Thursday, new years eve and there a few things to do. 1. Do my tax return, 2. finish the damn jigsaw. So after coffee and bacon we set to and go at the jigsaw. Outcome inevitable but strangely satisfying and reinforces the strange ritual of festive jigsaw doing.
A thousand piece challenge comes to an end.
Time to get the taxman done. I retreat to the office and pull out my account book and all the relevant P60s. I run off the relevant bank statements and settle down to do the maths and fill in the accounts. Once the books are done I log on to the website and log in. It is disturbing how much the government already knows about me, or at least my finances. I plough my way through the online pages and eventually get to the painful bit, the final debt. I submit my self assessment and get a reference number. Now I have to wait 72 hours before I can pay off my debt. I can wait.
Its taken hours so its the sofa for me and a quick read. I am hooked on my new book by Studs Terkel, a radio presenter in the USA who interviewed ordinary working people up until his death in 2008 aged 96. He won the Pulitzer prize in 1985 for general non-fiction. His ability to get ordinary working people to talk about work is brilliant. Some of his early work feels like the world that Steinbeck wrote about in Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath. Its a book that can be dipped into but I am reading my way through it and surprisingly find myself making pencil notes in the margin.
My latest book of inspiration.
Time for dinner and The Celebrity Great British Sewing Bee and I realise that it is New Years Eve. Honestly I could not give a toss, 2021 will come in its own good time. Sound bah humbug? Probably, but Tier 4 has cast its shadow over the land. I shall pick the most entertaining TV and welcome the new COVID year with a smoothie.
Note the eco friendly steel straw.
Well thank you for reading my blog I hope it’s still being useful and that 2021 will be as good as it can be. See you all as soon as possible. I promise to be the first leper out of the colony!
Wednesday, I’m up, I’m in my training gear and ready to go and then the bloody jigsaw got me. Now I know this sounds sad but I got hooked and before I know it it’s gone two o’clock. How did that happen? I’m starving so its time for a bacon bagel and a drink to wash the drugs down. Even after refreshment I cannot resist pressing on with the green bits with stars, it’s obsessional and this jigsaw is a beast.
This is a 1000 piece beast.
Eventually I get to go to the garage to train. 30 minutes on the rower was the target. I step into the garage and check the temperature.
I know the date is wrong but the temperature is here and now.
Bloody cold is the answer so I keep all my layers on and try to put the cold out of mind by listening to calming music over my head phones. I press on and make the 30 minutes. Not as far as last time but I was conscious of being in danger if pulling muscles in these cold conditions.
30 minutes of pain, another step in the battle.
I’m knackered and treat myself to a diet coke before dinner, which my partner cooks, my turn tomorrow. before I can watch the news I get a text from HMGov telling me that now I am in tier 4 I should “Shield”, so I am back to being a leper. I watch the news later and note the grim figures. The only spark of light is the new vaccine. I begin to wonder if I will be offered the vaccine when I go for my 28 day injection and B12 jab on the 4th of January, but I very much doubt it, as I think I am still not old enough or important enough to be at the head of the queue.
I escape to watch a boring goalless football match and then settle down to more TV news and to write the blog. My priority is to avoid that bloody jigsaw and have an early night. Tomorrow is the day I do my tax return. Its a day that every year I loathe but my conscience feels the benefit when its done. On the day we leave the EU I just hope my taxes will be spent wisely, compassionately and productively for the majority.
Tuesday and its snowing. A bit of a surprise but an almost welcome change and an instant validation of the re-piped central heating system.
SNOW! First of the year.
In line with my new avowed goal I get into my training kit and get ready to trudge to the shed, its looking festive but chilly.
The cold shed awaits me, looking festive.
Its a grind this first hour on the bike. The bike is showing signs of wear in the damp air of the shed as the flapping wheel decals witness. Despite the heater being on the air is chill and my body complains bitterly at being forced to work. I try to distract myself by watching the falling snow.
Snow upon snow
At last I make the hour and obsessively take pictures of the monitor to prove to myself I’ve made it and to match myself against on future rides.
Time
Kilometers
Calories
My benchmark for the future.
I am knackered and head back to the house to have a breakfast of muesli and Alpro, washed down with coffee and followed by my drugs. Time to get out of my kit and tidy up some of the domestic debris. I settle into the office and try out my Christmas present of a new dipping pen. I try several nibs but end up with my usual one. An interesting diversion and an inky one. I write a brief note to a friend regarding winter and then set about finding “homes” for Christmas gifts. Food gets tucked away in the nibbles draw and new wine glasses find their way to a dresser. The latte glasses are found a shelf of their own, the new calendar hung in the office. My partner and I go for a brief walk so that I can post my letter and collect my drugs from the chemist. I’ve got in early to avoid any possible snags over the new year as my 28 day injection is due on the first Monday of the year. Its cold out but bracing. Home and before I can get in to the warm there is the bin to go out. This is very timely as our bin is rammed.
