DVT 261

Its Tuesday and no work planned so I am off to the shed after a bowl of muesli and the first coffee of the day. Of course we were all up early as the decorators were coming back at 8:30 to continue with the painting and papering. I see them arrive and scuttle off to the shed. I crank up the heating and get to writing the letters that I owe people. So for at least three hours I scribble away, taking the odd coffee break until lunchtime comes around when my partner rings me to tell me that a bacon bagel is waiting for me. So back in the house I eat lunch and potter around for a bit.

Back in the shed its time to write more letters until I can write no more, my back aches and I have nothing left to say that I can be arsed to put on paper. I return to the house and clear the kitchen ready to cook a curry for the evening meal. By four o’clock I have posted my letters and the the curry is in the oven. I put the bins out while my partner works out in the garage gym.

Another evening of football, The Great British Bake Off and sketching the blog out. I’m getting excited as the completion of our bedroom being decorated may happen tomorrow. It will soon be time to argue about curtain colours. In the meantime its time to press on getting Christmas ready. This feels like the calm before the storm, there is going to be a lot happening from the end of this week. Set the controls for the heart of the sun comes to mind,its going to be a time of burning some energy. Tomorrow I really need to get out of the house for more than a walk to the post box.

DVT DAY 261

Monday! Its decorator day, so its up at 7 o’clock and a rapid breakfast and the last remaining clearing of the main bedroom. It gets done and by the time I am firing up the laptop the decorating team arrive. They are very efficient and are soon under way. Its like having creative mice pattering around the house gradually rearranging the house. I prepare for my work meeting and read through some service self assessments until I hook up my zoom link and join my meeting. A slight hiccup and a moment when there are two of me in the meeting until I cut one laptop off. The meeting goes its merry way until by consent we all surrender and go for a coffee. During coffee we talk to the decorator who thinks we need another roll of the expensive wall paper. We talk for a while until we realise that the decorator had not realised we had bought another roll when we decided to extend the papered walls. We all breathe a sigh of relief as the decorator realises he has enough paper and I breathe my sigh of relief at avoiding paying an arm and a leg for another roll. I find myself getting excited and at the thought of seeing the transformation. If it turns out as good as I hope for I will be looking forward how the rest of the house goes.

The meeting continues and we work our way through to lunch time and leave with our various tasks. I am presented with lunch by my partner and I start to get on with my work. I plough on all afternoon until the Tesco delivery guy turns up a couple of hours early and its an all hands to the pumps moment as we bring in the order and get it put away. Then its back to the office work until the decorator mice leave for the day.

I get to dinner time tired and settle into eating dinner and watching tv, which is a habit I am falling into too readily. Fortunately my hard work today means that I have two clear days to go to the shed and write letters and catch up with Christmas and most importantly to train. I weighed myself for the first time in a fortnight on Sunday with disastrous results, I am officially obese again having gone up to 95.5 kilos. Its tiring continuing to grind it out but I now wear my home made pendant with Back Bone inscribed on it. It reminds me that my back bone is cancerous and I need to have the back bone to continue. So tomorrow has to be another day to start again. I need to remind myself that my cancer does not rest, does not take a day off, is relentless and I have to match that and more to survive. I need to rage quietly and be implacable.

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So here I am writing the blog and remembering the message that an old friend sent me saying that she had used my Florentine recipe that I posted, and found that they came out well. If nothing else my blog has given someone good Florentines.

DVT 259

Sunday lay in and a lazy breakfast of bacon rolls at about 11 0’clock, after all there is lots to and one has to have ones strength to push on through. So once the bacon rolls and fresh coffee hit is over and the weekly drugs wallet is stocked its time to sort out Christmas presents for the grandchildren in Sweden. The Swedish post office is so shit that I no longer send my son and family anything through the post as it is highly unlikely to ever arrive. If it does then the post office will not release it without a DNA profile and blood test. So after a prolonged session of finding wish lists and getting to grips to gift bags and Swedish delivery I finally get the job done apart from one item that will need to come via me. Alas this means it probably wont get to Sweden in time for Easter.

