the travel day. My partner and I had breakfast and then we set about packing the car for our trip to Devon. To Totliegh and a thatched manor house that was to be our home till Saturday morning. It’s a writing course we are doing, my choice of a way to spend a week together differently. The journey is unremarkable except that there are no hold ups, accidents or blockages to delay us. We have one stop to refresh ourselves and then push on. I have bought a phone mount for the car so that we can use the ”three word” app to navigate by as we have been told that the post code on a sat nav does not get you there. It turns out to be in valuable, especially as my partner spots an important direction on the instructions that have been sent to us.

We arrive save and on time, a little after 3:30pm. We pull into a parking space and are immediately greeted by one of the staff and shown to our room. It is a small room with a double bed and because this is a writing course and “aloneness” is a resumed requirement for writing we have been allocated the room next door as an additional writing space. We share a bath room with a couple of guys in the same annexe. We unpack and go to the dining room in the main house for a cream tea and to meet the other guests.

• 

• 

I dread this and promise myself to try and learn the names knowing it will probably be the usual dyslexic cluster fuck it always is. There is a hubbub of people doing the greeting rituals and being interested whilst trying to contain whatever anxieties the might have.

There is a lull and I write a brief poem to myself about some of the names with bits of information attached in the hope that some of them will stick. We freshen up and eat at 7 o’clock, a meal prepared by the centre staff. Then it’s off to the barn.

An admin person tells us what we need to know, the usual stuff and then our tutors introduce themselves. The male tutor conducts a session and prods us with some questions. There is homework, reading of poems and chapters of our choosing. Then the woman tutor springs a hand out on us and wants us to consider it for tomorrows morning session. We are given some pointers to consider and then left to our own devices. I write a short poem about the opening babble and its first day at school feel. Then it’s off to bed and the social juggling of the shared bath room. This for ordinary people is tricky at the best of times but with my prostate cancer this is trickier as my frequency is higher and I risk pissing everyone else off with my visits during the night. I endeavour to become the phantom pisser. It is a difficult night, new bed, smaller bed, the hooting of owls, the bark of foxes and the need for another piss, at least three during the night. I do no t sleep well but wake to Sarte at 8 o’clock.

Tuesday and we get up for breakfast, the usual cereals and then the communal dining. The table is huge and constructed out of two substantial planks big enough to sit the 12 course attendees and at least two staff around it. We sit on benches. This is where the first session of the day occurs, our tutor sets us a task almost immediately, a poem in a few minutes. She shows us a pair of pliers and says write about these. Yep really a pair of pliers. I wrote this:

Pliers and a Man

I am steel

Forged in fire

Hammered hard

And tempered

Plunged in water

Hissing steamy anger

At the loss of flame.

There on the anvil

I was malleable,

Fashionable,

At the mercy

Of the Blacksmiths art.

These are things

my Grandfather forged.

Iron worker,

Builder of cars

Till war took him

To fight in other lands,

Returning to a “a land for heroes”,

With no work,

And so he gardened

Grew things at Kew

Until they fitted an

Iron leg.

Forged in fire

Hammered hard

And tempered.

I thought that was quite good for a first stab. Later my poetry would be called “Boney”. Do not worry I am not about to inflict all my jottings on you, this was to give you the flavour of what we were up to. There followed the dissection and discussion around a short story. We were given way to look at things and to think about structure. At the end of the session we are given an assignment. We had to write a piece that ended with the sentence “In the morning the men began to plough the field.” We had until Thursday to write it. Lunch was serve to us by the centre staff and then the time was our own to write, read and complete our assignments. Some people had their sessions with the tutors other walked a bit, including me and my partner, who later went of to do her cooking stint. It was a dispersal. We walked, wrote and wended or way to dinner at seven o’clock. The meal had been cooked by three of the course attendees and included my partner. It was chilli and very welcome followed by Eton mess.

Once again we found our way to the barn, this time to be read to by the tutors from their books. There after a Q&A followed. I am reticent in these as I feel that everyone has read all the latest books and are up with the latest authors and who had won what prizes. I feel an alien. Clearly these people have had an education unlike mine and this is the result. I remain quite and listen. I’m nt sure how I feel about this stuff but I know from reading the “course books” that this stuff does not speak to me or hold me. In fact it is the type pf English literature that has always turned me off and drove me to the continent looking for what did chime with me. The session ends and I think there was more homework reading to do. A coffee and then bed. The coffee was a mistake, I lay awake listening to owls trying to make sense of my day and periodically going for a surreptitious piss, feeling myself get more and more fatigued as the night went on and with every trip to the toilet.

