Friday I wake up after yet another difficult night, the accumulative effect is fatigue. After I do my vitals, which are showing signs of rising blood pressure, I get up and make the effort to have a shower before a basic breakfast. I try to rest until I am due to go to the chiropodist. As part of life admin I book my partners car in for an MOT and then continue to watch the penultimate day of stages 5 and 6 of the Post Office Enquiry. So by lunch time I gather myself up and drive off to the chiropodist. Walking from the Co-op to the “Foot Clinic” I expend a lot of energy so by the time I am settled in the chiro chair I am out of breathe and nowhere as chatty as I usually am. The chiropodist gets on with the rituals of smartening my feet up and thankfully she carries the conversation.
I get home and instantly go for the relief of the recliner and change clothes. There is still some Post Office Enquiry to watch before I start to draft the blog with an eye on the clock as the Olympic opening ceremony due to start at about 5:45. As I draft the blog I get a fit of listlessness and cannot stand being inside any long so I make ka dash for the garden. Once there I fill the bird feeders and the squirrel box. With the birds fed I take to the swing seat and just relax and watch the nature around me. My partner joins me and we chat. I try to express how I am but not very well, until my partner start tea and I go to watch the Olympic opening ceremony and draft the blog.
The evening is going to be all Olympics but I am bored and tired already, the bloody thing is going on for four hours, typical French indulgence. I have nothing clever to say, I am just absorbed by how I am feeling and knowing it is not right. So I end here and wonder how my night is going to go.
Thursday, its been a disrupted night again but I have manged to avoid taking co-codamol or paracetamol, so I am hoping that I will feel better. I get up and dress but feel quite ropey so I do my vitals. My blood pressure and my heart rate are up a bit. Breakfast is taken and I am back sipping hot water, taking my morning meds against the background of the Post Office Enquiry, which sees Vince Cable doing rather well. There is some life admin to do which sees the end of the whole upgrade of the drive way and the patio. Its a big tick on the life to do list. Now its onto Phase 2, but first of all everyone in the household need a time out and a chance to get better and regain energy to move forward.
For now the retrieval of my car from the garage is the lunchtime priority after which I do not know what I will have energy for. The retrieval goes well in that I pick up my car and MOT certificate and have it back on the drive safely all as planed. With this out of the way I make a soup lunch and go out to the patio to have it while listening to Mark Steel’s in Town radio show. Its Marks humorous presentation of a town to a live audience in the town and is both instructive and funny. Today I listened to Malvern and East Grinstead whilst sitting on the patio looking out over the garden that is blooming with out any help from me.
Amazing lilies!
The mini rose survived a move from the front garden.
I finally get chilled and return inside still feeling unwell, however through the wonder of technology I manage to get my partner on my car insurance as a second driver. It is a necessary adjustment as sooner or later she will need to be able to drive it, so I suspect we will be going for a test drive soon. The evening arrives with the joys of pizza, I have little appetite but eat and then finish binge watching The Jetty. All very, wishy washy really and very unlikely. I reach time for my night meds and finish the blog for the day, all the time feeling decidedly not myself. I am so frustrated that I feel like this, sometimes shaky but mostly listless and anxious. I keep putting down to the medication and my lack of activity, but every time I contemplate doing something I get overcome by fatigue and a sense of unwellness.
Once home I have time to sit and recover and read my letter. Its is a lovely letter and as usual the write poses my questions and makes me think about how I am and what I am doing. My friend is fully engaged with family, work and community and seems to have achieved a really good life balance. With a small burst of energy I find the wood crayons I have for filing in fine cracks in flooring and other wood structures and go into the garden to fil the drying cricks in the handrail on the patio. I work the wax furniture crayons in to the handrail and finish them off with a smooth cloth. The out come is good and I return to the sanctuary of the house where I make myself lunch. I’m having trouble getting myself to eat so I go for soup and bagel as something I can face. One piece of good news is that my son has been granted his permit to stay in Sweden. This is a huge relief to everyone involved.
A friend rings me and we chat for a while until she has to pickup her daughters. With time to reflect on the letter I received today I find myself writing again and end up with a poem.
