Tuesday, I sleep okay and wake up late, or at least later than usual. Before I can leap from my bed I get a call from a friend and we have a chat about how COVID is going and how fatiguing recovery is. It is a slow process to recovery especially with a family to be provided for. I get up and go for kippers for breakfast, a good choice, I’ve not had them for years. So breakfast done I’m off to the shed to write and to once again fill the squirrel feeder. My squirrels eat all day and appear not to put weight on, I wish I knew how they do that. I spend the morning writing letters and by lunchtime I am done.

A trip to the post box and then there is a meal to get into the Croc Pot for tonight’s meal. I throw in the ingredients and set the controls to the heart of the sun and then read an award report in preparation for another meeting tomorrow. I realise as I skim through my documents that it is November adn that means there needs to be an October invoice. I set about preparing my invoice for work and when done I send it off to my manager and the team. I am left wondering if it will get paid in time for Christmas. A couple of hospital providers ring me up in my response to my enquiries about PSA tests. One is not doing them at the moment while the other one will charge me £85 but I have to be referred by my GP. One of them pointed out that my GP could refer me to the nhs hospital where my oncologist practices who would then do it for free. At some point in the afternoon my youngest daughter sends me a picture of Lush’s Christmas Cinderella Coach bath bomb, gloriously pink adn sparkly. I pack my bag ready for the gym and put the bin out for tomorrows collection. My partner finishes work and we head for the gym.

Usually we buy water to drink while we train but we find the club bar and kitchen closed due to lack of staff. That’s poor service for a club. I change and find a cross trainer. I grind out a no water hour. On the ITV local news on the gym television I learn that two people were found dead with serious wounds in Desford. We had noticed the police at the house as we drove by the other day but had no idea why. e noticed because the guy who lived there always planted cosmos and sunflowers in front of his front fence. Always a splendid display. When we drove by he was digging them up. I guess there will be no cosmos and sunflowers next year. 727 calories burned and 8.29 kilometres before I escape to the showers.

Back home the meal is ready so we sit to eat once I’ve thrown my daughter out of my place on the sofa and got her to stow her boots and coat out of the lounge. Its great British bake off night tonight, caramel week. I watch it and then start the blog.

Monday, its an evidence review morning in preparation for a pre review phone call latte in the morning. So a quick muesli breakfast and I am picking my way through documents checklists. I prepare a list of queries for the service team I am reviewing and indulge in a second coffee of the morning. At the appointed time I dial into the Teams meeting and we set about going through the preparations for the review day. It is a positive and constructive meeting and ends on time. I’m looking forward to the review day and the additional evidence that is coming to me.

Having concluded work for the morning I order my next lot of drugs and ring the GP surgery to make next Mondays jab appointment. Just one of those routine tasks that pop up with monotonous regularity. Then I drive my partner into town to the opticians. Once she is called in I go shopping rather than hang around. I of course get drawn into a stationary store where I cannot resist sparkly pens and a notebook. As I swing by the opticians there is no sign of my partner so I head for Waterstones. Once in side I am truly lost, I do not think I have ever come out without a book and today is no exception. I cannot resist a volume of Alan Ginsberg’s poetry and songs. As one of the originators of the American beat generation he was way out on a limb and an extremely interesting, challenging read.

By the time I swing back to the opticians my partner is looking at frames. Its a relatively short process of selection but the techno bit of lens selection and measuring takes much longer, during which I missed a call. Having settled the selection, ordered and paid we return home.

I am hungry and rootle through my quartermaster stores and find a tin of tomato soup that I consume with a wedge of cheese. I slowly get changed in readiness to train. I really do not feel like it, I’m feeling tired and energy less so I take a breath, grit my teeth and get myself into the garage and onto the rower. Its tough going but I grind through the time and by the end I am pleased I’ve done it. This is after all something I see as my “medicine”, one of the things that gives me a sense of some control of what is happening to me. It is at the low motivation stage that I need these things to make myself keep doing them. This session was one of the grind.

I finish my session and get ready for tea, which we ate as we waited for the Tesco delivery. In anticipation of the delivery I move a car off the drive just as the ninja police speed van parks itself on the grass central verge and begins its trapping for the night. Of course the jolly Tesco delivery person turned up on time and there was the usual rapid unloading of trays and storage of fridge goodies as quickly as possible. the rest of my evening is used to write the blog and read Ginsberg.