Wednesday, up and breakfast, cereals of course, and a bit of time running off the stuff I had written ready for my tutor session later in the day. The morning was the male tutor doing poetry. He set an exercise to write about the passing of someone, insensitive bastard. Of course, someone got upset and did not return to the session. My partner also left and joined the other. I hung in their but was concerned about my partner although I had a good idea what had got to her. The session was packed with content and everyone worked hard but for me their was a sense of absence, I’m not sure I like this guy but I think there is a cultural difference and I was reminded of a Nigerian friend with the same sort of approach. I’m left not sure where I stand on this, either way someone got hurt or distressed.

The session ends and there is lunch, a hearty soup and meat. There is time to run of some more poems and bits of work before I get to see the tutor for my session. I follow my partner into the pod. The tutor is very good, sensitive and encouraging. She calls my poetry “boney”, I like that that. We agree that its time I handed my poetry to some one else to look at an to pare it down into a manageable collection. To have someone curate it even. This is a good plan and it is time for me to let go of it before I get to the point where I cannot. I laze after the session and fill in time by reading and writing before dinner at 7 o’clock again. This time its harissa salmon and cous cous with chickpeas followed by fruit and more Eton Mess.

In the barn we are introduced to our guest speaker for the evening, a thirty year old poet who has had his first collection published. He is thoughtful, open and interesting. He reads to us and then there is an extensive Q&A session. There is some chat after wards before we head for bed and I get to play my now familiar bladder roulette. Its not a good night and I wake up early.

Thursday. Up early and a shower, a more complicated bathroom juggle but by breakfast I am clean and my partner has plaited my hair for the first time since we were pre children in sunny Spain. Breakfast and then the morning session where we had to read an extract or all of our home work assignment ending with the men ploughing the fields. It was an interesting experience. For better or for worse here is mine.

“It’s a real fucker finding a body, especially when its hanging in your hen house. For a start how did a six- foot bloke contrive to get the belt round his neck and secure it to the inside of the coup. The strangling yourself bit is easy you just let your body weight do the work and before you know it your asleep then dead. Its something you can do off the end of your bed. Always empirically testable if your over inquisitive or just plain stupid. You could of course be unbelievable depressed or indeed even bored and not give a toss whether it works or not, you’re just up for the lark. Any way assuming you have not trotted off to off yourself you might be wondering what comes next, for the Finder of course. The six-foot bloke, clearly older as he is measured in imperial, has a different non future in front of him that will include a forensic photoshoot, a ride in a plastic bag and then finally some of medicines finest will dissect and analyse every organ and tissue to ascertain what the cause of death was. For these people nothing is obvious, only the fact the person is dead. As it turns out they come up with the same answer, death by self-strangulation.

For Finder it’s a different story. It’s a cocktail of suspicion, inquisition and intrusion. In some senses the police are no different to the press. The press has advertising to sell, the police have careers to pursue. This may sound disingenuous as I am sure many a serious journalist will argue that the press has a crucial public function to perform while the police will claim the same in the interest of responsibility to the public. So, what follows is a saga of questions, enquiries and theories, mostly more like fantasy than actual testable theories. So many people need to satisfy themselves that six-foot bloke was not murdered and that Finder has got a cast iron alibi. “I just found him” begins to sound like “I’m running a ruse to cover up my guilt.” It’s exhausting but if your innocent, or guilty and good at it, then they all go away, it becomes yesterday’s news and life returns to normal, or does it?  There might be a bit of counselling for Finder but in general existence goes on.

Did anyone ask about the hens or anything else come to that? No of course they didn’t yet there they were, invaded and their haven used to facilitate an untimely death. Their world probably shook, or at least leaned a bit when the event happened and they witnessed and experienced the death of another creature. Who considered them, no one; except the Finder. Finder noticed. Finder noticed an absence of eggs. The usual tricks of “eggery” were applied. Favourite foods, extra grit, different grain even bloody Mozart, but nothing worked. These chickens were as dead as the Norwegian Blue in commercial terms. Hundreds of them in the coup had become an industrial disaster. There was nothing for it but to reconfigure for the health of the business. There needed to be a fresh investment. In the morning the men began ploughing the field.”

