Monday, its COVID test day. So I am straight into the shower and in no time at all I am shoving a bristly stick down my tonsils and gagging like a pig with a strawberry stuck in its throat, followed by a ten seconds of nasal chimney sweeping before securing the stick in a tube with some Ribena like fluid in it. The vial goes into the plastic bag with its paper work in the outer bag. All has gone to instruction but I have a question. In the bag is a ball of cotton wool that the instructions clearly say has to be left in the bag and sent with the test vial. Why? I drive to the hospital and drop the COVID test into the collection box in reception and return home to the comfort of a bacon bagel. After that it was all down hill while I waited to have my pre surgery assessment by phone.

Amongst the things I did were order shower curtain retaining clips, feet for the bath duck board, check out the world ice hockey timetable of games, order my England ice hockey jersey, finish reading Helgoland, re-read Fa-Tsang’s Treatise on a Golden Lion and move the car so that the Tesco delivery had access. Lunch came and went and still no call from my Nuffield nurse. Eventually my call comes through and I spend half an hour going over my recent medical history and drug intake. Apparently the only things I need to take on the day is a clean dressing gown and a pair of slippers as they walk their people down to the theatre and it can be a bit chilly and revealing in a hospital gown. So there is an instant dilemma, do I take my heavy duty but very warm and cuddly gown or one of my more oriental and floaty ones? I am inclined to go for the warm and cuddly option even if it is bulky. Post interview I read some more and attend to some work emails. Tesco deliver so there is some squirreling away of goodies to be done. I prepare the evening meal, a chicken curry which gets to bubble away till the household stops working and is ready to eat. The evening is a bit of a downer as Brentford loose the first leg of their play off semi final. I return to reading and to writing the blog. Tomorrow I continue to isolate until my surgery with a couple of meetings to do and a virtual conference. I’m finding it difficult to motivate myself at the moment hence I have not trained today. Today feels a bitty day with little achieved and I feel the need to do better tomorrow.

Saturday and I wake up in a strange bed. First the first time in over a year I am away from home and waking up in a strange place. So we get up and make breakfast in this small and quirky Airbnb. Every thing is new and has to be looked for and the electric oven is a challenge. Basically it goes well and soon we are settled down and reading while we wait to here from our youngest daughter and arrange to meet. Eventually we get the call and get ready to walk up the hill to meet them. Outside their intended house we meet them and the parents of our daughters partner. For an hour we wander round a house peering at things and noting sizes. There are of course things that get spotted for future rectification but it is a good house. Having been thoroughly nosey we retreat back to the quirky Airbnb have a picnic lunch and a chat about what we had seen and the nature of Cinderford. We give our lucky pair a lift to my daughters partner’s parents house. We do not go in as I am wary of mixing too much with people before I go for my facial surgery. Back at the cottage I watch the cup final on my laptop and have the pleasure of seeing Leicester win the FA cup for the first time ever. We eat tea and settle down to read the evening away interrupted only by a session of Mock the Week. Any early night and we retreat to the loft bed.

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Sunday and again I get to wake up again in the unfamiliar bed. This time its a brief breakfast before loading the car and heading for home. The drive was fine and had the added luxury of wine gums. By lunch time we are home and I am in the garden putting in edging.

The rest of Sunday drifts through washing, drying, eating tea, readying for tomorrows COVID test and trip to the hospital and of course performing the Sunday Tesco order revamp. I write the blog waiting for the football highlights to relieve the tedium of a poor BBC adaptation of The Pursuit of Love.

Friday awake and focused, this is a travel day. So it means if I am going to train today I need to straight away. I am in the garage double quick to do half an hour on the rower. The intention is to be gentle however I still manage 7 kilometres, which is not bad.

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I shower and check my packing before taking the car to the garage to check tyres and fuel. Then it was a trip to the garden centre to get food to take on the trip. Once provided for we have lunch and I take my drugs. By one thirty we are ready to roll with everything packed and ready. Just before we leave my eldest daughter returns from circus school and I do the speech about not letting anyone in, that we have not ordered anything and no one is expected to be doing anything for us. Then we are off. A couple of hours driving and we arrive at Artisant Cottage in Cinderford. It is a small but quirky cottage which we like straight away.