Flushed with success I watch France beat Scotland at rugby and hen start the preparations for the decorators coming tomorrow, but not before getting my weeks washing underway. Its a mystery how much stuff can be crammed into a single bathroom cabinet, let alone the buckets of shampoo and body emoluments that accumulate in every corner of the bathroom. The landing area rapidly becomes a health and safety hazard as boxes of bathroom impedimenta get stacked on it. So scuttling around doing this and that I get to tea time, Strictly Come Dancing, His Dark Materials and old Have I Got News For You while waiting for the football highlight. As I wait for the football highlights I write the blog and vaguely wonder what I’ve forgotten to do and whether anyone still read the blog.

Tomorrow will be an adventure as the decorators turn up early and we “the slugabed family” endeavour to be ready for them to start at 8:30. I have a busy day of meetings and shed time to look forward to as well as the joys of the decorators.

DVT DAY 258

Saturday, Florentine making day before watching the rugby. I told a friend I would post the recipe for my Florentines now that I have perfected it.

Roland’s Florentines; Makes 18.

1. 50 grams unsalted butter
2. 50 grams soft brown sugar
3. 50 grams golden syrup
4. 50 grams plain flour
5. 100 grams sultanas
6. 100 grams flaked almonds
7. 50 grams glace cherries (chopped finely)
8. 50 grams candied peel
9. 200 grams dark chocolate
10. Zest of 1 orange
11. Any other decoration you like; gold leaf, hundreds and thousands, ect. Or not.

First put oven on to heat at 180 C (Fan)

Second line three baking trays with baking parchment, lightly greased with butter.

Thirdly put the butter, sugar and golden syrup in a saucepan. Do not heat yet.

Fourthly put the flour, cherries, sultanas, flaked almonds, candied peel, in a bowl and mix together.

Now the fun starts.

• Heat the butter, sugar and golden syrup in the pan until it all melts and the sugar stops being granular.
• When the mixture is liquid remove from heat and add the flour, cherries, peel, sultanas and almond mix to it. Stir until mixed completely.
• Take a TEA SPOON of the mixture and put on to the baking tray. ONLY six to a tray. You should have 18 portions on the three trays.
• Put trays into the oven for 8 minutes. NO MORE. They spread thinly and will burn if left longer than the 8 minutes.
• After 8 minutes remove the trays from the oven. DO NOT TRY TO REMOVE THE FLORENTINES. Leave to cool for at least 5 minutes or longer.
• Remove using a spatula to a cooling rack and leave to cool totally. Keep the papered trays.
• Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of hot water and add the zest of an orange to it as it melts. Melt the chocolate completely and then remove from the heat.
• I put the undipped Florentines in the fridge for a few minutes before dipping them in the chocolate.
• Dip each Florentine in the chocolate and put back onto the papered tray to set. I put the trays in the fridge for a few minutes to help them set but not essential.
• When the Florentines are set, decorate if you want to or just tuck in.
• I store my Florentines in a tin.

So there you have it, Roland’s Florentines.

The rest of the day has been collating work data from a survey and watching rugby. I write the blog which watching “Safe” the most unbelievable drama with the most unlikely plot.

DVT DAYS 256 & 257

Thursday: all bloody work, one meeting after another, and paper (well digital documents anyway) up to my eyes. Never got to train and went to bed knackered.

Friday and I am up and at the Tesco web site by 7am to get a treasured Christmas delivery slot. I get put in the “waiting room” and I think “oh here we go” but to my surprise I get in and get a delivery of my choice. A win so early in the day is unusual. I took the liberty of starting to fill the on line basket with Christmas goodies, all the sort of strange things that only appear at Christmas like crystallized figs. Mission complete I cook bacon sandwiches and prepare for a day of being a Christmas wrapping elf. Of course there is the hunt the parcel stage and the “now where did I put that” stage before I can get down to the annual wrestle with sellotape. Having emptied my cupboards I am faced with a daunting amount of wrapping to do and as I am in the back bedroom I am on the floor wrapping one thing after another. I go at for hours until I need to eat, so a short break for noodles and I am back wrapping. The door bell goes and Mr Amazon delivers some more parcels and my wrapping task gets bigger. Believe it or not it takes me till almost five o’clock to finish and clear up the debris. I suck it up adn get ready to train, but clear the kitchen before I get myself in to the garage. I get on the rower and pull for half an hour. I get hot and drive myself through. I take time out in the bath adn listen to mood stuff on Spotify fro an hour. The evening is taken up with rugby and Have I got News for You on i-player. I tiredly set about the blog in order to keep up and not to lose the days.

