Saturday, so a slow start and the luxury of a full breakfast while I fill my weekly drugs wallet. It seems that it has become a Saturday ritual. Once we are done with food we head for the garden. I clear away the winter fall of silver birch branches and twigs and then open up the green house and move some boxes of fencing to another shed. The greenhouse and the garden is already looking better. My partner cuts back shrubs in the front garden and clear some patches to seed bomb the border. The seed bombs were a present and are great fun. The top is unplugged and the whole hand grenade of seeds soaked. When the grenade is soaked it is split and thrown onto the flower bed. That’s it, garden bombed. In theory the seeds will now germinate and provide a profusion of flowers in the summer. We shall see. In the meantime I will wait for the plants to arrive in March that I have ordered.

Time for rugby. I watch the Leicester Tigers get beaten by Bristol Bears, then Italy demolished by Ireland. I change into my training gear and trudge off to the garage to row for half an hour. I amaze myself and row a personal best. Go me.

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I return to the lounge and sit in shorts to watch England get stuffed by Wales and a crap French referee. I ditch the training gear and sit down to tea before watching Bombshell a film about how the Fox CEO was eventually brought down in 2016 by the women he had abused. Good film. Ironically it won an Oscar for Best Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling. I cant help thinking that this might have been a cynical dig by the academy. Time to write the blog to the accompaniment of the TV football highlight show.

Tomorrow is weigh in day but this weekend it is the day I need to start to take paracetamol to try and avoid getting the reaction to my Monday injection. So if I am lucky tomorrow I might weigh less, have a treat, have a rest day and feel no pain. What could be better?

Friday, nothing workwise timetabled in so a relaxed breakfast with coffee. I head for the shed with my writing gear. I spend a long time trying to create something, which leads me to practice some characters over. I finally get a version that is satisfactory. Time has passed quickly and I have a smoothie lunch and settle down to write letters. When I ran out of words I make a quick foray to the post box and return to my shed. I have a long phone call with a friend and chat at length about life pre COVID and the complexities of communications pre and during the lockdown. I face confinement until at least the end of March, which will be a year that I have hardly left the house, I am lucky to have the bike and the garage gym to keep me fit. My exercise has become part of my medication.

I change and clamber up onto the bike and go for an intense session.

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I am impressed with me, its not usual to set a PB at this end of the week and to smash it by 1.6 kilometres is good going. I return to the house where my partner has returned from her mothers house where she and her brother attended to some family business. We are all tired so we decide to have take out. So i order and we hang around till it arrives. What a good decision the take away was. I head for the bath with headphones, book and an orange glitter bath bomb.

There is nothing like lazing reading a good book while listening to Radio 3s Friday concert. In truth I ditched both after a while and just lay back and enjoy the experience of lazing in warm water. Such a luxury. Eventually the water cools and my wrinkles get pronounced so I get out and complete my luxury by washing my hair. Relaxed and feeling refreshed I return to the lounge to let television be the background against which to write the blog. Tomorrow is international rugby day so two matches to watch, although the green house needs to be sorted as I can feel tomato sowing coming on.

Thursday, a work day or so I thought. So I have a lazy breakfast and settle down to listen to music before my 10 o’clock meeting. A log on at 10am and sit and wait, and wait and wait. It turns out one colleague is puppy tied and the other thought we had stopped doing it. There are terse emails exchanged. I get on with other work till lunchtime when I down soup and settle down to get ready for the Open Forum I host. My partner tells me the downstairs toilet is showing signs of being blocked. I check the man hole and sure enough the drain is blocked. The Open forum comes first. Its a good hour, more relaxed than usual which is a good sign.

So I am free of the work commitments now its time to sort out drains. Its time to get the rods and the hose pipe out. I get to work with the rods and soon things are flowing again. I hose down and refit the man hole cover and wash up. Well that was fun.

I change into my training gear and head for the garage to the rower. I’m knackered before I start so the session is a real flog. I up the level and grind out half an hour. At the end I am just pleased to get out of it.

