Tuesday, and its late, so this will be short. Breakfast followed by a really good meeting with a service. Its so nice to come across a group of managers who gueninely co-operate and are open to ideas and conversation.
I then check the cars and take mine to the garage to refuel and check the tyres for my journeys tomorrow. Journey one is to get my vaccine jab mid afternoon. Journey two will be to the hospital to get my CT scan done at 6:25. With the job done I have a bacon lunch and then listen to some Eioaudio, which then prompted me to watch YouTube videos of people finding and playing on public pianos, most at St Pancras station.
This is just one reason why I envy those who can play an instrument.
I finally get myself together to train. I change and head for the garage. The coldest yet.
Thankfully I am in at least three layers.
Kilometres
Time
An average session for a cold day.
My comfy slipers await my cold feet post row.
I retreat to the house and tidy the kitchen before an evening of football and TV. I really need to break this part of my day and do something different before I become just another TV moron. Of course it comes to blog writing time and I am tired and entering a grouchy phase. I think tomorrow is weighing on my mind more than I acknowledge. Its not the jab or the scan but the entering the COVIDverse of infected carbon based units who might infect me. Still on the up side I get to wear one of those lovely hospital gowns.
Another Monday rolls round and I wake up to find the rest of the household already at work. A simple breakfast of muesli and coffee accompanied by my daily drugs. I check my mail and set myself for the day. A quick call to the GP surgery books my next 28 day injection for next Monday and my pre oncologist blood test. I review what I wrote yesterday and settle on writing a letter during the morning. The snow is still hanging around so I decide to clear our path and drive way so that the Tesco person will be able to deliver this afternoon with out the the risk of an icy path. So I take a quick trip to the post box, move a car off the drive and then get to work with my snow shovel and broom. I sweaty few minutes and the path is clear. Its time for a smoothie as I need to get into the shed to train before Tesco person arrives. So I get into my training kit and make for the shed.
Time
Kilometrees
Calories
This was a good session, a new PB
I am impressed with me, a new personal best. 22.12 kilometres in the hour, this is good and my body knows it. I get back to the house and shower. I note my urine is dark and put it down to dehydration due to the exercise but I will monitor it over the next 24 hours.
I tidy the kitchen and as I am clearing away the washing up Tesco person arrives, rings the door bell. My daughter and I go to the door and find the twat has emptied the trays into the porch. Usually we take the delivery trays off the delivery person and empty them in the kitchen and return the empty trays. This mindless arsehole has dumped the lot in the porch because he thinks its faster and he can just piss off. My daughterr and I retreive our groceries and store them away. So I finally get to have my post training tomato soup.
By the time the household stops work and “comes home” it is dark and its time to move the car back onto the drive. A friend calls and we chat about COVID and the continuing draining effect that it has on everyone.
The family eat tea and I binge on football and NCIS at the same time as chatting with a friend about the difficulty hunting down some information on care homes. The frustration of not finding an email address for the registered manager is annoying but there will be other ways.
Finally its time to write the blog. This feels like the calm before the storm as I edge closer to my next oncologist appointment. But first there is a scan and a blood test to do this week in preparation. This is a time of anniversaries of ghosts I would rather forget but they are not so easily put aside, they are just part of the history of the ongoing process.
Sunday the anniversary of mine and my partners Civil Partnerships. The day starts with coffee and chat and moves onto breakfast but only after I have weighed myself in.
92. 3 Kilos
Another reduction in flab, good news, I have earned my rest day and my Sunday treat at the evening meal. We sit to breakfast and despite conversations about not doing gifts my partner bushwacks me with a romantically folded book and a large Panetone. It will be my weekend treat at dinner. We do face time with my youngest daughter as the snow falls heavily, well heavily for Leicester. In a moment of curiosity I swapped the rug in the lounge for a larger one we had in store. The effect is universally approved and we decide to stay with the change.
The rest of the day is a gluttony of football where I watch my team beaten and my preferences dashed. As the snow fell around my dissapointment I became reckless and turned to crisps. At the end of the afternoon I prepare a chicken one pot with red wine stock and a hint of cayenne.