In home, my partner talks to her mother and take a call from a friend who is taking a walk to get her daily exercise. It seems everyone is having to make the effort to keep themselves fit and find time for themselves amidst these COVID confined households.
I settle to read before tea and watch a football game on TV. I’m feeling my usual “itchiness” that I experience when I start to train and diet, that loss of sugar and my bodies adaptation to that and the additional physical effort induces some discomfort. I start to write the blog and keep an eye on what is on TV. I am looking forward to my one smoothie of the day and some time to reflect. Tomorrow is the COVID review and goodness knows what new tiers will be created and what new measures will confine us all. Even in this it is crucial to find my own way, direction and continue to make meaning of it all.
New Monday, this is the day to take control of my training, my weight and crucially the fight against cancer. So what’s the baseline. To find out I step onto the scales. 98.1 kilos, that means I have put on 2 kilos in 14 days and it is 18 days since I last trained. I have feasted for Christmas and paid the price. So today is the start of regaining the advances I had made, it pisses me off that I have let myself do this but there is no point in dwelling on it, I just need to get on and do it. I feel quite guilty as I remember those people that have previously expressed their admiration of my efforts to fight both flab and cancer, I feel I’ve let them down.
So I go from scales to changing room where I put on my training gear and head for the garage as I ‘ve decided to row this morning. I have a coffee and take my drugs then brave the garage. Its 3 degrees and I am wearing at least 3 layers. I hook up the rower and set off for a 30 minute row. I start sensibly and soon find out that it isn’t. I keep going and finally get into a rhythm. By the end I am warm and feeling the effects of becoming fat boy again. I recover and head for the house and another coffee.
The start of recovery.
I get my muesli and Alpro breakfast, note no honey, and record my training and food in my wellness journal. Everything I eat and drink ,and all my training gets recorded. Interestingly there have been blank pages in my journal over the past few days, a sure sign that I had lost my way. So breakfast done I take a shower.
I tidy up some stuff and check my Amazon account to see where some of the things I need are. They are on the way so I will have to wait to do one or two things I have planned. I help sort some of the 1000 piece jigsaw that my partner has started. I get quite engrossed as it turns out that this jigsaw is going to be a challenge. We decide to eat at lunchtime today so that no one has to cook late in the evening. This suits me fine as it will help me to eat less during the whole day. Most importantly I am hoping it will help me to stop “grazing” during the evenings. So we eat our main meal and I get to watching the afternoon football match which features our local team. I distract myself from thinking about food by drinking coffee adn eating fruit. My team draws and the match that follows it has the same result. I read a bit and watch bits of TV until I need to eat. My Amazon stuff arrives which means I can wrap the spare rug in polythene and store it in the garage. I make my smoothie up with coconut water and sip though my eco friendly stainless steel straw. That’s me for the day. I write the blog and then I will clear the kitchen and read some more before going to bed. Tomorrow it will be shed time and the exercise bike.
Sunday lay in, late breakfast, bacon bagel and then some clearing up and hoovering through. Time to sort out where all the Christmas presents are going to be stored and used. This triggers a major clear out of old jumpers , underwear and holiday gear. So after two boxes of charity jumpers my new clothes are now neatly stowed.
I settle down feeling that I’ve done a good job and watch a rugby match. This afternoon my partners mother has been moved from hospital to a care home to recuperate from her recent operation to pin her broken leg. I settle down to read one of my presents and get a call from a friend who is on that parental post Christmas trip to replace a toy that is not doing what it should do. In this case a doll that would not wake up, happily the replacement one did fart as promised.
I continue to read through the evening as various TV programmes pass me by, as does the football till I can read no more and start the blog. I know that I shall return to my book post blog as I am finding it fascinating and speaks to the 18 year old me without qualifications who found himself throwing cases of Pepsi off the back of a lorry for a living and not knowing if that was going to be it for the rest of my life. Thankfully it wasn’t.
How come I’ve never across this classic before?
Tomorrow is a crucial day. Tomorrow is the day I resume training, I resume the fight, cancers had its own way too long recently, tomorrow I take control of my diet again, no sweets, less carbs and more water.
Saturday, Boxing day, an early coffee and then a quick clearing away the last of yesterdays debris. I fill my weekly drugs wallet. We cook breakfast and sit around chatting and talking houses and house buying plans, what the future might hold and whether the weather would hold off long enough for my youngest daughter and her partner to make it to the relatives in the forest. We watch them pack up their car including the two rugs we are replacing, apparently they will make the loft they sleep in tonight that much more snug.
My afternoon was filled with football as our local team were on and managed to scrape a draw. With little to do I watched more football and took pictures of the new ice hockey jerseys that I got for Christmas. I also got some pictures of my favourite images from Christmas presents.