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No time to bathe it was straight to watch the Rangers match, eat tea and then be disappointed by Leicester failing to beat some second class European football team. Its times like this that I am glad to be a Brentford and a Honka supporter. So I end up writing the blog and watching Shaun Ryder trying to become a stand up comedian in aid of cancer, along with others. Not my favourite programme, I dislike the implied concept of being an object of pity.

Wednesday and I feel like a slug, vaguely headachy and lethargic, fortunately no one is going to want me to do anything intelligent till 2pm. So a smoothie breakfast, black coffee and drugs to get me going before I look at what I need to do today. The post arrives early with the oncologist letter to the GP and a leper letter telling me how to vote in the coming local election. Best of all is a letter from a friend in Scotland who writes interesting and witty letters. So with a second coffee I settle down to read. Whilst doing so my LUSH order is delivered. At the end of the letter I open my LUSH parcel and delve into the package maggots to retrieve my haul of bath bombs. Its such an indulgence but I consider myself worth it. The variety is large and I cannot wait to try some of the new ones, especially the eggs and glistening orange flowery ones. I suspect the rabbit will survive for quite a long time, too cute you see.

I lunch and get ready for the one time I need to be intelligent in the day. It is a test of Lifesize a meeting platform over which I am doing a therapeutic community assessment next week. Before the test I ring my GP to organise my 28 day injection for Monday. This time round I will follow the oncologist’s advice and dose myself up with paracetamol the day before, the day and the day after. The test goes well with no hitches, which I am mildly surprised at. I tried to down load the software to get my own account but this turned out to be more of a test which ended in failure. Once the test was over it was time to head for the shed and to train for an hour.

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It was a tough session as my legs had not recovered from yesterdays long row. I returned to the house and took the bins in and noticed that my garden was suddenly full of flowers, so I took a few pictures.

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I get myself comfortable and watch the early football match as I write the blog. An evening meal and the end of football so back to the blog. My evening is in the balance between a bath bomb bath, football and the final episode of the Bay. Of course there are two unread books beckoning me and some tasks that are niggling away at me. Just over a month to go and I will be able to drop my bell and run off into the world to eat with strangers, shop with the hoards and embarrass myself by hugging unexpecting people. It is at this point that I will discover that the most serious affect of COVID will have been to turn the entire population haphephobic.

Its Tuesday and a meeting day so its a quick muesli and drugs breakfast before getting ready to be on screen again. The meeting goes well and is really useful. Of course there is work to pick up and information to share so I set to and send the emails and make the notes.

While I am doing this the post arrives. My first letter is another “get back in your box boy” letter and confirms my leper status until the end of March. I am not over joyed but I can withstand the ennui that the situation generates. I might even get round to learning the banjo.

The second letter was a classic. It is a letter to my GP informing her that the specialist at the DVT clinic has signed me off. On reading it is quite positive and supportive. It has one fatal flaw. Point 1 is wrong. It was not my left leg that had the DVT, it was my right leg. Not a letter to fill me with confidence in the medical profession.

A brief lunch of bacon and coffee and I am ready to finish the admin work from this morning and read a report on how prisoners were surviving, or not the pandemic in prison. I decide to head for the garage and to row for an hour. Its the first time I will have rowed for an hour so I am interested to see how it goes. It went as follows;

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I am pleased with the way the hour goes and particularly pleased to have averaged a kilometre every five minutes. Its a personal best that I can challenge in the future. My body tells me it knows what it has just done so I get myself into a warm bath as soon as possible. I now like to get in the bath and then add the bath bomb, its just more fun.

I read in the bath and finish the book on under achieving white working class boys. I am intrigued by “pen licences”. Apparently some schools insist on a certain level of performance before you get a ” pen licence” which means you can then use a proper pen. At least as far as I can make out this is the case. In my humble opinion whoever thought this was a good idea for white working class underachieving boys was an unmitigated arsehole. As a dyslexic white working class under achiever not having a licence would become a matter of pride and motivate me to spray paint “wanker” on the school wall.

