Tuesday, I wake up feeling crap and then spend day in an on line conference. from 9am till 8pm I am in front of a screen, a confirmed zoomling. My evening wind down is the Great British bake off and a couple more episodes of “Warrior Nun”. Not quite Stranger Things or Umbrella Academy but suitably escapist.
Wednesday, up an onto the conference line by 9am, having downed some muesli and coffee. and settled into the sofa. The conference is good but very intense and dense with very little if any respite from the screen. A friend rings me mid afternoon and I experience the welcome pleasure of having a proper conversation one to one and not a screen full of faces. It was good to be connected to the real world, a real person and not the faces in the “digisphere”. It was good to talk about real things like someone else’s work and parents meetings. I was sad to leave the call and return to the screen. The conference came to an end at 6pm, I pressed the “LEAVE” button and it was over. Time to put away the notes I had made, few but pertinent. I also copied the contact email and event dates, but they can wait till tomorrow. Its time for tea, wallpaper buying, some light TV, Warrior Nun and bed.
Monday and its 8:30 and I am standing in the rain outside the GP surgery waiting for the nurse to let me in and then to stab me with my 28 day injection. Its the same routine, I hand over the injection, she makes it up as I undo my trousers and expose the injection site. We chat all things COVID and Christmas and then she spikes me and pushes the drug into me. We chat next dates and she sees me out the back door, the cancer leper let loose on the village. I drive home and log onto the The Consortium of Therapeutic Communities on line conference.
The conference is full of people I know and have worked with, many of them friends and people I hold in great affection. I miss the therapeutic community world and the work I left behind. In my enthusiasm I tend to be overly verbose and have to reign myself in and listen more. The presentations are very good and extremely diverse, the people delightful. Getting to grips with zoom is going well as well.
As the day goes on I become increasingly aware of how sore I am becoming and how fatigued I am. I’ve started to feel cold and shaky again as I did last time. I liken it to being a junky going cold turkey, its going to last a couple of days at least. By the evening I feel shit so I drink Peroni free and eat dark chocolate, write the blog.
Saturday appears to be becoming a lay in bed day till late and then eat bacon sandwiches. In the face of lockdown we decide to scout out potential new sources of food. We take to the road and drive to our nearest farm shop who have installed a fresh milk machine, with a milk shake capability and an egg and milk bottle dispenser. We buy fresh unhomoginised milk, yogurt, rolls, scones and what turns out to be a really creamy and nutty farm cheese. We are pleased with our find and move on to the next farm shop. This shop is very different in that you can buy everything you could want for a horse, goat, pig, chickens and all family pets. This was alongside more farm produce. A bag of potatoes, two huge baking apples and some bits and pieces get taken to the check out counter where we get mugged for a charity angel in support of the local air ambulance. As I have not done a speed course for a while I do not mind an additonal angel for the christmas tree to come.
Back home we stow the new goodies and while my partner sets about planting bulbs in the garden I set about making bread and cooking florentines. I now have my own recipe for florentines which I am willing to share if anyone wants it. The trick is all in the way the baking trays are prepared and used. It takes me a while to get to the dipping in chocolate but the final outcome is good. By this time its getting dark as make my way to the shed to do an hour on the exercise bike. Its pitch black by the time I finish and navigate my way back to the house down the garden, not made easier by the fact that my family had turned the back lights out. That’s family for you. I am in time for tea and the wild excitement of Strictly Come Dancing. At this point of the blog I am wondering what has hapened to the spell checker on Word Press. Its a pain the way it keeps dissappearing.
The evening progresses with some xmas present buying and a strange TV series. I clear the kitchen and put the dishwasher on so that it will finish before I go to bed. Tonight is the night to put drain clearer down the outside kitchen drain to try and clear it. Such an exciting night.