Saturday; a rest day as I ache from the gym. My day can therefore be summed up as follows:

• Fill drugs dispensers for the next two weeks
• Fill squirrel feeder,again! (Must have fattest squirrels in the world.)
• Leicester lose to Arsenal 2 – 0 on TV
• Leicester Tigers smash Northampton 55 -26. on TV
• Make a pie for tea
• Strictly sees its first 40 of the series.
• I get addicted to Vienna Blood
• Match of the day.
• Put all the non electric clocks back an hour
• Bed.

A day of total indulgence and brain rotting indolence. Not a single word read or written apart from the few WhatsApp messages I send to friends. A day of unabated cognitive power saving mode.

Sunday,deliciously wake up late, a good start. Then comes the moment of truth before my partner brings the first coffee of the day back to bed. Yes its weigh in time. Last week I weighed in at a porkerish 96.7 kilos, which threw me into shock and prompted my immediate protein and fruit diet again. With trepidation I stepped on to the scales and after a moment I looked down.

93.1! a loss of 3.6 kilos.

Of course I check a couple of times but each time 93.1 is confirmed. It goes to show what cutting out the sweets and carbs can do. In essence its about cutting out all the refined sugar that goes into most carb sources like bread, buns and stuff like that. I am surprised and pleased and I wonder why I am quite so pleased and relieved. My sense is that my weight is one physical thing that I can control, have dominion over. I came to the conclusion from my own experience and reading others accounts that the PSA level related to my cancer is driven by biochemical and physiological processes beyond my control and are in part in the gift of the oncologist and medical profession. I do not like that, it does not sit well with me at all. But I can control my physical weight, I can choose what goes into my body and what I do with my body to keep it fit. I think therefore my weight is more than just weight it is about feeling that I have some measure of control over somethings physical that might just impinge on how well I resist the cancer. My training helps me to counteract the propensity of my body to grow a female pot belly and tits a result of my anti hormone treatment, More core work and building the biceps to off set the feminine protuberances is the order of the day. So today is a good day, so far.

My day gets past by going to the garden centre, watching a rugby match and the Strictly result show. Of course there was an episode of Vienna Blood and then there was the blog to write. My evening ends with some pixie skulduggery.

Thursday the 28th of October will always be a special day. The day my youngest daughter and her partner took possession of the keys to their first house. Its one of those proud parent moments with the thought that they are embarking on creating heir own home in their space in the world.

The only other things of note were a trip to the gym for a cross training session, so I keep my training going, and an unplanned trip to collect my eldest daughter from circus school when her taxi app would not accept her bank card. There was of course a work meeting in the morning but that was mundane.

Friday morning is all work admin, and tidying the kitchen before my scheduled lunch time work meeting. The work out of the way I go to the shed to write letters. A quick trip to the post box in the rain and then its time to go to the gym again. Its a tough session due to my fatigue but I am in for a surprise. Out of the shower and into the club lounge to find it full of children doing Halloween crap and their parents cluttering up all the available seats. We are out of there as quickly as possible and home to watch rugby and eat an Indian takeaway. I’m tired and write this brief blog with some multi martial arts bouts going on in the background on TV. It seems to be that many of my friends are having hard times one way and another. COVID is a persistent beast that saps the energy and it is difficult to keep taking care of yourself.

Wednesday, an early breakfast of muesli and i check my mail. I find that the CQC have sent me a reminder to complete my DBS check, so I follow the link to the forms. Of course I find I need my passport, driving license and birth certificate, so I had to rummage around to find them and return to the on line form. Took ages to fill in as it kept rejecting the possible combinations of my birth place. I make a phone call to clarify what they actually want in the difficult section and then get a call from a friend. Somewhere in there I missed another call much to my chagrin. Ultimately I get to finish the form and then find I have to run off a letter to take to the post office. So having printed the form I drive to the post office in the next village. I get checked for the princely sum of £17:50 and notice on my way out that they stock posting boxes so seizing the opportunity I buy enough for Christmas. A serendipitous find.

I have soup lunch and put tonight’s meal in the Croc Pot. I then spend time trying to get my partners laptop working as it should. I do the usual house keeping and install the latest upgrades. Of course as I restart to install the process takes ages as it grinds through the upgrades. Eventually the machine is running properly and I return it to the office ready for tomorrows Skype call. There are no more distractions to stop me from training. I ache from yesterday but I get into my gear and get myself into the garage. I do 45 minutes at an easy pace, its okay, its what I can manage today.