I get out of the bath and start the blog as a friend rings and we have a chance to say hello and talk about COVID, family, work, sewing and all the other things we are doing. I eat tea and return to the blog before the nights football match but not before I order my monthly block of drugs from the GP. My jab Monday is looming. Not my favourite experience.

Monday 9:52am, first meeting due to start at 10am. By 10am am in front of my ZOOM screen with a breakfast smoothie and a black coffee. Go me. So from then until gone 4pm I am embroiled in a meeting which also contained three statements and a lie game. So in essence my day was a screen day of indescribable ennui.

Meeting over I head for the shed and a chance to pedal the day out of me. An hour later I am feeling better.

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I return to the house, change and then wrestle with a printer and its reluctance to talk to a laptop. Tea is eaten and the kitchen cleared just before Tesco deliver. In a moment of task free time I set up the new Echo dot in the bedroom so that the old alarm clock can be ditched. Now Alexa will wake us up with Eric Satie at 7am. I settle to watch some TV and then to write the blog. I feel tired and drained without quite knowing why. A kind of under skin itchy discomfort that nags at me and I am unable to settle.

Let me say straight away that who ever thought PDF was a good idea was barking mad. Its the worst most inhospitable, user unfriendly format that could have been devised. There is nothing intuitive about it and seems to have been devised as an irritant to humanity. I have finally managed to fill in the final ombudsman form using it and told the ombudsman to bring to an end the long haul to failure that has been going on. Its done, its over, we have to move on. Finally the pain the kidneys that has been going on since March 2019 is coming to an end. The resolution or ending has become more important than the issues, we take the minuscule amount of award and scamper off to the future.

Today was weigh in day.

91.6 Kilos No change this week.

I am claiming my white chocolate raspberry cheesecake reward anyway along with the bacon bagel breakfast, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Post breakfast I cleaned the fish tank which the fish community appreciated as they can now watch television unimpeded by the green curtain between them and the strange air world.

Fish done I move on to read the paper and then have a long chat with my youngest daughter at our regular Sunday face time call. Her birthday presents are starting to arrive to the custody of her partner who I have offered to get an elf suit for. Once over and waved farewell I watch a brilliant game of rugby, London Irish versus Bristol Bears, it ends up an improbable 34-34 draw. Its games like this that restore my interest and motivation in sport. Unfortunately these games are few and far between, but when they do come along I can hear my roller blades calling to me. I’m very tempted. Resisting the temptation I head for the garden and plant the Chinese Meadow Rue that arrived mid week. Two in the front border and two in the sloping bed at the back. If they go well I might well increase their numbers.

As the light fades I return indoors to continue to write the blog that I started earlier. I tell Alexa to play Chopin nocturnes, its so much better than a TV wallpaper. Which reminds me of an earlier conversation with my partner. We have decided to replace the old alarm/radio with an Echo Dot 4 as it will do more, take up less space and is flexible. I ordered it earlier so tomorrow the household may take a leap into the future.

My evening is going to be food followed by, reading maybe, football maybe, a new TV series starring James Nesbit maybe, updating the Tesco order definitely and a warm pre work week bath, perhaps all of these things.

I miss my friends, I miss family and the people I care about outside of my immediate family it makes me aware of how many of them I owe letter to. All this and a busy week ahead, how did life in lockdown get so busy all of a sudden?

Saturday, breakfast, weekly drug wallet filling and off to the garden centre to buy pies and sausages. Home and food stowed there is tidying to do, some reading and a couple of crosswords to finish. My partner adn I spend time buying and sorting out birthday presents for our youngest daughter. All of them have to go to her partner before the day, so he will be getting some interesting parcels to hide. Before long its time to watch Leicester Tigers put in a rare good performance and beat Wasps. By the time that little miracle has happened its gone 5 o’clock and time for me to head for the garage to train. Today is a rowing day, I decide to row for 45 minutes but to up the resistance of the last 15 minutes to a level 6. My logic is that its a rest day tomorrow and I need to push a bit harder to take me out of my comfort zone. It works, by the time I get to the end of the session I am fatigued more than usual. I’ve said before my exercise is like a medication to me and I need to keep it affective, hence to day I push.