The evening meal goes well and I finnish off with the surprise panetone. The rest of the evenning is David Attenborough followed by TV dross that frees me to write the blog. Tomorrow I have work to do and a training routine to get back to, with its the challenges of rejecting the sweet things I like but that feed my cancer. I find survival is based on denial and physical discipline. The mental side is easy, its what I instruct myself to do and on what I hold my word on. And of course doing what the Pixies tell me to.
I shall end this day with a restorative bath full of bath bomb bliss. Tomorrow my head will be clear and my senses keen to see and hear a new day.
Saturday and as usual its a lay in and warm drinks in bed while we chat about the week and the weekend to come. This takes quite a while today with the outcome that we eat breakfast at 11:30. It then becomes a day of chores; hoovering, cleaning, laundry, drying, and recycling. In the middle of this activity Amazon deliver my car cleaning bucket and combined shampoo and wax. The plan was to “do the cars” today but as the delivery coincides with snow the plan goes on hold. By mid afternoon I am ready to go and train. It is my last session of the week and I find I am already anxious about Sudays’s weigh in. I find the temprature in the garage at its lowest this year so far. I get to my seesion as quickly as possible.
An end of week session and the consequent dip in peformance
I change out of my training gear and start the evening meal. I’ve chosen a dish that takes two and a half hours in the oven so that I can watch one of the football matches on TV. All goes to plan. As the cup underdogs go down bravely my dish comes to its exact moment of readiness. So tea goes down well and we setttle down to an evening of foldign laundry, watching TV and writing the blog. Tomorrow brings my moment of truth and if the weather forcaste be believed, snow.
Friday a day to write a paper for EE. However before I get on with that I need to shake off the after effects of some really nsty nightmares. They were full of Kaffka like hotels and my not being able to find people. I woke up disorientated and fragmented. In order to recover I fire up the appetite with a bacon breakfast washed down with coffee. I park my arse on the sofa at 9 o’clock and lift it up again 4500 words later at 1 o’clock. Thats my morning gone. I make a lunch time smoothie and take a breather.
I make plans for the week end and order car shampoo and polish for the cars.They need some TLC to help them through the winter but I note there is sleet and snow on the way so its a race between the weather and Mr Amazon. Time to get ready for training, its a shed and bike day. On the way to the shed I take pictures of the gifts my garden is still giving me.
I get in the shed and get down to the business of pedaling away the flab.
Time
Kilometres
Calories
I am through the session and retreat to the house and an early bath. I use my last bath bomb, confident that the my Lush delivery wil turn up soon. It’s a real pleasure to just laze in comfort and listen to whatever I please. Nothing intellectual today as its Friday and time for Serious Jockin (no g). By the time I was crinckled and ready to re-enter the world Boris was telling the world what crap it was in again. There I was smelling good and feeling well exercised with Boris the dog of doom drawling death all over the place, there was only one possible response to thius, I order take away Indian for the family. A friend rings and we chat for a while about how we are coping with lockdown and the way we plan our survival strategies. I return to the lounge to find TV still on as we wait for the meal to arrive. I start the blog. This evening who knows what will happen, but if the Indian doesn’t arrive soon I shall get decidedly grouchy.
The Indian arrives just as the snow starts to fall, so my hunger gets fed but my plans for cleaning the cars tomorrow look like they are doomed. Thankfully my training session tomorrow is in the garage.
Thursday and a busy day, so a quick breakfast of meusli and coffee. Then its on to meeting preparation and checking my mail for admin to do. First meeting of the day is fairly rouitne and nothing challenging. The morning gone I start lunch during which I get a phone call. I am a winner, I have COVID jab dates. So next Wednesday I have the double delights of being jabbed and scaned. Now thats going to be an interesting days. I shall be the envy of my friends, the only man in the road with a jab.
So having adjusted my diary I move onto my Open Forum session where I talk and listen to service manager and how they are manageing the challenges of COVID. At the end I have the usual debrief chat with my co- host and then move on. I have house chores to do and get through them quickly so I can go and train. Its a rower day so I head for the garage.
Kilometres
Time & Calories
Not bad for a mid week session in 6 degrees.