Sunday, up early for a shower, make warm drinks, empty the bins, feed the fish and think about a lazy day getting ready for next weeks on line conference. Post my shower I do my weekly weigh in. 93.7 kilos, I am very happy, this is good progress, my first goal of 92 kilos is in sight. So after a breakfast of bacon rolls we have a face time call with our youngest daughter and talk christmas and work. I go to check the outside drain. Its still blocked the clearer has not worked. Its rod time, except the run of piping the rods I have will not touch directly. Off comes the manhole cover and I try to induce some suction in the blocked length of pipe. It doesn’t work. I survey the situation and decide I need reinforcements and head for the local Wickes, thank the lord that do it yourself stores are still open in lockdown. I find a narow gauge dyno rod and a pipe buster pump, but by far the most important find is some industrial drain unblocker. So its back home and into the muck work clothing to pour a double dose of clearing fluid down the blocked drain. I go back to rodding the length of drain I can get to and slowly dredge out some of the blocking sludge. The industrial fluid works and slowly the blockage gives way and I’m able to pump out more of the sludge. Eventually the system is flowing freely and I am able to hose the system through. So its time to pack up the equipment and get things back to normal. Some of the gloves and socks get jettisoned and the clothes go into the wash. So by 3pm I’m ready for a drink and some of my floretines as a reward. I start getting ready for tomorrows on line conference which starts and goes on to Wednesday night. If it goes well it should be interesting and fun. I settle into listeinng to football on my headphones as I catch up with blog. I do not know where the day has gone, these early dark autunm nights are dismal and do nothing for my motivation to get into the garage gym. I’m not sure how I am going to manage that over the next three days, as my day starts at 8:30 with my monthly injection at the GPs. Last month it knocked me off kilter for three or four days, I’m hoping it wont, but it will be in my right side this month, which is the side that seems to affect me most. So tonight I am a little aprehensive about the next couple of days. I feel eating a lot of florentines coming on and watching Pullman’s Subtle Knife.
Friday and today it has been a day of ticking off the to do list, so after a cold breakfast I set about my chores , but not before taking a call from a friend. Having moved the cars off the drive I applied a moss killer to my rapidly greening drive. Whilst doing this I noted that the drain from the kitchen is blocked and checked my man hole and drain cover. Good news my main drain is clear but the kitchen run needs to be cleared so a quick trip to Amazon and the necessary will be here tomorrow. Now on a roll and I go through our emergency card box and select a belated birthday card for my grandson whose birthday I shamefully missed. So I loaded a card with cash and took to the post office to be sent and signed for. It seems the only way to ensure the Swedish postal system can deliver anything is to get it signed for. Back to the to do list and I find I have work emails to respond to, which of course take longer than I bargained for. A bite for lunch and then its time to think about training. Its tricky these days as I need to ensure I can get into the shed before it starts to get dark. I get in and do an hour on the bike. I am not satisfied with this and head for the garage gym to row for a while.
I get to the sofa to recover and have dinner. I am bored with TV so this evening I get out my jewellery making kit and sit carving, etching and sanding wax blocks into something resembling a ring. I have a long way to go before I get to something I would give as a gift but I’m not too picky not to wear my own crude stuff if I get it made up. My kit allows me to send stuff off to be cast in a range of metals so eventually I might be able to create suitable jewellery for my unsuspecting family and friends. A smidgen of Have I Got News For You on catch up TV and its time to write the blog. I am missing writing letters but at the moment I am focussing on the conference I am attending next week and particularly learning my notes for the debate I am going to be part of.
Thursday and its a day of screen time. Faced with a screen day the day has to start with a bacon bagel. So into the first meeting for which the host turned up and hour late. Still it was all being paid for. Dinner noodles and back to the screen to host an open forum. Heavy stuff, there is some real distress going on out there. Time to walk to the chemist and pick up my drugs before moving on to the next meeting to do the tech run for next weeks conference debate. Then more screen stuff to deal with the days emails and enquires. Once all that was done it was time to write the notes from the forum and tidy up the to do list.
The evening was the relaxation of European football and the blog. Tomorrow promises to be more exciting. There are paths to be de-mossed with a magic potion, training to be done and Christmas to be organised.
This all sounds mundane and boring but I still seem to have got to the end of the day feeling tired, and a bit jaded. Still no American president, so the show goes on. The bottom line is that I miss the bright colours and the smile.
