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.

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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.

Sunday and a bit of a lay in before the Sunday weigh in. I get up and go to the bath room to set up the scales on the appointed square, and then I step up and hope.

92.2 KILOS !

Oh yes that’s more like it. The protein and fruit alongside the exercise regime has done its work and before time. I am pleased and look forward to a rest day. Breakfast follows and then there are things to be got ready for the trip next week. The first thing is for me and my partner to do is do a Lateral Flow Test. This was fun relatively speaking as we had got hold of some of the “up the nose only” tests. Fortunately we are both clear. then comes the tricky bit, reporting it on the nhs website, getting a confirmation email back and then forwarding it to the course organisers. This was more time consuming than anticipated, but these things always are. I sort my washing, top up the fish, fill the squirrel feeder and sort out the “to do while I’m away ” list for my eldest daughter. An Amazon deliver brings me a phone holder for the car so that we can use the three word direction app during the trip tomorrow. I spend time experimenting with it and finally decide to use the vent mounting . Yet more time goes by.We draw up a survival food list and go to our local Sainsbury’s to buy it. This of course maybe not necessary but my fantasy is that the food being provided on the course will be far from my protein and fruit diet, more plants and bloody tofu, a sort of tree hugging, good for you sort of menu. Of course this is a fantasy but there is no harm in having a bag of goodies to hand.

Back home its time to watch the Wales v Fiji rugby game and give my feet half an hour on the “Circulation max:x reviver”, cranked up to level 40 so my feet tingle. Just one of those why not things that seems to work for me. Then I wrote the blog so I could spend my evening finishing my preparations.

I go into the night knowing that as from tomorrow I will be out of touch, no internet and no phone signal with a group of strangers, sharing meals and the experience of the course. So this is the last you will hear from me for a week. I may write the blog while I am away and then post it en bloc as soon as I can when I return to a signal. I’m not sure how I feel about this isolation so I am intrigued to see how I respond and what catches me by surprise, although some things will be a constant. I cannot help wondering what I might create over the next week. But now its time to pack my mobile office back pack and start the journey into the desert, and see what whispers in my ear.

Saturday and as usual there is an early cup of coffee and discussion of what to do during the day. Of course breakfast follows along with filling my pill boxes, and then my partner and I drive into town to pick up her new glasses and to get cash from the ATM at my bank. Where we are going next week its a cash economy. We indulge in a stop in Costa, for me almond croissant and hot chocolate with cream. I think I might be blowing my weigh in tomorrow. We drive home and I put the washing I put in before going out into the tumble drier and get ready to go to the gym.

On route to the gym I stop off at the garden centre and stock up on peanuts and squirrel food for Squishy and Squashy. Having secured their food for the next month I stop off at the garage and ready the car for its drive on Monday, full tank and checked tyres. Then to the gym for an hour on a cross trainer. 701 calories burnt and 7.78 kilometres. Showered and spent I drive home to empty the tumble dryer and fold my clothes away. Then follows the England rugby match in which Australia were seen off and the Indian take away arrived. The family watch a film for the rest of the evening, before I set about writing the blog. Today has been one of chores in preparation for the coming week. Tomorrow will be packing for the week ahead trying to ensure that everything is attended to, nothing missed, no detail overlooked, no essential left behind, and of course the LFTs to be done. The fun never stops.

Friday, I slept poorly last night so I’m sluggish in the morning. I wake to find my partner has gone to the physio so I rummage through the kitchen to feed myself muesli and coffee. Then its time to get back to being in front of the laptop and doing a work meeting. I finish just in time to get a call from a friend and to chat about how the world is and my looking towards being away next week on the writing course. By lunchtime my partner had returned and was preparing to go to see her mother. My plan was to go to the gym but I fund myself doing admin and finding that I had a load of chores related to going away next week. Amongst the chores was sending a photo of me to go on a website. This was tricky. Hair up or down? In the end I went for hair down.

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The afternoon time seems to melt away as I put a meal into the crock pot and all thoughts of going to the gym gets lost. I finally cannot put the exercise off any longer, I do not feel like it at all. I get myself into the garage and straddle the rower. Its 30 minutes of effort, I’m still sore from Mondays jab but in a strange way it makes me work harder. Almost a personal best but not quite, I moss it by a measly 120 metres, but given that it is early in my cycle I am encouraged.

