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.

Tuesday and its throwing it down, welcome to winter. Time for muesli and coffee and then I potter, including putting a meal into the Croc Pot to be ready for the evening. I do some evidence reviewing before I attend a Teams meeting at midday. It is a useful meeting and I come away with some issues to check on tomorrows meeting. Lunch is a bacon bagel and then my partner and I drive over to see her mother and deliver some bottled water. We chat for a while and sort out one or two things before leaving her with her carer. We drive back to Leicester and go to the gym. I train for an hour on a cross trainer managing to shed 714 calories. A quick shower post session and we drive home to the Croc Pot creation to sustain us. The evening is taken up with a combination of football and Shetland before I write the blog. Its been one of those beige days, flat, safe, unremarkable, a jog through mediocrity of living. Yet ticking away in the background is a clock that makes everything important and all the people I am connected to special. The invisible makes its presence felt by what it effects, like dark energy and matter in space.

Monday, I wrote letters all morning in the Shed. Lunch came and went before I posted my letters in the persistent rain that lasted all day. My afternoon was spent down loading evidence and catching up with NICE guidelines for Personality Disorder. However I did have one revelation which took me aback, my friend who is fighting off COVID revealed that she drank hot Vimto as part of her recovery diet! Hot Vimto! I was taken aback, how does anyone get to hot Vimto. I am now curious about the possibilities of hot Irn-Bru. No getting round the need to train so I headed for the rower in the garage and did one of the gentlest half hours of my life as my left arm was felling over stretched. A welcome shower followed and then I put my glad rags on as I was being taken out. We drove to the pub and indulged in pie night, sneaking in a pudding and coffee as well. Home in time to see Have I Got News for You and retreat to bed before getting trapped by the TV.

Tuesday: up but no breakfast just coffee and drugs before I go the gym for a swim and a steam. I take my partners car and check the tyres and fill it on the way. Once at the gym I eat two bacon brioche rolls and a large coffee before slipping into the pool for a few lengths followed by 10 minutes in the steam room. I just finished showering and toweling myself down when the alarms went off, not a drill, and staff appeared to hustle people out. I resolutely took my time to put trousers and a hoodie before making my way to the emergency exit. It was like a scene from a disaster movie. Half naked people, old ones, in towel and staff wrapping children and swimmers in foil survival blanket. Looked like a foil cooking lesson for cannibals. Mercifully we were let back in quickly to retrieve our clothes and bags. I indulged in a coffee and a cookie before driving home to put the bins out.

At lunch time I make a work call to a clinician I met at an on line meeting and chat about some issue with a therapeutic community. Life is difficult balancing the actual clinical needs of people in the community and the embarrassment of vey long waiting lists for help. It is little wonder that some nhs trusts appear to lose their way at times. I spend the rest of the afternoon in the Shed writing letters and watching the rain get worse. I make a dash to the post box and then clear the kitchen and empty bins before tea time and he first European football match of the evening. I start the blog, watch more football and the end of a film before finishing the blog for the day once the rest of the household have gone to bed.

I like the quiet space at the end of the day, it gives me time to let my head be where it wants to be and to reset itself for the next day. I wrote today that my cancer is like a ghost or Harvey the six foot rabbit in the James Stewart film of the same name. They are both invisible. From the outside it seems like madness that I have a terminal illness when I train and work and appear to do all the normal things, internally I have a constant dialogue that wonders if I will make my next event, milestone or goal. In the lone space of the night before sleep I remember that I am lucky, I am loved and cared about. What more could a chap want, invisible rabbit or not?

Sunday, a warm drink to start the day and then breakfast. My morning is spent printing out a work book and evidence related to a TC accreditation visit I am doing in November. Its interesting the way various services have adapted to COVID and tried to maintain their central values and procedures. We try to ring our eldest daughter for our usual Sunday chat but find she is “in the forest” and the signal there is poor so she says that she will ring us back. We work our way towards going to the gym in the afternoon. I spend an hour on a reclining bike and then do a few weights for my arms. I burn 577 calories off before indulging in a long and hot shower. Then its home and the usual evening. Tea followed by Strictly results show and then I settle down to read more of Deadman Walking. I continue to be impressed by Kevin Webbers running achievements and his determination to keep having challenges and goals to work towards. The book is full of the details of the pains and achievements of he races but what stands out to me is the constant worry about PSA level. That really chimes with me. I also note that his oncologist has his bloods done on a monthly basis, the very thing I asked for that the medics have refused to do. Medical insurance or sloppy practice, dependant on the medication, or medical expectation is my question. I get tired of the reading and write the blog.