Post session I take a bit of time out to consider the thorny issue of what to do on my civil partnersip anniversary on Sunday. I did not come up with any brillant ideas, yet. Tea, my favourite, tuna pasta, and then I clear the kitchen while my partner has her weekly singing lesson over the net. The goal is to get to Murder in Paradise with everything done including putting a fresh loaf into bake and the blog started.
I guess that right now its one of those times when nothing exciting is going on. In my world my “look forward ” moments are waiting for the large size finger picks I’ve ordered so I can learn the banjo. My other future joy is the box of bath bombs I have order for myself. Its a luxury I am growing more and more to like. I suppose at a casual glance it looks like life is normal and comfortable but the carbohydrate/sugarless diet and the exercise is all part of the battle with cancer, its a mundane everyday routine that is like taking medicine. Routine, repatative but hopefully restorative. With the scans being done and the blood test to come I will know at the start of February whether all this routine effort is having any effect. There are times I would kill for something sugary, mars bar ice cream top of the list.
Wednesday; Ooops its 10:20 and I’ve over slept. Not a crisis, just a bit of a surprise. I get up and cook myself a bacon breakfast, wash it down with coffee and drugs and set about doing some work. I listen to the recording of the debate I was part of and then write a section on the discussants contribtion for the paper that a colleague and I are writing. This hopefully will complete the paper and we can send it off to a journal. Feeling pleased with myself I then log on to the Governement tax site and actually pay the tax due on my self assessment. I am poorer but secure in the knowledge that I am out of debt and do not owe anything to anyone finacially.
That time of year again & a suggestion for home schooling.
A colleague calls and we talk about our contacts with the services we are working with. We both have a long history with the criminal justice system so we have an interest in how the system we worked for is coping with COVID. I think we are both relieved that we are not having to face the current challenges. I am saved from the wet and windy elements by my partner and eldest daughter who bring the emptied recycleing bins in from the road. A pre training smoothie and I get ready to make the trip to the shed to train for an hour. While I clamber into my track suit a friend calls and we chat and compare notes on how we are coping with the current situation. It is always good to hear how others are coping with their real worlds at this demanding time. At the end of the call I head to the shed and the waiting exercise bike.
Time
Kilometres
Calories
A good session indicating I am getting fitter.
Back in the house I change and settle on the sofa and watch some football, eat tea and watch the first episode of Bay, after which I write the blog. It feels like a strange day, the rain is unremmiting and it looks set to continue. The news tells me more people than ever died of COVID in the last 24 hours and that people are facing flooding in some places. Nature just grinds away in its impersonal way, without interest in humanity and just continues to do its own thing. It makes me think that making meaning of this life with those around me even more important.
Tuesday and I have letters to finish. ( I notice the spell check on the blog is not working again. Everytime there is a software change the spell check goes). Anyway its time for muesli and coffee. So I retreat to the sofa today to finish my letter which turns into three letters. It seems that once I get going I have a compulsion to continue writing. By lunchtime I am ready to hand over my mail to my partner and daughter to post on their midday walk. I get on with the tricky business of changeing the door seal on the cooker. I spend a useful five minutes watching a video on how to do it and then get myself ready for the operation. Not only do I change the seal but also tighten up the door cover. Mission successful.
Ta Da! New door seal in place
I am on a roll and so I get the recycle bins out and take the car to the garage to fill with petrol and check the tyres. We can now go anywhere at the drop of a good excuse for an essential journey. I am still on a roll and sort out some finance stuff and write a brief note. I take myself to the post office and get proof of posting. So that was all very productive but its time to get myself into the garage for a rowing session, which is what I do.
Kilometres
Time & Calories
Ya go me, thats a personal best, I am back to being able to do more than 6 kilometres in 30 minutes. Given I am doing the sessions in a track suit and three layers in a garage that was 6 degrees I reckon I can do better than that in time to come, I might add another 500 metres to that distance as the temprature goes up and I get fitter. The real aim is to hit my first weight target by the time I see the oncologist at the start of February. If I do that I will have achieved my first goal for the year.