I change and return to the sofa to record my session and to open the Amazon parcels that had arrived. One of which is a circulation reviver for the feet. Its a present to my partner who has strained her feet on the cross trainer. We both give it a go as we watch the England match during the evening. Its a strange feeling sensing the mild electric current in the feet and calfs, we will see if it works over the next few days. The family retreat to bed and leave me to write the blog and put the house to bed. I also write the going away to do list, which will rule the next 48 hours. Faced with the reality of not being able to post the blog each day is somehow disturbing, I suspect that the disconnection is more perturbing than I care to think about.

Before I start on Thursday I just want to share a nugget from The Visionary; Epistle of the Universal Church Ministries. It is an interesting document full of the strangeness of America, religion, and advertisements for clerical impedimenta.

This pops into my in box on a monthly basis headed “Minister Roland” as I am in fact an ordained minister of this church. No big deal any one can become a minister on line, but I did also get a Doctor of Divinity out of it as well. Anyway an article caught my eye about the rumpus that was caused when an elementary school took their children on a field trip to what turned out to be a gay cafe. They had been doing it for years and no one noticed it was a gay cafe as it was intended to give kids the experience of ordering food socially and just acquiring normal social skills. True the place was very “Rainbowy” but the kids just thought it was pretty. What set the hare running was that some one noticed the racey names of some of the dishes on the menu. I’m not going to tell you all of them but this one was my favourite: “The Hellena Bun, a burger “tossed in Rosie’s own “Smack My Cheeks and Make ’em Rosie’ sauce. I bet the kids loved it, and laughed themselves silly. The adults were a bit more critical, one wrote “I certainly hope you get the wrath of God for this! The author of this post signed off with “And this coming from 60 year old Proud Lesbian!” Don’t you just love America, if only Alistair Cooke was still alive to write his letters from America.

Thursday, up and “mueslied” by 9 o’clock so I can be in front of the screen for a morning work meeting. There were only three of us there but is stretched to the hour with real work and then we reduced to two and I had the chance to chat to a colleague that I usually do not get to have much time with. So at 11 o’clock I indulged in more coffee and attended to some of the admin I needed to do. In a short space of time I receive two calls from friends touching base and seeing how I am. One of them is recovering from COVID and introduced me to the spoon theory, it a way of conceptualizing energy expenditure and regulating the energy you have in order to maximize your capabilities. The originator is Christine Miserandino and her story of how Spoon Theory started can be found at www.butyoudontlooksick.com. I’ve read it a couple of times now. My friend was able to expand when I asked questions like “what size spoon are they, tea, dessert, serving or soup?” Apparently you can lose spoons. The point is that as she is recovering from COVID the management of her energy is a very important issue as energy expenditure (spoons) needs to be considered as once energy is gone its gone. It reminded me of when I was marathon running, always it was abought pace as energy spent in sprinting could never be recovered and might mean not finishing the race. It also parallels the work by Loehr and Schwartz; which looks at energy management from a view point of training athletes and applying it to individuals and organisations.

I like the Spoon Theory is feels more human and derived from lived experience, which makes sense to me. For me it feels intuitive and fits my experience. For example today I had to choose between spending my energy by going to the gym or being in a space with TC people. I chose my physical needs over my head space needs, knowing that the gym would spend more spoons and mean I would have fewer spoons for the evening. The blog will just about spoon me out and then I will drop into Bill Bailey Power Save mode. So from a quite short conversation I am suddenly richer and have Spoon Theory to add to my tool kit of survival.

I have lunch with my partner and then I get myself ready to go to the gym, having decided to spend my spoons this day. I drive to the gym to find the bar/restaurant closed yet again but manage to acquire a large bottle of water before going to the gym floor and bagging a cross trainer. An hour later, 701 calories less, 7.73 kilometres further and a litre of water heavier and at least three spoons lighter on energy I shower and drive home. I record my session in my food and exercise journal and down load the Spoon Theory and read it. Its tuna pasta night, my favourite and as I wait for my partner to prepare it I start the blog. Pasta arrives as does NCIS on TV, although I continue to write the blog, my partner disappears to her singing lesson. I write more on the blog and then I am almost spoonless, I have one left to clear away the kitchen, plan tomorrow and prepare.

Wednesday and as my partner and friend drive off to a day at Chatsworth I get a call from a friend who is beginning to surface from a bout of COVID. So a chat to start the day with and then I am up and having my now usual flax enhanced muesli and coffee. I zip about doing some chores and ensuring the squirrels food box is full. As I check my emails I find that I have an Elders meeting at 11 o’clock that was not put into my phones diary. So I make coffee and settle down in front of the screen and spend the next hour and a half talking with friends as we try to make sense of what is happening to us and to our relational environments. COVID cuckoos and relational continuity were amongst the themes. Meeting over I down some chicken soup and do some Christmas preparation. Soon its time to train, so I get into the garage and row for thirty minutes. My jab site is still sore so rowing is not the most comfortable exercise but then nothing is. As it turns out its an okay session.