I get back into the house to find that the garden guy has arrived so make him tea, pay him and agree what needed doing. I retreat to change and begin my evening by starting the blog while waiting for meal to be ready. The meal pings into life in the Croc Pot and the family eats. Tonight will be taken up with the continuing Long Call drama, still hoping for even more unlikely characters and plot twists, I suspect it will be a mainstream rogue. Then on catch up it will be Shetland followed on catch catch up Mock the Week. So tonight there will be no mind improving reading, thinking, sketching, hobbying (not that I have one apart from staying alive) or writing. Yep a sofa bound night of television. I’m such a prole at times and wonder if its just the ordinary symptoms of intellectual laziness. Perhaps I shall read a sneaky poem or two before sleeping.

Tuesday, and to quote the opening lines of Four Weddings and a Funeral, “Fuck”. I have woken up at 9:20 when my first meeting of the day started at 9 o’clock. As it is my one to one it will be noticed. I dash to the laptop and dial in immediately. I then have the embarrassment of explaining to my manager that I had had a bad night. My body and my condition gives me terrible hot flushes and sometimes it happens frequently enough in the night to keep me awake and disrupt my sleep. Bizarrely by the morning comes round I appear to have burnt myself out and I am also very tired so I find I sleep in the morning. Normally the noise of my family being at work in the house nudges me but today my partner has gone to the physio and my eldest daughter is already in the back room engrossed in work. Thankfully my manager is very understanding and we are able to get on with the business and finish just a tad over time.

I get my washing in to do while I have a late muesli breakfast and check my emails. I also get some work done on a new contract tracker. By lunch time I am trying to get myself up for going to the gym, I’m struggling with motivation but get the bag packed despite the inner me being resistant. I finally get my self out to the gym, where I ritualistically buy a bottle of water to get through during my hour on the cross trainer. I grind out an hour with Rammstein in my ears pushing me forward. I thought I was having a bad session but I managed to burn off 696 calories and cover 7.51 kilometres. Its always a good sign when you perform better than your body feels. I shower and as I change I listen to a very loud conversation about “doing weed” and whether it is better mixed or not and how one guy having done a bit of time came out and found he threw up the first time he went back to it. All I can say is that he must have been the most inept inmate in history if he could not score weed in a prison! But then having a loud conversation about it in a public place probably indicates why he ended up doing time.

I sit in the gym lounge with a large black americano and have a moment of quiet and send messages and emails to catch up with people and then its the drive home. Once home I put the bins out and then indulge in a large bowl of chicken soup and put my washing in the tumble dryer. My partner is going out for a meal tonight with an old friend so I plan an Indian takeaway with my eldest daughter and then start the blog pausing only briefly to order the Indian once my partner was on her way. Tonight I shall eat my all meat Indian (no carbs due to my new diet), watch England’s women play an international and then watch the Long Call. Bit of an achievement this one as it has a gay lead detective who is entangled with the religious cult that threw him out as he investigates a murder, just after his father dies and he is rejected, again, by is mother at the funereal. Now I would have said you could not make that up but clearly someone has! I cannot wait to see whether the young woman with learning difficulties who was befriended by the murder victim was the murderer or whether the fact that the victim had killed a child locally in a hit and run some years ago has any bearing on the story. That was episode one and there are three more, I cant wait to see what gets packed into the rest of the story.

Monday and I wake up feeling stiff and tired. A muesli breakfast and I begin to review evidence for a TC review. I down load the latest documents and begin to read them all and make notes on my reviewers workbook. I spend all morning doing this apart from a short break to fill the squirrel feeder that Squashy and Squishy had emptied. I also discovered that one of the wood pigeons was copying Squishy by sitting in the hanging basket and reaching over to the bird feeder and gorging. By lunchtime I need a walk and as a family we walk round the village to stretch our legs. Lunch is a ham omelet and coffee, as part of my protein and fruit diet. Then its back to the evidence reviewing, apart from the odd trip to the door to distribute the arriving packages. By tea time I’ve had enough of evidence reviewing and resort to TV. Tea arrives and I dine before sorting out our next Tesco order. I discover that the Tesco website since its crash has wiped out my favourites and regulars list so I have to plough through the process of ordering up individual items. I move onto the blog very aware that this is a really boring day for anyone reading it. I guess some work days are like that for everyone. Tomorrow will be a different day.