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We are met by the owner who is very cheery and welcoming. We sit on the patio and recover from the journey with a coffee and notice one of the quirky adornments to the patio.

Having settled in we go for a walk in Cinderford. It is a strange town laying between one that is dying like so many old mining towns but also showing signs of recovery in its housing market, certainly not short of take away food places. We walk up the High Street towards the centre of town where with a quick diversion behind Lidl we find the house that my youngest and her partner are buying. We give it the once over from the outside and walk round the block to look at its garage and parking space. Tomorrow we will get to look inside when we met my daughter to have another house viewing. We return to the cottage and cook lasagne and relax over coffee before watching a couple of programmes on the lap top. My partner goes to bed and I write the blog. I am curious to see how I sleep in this strange place and what dreams I might have.

Thursday and I start with a phone call from a friend as I lay and read some more of Carlo Rovell’s Helgoland. I get to the section on Entanglement and intuitively know I need a quiet long moment to tackle what appears to be the most important section of the book, so I get up and go for a smoothie breakfast and coffee before logging into my first Teams meeting of the day. Its a team meeting to discussed the Open Forums and to think about what comes next. It goes on till people drift away and I and a colleague grab a bit of time to talk football and the lighter things of life. A large number of postal packets arrive but they do not get opened until I’ve had my egg noodle lunch and got ready for my next meeting. My next meeting is an open forum and to my surprise a small number turn up this week. It is productive and there are new observations about how services are moving on with COVID but face new challenges. At the end I explain that my co host will be there fro them next week as I will be having some minor face surgery that day. We say farewell and I move onto opening my packets. The first one is my COVID test that I need to do on Monday and take to the hospital before I isolate prior to my surgery. It also contains the bill and a request for payment. My next packet contains two presents. One is a surprise present that I can open now the other is an early birthday present that I have to promise not to open till my birthday. This is the second person who has sent me a very early birthday present, I wonder if they know something I do not or that people just want to do nice things now and not have to wait. I am touched by my early “can open now present”, it is a hand made T shirt made to measure and looks ace. The other package I squirrel away till July. Its time to change and train so I get myself to the Shed adn climb up onto the bike to do an hour. It goes well and I feel that I am getting fit again.

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I return to the house to shower adn try on my new T shirt. I ring the hospital to pay my invoice for next Thursday and then clear the kitchen ready for tea tonight. I watch some TV during tea and then while my partner has her singing lesson print out instructions and directions for the airbnb we are going to tomorrow. That sorted I pack my overnight bag ready for tomorrow and tick it off my list. Just the car and food to do tomorrow morning now. I sit and write the blog before retiring to bed and reading some more.

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Wednesday, and I get from bed to a breakfast bacon bagel with a youthful leap. Apart from a call from a friend nothing happens until I meet up on Zoom with the Elders group. The group spends an hour talking and exploring what we are about, what we think we can offer and the way we will offer it. The bottom line is that we are eager to meet in an embodied way later in August as we all feel that we need to do that to have the time and experience to move ourselves forward as a group. I like this group it is one of the very few places I get to share and explore with like minded people the issues we all face. Amazon deliver my new writing paper and envelopes along with an “Important dates” book. I of course head for the shed but not before a piece of Quiche, which was a surprise. I am filling in my new “Important dates” book when my daughter brings me a slice of walnut cake, life is full of surprises and this is a good one. I settle down to write a letter using my new paper and to play with my Chinese character practise book. Spring is literally the symbols for plants and sun.