I retreat to the sofa to record my session and then change out of my kit. Back on the sofa I settle down to read The Cat Who Saved Books. It is a lovely book and I sit and read it to the end. It made me think about my relationship with books and why I read and what I read. I can definitely identify with the sense that my books are important and that they are powerful. It makes me remember the way the Jewish families that were part of my childhood and youth so valued education and food and that books were valued for the knowledge that they contained. For many of my Jewish friends knowledge was the their protection from their uneasy place in British culture,in fact any culture.

My daughter and I eat tea and I settle to read some more before succumbing to TV. My partner and friend return from Chatsworth fayre and in due course we all settle down to try and navigate the twists and turns of Shetland. After that its the news as I type the blog for the day.

Tuesday and I wake up feeling rank. I do not think I slept well and my stomach jab site is sore. I think I have woken up still in my withdrawing junkie state. Its usually like this for a couple of days post jab but will lease over the rest of the cycle. By the end of 21 days I am usually back to setting personal bests. I start with a muesli breakfast to which I now add flax seeds, part research and part hitting in hope. This morning I am on a mission to visit a jewelers and to take the bag of clothes that has been hanging around for ages to the charity shop. In order to get the jeweler sorted I visit my treasure box and find all sorts of stuff I had half forgotten about including a watch that I had lost track of. I get myself organised with the bag of clothes and gym kit and head off on to the world.

The charity shop is in the next village and has a reserved car space out front, which is handy. I deposit my bag of goodies, get a quick thank you and then I am back in the car. I pause and notice that the window display of Aged UK is pretty good, nice leather coat. I am tempted to go back inside but my frontal lobes intervene and remind me that I have more than enough clothes and that some are a bit tight so I had best get to the gym. The gym is empty apart from the unemployed, aged and fitness fanatics. I swear the day time lot are mostly there for the showers and the steam room judging by how many actually make it to the gym floor. I climb aboard a cross trainer, ramp up Rammstein and grind for an hour. It is a grind to start with but the effort eases as I get through the hour. At last I am done, 696 calories burnt and 7.55 kilometres traveled, virtually of course. I sterilise the machine and head for the showers. These days I do not bother to remember my locker number I just have a rough idea where it is and look for the pink padlock, it appears no one else fancies a pink padlock on their locker door. It makes me smile, men’s changing rooms are still so macho and image driven. Today the lounge bar is open so I indulge in Thai chicken soup and an americano. The soup comes with half a baguette, the dreaded carbs, but I succumb and indulge enjoyably. The gym is all very well but I’ve missed a call from a friend, which is irksome.

On the way home I fill my partners car and put the bins out before I park up. Once in home I pick up the watch that I had rediscovered this morning and got my “watch kit” from the garage and started to tinker with it. It was a present from my partner and has languished in a draw for a while due to it not working. I get the first old one working but the silver one takes more thought. At last I get into it and change the battery but find the retaining lever on one side does not retain the battery. I resort to my old friend nail varnish, a dab of my eldest daughters blue polish cements the bits in place and the watch works again. Just the back to wrestle back onto the watch and I am done. In the midst of this our guest arrives and Amazon deliver a few boxes, which seems to suggest that the rest of the family are getting ahead with their Christmas shopping.

By the time I’ve finished with the watches and started the blog its time for tea with our guest. There is conversation around the table and then I retreat to the blog before we all settle down to watch the great British Bake Off. I am feeling less sore for having trained and have a work free day tomorrow and a day when I shall have much of the house to myself as my partner and her friend are going to Chatsworth House Christmas fayre. Hopefully I can train, think about Christmas and read some more of The Cat That Saved Books.

Jab Monday rolls around again. A coffee and dish of muesli and its off to the GP. Its turned cold and the brisk walk does me good, or at least wakes me up. The nurse is cheery and on the ball so I am not in the clinic room long. Today is the right side, the side that tends to be more sore than the other. I walk home and take myself to the shed to write letters. I settle down to purple ink and pens and write. The morning goes by, my partner brings me coffee and then later a friend rings to chat. It is a very welcome call. Lunchtime soon arrives and my partner and I go for a walk to the post box and then around the village. By the time we get back my gut is beginning to feel sore.