404 Its the sagging sense that drapes itself over me and weighs me down. My head won't work, nor my gut. I know all the arguments, solutions and balms but I cannot. A letter from a friend nudges me to come out of my cave and do the Real World. She is right so I write knowing that this is nowhere close. It seems I have a new battle, to do the ordinary, to step onto the stage and speak my lines, to be author and actor to an audience that is not there but imagined for my souls sake. Its not that I do not see the world, its blazing life force, the surging power of its cycles, all these things I feel and sense, its overcoming the disconnect which requires something I've mislaid. I pat my mental pockets down finding fluff and typical school boy trousers and blazer stuff. Not the things of beauty and inspiration. It is the different feeling in my spirit, the lack lustre me, the strange taste in the mouth that I meet life with, that seems to rob me of everything beyond words. Of those I have many of, actions few. This is a strange labyrinth I find myself in, and occasionally I fancy I hear the roar of a Minotaur as I grope for a thread to lead me out.
404 24-07-2024
As I try to relax I discover that the Post Office Enquiry is not in session but the Olympics has sneakily started with rugby sevens, so I am set for the afternoon I have the combination of fast and furious Olympic sevens rugby and the slow and demanding drafting of the blog to do. I pursue both until the evening comes along and I drift through it until the final of the Great British Sewing Bee. Seemed to me that the win was a no brainer. It comes time to take my night meds and finish the blog. All I hope is that I get a decent nights sleep to be able to pick up my newly MOT’d car and to make some realistic plans for doing things, anything!
Tuesday and I wake up having slept more than the last couple of nights, but when I do my “how am I” check I find I am not feeling that chipper. My jab site from yesterday is still sore and I am feeling listless again. I’ve lost my appetite, whatever is going on I have gone off food. Getting up I make a coffee and take my morning meds and then try to get myself motivated but I’m not having much luck. Out of the blue a friend calls just as I am breaking eggs to make an omelette. We chat for a while and she tells me about keeping her children occupied before the family go on their summer holidays and juggling that with work commitments. It was really good to be able to chat. Breakfast is taken on the patio, where I am joined by my eldest daughter. We have a long conversation about work and my chat with my son from yesterday. Its a pleasant morning in the sunshine until the breeze springs up and I retreat inside.
I am not hungry at lunch time so I decide to measure my vitals and to read for a while. My vitals are all good despite me feeling so crap. My eldest daughter brings me todays paper and I set about doing the three regular crosswords. Its taking me longer than usual but my friend rings back for another quick chat as she retrieves her children from a holiday activity. I continue with the crosswords until completed and then change into some clothes that I can go food shopping in. A necessary step as Tesco will not be delivering till later this evening. In a mini burst of activity I put the bin out for collection tomorrow wheeling through the new gates and having a quiet smile to myself. With that chore out of the way I start to draft todays blog. I realise that I am doing very little physically or intellectually at the moment. It is a difficult struggle to over come this of fugue that I am experiencing and wonder once again if this is the side effects of the medications that I am taking or the result of my lack of physical activity. There is a feel of Catch 22 about this whole thing. So I am going to make the effort to accompany my partner to the village shop to track down food for tonight’s tea. I do not fancy anything but know I must eat something.
Ultimately I manged to eat chicken and potatoes before settling down to finish watching series six of SWAT and taking in the Tesco order. Of course I get to the point of taking my night meds and heading for bed unsure what lay in front of me. Tomorrow I have to get my car to the garage and get it MOT’d. It feels like a real challenge but needs must.
Monday, 2 o’clock in the morning, cannot sleep, listless and uncomfortable, I resort to booking a Tesco delivery and filling the basket. It does not solve my sleeplessness so I get up and resort to pen and ink.
403
The thing about being alone in the house is that nothing moves, except the tower fan. Here I am at two forty AM not sleeping and the only company is the oscillation of air. It feels strange. I'm tired yet cannot settle, so sip hot water and resort to pen and ink. All my alarms are set to wake me from what I can not achieve. Six hours before my GP expects to jab me in my regular cycle. I've no idea what's going on.
403 22-07-2024
Mysteriously at some point I must have fallen asleep as I wake to the sound of work alarms and then again to a persistent Alexa and a phone who, in unison chivvy me awake. I feel like a grubby ragdoll but get up, making the bed as I go, and haul myself into the shower. Such an effort but that feeling of cleanliness and odourlessness is a comfort. Its time for proper seeing the nurse clothes and then a simple breakfast so I can take my morning meds. Today is all about timing, so I text the gate installers who ring back and chat about arrival times and work to do. It feels like I am on automatic as I get my trainers on and walk to the GP surgery. I am not feeling right but the nurse jabs me and we agree a time for my next set of bloods before my oncology review on August 5th. So its home via the co-op for a paper, bread and Lucozade, not as addictive as co-codamol!