The weekend will be spent getting ready for the decorators to arrive on Monday to start the house lift. Hopefully in a couple of weeks time we will be sitting in a newly decorated house with our heating system working at which point I shall hunker down for the winter.

DVT DAY 250

This is Wednesday, normally a laid back, do as I want to day, but this Wednesday is a work day. Before I get started on the meetings I make bacon bagels and then clean the shower head and replace the ionic beads in the head. That all went well so I sit down to my first meeting. I end up making plans to do training in the new year, which the services seem to need the most to get new staff through the COVID times.

I go to my next meeting. A new group for me, some old friends, some new people but no fixed agenda, its a group of experienced practitioners who know their way around the grey areas and ambiguities of therapeutic communities. I found the hour and half really helpful and a space that offers me a sense of belonging in that I know what I say will be heard and that I can hear others. I’m looking forward to meeting again in December. The group have dubbed itself the Elders, I think of us potentially the Brand New Ancients as Kae Tempest would call us.

Time to go to the shed and do an hour on the exercise bike, its cold and getting dark already. Heater on and in three layers to start with I pedal my way to fatigue and sweat. At the end of my session I have to phone home to get the outside lights turned on so I do not trip up in the dark of the garden. No time to shower just eat and get ready to met the decorator who is due to discuss next weeks adventure. He arrives, accepts coffee and we talk wallpaper and paint colours. As we talk some of our previous dilemmas fall away and some of the colour schemes fall into place. A productive meeting. So then its TV and Safe, only another 4 perhaps 3 episodes left of this unbelievable murder malarkey. I watch the The Rap Game UK and I am pleased to see Shogun back and doing his stuff.I winder if it is too late to learn to rap? Finally its time to retire and say good night but not before I write the blog.

DVT DAY239

Tuesday, bin out day, but first I find myself snoozing late and to my surprise my partner is also there, she having told work that she was having the day off to recover. Good for her, its timely and needed. I get up and make myself a bacon bagel to start the day and to wash my drugs down on top of. Wallpaper has arrived and I take a look. To my dismay one of them is not the fetching teal version I thought I ordered but the pink coral version. So a phone call, a reorder and a return label completed later I’m back on track. I spend a bit of time checking email and sorting some admin odds and ends before heading off to the garden to fill the bird feeders.

What I regard as my banker to get into heaven, feeding the birds turned into a tragedy. My fantasy is that as I am being weighed off at the doors of heaven and being told “you’ve been a bit of a bastard its hell for you”, I blurt out “but I fed the birds”, to which the response is “fair enough up to the boring light and eternal chorus of hallelujah for you then”. I digress. I open the shed where I store my bird feed in a large plastic box with a lid to protect it from vermin. There is a well nibbled number of holes in the lid, I am suspicious. On opening the lid I find the sad sight of four small field mice dead. The irony of irony the poor things died in their food heaven because they could not get out to drink and died of thirst. I lift them out carefully and take a picture. I dig a small grave, pop them in, and then create a mound over which I put an upturned decorative pot. It felt like the least I could do. I filled the bird feeders and when I came to close the shed I left the lid off the food box, I could not face the thought of any more creatures dying in the same way.

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I return to the house and and set about putting together a digital booklet of the Enabling Environment standards. What always looks simple always turns out to be more complex, so I spend hours converting documents into different formats and then trying to make the online software do what I want it to. Eventually after a long struggle I got something that might be useable. It was intended to be a pilot to explore what could be done in the future and to give the team some ideas. If your interested the link is below:

https://simplebooklet.com/enablingenvironmentsstandards

Time to train. I go to the garage and strap myself into the rower. Its a hell of a session that I break into to two fro survival reasons. What was good was a brief call with a friend as she went pick up her daughter from school. It gave me good reason to take a much needed breather. I finish my session and change while listen to phone messages. Its time to eat tea and write the blog. Some TV tonight and some preparation for my meeting with he YMCA will see me through to my end of evening coffee and drugs.

DVT DAY 253

Monday and I find my partner has retreated to the spare room as she feels ill, a combination of fatigue and possible virus/bug/food/alien life form. The result is that she has curled up in the bed and is endeavouring to rest and sleep as much as possible.