We all read and then moved onto beginnings and commented on some that had been given to us to consider. There were a couple of small exercises to do and soon the session came to an end. I really enjoyed hearing all the stories and the comments. Then there was lunch again. Again, someone asked me what I did, I avoided, so far no one knows what I am or what I do and I do not want to tell them. I certainly do not want to tell them about my cancer. I really just want to be here to write and learn without any of the baggage that being what I am and having what I have getting in the way. So after lunch my partner and I walk for a while and then I retreat to the barn to type and to catch up with the blog. Its my turn to cook to day so at this point I will leave the blog and prepare for my shift at 4:30pm, although I find it difficult to think that sausage and mash with onion gravy can be too difficult to do, I am sure the three of us will manage it. My plan is to have a dash of red wine in the onion gravy.

I was right the meal turned out easy to do and at 7o’clock I and my two course mates dished out a good sausage and mash with cabbage, followed by apple crumble and custard. The three of us played host and when the time came cleared away and washed up. There was no evening event in the barn so my partner and I read each other’s work to date and commented on what we ought to read Then it was off to bed to try and sleep, window open to the sound of the hooting owls.

Friday came along and I faced the crisis of there being no muesli available. I made do with toast and coffee and wander to the barn to think and then wandered up the path a bit till my phone pinged with a signal. At ten o’clock we started the last formal session of the course. The poet gave us things to do and generally tried to press us to be more revealing and to give of ourselves, however after some had experienced distress as a result of the pressing previously there was a reluctancy by some to do so, including me, but then I am just stroppy about being told what to do anyway. The session closed with some admin bits and the tutors telling us we were lovely and how the evening reading would go. Lunch was simple baked potatoes and filling followed by a wait to go into my tutor session. I got in with the tutor and read him a couple of things and we discussed them. My “Bony” poems apparently requires “flesh” and I am more of a “philosopher than I am a poet. So it was an interesting half hour. I retired to the barn and once again my partner and I discussed what we would read at the end of course evening presentation. We ate the vegetable curry, but I could not face the rice pudding dessert and resorted to a couple of emergency KitKats washed down with coffee. The course assembled in the barn and the tutors produced a running order. I was number 9 and my partner number 8. People read their contributions to good applause from us all. One account of a dying mother had some of the group in tears. I read four of my Boney poems, one of which I stood up and did actions for. Here they are:

1.

Tish the Indian

Mimi the Hawaiian

Riptide rainbow Jenny

Pavilion John

These are just

Some of the ways

A dyslexic copes

To hold your names,

To avoid offence.

Those long silences

Are times of process

As the inner Pixies

Rummage through

The filing system

Trying to keep up

The illusion of

Social skills.

2. Pliers and a Man

I am steel

Forged in fire

Hammered hard

And tempered

Plunged in water

Hissing steamy anger

At the loss of flame.

There on the anvil

I was malleable,

Fashionable,

At the mercy

Of the Blacksmiths art.

These are things

my Grandfather forged.

Iron worker,

Builder of cars

Till war took him

To fight in other lands,

Returning to a “a land for heroes”,

With no work,

And so he gardened

Grew things at Kew

Until they fitted an

Iron leg.

Forged in fire

Hammered hard

And tempered.

3.

Capiche?

Like Anders I laugh

Apeing the Cat A

Walk, bow legged

Arms akimbo

Like  carpet

Deliverer having

Lost his rolls.

A tattooed strut

That says;

“Does it look like

I’ve got Victim

On my forehead?”

Hours in the gym

Putting on the armour

To ward of anyone,

To be safe.

This is the image.

Poke your finger

Through it and feel

The empty space.

The person so lost

That they became the image.

This is what you see

This is what you get

Capiche?

4.

I’m not going there

You can shove death

Up your arse

And I will eat

Binky for dinner.

I’m missing my exercise,

My body aches

For the tyranny of

The beat driven gym.

I want my ears filled

With Rammstein;

“Stick my bratforst in your sauerkraut

What’s the problem

Lets do it quick.