Once home I tidy up a bit, empty Daisy Dishwasher, and Beelzebub bin before the gate installer men arrive. The neighbours are having work done as well so the parking and lorry situation means that for the first time I juggle my car close to the front of the house on the new block paving. Coffee is made for the gate men, the sun comes out and I take paracetamol and take to the recliner checking my messages and starting the blog. My partner and eldest daughter are making their way home so for the moment I try to rest and wait for the usual post jab side effects to kick in. Not being able to sleep is a new experience for me and I am finding it disorientating, my nights are usually interrupted but I’ve never had trouble actually getting back to sleep before. I need to think about what I need to do to get back to my usual sleep hygiene.
The gate guys beaver away and my partner returns about lunch time. By mid afternoon I am a man with new front gates, of which I am proud. We now have the privacy back that allows someone to sit in the front garden on sunny afternoons with being ogled by passers-by. Unfortunately the gates are an inch out to allow the dead bolt to slide over easily so the boys will be back on Wednesday to replace two blocks and re-drill the retaining holes. The new side way gate has been finished in the same oil as the gates and the handrail on patio is being replaced, another Wednesday job.
New gates in place from the drive side.
The final touch to the house upgrade, privacy restored.
The afternoon continues as I feel my injection site begin to get sore, so its time to rest and think about when to take my next lot of paracetamol. Pace at this time is everything. I watch an old episode of Have I got News for You and then take my second batch of paracetamol of the day as my jab get more sore. Everyone in the household is struggling so its a case of ordering in food to give us a breathing space, I order and we all begin the wait for food before a quiet evening and early nights. A collective time out is required.
Sunday, its the birthday youngest grandson. I have just finished taking my vitals, all good, when my partner face times me and I get to see the birthday boy. He is full of beans and it is not long before he is blowing raspberries at me. Its a delightful way to start the day. After the conversation I get up and make breakfast, which I take to the Shed to eat. The sun is out and after breakfast I take to the garden swing seat and relax for a while. I get a message from my son suggesting a face to face call to catch, so we agree a time for an hour hence. While I wait I enter my latest vitals on to the spreadsheet for cycle 14 so far. It all still looks good, my arithmetic is acceptable. My son calls and we talk for an hour and fifty minutes with his family in the background. Its been a while since we have had such a long chat so there is much to catch upon. I enjoy the call and seeing my Swedish relatives as they enjoy the warm sunshine of summer.
After the call I make lunch and watch the Chariots of Fire as preparation for the Olympics, at least that is my excuse for whiling away the afternoon, but what took me by surprise the All Ireland Hurling final. An amazing game that is fast and furious played on a full size pitch. I have to admit I found the game a refreshing watch. It is an amateur game so all the players go back to work on Monday after playing in front of eighty four thousand people. After the game I make tea and start to draft the blog. My evening will be an easy one as I prepare for tomorrows twenty eight day injection and the arrival of the landscapers to install the new front gates. So I will be taking paracetamol, having a shower and hoping to sleep well tonight. I have definitely gone slowly through this week end trying to fully and properly recover, I am hoping that next week I can deal with my injection and the tasks ahead, like my cars MOT. It is a kind of fallow period where rest is the harvest.
Saturday, I wake to the empty house, check my vitals, all good there and then I am up to make breakfast. I clear the kitchen and then set about printing off the poems for this afternoons poetry stanza zoom meeting. I am not contributing this meeting, so I shall listen and keep myself to myself, which is difficult for me. Once I have the hard copies I get them into plastic folders and read them over several times. The group has some really good poets in it and I always feel an interloper. At lunch time Amazon deliver the smart tower fan I ordered yesterday. Of course I am assembling it straight way. It is a beast of hurricane proportions and could probably cool an entire warehouse, efficient is a big understatement. I might have miscalculated the size a tad but by god does it work well. It come with a controller and a phone app, which is cool, and apparently I can hook it up to the smart speaker as well.
The new tower fan beast that is one degree below a chiller. Awesome
The afternoon is taken up with the poetry stanza meeting. As usual the contributions are many and varied. These people really do know what they are doing in the poetry organisation and culture. I hardly speak and do not take a turn to read. It is a connection that I value, strange but there it is. Hopefully by the August meeting I will be able to join in properly. Once over I make my tea and go for a film fest during which I draft the blog. The evening passes till I take my night meds and go to bed. Tomorrow I start my preparation for jab Monday, which means taking paracetamol to ward off the initial side effects. I am listless and need to sleep.