I get on with chores and clearing the kitchen. I ring my partners brother who is taking their mother to the walk in centre to get her wrist x-rayed after last nights fall. We chat for a while and then I get on and start my work day. I have a lot of documents coming in and I need to log them and begin to give feedback to people. So this takes me three hours to juggle and to respond to the emails that come in as a result of me putting information out there. Lunch time comes round and passes as I keep finding new information to catalogue. My partners brother rings me to tell me that their mother has broken a bone in her wrist and is now sporting a soft plaster. I later found out she chose the blue plaster as the pink one was too loud and would show the dirt. At last I reach a point where I cannot avoid going and training. Today I choose to go to the shed and cycle for an hour. The weather is cold, the shed has the heater on full blast so I shed layer after layer as the heat built up and my body returned to the effort of staying alive. By the end of the hour I am sweating profusely and I am glad to heave my body off the bike at the end of the hour. By now it is dark even though it is only late afternoon and I pick my way back to the house to get out of my wet and clinging training gear. I get a call from my partners mother who askes about her daughter. I chat for a while and listen to her experience of the day getting her wrist x-rayed. I agree to ring her son and pass a message on.

I change and devour a coffee and a sticky bun before settling down to write the blog but before I can get going my partner emerges from a restorative bath. We watch the COVID update and then I prepare us beans on toast while we eat in front of the TV. Post meal we sip coffee and nibble ginger and plan tonight’s TV. Only Connect is a favourite way to reinforce the fact that my mind is slow and somewhat dim compared to some of those that are brave enough to put themselves on view to the public and endeavour to solve very obscure problems .

So I have an evening of challenge before me but I might actually get to see the end of Assassin Ninja later once Tesco have delivered. Tomorrow I intend to tidy up some work, train for a while and then catch up with my letter writing. I owe a couple of people letters and for me they are important as they seem more than ever the way I most effectively connect in these COVID times.

DVT DAY 252

Sunday, an early start, washing in, dishwasher emptied, bread maker fueled, coffee made, and preparation to clean the fish out. I discover that someone has left the heater on in the garage over night and make up a couple of reminder signs to go on the internal garage door. Still no one up, so just me going about the chores. Amazon deliver more Christmas goodies. The fish were very pleased as their world is now less green, the water cleaner and the filter pump providing a nice flow for them to gambol in them. That’s them sorted for Christmas.

We have the decorators coming in ten days time so it was time measure up the rooms and make a final decision about the wallpaper. After some minutes of staring at samples stuck to the walls we made our final selections. What followed was me measuring walls with my new laser measure and calculating how many rolls were required. The painful bit followed as I visited web sites and placed the orders for the paper. All we need to do now is to think about what colours are going to go with the papers. God knows how will manage that given how long it took to pick papers.

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So feeling myself to be on a roll and poorer than I was before buying wall paper I audited my invoices for the year. This turned out to be a prolonged and painful process, as I realised that the Royal College of Psychiatrists had not paid me for my work since August. A sensitive nudging email was composed and sent. Time to watch Louis Hamilton win the Turkish Grand Prix and become world champion for the seventh time. Cooking was going on when the phone rang to tell us that my partners mum had had a fall, so everything went on hold while my partner and our eldest daughter went to see her. I sat at home, made a ham roll and started to watch Ninja Assassin, an appalling blood laden film, which I have yet to finish as my partner and daughter returned before the end.

Finally we get to eat as we watch an episode of Portrait Artist of the Year and then move on to His Dark Materials on catch up. It feels like its been a long day so my partner goes to bed while I write the blog. Having not trained for a week I chickened out of weighing myself today, next Sunday after a concerted week of training will do now.

DVT DAYS 249, 250 & 251

72 hours of post conference recovery full of letters, both writing and reading, more work meetings, and most of all; Christmas shopping. Am I the only person who is becoming addicted to the idea of a mountainous Christmas present pile under the tree? The more I cruise the web the more ideas I get for presents, and lets face it, its what the web is for. Of course I realise that this might be perceived as an insensitive moment to espouse such a view with so many people facing the deprivations of a second lockdown, however balanced against this is the commercial imperative to keep the economy going. The strictures that I am trying to apply to myself is that I buy from independent providers, makers and merchants.

I have managed to turn off and rest for a while, in fact I have not trained all week and will resume training on Sunday and enter into a three week cycle of training. Time to get going again. Back into a rhythm of work and training to get through the winter.