I finish my letter and close up the shed before changing into clothes that are acceptable to go to the post box in. Errand done I prepare to train but I get a text about my bank account. I ring my bank and spend an inordinate length of time trying to talk to a human. I eventually get through and have it confirmed that the text is a scam, so I follow the advice and block the number and erase the text. So much later than I had planned I get in to the garage and load myself onto the rower. I am determined to go for a personal best today and choose to go for the one hour row at level 5. So from the off I am at it. The result? See below:

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Well Go me! That is a good PB and I am feeling it, but very pleased. I change and eat tea adn decide to write the blog early in the evening so that I can pay attention to the Repair Shop and also the excellent Great British Sewing Bee. Good old fashioned domestic repairing and creating things that provide a real sense of admiration for the people that can apply skills. Having had my fill of admiration I shall read and watch football.

Tuesday, Yalom day, or it will be at 7 o’clock tonight when I attend a webinar at which Yalom is talking. But first I get a smoothie breakfast and head for the Shed. Its a letter writing morning. That is exactly what I do all morning. I consume mini cheddars and a bag of chocolate buttons while writing. I reach a crisis point of running out of decent writing paper so immediately order new from Amazon. With luck tomorrow will see me with more pretty correspondence paper and envelopes. Its an indulgence but the people I write to are worth it. A friend rings and we chat birthdays and shopping, its nice to get a call while in the shed as I can chat while looking out over the garden while listening to the rain on the roof. At lunch time I cook noodles and take my letters to the post box along with my drivers licence that I’ve cut in two as instructed by the DVLA when I was renewing my licence. Back home I change into my training gear and return to the shed. I decide to go for a long session on the bike and see how I mange it. The answer was pretty well.

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I recovery from efforts and return to the house locking the Shed up for the day. Once in the house I record my feat and have another chat with a friend. My body was ready for the shower I treated it to. Its a fun packed evening as I watch Leicester beat Manchester United and make Manchester City this years premier champions and then I join a Webinar to hear Irvine Yalom talk about this experience of death and grief having lost his partner of some 75 years. As always he was very candid about what he was experiencing and how he was coping with it. I came away with quite a lot to digest. However no time to reflect as I had washing to put in the tumble dryer and a blog to write to the accompaniment of Mock the Week. All in all a good day. With luck I will get my clothes folded and be able to read some more of Helgoland.

Monday and its time to get ready for my hospital appointment in the afternoon. So I have lots of time to eat breakfast and settle down to write a letter. Its throwing it down with rain and clearly the plants I put in yesterday are appreciating it. I get my admin ready for the afternoon. By lunchtime I am all admin’d out so I take a shower and pick my outfit. Before I can get anywhere Tesco deliver. The delivery guy was soaked and had another four hours on shift to do. Before I can leave for the hospital Amazon deliver my latest Rovelli book Helgoland. Its basically about Relational Quantum Theory. I love his books and I am looking forward to getting into this one.

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Its time to head off to the hospital. The drive is straight forward and I am greeted with “Use the hand sanitiser”. I fill in forms and settle down to wait while reading my book. At precisely the appointment time the doctor invites me into his consulting room. We have a really relaxed conversation and he looks at my sebaceous cyst. We discuss my current medication and cancer and what effect surgery might have. This experience is worth every penny its costing me. We discuss a possible timetable and he goes off to check the cost. He returns and tells me the cost, which is in the ball park I expected. So he books me in for the 20th of May, just ten days to go. I go in on the Monday before for a pre-surgery COVID test then isolate till the Thursday. Post operation I will return to have the surface stitches out. My looks will be enhanced by a scar I shall palm off as an old bullet scar. “Luckily the bullet passed through my cheek, It was a narrow shave!” I drive home and walk over to the post box to drop my letter in the box. It seems appropriate to order take out tonight and relax after the excitement of the day. I change, order Indian and settle down to my new book. I am instantly hooked and read solid till the Indian meal arrives. As soon as the meal is over I am back to the book. I ring my sister to tell her that the mobile number she gave me is not responding so that she can follow it up. I go back to the book until I can read no more due to brain fullness and turn to writing the blog. Tomorrow I am attending an online conversation with Irvine Yalom in the evening, I am excited as he has been a hero of mine for years.