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Post training there is tea and films to watch, two tonight again. This is not a habit I want to get into when I have such good books to read. I write the blog to the sound of Eric Sartre as midnight approaches. Tomorrow is weigh in day and in a moment of optimism I bought my treat for Sunday; a white chocolate and fruit cheesecake, lets hope I earned it.

Not an exciting day, a run of the mill, a keeping myself on track day. In my moments of reflection I think about a meeting I have on Monday, a friend eating her birthday present and the quiet of space forming a mirror which reflects only what stares wonderingly into it.

Friday so an easy day in theory. I lazy muesli breakfast and then a quick read to finish volume 1 of the BI-BLE. Unable to stand the raggle taggle state of my beard any more I head for the bathroom and trim it, applying my newly acquired beard wax, as recommended by my son.

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I head for the shed and spend my morning writing a letter. During this I had a conversation with a friend about garden plants suitable for hiding fences and providing colour in the garden perennially. By lunch time I am ready to go to the post box and get the letter on the way.

A brief lunch and I head for the shed again in my training gear and put in an hour on the exercise bike. The last bike session of the week, it goes well.

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A long bath bomb bath followed. I lay in gold glitter water and read more of Lets Hear it from the Boys. It is a book written for the teaching trade but the content rings so many bells with me. What is so disturbing is that nothing has changed since the sixties till now. I guess working class white boys are as screwed as they have ever been, except back in the sixties there were apprenticeships and borstal.

Friday evening is February family film fun night so after tea we all settle down to The Martian and The Matrix, the later still being a good film. Of course there is popcorn. As my family disappear to bed I settle down to write the blog.

I am beginning to feel the effects of shielding for so long. It feels as if I am getting “distance sickness”. Sartre wrote Nausea about how isolation creates an awareness of the existential nature of life. It feels as if this is creeping up on me. Having said that its time for me to sleep.

Thursday is a working day and I am up and breakfasted by my first meeting at 10am. It is a meeting to discuss a specific training and how we should go about it. It is a lively and interesting meeting which moved us forward.There is still a lot we do not know but we a have a better understanding of where we are in our own position and thinking. At the end of the meeting I continue and chat to a colleague about the work and of course football. By the time we have exhausted the topic its time for lunch and to unwrap my latest book from Amazon. I eat lunch and and then it is time to host the Open Forum. It is a good hour and I come out of it with new ideas and some work to do. So I spend time emailing colleagues and tiding up the loose ends.

I need a rest and a smoothie and spend an hour reading my new book. As soon as I start to read it I am hooked.

I was a white working class boy who failed at school in the 1960s and here was some one asking why white working class boys are still failing in the education system in 2020. The answers are very interesting and includes a form of stereotyping and marginalisation that is extremely powerful. It has echoes of the same processes that marginalise and disadvantage bisexuals in the community.

I go to the garage to train and climb aboard the rowing machine. After half an hour of hard rowing my shoulders ache and I am tired. I now think of this training as part of my anti cancer medication,to be taken each day on a regular basis. So when the pain kicks in I remind myself that this is just swallowing the drugs and that I will feel better later and live longer.

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I clear the kitchen and go for a bath bomb bath and finish reading the first volume of the BI-BLE and more of Lets Hear it From the Boys. I am glad I am back to reading, it makes me feel I am still alive and engaged. Its Thursday and tuna pasta night, it is also European football night as well. So I am set for the evening as Leicester draw and Rangers fight out a win. All this and the entertainment of Death in Paradise brings me to writing the blog.

Friday will be a shed day for writing letters and training but also its time to trim the beard and try out my new beard wax as recommended by my son. Most important of all is the chance to keep on reading and thinking. I miss my friends. It was a friends birthday today and although it was possible to send a gift and send birthday wishes it somehow falls short of the opportunity to celebrate.