Saturday, a meal to think about and rugby to attend, so we breakfast and then go to the garden centre to buy the things we need to complete tonight’s meal. Happy with our bag of goodies we return home and I get the ingredients ready to pop into the Croc Pot. Everything gets put into the pot and I set it going to slow cook for the next 8 hours. Its soon time to get ready to go to the rugby and we drive into town to park the car and then walk down to the ground. This walk means that I get 10,000 steps in during the day and salves my conscience about not training today. Tigers win! This is the sixth game on the trot and they are at the top of the table, I’m glad we remained season ticket holders over COVID. I enjoy these days at the match, there is nothing like seeing and experiencing the spectacle of the match and the crowds response to it. I have to say that when your team is winning it is a good feeling. It seems that the Tigers have re-found their form and the season is looking promising. The walk back to the car seems brief and we are soon home preparing the rest of the evening meal. I am glad I laid the table in the morning in anticipation.

Our friends arrive dead on time with goodies including a beautiful white orchid, which now has pride of place on our dining table. We eat, drink and talk our way through the evening, its a real pleasure to entertain friends and to share food. I think it is one of my favourite pleasure being able to cook for and feed friends. These evenings always go by so fast and it seems no time at all before we are waving our friends farewell. No one can face clearing away the debris so everyone just goes to bed. Its unusual for us to do that but on this occasion it seemed the only thing to do.

Sunday and I wake up at almost 11 o’clock, I must have been really tired, perhaps the effort of being at the rugby. I go the bathroom to weigh myself as I missed my weigh in last Sunday, so this is a fortnightly weigh in. I am shocked: 96.7 kilos. I’ve gained 1.4 kilos in 2 weeks and I’ve been training reasonably well. Things have to change, there can be no more carbs and sweet stuff. From now on its protein and fruit for me and of course I need to challenge myself in training. By the time I get downstairs my partner has cleared away the debris from last night. A real hero, all I had to do was put some of the clean crockery and glasses away. I have a muesli breakfast and coffee to wash down my drugs and then I sit and finish reading Mark Webber’s Dead Man Walking. The man has done huge amounts and been recognised for his extraordinary challenges, it seems from the comments at the end of the book that all those who have met him and work or run alongside him are immediately impressed by his attitude and achievements. His family are extremely proud of and supportive of him. What struck me was how many of the friends he has made during his fund raising runs for Prostate Cancer UK have died. So alongside the incredible achievements has gone hand in hand deep loss, which can only make him reflect on his own situation as indeed his book has made me reflect.

At 1 o’clock I had a zoom call with my son in Sweden. We talked for a couple of hours about how life is in Sweden and of course how we were going to organise Christmas. Brexit means anything we send gets taxed. He is starting a new job at the start of November in the centre of Stockholm so there is excitement coupled with some readjustments to family routines. We say farewell and I get ready to go to the gym. My partner drives us and I get myself on board a cross trainer. I plug in the earphones and ramp up Rammstein, my favourite training motivation music. I go at it, I’m aware that I have residue from finishing the book and I find it drives me to push hard. I get to the end with a personal best, 733 calories burnt and 8.68 kilometres done. That’s more like it. As Rammstein drive I also go inside my head and see what is there and in my case today was a growing sense of anger that after 100 years the best that medicine can do is still chemical castration. The more I think about that the angrier I get and the idea for a book emerges, tittle first and then content, or at least chapter themes and headings. The title will be “Get your finger out of my arse and do something useful.” I might take it to the writing course or just begin to jot notes in a note book. I meet my partner in the lounge and have a coffee before we head home for an evening meal. I eat the last of last nights main course and follow up with a coffee with the last chocolate biscuit in the box. There will be no more biscuits and chocolates now until Christmas and I am down to 92 kilos or less. The back ground is Strictly results to my evening as I write the blog and wait for the Tesco website to come back up. If it doesn’t before midnight we are going to have an interesting delivery tomorrow.