Saturday and it threw it down all day. So we ate a large late breakfast and hunkered down for the day. I read, not taking much notice of what anyone else was doing. At 2 o’clock I have a Zoom call with my son in Stockholm and we talk house maintenance, tool hire, job hunting and grandchildren. Life in Sweden under COVID is a different experience apparently. After the call I get on with stuff, somewhere in there I watch some rugby and then decide to train in the late afternoon. I changed and trudged down the garden to the Shed to do an hour on the bike. It was a reasonable session to end my training week on.

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I spent my evening reading and finishing Before the Coffee Gets Cold. It left me profoundly moved. I ended the evening staring at the football and going to bed without writing the blog.

Sunday and it is no longer raining. I head for the bathroom for the Sunday weigh in. The first after a good weeks training back.

89.5 Kilos

Well that was a pleasant surprise. I am back on track and ready to start some weights in the coming week. Nice to be getting fit again, now to build the muscle back.

So its a brief, but late, breakfast and we head to the garden centre to buy herbs and compost. Having got what we went for we return home and I head for the garden. There I stay until tea time having upgraded the herb area, planted ground cover plants under the trees and planted petunias all over the place.

I try to ring my sister but get no reply, I promise myself to ring again later. Tea and I sit down to write the blog against the back ground of early evening TV which no one watches. Tomorrow I see the surgeon about the sebaceous cyst on my cheek , I am of course anxious but more about “when” rather than “what”. I just want this thing gone as soon as possible so its one thing less to have to deal with. I suspect he will say “Of course I can do it” but how long before he can do it is the crunch and I suspect that no matter how quickly he suggests it will not be quick enough for me.

Friday and its a Shed day, a day of letter writing. A quick breakfast and I get myself to the Shed and settle into my chair, pick my favourite dipping pen and fill the ink well. I continue to write letters all morning taking the odd break for a drink and a biscuit. A friend rings and we chat new cars, new patios and horse grooming. Lunch comes round quickly, so a fried egg sandwich later I am back in the Shed writing more letters. I write solidly catching up with my correspondence until 2:30 when I give a lift to my eldest daughter to her circus skills session. Home via the post box I take time to take a few pictures of the brave flowers that are in bloom.

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I write another letter and return to the post box. I close up the shed and return to the house where I take a call from a friend and chat for a while about families, sewing and the continuing restrictions of COVID. Tea and then I watch Leicester Tigers lose to Sale. By now its heading for 10 o’clock but I have not trained, its one of those moments, I am either in the battle or I am not so I shift my arse, get changed and in to the garage to row for 30 minutes. It turns out to be a good session.

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I return to the sofa and write the blog before bed.

Thursday, 9:50, mild panic as I have a meeting at 10am. Coffee and log in. The ensuing meeting brought significant news as the programme manager has decide to move on. It will take a while for this to work through but we spent time this morning absorbing the news. At the end of the meeting I joined my family on a lunch time walk to cast my vote in the local elections. I got back to the house with enough time to have a smoothie and log on to host an open forum. For the first time in over a year no one turned up. I and my co host gave people 15 minutes to turn up and then abandoned the space. The spare time was spent drawing up my April invoices and sending them off. I find myself with time to train early so I head for the shed and spend an hour on the bike. It turns out to be a good session.

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I finish my session and clear the kitchen ready for tonight’s meal preparation. I record my training session and then make tea for the garden guy who has arrived. Rather than have him do the boring stuff like weeding and tidying I gave him artistic freedom to plant out a lot of the new plants that I’ve grown from seed. Just seems to me that a gardener needs to plant and grow stuff and not just cut stuff down and throw old stuff out. He seemed pleased to be doing it as he stayed over time. Tea eaten and I settle down to a football match while my partner has a singing lesson. At half time I clear the kitchen. When it was over I write the blog. I’m looking forward to tomorrow, it is going to be a shed day and a chance to write. I find that I have a compulsive part of me that needs to write, strange for a dyslexic.