Wednesday and I lay in bed till 9:30 and I hear my phone ring downstairs. I get up and return the call to a friend and then have breakfast, I watch the American presidential election but get bored very quickly as this saga is going to run and run. We might even get to see the second American civil war, which would be interesting if tragic. It would be a shame if bigotry and ignorance forces the reasonable and rational into a violent conflict. Maybe it’s a lesson that if liberal democracy is to survive it might eventually have to defend itself in the streets and it won’t be non- violent because you cannot change bigotry overnight and you cannot educate ignorance quickly.
I undertake a pedicure. Ever since I dropped a weight plate on my big toe years ago it’s been a problem but since chemo therapy exacerbated the problem keeping it comfortable has been a challenge. I view it as a farrier task and approach it as if my toe is a hoof and treat it as such. So taking my cutters and files to it I shape it into a reasonable shape and depth. The task complete I oil my nails and get on with life.
I set about a work task. I am designing an information booklet but in order to do so I have to download documents, change their format, edit them and reorganise them. Life is never simple and I have to move folders from one laptop to another to do the conversions and them back to the original where the software I need is located. It takes hours, literally and before I know it I’ve had lunch, watched the garden guy come and go, talked to friend on the phone, its gone five o’clock.
There was so much I wanted to do in the light but now I shall watch football, eat dinner and then write the blog feeling dissatisfied that I have “missed a trick” and wasted my time. My to do list for tomorrow is now much longer. I guess I will catch up, maybe. What I have found is that I have lost spell check on the updated Word Press platform that the blog is on. Such a pain.
Tuesday and I am back, Yesterday was a crap day and I felt lousy despite a morning work meeting and an afternoon session on the exercise bike in the shed. A combination of disappointment, anger and general pissed offness with life but mostly myself. So this morning I woke expecting the same and was not disappointed. When I find this place I go to the shed and write which is exactly what I did this morning after an omelette breakfast. I wrote stuff to me and letters to others until I had no more to say. I went to the post office and sent my mail, the rest I disposed of. After lunch I Christmas shopped. I had hoped to make presents this year from my jewelry making kit but I find myself lacking in skills, the time to adequately develop them and crucially I am lacking in creativity at the moment. So I resort to plundering others creativity and skills and fulfilling my Christmas present needs. All is going well along with the odd diversion into moss killer and path clear chemicals, I am making progress. disturbingly the laptop is very good at filling forms,including one of my cards apart from the odd crucial bit of information. It makes impulse buying so much easier but then that is the sole function of the internet.
I go to the garage gym and prepare to row. A friend calls me and we talk for the first time in what feels a while. A good moment in my day. I row a slow half hour to help me think and work off some of my tetchiness, which I follow with a race against the machine to get rid of some of the anger that is still floating around inside. I crush the machine over a 1000 metre race. Eat my wake machine I am awesome.
I thrash the machine, awesome
I am back and ready for this lockdown now, I’ve reset, I am not even sure I give a toss who wins the USA presidential election, but of course I will if that arsehole Trump gets in again. They are both older than me, I’m not sure why I am hanging back. Tonight I do nothing but watch football, the Great British Bake Off and think about more Christmas present ideas and possible things to craft in wax.
Lockdown starts tomorrow at midnight, I intend to make this lockdown my most productive period of me centred activity and well being as possible.
A little bit of virus isn’t going to stop me being me!
Saturday, regardless of the joys of having both my daughters at home from the weekend, and a long letter from a friend, the long shadow of Boris draped across the future, his voice of dithering doom that we were all going to be locked down from Thursday the 5th of November to the 2nd of December invaded our living room. This is what SAGE was saying was needed three to five weeks ago and only now do we do it. Time lag death is the cost, amongst other things. So amidst the smell of baking Christmas cakes and muffins I count the cost in lost time with friends, in contact that has gone, with options amputated and once again I feel robbed and constrained. I guess most people do except those that think its all a government charade, a medical conspiracy or that COVID just does not exist. All of which lead to that group of “fuck everyone” mindless twats who are too macho or thick to wear a mask or socially distance so that we all suffer. The type of brainless arse hole who travels across tiers so they can have access to a betting shop and beer. The up shot is that we all descend to the depths of restraint and constraint inflicted by the intellectual lowest common denominators in society. In short Saturday sucked. At least England won the six nations rugby competition. My day ended in the bath listening to Spotify meditation and yoga tracks punctuated by Kevin Bacon advertising G5 mobile phones on EE, so antithetical, and then the final chore of the day was to clear the kitchen and the debris of Christmas baking.