Friday and yet another early work meeting to do. a quick bacon bagel and coffee and I was on to my call. It went well enough. There are a lot of recurring themes that are coming out, mostly about the disconnect between the individual and the organisation. They say its been useful and we go our separate ways. I do some admin work and discover that some of my services are missing from a contract tracker. I ring a friend who had tried to call me during my meeting and caught up with how arranging a meal with old work colleagues was going. I also indulge in some pixie camouflage activity and get some business done.

Before I know it, its lunch time, so I take my partner to the garden centre Sainsburys and we buy the rest of the components for our guests meal on Saturday. I shall be cheating a bit this weekend as we are going to the rugby in the afternoon and need quick and easy courses to prepare and serve. Its all in the presentation. As we are going out in the evening we have a fish and chip lunch and then I clear the kitchen and change into my training kit.

The training session is an hour on the bike in the Shed and I really do not feel like it. Its one of those days when I have low motivation and climbing on to the bike is an effort, but I am encouraged by my multi coloured T shirt which I choose today. I was also aware that ivy has crept into the Shed, so at some point soon I will need to hack it back. Anyway the hour passes and I manage to complete the session.

• 

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• 

I have a post bike shower and get ready to drive to Birmingham were we are going to see a new Motionhouse production at the Midlands Art Centre or mac as its known. The drive is arduous and at the end we miss “mac”due to my crap satnav and my driving. We navigate our way using my partners phone and arrive in time to find that the pay and display only takes coins. I pay by phone after a tortuous process and we finally get into mac and find our seats. We wear masks. Some people do, others do not, the children certainly do not. The first act of the show starts. I am immediately caught up in the dance. The visuals are stunning and the music is brilliant, it is just riveting. The imagery is bold, stark and powerful, rooted in everyday experience. Our inner voices portrayed by crows and our struggles with them. Fabulous stuff.

There is a break as the company rig for the second act so we indulge in chocolate and coke. I bump in to the companies executive director and we have a quick chat as I know her quite well and then its back to the second act. The second act starts but the projection and sound fail, it turns out that the computer has has crashed. Kevin the artistic director calls a halt to the show and explains what has happened and the team set about fixing it. In a short while the act starts again and in this section the seven dancers are just magnificent. There are no projections just a bare stage with its skeletal cube on it so the whole focus is on how the dancers are able to express the coming together of once isolated people to achieve together. The dancing is truly breathtaking in its co-ordination, expression and technical expertise. There is great applause at the end. we stay to hear the post performance discussion with the director adn dancers. Some very small children asked some really good questions. At the end we were able to have a quick chat with our friends Kevin adn Louise before we heeded off into the night to drive home. Everyone to bed and me to the blog.

Thursday and I have a 9 o’clock meeting so its a quick muesli breakfast adn coffee before settling down with colleagues. Its a good meeting, a mixture of operational stuff and social engagement. Post meeting I catch up with some admin and then I read for a little while. Come lunch time my partner and I drive to our local farm butcher and buy the meat for dinner on Saturday when we are cooking for friends. Soup for dinner and then I take a trip to the garden centre to replenish Squishy and Squashes food. When I get back I find that something sneaky and probably rodent has got into one of my sheds where I am storing the squirrel and bird food. I have to re-package the food before I refill Squishy and Squashy’s feeding station. I return to the Shed for a while to write a few words and then visit the post office to buy more stamps. Back in the Shed I read more of Dead Man Running until the garden guy arrives, I equip him with tea, money and instructions and then cook a meal. The family eat and then I give my eldest daughter a lift to circus skills. I read more of my book as I wait in the car till the end of the session. Home and I watch football and then read some more and message friends. Finally I write the blog.

I realise that this is short and sweet but I intend to finish the book tonight, I do not want it hanging around any longer. It is full of stuff that is familiar and difficult. Reading the experience of a younger man with metastatic prostate cancer going through the same process as me and experiencing the same physical effects is difficult. His journey is radically different to mine as he throws himself into ultra running and travels the world to different challenges. He also very quickly integrated himself into the world of charity fund raising and the Cancer charities. Perhaps the combination of extreme physical effort and interpersonal engagement with fellow prostate cancer sufferers accounts for his survival. What is particularly difficult is the fact that he has survived for longer than I have so far by many years and he has therefore experienced the side effects of chemical castration for longer, it does not paint a pretty picture of what I can expect the longer I survive, even if I stay fit. It is the psychological battle to remain the person I recognise as myself that is the most demanding and challenging.