I am out of my training gear and ready for the evening meal and some fooball. I find my new banjo dvd and book has arrived. Apparently I am going to be playing tunes in no time at all. Well I am up for that but I think the authors may have over estimated my abilities. I get the basics in my head its my hands that seem to have a seperate mind that wants to do something else. All of that goes along with no sense of rythm. I note that it is possible to buy jars of ear plugs, which maybe a compassionate gift for my family.
Football ends, which I’ve not really watched. The more I watch it the more I find my interest in ice hockey growing. I write the blog and plan tomorrow. I need to do some real work tomorrow and write some of the papers that I have started. These days of COVID are thought provoking days, after seeing todays figures and the work that is being done I feel I am not doing enough or not being useful. It is something that frustrates me, this being confined and being seen as vulnerable and therefore redundant, its a feeling I dislike. There are perhaps things I can return to offering, its a thought that requires some thinking time.
Monday, its letter writing day. Breakfast and an hour of work admin, ordering a banjo tutor cd and then its to the shed. I write letters all day till four o’clock and then drive to the post box to send them on their way. Then it is time to train, so I get into my kit and spend an hour on the bike.
Kilometres
Calories
Time
Straight to the bath and the luxury of a lush hippopotamus bath bomb bath. Hot, sparkly, scented, and refreshing. Dinner and then more letter writing and bland TV. Tesco deliver. It all becomes too much at Ru Pauls drag queen UK show. I think I am turning into a moron.
Sunday, weigh in day. Has my diet and exercise regiem paid off this week? I slip from bed to bathroom and, taking a deep breath, step onto the scales.
93.0 kilos.
Thats a down sizing of 1.4 kilos and means I’ve jettisoned 0.8 of a stone in three weeks. So I have earned my rest day and my treat of cheesecake this evening. I take a celebatory cup of tea to my partner who is still in bed after having had a crap nights sleep due to a reaction to drinking diet coke. It certainly seems to disagree with her metabolism. We chat and plan till we get up for breakfast.
A leisurely meal and then we have a face to face call with our youngest daughter. Once a week we catch up and see how we all are. It seems we are a sensible and adept group as we all appear to be coping with lockdown and manageing to work from home. Post call there are one or two small chores to do before my partner and I set off to her mothers house to measure a number of things required by the OTs at the care home where her mother is at the moment. So I now have pictures of furniture, toilets and showers with a measuring tape against them to record the information. We drive back with a pile of mail, junk and otherwise. On the way back we revisit the scene of our embarassing “stick in the mud” incident when I got the car stuck in the farmers field trying to turn round the last time we visited. No mishap this time so we collect fresh butter and cheese from the vending machine and head off home.
Once home its time to settle down to a terrific ice hockey game between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Washington Capitals. A game that goes to a shoot out, which the Penguins finaly win 4-3. Americans cannot do sport where there are draws so there has to be a result. When Americans encouter Test cricket they cannot believe that we will go and watch a five day game that can end up in a draw. When it comes to a Test series of five, five day matchs in which they can all be drawn most Americans are convinced its a strange piece of English humour and do not believe it happens. It was a strange experience watching Crosby, number 87 play as I sat in my authentic Crosby 87 ice hockey jersey, a Christmas present from my eldest daughter. Its an odd game where you have three quarters of twenty minutes each. I wonder if the Americans are getting their own back over the cricket. Anyway is takes them two hours to play an hours game with all the time outs, team swaps and breaks they take. Ideal for an advertising mad culture. In amongst the breaks there is time to eat tea and indulge in my weight loss reward. Cheese cake was delicious and not a shred of guilt attached. Tomorrow it will be back to protien and smoothies. The later I replenished today and will eagerly await my deliver of flax laden pouches tomorrow.
I have a to do list for the coming week, so my week will start with paying my tax bill, attending to my finances and catching up with my enabling environment work, but most important of all is catching up with my correspondance and writing the letters that I owe people. People, friends to be more precise, are more important than anything esle at the moment, so if your reading this and wondering where your letter is its on its way, soon, this week, probabley. So in the morning I will be off to the shed to write, the rest will follow naturally, but right now there is a Tesco order to ammend for tomorrow. There is a banjo lurking at the back of my mind that is accusing me or abandoning it since I gave it new strings, machine heads and a good polish. I wonder what that is all about?