Thursday has come and gone and little of it remains in my head, beyond it being warm and sunny. My partner and eldest daughter finally decided to go see my youngest grandson on his birthday over the weekend down in the forest of Dean. At some point in the later afternoon my partner and I go to the garage and check the car tyres and fill the tank in readiness for tomorrows journey. While in the garage I grab a couple of bottles of Lucozade as I have discovered that it goes down well and provides me with a different taste from hot water. In the evening the family eat together and the either watch SWAT or pack for tomorrows journey. I am not going to be traveling as I still feel vulnerable and shaky. My gut is giving me trouble and I cannot face a longish car ride, I just feel I need time to settle properly after my operation, I am also very aware that this coming Monday is Jab Monday and therefore at the end of my cycle which can be tricky, so over the weekend I will be taking prophylactic paracetamol to counter the after effects of the Monday injection. On top of that the Landscapers are retuning on Monday to install the new front gates and treat the new back gate and patio hand rail. So on balance I thought it best to stay at home and let my partner and eldest daughter go and enjoy the grandsons first birthday celebrations. At the end of the evening I take my night meds minus the Hiprex that I have decided not to take for a trail period to try and settle the disruption to my gut. It may well be that I am just anxious but I have the definite sense that since taking the Hiprex that my gut and shakiness has been worse.
Friday and I wake to find my household getting ready to travel to see the youngest grandson for his first birthday. I am slow to get up and measure my vitals, which were okay, before getting up. I wave the household off and then make myself breakfast and settle down to a quiet day. I shower and don a kimono before setting Daisy dishwasher going and settling down to watch the Post Office Enquiry, where it is clear that Jo Swinton the Minister was just plain lied to by the Post Office and one of her senior civil servants. Lunch comes and goes and the next CEO of Royal Mail gets grilled at the enquiry at which point I start to draft the blog. I thought I would feel okay on my own and in general I am but today I just feel generally under the weather, so I am going to have a slow and gentle day and rest as much as I can. As I draft the blog the name of the magazine of Private Eye keeps coming up as prompting the executives of Royal Mail to see the unsafe convictions of sub post masters as a risk issue.
The enquiry comes to an end for the day and I slide into the evening. I’ve had enough of the enquiry and TV so settle on reading for a while before making my evening meal. Its been a hot day and I think about some time on the patio but continue to read and potter my evening away till its time take my evening meds and checking the house is secure go to bed.
small thing upon small thing brings the next step.
Wednesday and I wake up after another grim night when I resoted o co-codamol to get me off to sleep late a night. I do my vitals, which ae good again and then check my messages. There is nothing new so I get up and make breakfast. I do not want food at the moment but I make myself have it followed by my meds. It feels bleak and I ry to think what I can do to make my situation better. The sun is out so I go into the garden and sit on the patio using my “destroy it ” journal to doodle and make cartoons. That is where I stay for the morning, spending some time on the swing seat, where my partner joins me for lunch. We chat for a while before she goes to see her mother.
I make myself lunch and continue to watch the Post Office Enquiry. It is less bloody today and the junior minister does quite well. A friend rings me having just come away from her Blue Badge assessment, she is still fighting long COVID and the confining consequences on family life that it continues to have. After the rigours of the assessment she was going home to rest. I continue to watch the enquiry until my partner returns and gives me the parcel that has arrived for me. It is a surprise present from an old friend and colleague. It is the history of Brentford, my team through news papers fron way back to the modern day. Its a beezer gift and I am well chuffed. I send him a photo to him with me and the history.
A wizard birthday gift.
I return to the patio to sit with my partner until she goes to make tea and I go into the garden to dead head peonies and prune the sweet bay tree by the Shed. After that small burst of energy I return to the patio and start to draft the blog. Perhaps tonight is the night to light the chimenea and switch the patio lights on. The family dine on the patio, the first time this year and as we the sun sets and a small chill enters the air I light the chimenea for the first time in years. I’m so glad the decision was made to do the upgrade of the drive and the patio. There is nothing like watching a real fire burn and feeling its warmth.
Real fire, so mesmerising.
So we sit and watch the flames and I of course feed the ashes every so often to rekindle the flames. As the chill draws in so I move closer to the chimenea and return to drafting the blog. All around me the wood pidgeons are cooing and flapping in the trees at the end of the garden as they get ready to settle down for the and give way to what ever nocturnal wild life is going to scuttle about tonight. It is truly dusk and I wonder if there will be bats, perhaps it is also time to turn on the patio lights. I am truly like a child with a new toy. It is so calm and quiet this evening I wish my body would follow its example. The slightest breeze fans the flames and I continue to watch, knowing that the Great British Sewing Bee can be watched on catch up TV. As dusks falls I turn the lights on and I know the effort has been worth it.