Saturday morning and its the usual coffee in bed and a chat to plan the weekend. While my partner prepare breakfast I do my fortnightly drugs wallet refills. It means I have all my drugs sorted for the next two weeks and I can take stock of when I next need to order more. We eat breakfast and then I check the foul drain outside to find to my surprise that it is clear so I set about clearing the down stairs toilet. A job well done. Having tidied up a bit we go to the the garden centre where our butcher is. So we load up with bacon and notice that the butcher is taking orders for Christmas turkeys. So we take the opportunity to order a turkey and add to our Christmas club savings to off set the cost in December. So we come away with the makings of pigs in blankets to store in the freezer and our Christmas turkey sorted. That was an unexpected bonus. I get messages from the Shri Lanka family who we have tried to help. The family who sent the video that I posted here a few days ago. They have bought the building materials they need and in the next two or three days they are going to replace the roof that has been leaking. I’m looking forward to the pictures that they will send and to posting them here.

Back home and I watch a rugby match while my partner sorts through her wardrobe to make space. I hear from a friend who is recovering from COVID and it seems that progress is being made, which is good news. The afternoon passes until I cannot put off training any longer. I go and row for half an hour and wear off a few calories. I also do a few weights curls as I’ve decided that I need to build my biceps back up. Rowing and the other stuff I do does not build my biceps and as a result they have reduced so I need to build them again.

We eat tea and then of course we settle as a family to watch Strictly. I start the blog and will gradually finish it as the evening progresses to the the football highlights via Jools Holland, or not.

Friday and its a potentially demanding one. My unconscious was obviously aware as it woke me up at 9:40. I got up and showered, which I always do when I’m going to the GP surgery. My life experience is that you can go to a doctors expecting the routine sight of the prescription being written as you enter the room and end up with a finger up your arse. Hence the shower and of course clean underwear. With a few minutes to go I wander down to the surgery to find a queue of my peers waiting to be admitted. We are all there for our booster jabs. I survey my peer group and I think to my self “Jesus do I look like this lot?” I probably do but I’m the only one in a handmade T shirt and a long ponytail. I am also almost the only person in the queue without a stick, walking frame or mobiliser. Dead on the dot of 10:45 we get let in, signing a consent form on the way. We get a leaflet thrust at us about what is going to be stuck in our arm and seated in lines in the waiting room. A nurse and a helper appear with a trolley and for a mad moment I thought I might be getting an ice cream, but no I am just asked questions and then a jab in the right arm. Like naughty school children we have to wait for 15 minutes before we are allowed to leave. In a moment of release clutching my new “I ‘ve had a booster jab card” I head for the village cafe. I’ve not been in since before the first lockdown. The first thing I see is the hand written note that states proudly, “we are cash only” and I feel welcomed. I order coffee and a bacon and sausage baguette and settle into a corner table and take stock of the view.

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I sit and enjoy the view of the village mini roundabout as I munch my baguette and ponder on the changes in my life since the last time I sat in this cafe. I check my messages. My friend with COVID is suffering and trying to rest but also keep going. My sister sends a message to say she is having phone difficulties but someone had sent the fire brigade to see if she was alright. I had to reply and own up that it was me. I leave and walk via the co-op and load up on coffee which they are selling at half price.

I get home in time to go for a lunch time walk with my partner round the village. We chat mostly about what reading Dead Man Running has raised for me and our mutual recognition of some of the experiences. I think I have come to the point where I realise that nothing I do will effect my PSA score. I can be as fit as I can be, be as strong as I can be because these things help sustain me and get me through treatment, but it does not affect my cell biochemistry. It is the medication that does this. If my PSA is rising then it will need new medication/chemo to lower it again. It is the place I feel most vulnerable, because I am dependant on the medical profession, and I confess my confidence in them is low. It offends my sense of self to be dependant on anyone but it is worse when it is doctors, they appear to revel in their self perceived greater understanding and right to make decisions in their multidisciplinary teams that exclude me. There is an arrogance that offends me.

Back home we have lunch and I potter a bit before some really serious teeth brushing and mouthwash gargling, my usual ritual before seeing the dentist. Its a brief walk to the dentist where I take my place in the waiting room. I am soon called in and have a chat with the dentist and decide that my chipped tooth can be patched up and we will have a big review after my next oncology appointment. So my dentist patches my chipped tooth up, applies the UV light to set the compound and sends me off to pay my bill at reception.

Once home I immediately change into training gear and pack my bag. We drive to the gym so that my partner can have her hair done and I head upstairs to the gym. I row for 15 minutes and then X train for 65 minutes, burning a total of 868 calories. One thing about training in a proper gym is that it is full of mirrors so as I row and cross train I am drawn to wondering if my tits are getting bigger due to the medication. I decide that I ought to do some more upper body weight work, fat into muscle being the theory. A quick shower and then I sit with my partner in the lounge downing a black coffee and a white choc chip cookie. We get our eldest to order Indian take away and then drive home to enjoy it while watching a rugby match on TV. I start the blog and in the background programmes come and go till the blog is done. Then its clear the kitchen, dispose of the Indian meal packaging and get myself to bed. I thought of a good present today but when I investigated it I found I could not get it in a form that could be a present only in an electronic form that defeated the whole object of present giving. Clearly our technological world has its down sides. Its cold impersonal logic and “convenience” is not compatible with surprise or gifting in a material form. So back to the drawing board.