Sunday and the weekly weigh in. 94.8 kilos, about the same as last week, and it keeps me below being obese. A late bacon sandwich to get the day going. Time to hear Gove run off at the mouth and pontificate about the lockdown being capable of extension, now there’s a little ray of sunshine for you , before this lockdown even starts. An odious little man that always has to have something to say to satisfy his ego and reinforce his self perception of relevance. He isn’t. We wave my youngest daughter off loaded down with DVDs from our collection and some goodies. A quick dash to the garden centre to buy bulbs to plant new hope into the garden and home to watch the women’s cup final. By half time I am bored and start to write the blog and watch the football scores on my phone.
The only way I am going to survive this latest lockdown is to renew my creativity at work and at “play”. Its time to test Kae Tempest’s contention that it is our creativity that enables us to connect and I think connecting is going to be the key to this lockdown winter. I think it likely that some of my art and creativity will come into the warm from the shed. To start with there are Florentines to be made this evening as I listen to music through my blue tooth head phones.
Oh god there going into extra time in the women’s cup final, death where is they sting.
Friday, the day I atone for the bag of chocolate buttons I devoured yesterday. So I get up and get into my training gear before making myself a bacon bagel and coffee. Breakfast done I head to the shed and clamber aboard the exercise bike for an hours effort. I notice as I tread out the time on the bike that my garden is still producing flower. Little gems dotted around the garden or hanging in clusters from hardy bushes. Still no frogs to be seen and Cox and Pippin the spring time newts have now long gone to hibernate. Actually I do not recall seeing next doors cat, Bumblebee, for a long time. It may either flat beneath a cars wheels locally or curled up in front of a fire having decided to hibernate until there is nesting behaviour going on and the promise of fledging to capture. Today the hour passes quickly and I am soon mopping down the bike with antibacterial wipes and gathering up my tracksuit. I return to the house and have a coffee and a biscuit and then go off to the garage for more exercise. This time its the rower that I get on and set off for an half hour. Its hard work after the bike but I keep and even pace and ignore the sweat and the nag in my back. The minutes pass as I count off the percentages towards the finish and I am pleasantly surprised at getting through the 6 kilometre barrier, not something I was expecting so soon. I could not resist the photo opportunity.
AT LAST I GET PASSED 6000 METRES.
Once I had caught my breath and wiped myself down I set about doing the exercise program that my eldest daughter has devised for me. Its a killer and I cheat, I cheat a lot but I do get some stuff done which bends me, stretches me and makes me feel where my body does not want to go. I am truly tired and head for the shower. I love the feeling of getting fresh and clean after exercise, it marks a readiness to get on with the day. In my case it was heading to the kitchen to make noodles and to sit on the sofa and recover from my mornings exertions. Noting on my way into the kitchen that my youngest daughter had arrived and settled at the kitchen table with her laptop, so pretty soon all four of us were laptopped in our corners of the house busily going about our cyber ways. A friend rang to chat and described how she is up to her eyes in creating new clothes and preparing for the fun of Halloween with her daughters tomorrow. Providing COVID is not prohibitive we hope to have coffee at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park next week. I put some bread together and prepared a curry for dinner. My youngest daughter delivered us our new Christmas bauble, something she could not resist when drawn towards Lewis’s Christmas decoration department. I love it, what else could be better in 2020 for all sorts of reasons on all sorts of levels. We will hang it on this years tree with great pride.
THIS YEARS NEW ADDITON TO OUR CHRISTMAS BAUBLE COLLECTION.
My curry went down well as did the surprise tiramisu (terror ma sue is my dyslexic version, thank heavens for spell check). Time to write the blog while watching An Extra Slice and looking forward to tomorrows day of rugby international. I still have to make up for my days indulgence this week so I will up early and depending on the weather will be either rowing in the relative comfort of the garage or braving the bike in the shed.