So lovely when it all comes together.
I will sit here enjoying this time until I need to get more layers or to become more comfortable but while sitting here I’ve decided to stop taking my Hiprex, which is a prophylactic to discourage UTIs by sterilising my urine and gut but I am sure that it is this that is making my gut feel so acidic and uncomfortable so I am going to trial run it for a few days and se if it makes a difference. So this is where I leave the blog tonight, taking myself in hand and having an early night with amended night meds. Although I have lacked energy I feel today has been a day full of gifts and that cannot be bad.
Its dentist Tuesday, in fact its early dentist Tuesday, so I am up early and into the shower. Can’t go to the dentist smelly. It takes a lot of spoons (energy) but I feel refreshed and outside world ready, even if I am just walking a few hundred yards down the road. Having scoured my teeth I miss out breakfast and a few minutes after my partner has gone to work I walk down to the dentists. I have a short wait, during which I continue to read Cosmicomics by Calvino. The main character seems now to be in the present but remembering the formation of crystals in the development of the planet. I am quickly called in and my dentist sets to work. There is a lot of work to do to prepare for a long term crown solution to my missing filling of a front tooth. As the work progresses I feel more and more shaky, a combination of the work being done, anxiety and shakiness. At one point I have to stop, I’ve had become very cold and I think I was experiencing “tattoo flu”. My dentist is extremely good and attentive and notes when I need to slow down but gets on with the job, giving my a commentary on how much is done. At last she says “last ten minutes, all the major stuff is done. ” There is one last scan to be done so that the external company can 3D print my new tooth. Its an amazing bit of technology. Then I am done and I think every one is relieved that we got through it. I am shaky and leave via the receptionist who takes for half the fee for the full work being done. I’m due back in two weeks to get my new tooth stuck in.
On my way home I buy a paper, a load of soft sweets and a Lucozade to get some energy into me. On reaching home I hunt out my metal straw in order to drink the Lucozade as my mouth is still very numb from the dentists anaesthetic. I accompany the drink with a few jelly babies. As I wait for the sugar rush I do the days cross words and watch in the background the Post Office Enquiry. One of the Fujitsu system security men who wrote court “expert” witness statements is being torn into shreds by the lawyers. This is the most blood bath like session I have seen to date. When they break for lunch to mop up the blood I make myself filled pasta for lunch. After lunch Andy Dunks continues to be given a torrid time about his court statements that helped convict some postmasters. Once again it is clear that no one explained to this poor guy what it means to be an expert witness in a court of law and the principals of not going beyond one’s own direct knowledge. Clearly the lawyers manipulated some of the “expert” witnesses so ensure risk and blame were shifted off the post office. I start to draft the blog as I continue to recover from the morning. I clear the kitchen and return to waiting for the Tesco delivery as the rain stops and the weather brightens up. I am cheered up by reading the paper and noting that there has been some one older than me to have written and published there first novel. Previously I was aware that Mary Wesley publisher her first book at seventy two but Shirley Hughes wrote her first full length novel at 84 and her last on at the age of 94. I am tempted to start my novel Albertine’s Revenge.
It appears that quiet a lot happened on this day over the years.
By the mid afternoon I am getting twitchy that Tesco have not delivered. I put the bins out for tomorrow and note a Jaguar is parked, the owner points to small retriever type dog running down the road and asks if it its mine. Apparently it had run out into the road. I think its our neighbours dog so I knock on their open and ask my neighbour if he is missing his dog. He is and so the adventure of Mable starts, At one point there ae at least three cars parked up and the driver plus me and my eldest daughter trying to get a very skittish Mable to come home. Mable has no road sense and at one moment the traffic on the village main road comes to a standstill. Mable is still running around the block when Tesco arrives to deliver to us. As Tesco man unloads our order Mable is reunited with her owner. There are lots of thumbs up all round and the good Samaritans move on. My Tesco order is squirreled away and I return to continue seeing the Fujitsu chap be systematically butchered. Its real lamb to the slaughter job. After the excitement of the Mable chase and everything else in the day I get to the end of the afternoon without much energy left.
I guess my evening is going to be lazy and filled with reading and SWAT unless I start Albertine’s Revenge, but before I can do that I need to re read some Proust. Perhaps the warmer weather will arrive and I will finally get out on the patio and light the chimenea.