After a kipper lunch I start to do odd jobs like replacing light bulbs and gas fire batteries. I while away time waiting for the Tesco delivery. It finally arrives and there is the usual flurry of activity as we unload the trays and stow the good away. I settle back to odd jobs and then close up the shed and retreat to my “soffice”. There is a flurry of Amazon ordering for boring things like light bulbs and data sticks. By now I’m tired and cannot face training so resort to Mock the Week and drafting the blog. I think tonight I shall try to sleep early and read a little after my self esteem has been dented by Just Connect and University Challenge. It’s shaky junkie time.

Sunday, which means a weigh in first thing. So that’s what I did with the result that I now weigh 92.8 Kilos. I have lost a bit of weight this week but not a lot. This is the start of the slow grind to shift the rest of the weight having shed the easy pounds last week by cutting out carbs. My partner and I take a walk to the village shop and pick more paracetamol for me to take pre jab on Monday, along with a paper and my weight loss treat, a bag of Whispa bites. Back home I read the paper and then set about doing some chores and cleaning. I spent some time using a wood reviver on our ageing sofa with some success. I also check my accounts to find a friend has moved money to me so that I can send it to our friends in Shri Lanka. I set up the transfer to the family and soon get a message from them to say the money has transferred. Hopefully they will send more pictures of the work they are being able to do on their house. To date they have been able to re-roof the house so that they are now able to keep dry during the rainy season.

I get to kick off time for the afternoons rugby international. I watch half the match but decide to go to the gym instead. My partner and I go to the gym and I cross train for an hour to burn off some calories. I listen to Rammstein to block out everything around me and spend my time thinking about my last four years, from a time of health and inspiration to the spiral of illness and isolation, much has challenged and changed but the most important things have remained constant. I remain able to stand and hold my ground in the cold light of day and the real world.

Back home my evening is mostly TV, and the joys of eating my weight loss reward, my bag of Whispa bites. There is of course the usual Sunday night Tesco order to do adn then onto the blog. Tonight I will do more drugs in preparation for tomorrows early morning visit to the GP and the dreaded 28 day jab and hope for a decent nights sleep.

Thursday and its a morning of work meetings. The the post arrived and in it was a jewel of a T shirt that a friend had sent me as an early Christmas present. It is very Van Gogh starry night and I love it at first site. With a light lunch done I go to the gym and spend an hour on a cross trainer. I use the forest trail application and traverse some Californian trails. Its a hard flog but worth it. I get out of the showers hoping for a coffee but the clubs bar and restaurant is closed due to lack of staff, this really is piss poor. I go home for my drink and a tune pasta tea before going to a Collabro concert at De Montfort Hall. It would not be my first choice of music, but they make a sound I cannot and they are clearly popular judging by the fans at the front stalls and the amount of tea towels that go sold in the intermission. Here are a couple of brief tastes:

The drive home took a while as Leicester were playing at home and turned out at the same time, but we eventually made it home.

Friday and I slept in till 10:30, I have a lazy morning reading more of The Cat Who Saved Books. The more I read this book the more I like it. Any one who likes books will be made to think by this book. I take some shed time to write some thoughts and record them. I have a lunch time walk with the family to collect my drugs for next week and to visit the village cafe for a hot chocolate and rolls. Once home I put a chicken one pot into the oven before heading to the garage and a hard 30 minute row at a high level; the result, a new personal best. It would appear dead man rowing is getting fitter.

By the time I am recovered from the row its time to eat and get ready to go to Leicester Tigers. This is the first evening match of the season at home and its the first time I dig out my thermals and knitted hat. We drive into town and walk to the ground and take our seats.

The game sees the Tigers win convincingly and the crowd is happy and entertained with fireworks and bhangra drummers and dancers. Home and too tired to write the blog, its been a busy time.

Saturday can be summed up as, mostly international rugby, a little reading, a good letter from a friend and an Indian take away. The only thing of note is that I resurrected my glass tea pot and brewed a pot of very berry brew as a change from coffee. I also introduced flax seeds in to my diet. In theory they are supposed to help stay healthy. My partner has been eating them for weeks and says that since starting her hot flushes have markedly decreased. I catch up with the blog. So its been an active time, mostly, but tomorrow starts my 28 day jab routine with me starting to take prophylactic paracetamol, the uncomfortable start of my 28 day cycle. It is also weigh in day and I am hoping that my efforts over the week pay dividends.