I can’t get laid in Germany”

Obliteration of the world

Around me to free

My body to run rampant.

It is this effort,

This discipline of body

That keeps me calm

To be able to sit by life

And drink the waters.

It is the generative power

Of everyday life

That I need to be ready for.

Receptive to the ordinary

Because that is where

The Treatise on a Golden Lion

Lives incarnate in all things.

I know where I am,

I know what’s coming,

So here and now

Is where I love

Where I try to be kind.

It is this now in all

Its splendid everydayness

That sustains me.

(OPTIONAL)

The last four minutes

Who holds the clock?

Not on my life

Not on my here and now

My heartbeat guides me

And my Pixies stick

A V sign up

And get on with running

My brain.

So they were my Boney contribution, I took my applause and reciprocated to others work. Some of the pieces by the group were very moving and some very witty. Some were velvety smooth and demonstrated a real feel for language and form. One piece was particularly well observed and witty and will turn out to be something special I think if the woman follows it through. At the end the tutors praised us and we relaxed down into conversation. The evening wore on until people drifted off to bed. I retired with my partner, again hoping for better sleep and less hooting and peeing.

Saturday, last day and up at 7 o’clock to get a shower and the packing done. I took my partner a coffee as usual and took a brief walk up the path to clear my head. I was relieved to find the muesli had been replenished. Breakfast found the whole course sitting together around the huge dining table and preparing to leave each other. One person drove away, the tutors left and then the taxi arrived to take most people to Exeter station. There were hugs and fond farewells and promises to keep in touch as we had all exchanged an email list. The taxi left and I and my partner drove off to the land of “signal” and traffic. I had completed the week without people on the course knowing the work I did and now do, neither did anyone get to know about my cancer. I managed a week as “ordinary bloke”. I liked that.

We stopped to fill the tank and then again for me to empty mine on the drive to my youngest daughter and fiancés new house in the Forrest of Dean. We did the tour, drank coffee and ate a sandwich. I look at the pile of tools and materials that have been left in the garage, discovering a nativity set whilst doing so. We left them about 4 o’clock to go the pub where we were staying for the night. A cosy room up some stairs that I managed to fall down as we went to collect our bags. We settled in and waited till the appointed time when my daughter picked us up to go for a meal.

We were duly picked up and went to eat a meal together in a local comfortable pub. It was a good time spent indulging in good food and talking about the new house, Christmas and plans for the future. We took our time and relaxed until it was time to be dropped off back at the pub we were staying in. We intended to go straight to bed but we found the pub empty apart from the barman/owner we decided to have a coke and in doing so we started to chat to the guy behind the bar. It turned out that he has held the lease for ten years but it ends in January and he is going to move. I asked if the art work was done by a local artist as it was very good, some like Jack Ventriano and a classic painter I did not recognise. It turned out the guy we were talking to was the artist, self- taught over many years. The classic picture was in fact a copy of a Caravaggio his favourite artist. We talked for ages about this art and how lockdown had proved the spur for him to decide to try to make it as an artist. He has shown someone his work who has offered him a room at an exhibition venue to display his work next year. It was such a lovely surprise to meet him and to find some one so engrossed in his art. We eventually said good night and went to bed in a much different mood than we would have done.

Sunday, we woke in our pub bedroom, made coffee and chatted before going down stairs to breakfast. We sat amidst all the pictures painted by the pub leaser as he served us breakfast. We cleared our room, paid the very reasonable bill and drove to my daughters for coffee. Our morning was spent happily chatting with her and her fiancé and talking about what decorating they were going to do and what work they were having done to get the place straight. During this chat we played with the gas fire they had yet to try. It fired up first time and quick warmed the room up. At lunch time we left and drove home to make bacon sandwiches, watch rugby, catch up with Strictly and of course to unpack the car. By the end of the afternoon we were tired and so we ordered Indian take away and let ourselves to be lazy. I watch the Strictly results show and then catch up with the blog. I’ve a busy week in front of me and tomorrow I get back to doing the work and preparing the training to do later. In the back of my mind there is Christmas but I now have a new project. I’m going to perform the stuff I wrote at the workshop and put it on my YouTube channel for the rest of the course to see. I might put the link into the blog for anyone who might be interested.