My favourite Ice Hockey Team: The Arizona Coyotes
The Pittsburgh Penguins must have the cutest emblem. Strange Things, waiting for the next series impatiently.
The only thing to do now was to soak in a long bath and listen to Bette Midler and create my first Spotify play list. I was blissfully listening to when A Man Loves a Woman when I am called for the inevitable boxing day turkey curry.
My evening comprises of too many after eight mints and too much TV to the point that writing the blog is the only sane thing left to do before I retreat to reading my new Christmas books.
Christmas!!!!!! A profusion of presents and a feast of food. My partner is up before everyone else to get the turkey from the shed and get things ready for the oven. After a coffee to get us going we sit in the lounge, where Santa has finished the jigsaw that was left undone last night.
We look at the collective pile of presents awaiting us and start the the ritual of opening them in rounds.
We uh and arr as we open the presents and express our pleasure and surprise. Life is full of surprises and this morning was full of pleasant ones. We have a coffee break and then continue until the last parcel has been opened. What is left is the carnage of emptied boxes and discarded wrapping paper.
The post present carnage.
As we open presents we also respond to messages from friends and family sending seasons greetings and thanks for their presents. At the end of this its time to think about the dinner, I set the table and my partner sets about bringing the meal to completion.
We feast traditionally and end with a flaming Christmas pudding.
Viola! flaming pudding. Foreigners find this a strange and scary English ritual
We are podged, stuffed and full so retreat to rest and see the Queen. The rest of the day passes in Exploding kittens, roller reindeer and kazoo playing. A video exists but as it contains others apart from me it unfortunately cannot be here, but I might share it if asked privately.
Our evening is taken with TV, telephone calls with relatives and films. My family drift off to bed to read and sleep so I take the opportunity to write the blog and prepare to strip the turkey and tidy up the bits that need doing. I am awash with too much sugar and I can feel myself already craving exercise and smoothies but I am going to resist for a little while and indulge just a little more. Drugs,chores and bed for me.
Christmas eve and I am up early for a shower. I try one of my new breakfast smoothies, which turns out to be rather nice, however mid way through it my youngest daughter and partner arrive. Yippeeee. We get them in the drive and I go out and pull our car up behind them, a sort of hoping no one notices maneuver. Whilst waiting for the windscreen to deice a van pulls up and a guy walks down our drive with a large square package. I am intrigued as I am not aware of us expecting anything. I have a sudden thought that this may be the rug I never expected to arrive. So once I’ve moved the car I get back inside picking the package up on the way. We sit and have coffee and a chat around the table to catch up. After a while my inquisitiveness gets the better of me and I open the parcel. I am surprised it is in fact the rug I believed I would never see, for which we had already found a replacement. I unfold it in the kitchen space and the whole family view it and decide we like it. We decide to give it a go in the dining area. Once down the consensus is that that the colours match the overall environment well. We decide to give it a go.
The rug that was not expected turns out to be good.
So with the excitement of the new rug behind us we settle into lazing, baking and resting. My intention is to continue in the same vein for the rest of the day until it becomes Santa time, when the present hoards will magically appear beneath the tree and await for us to awake on Christmas morning.
I think of all my family and friends and wonder how they are, some are having a bad time either being in hospital or recovering from a hospital stay, others are battling illness in themselves or their partners. One friend is embattled with a company who have failed to deliver a bed for her aged mother in time for Christmas. Other friends have had their Christmas plans wrecked by COVID. Others are making the best of what they can and those with children are doing their upmost to make this Christmas as happy as it can be and as lively and fun as a fesnying . All in all despite everything I am fortunate to have my family fit and healthy and where possible with me on Christmas day. I look forward to playing dice, games and doing the traditional festive jigsaw. Bring on the Magic.
Boom its Wednesday morning of the 23rd and that means Turkey boy has a bird to collect early from the butchers at the garden centre. So I am up and dressed in a flash (well a slow burn ember really). My partner and I drive off to the garden centre convinced that despite COVID, tier 4 and the southern mutant scourge we thought that there would be a reasonable number of people there. I pull into the car park, deserted. Excellent no other humans about. A quick walk to the exit doors that obligingly open and we head for the butchers. Not a soul anywhere apart from flesh hackers preparing joints and stringing ribs. I hand over the club card receipt and a still fresh in the morning butcher takes it off me and disappears into the chilly behind the scenes world of hung carcasses and piled boxes of dead avian. He reappears with a couple of boxes and taps up the price. We order additional sausages and pay the bill. Shuffling along to the next counter we get sausage rolls, vegetable rolls and a pork pie. We get out before any other humans turn up. So we drive home and stow the crown in the freezer as we wont be going to my partners mother for Christmas day and I take the bird out to the shed to stay cool for the next 36 hours. The rest we stuff into the fridge.
Breakfast of bacon bagel, coffee and drugs before driving off to the local farm shop to get more diary goods. I confidently get there and assess the fact that there are no more parking spaces on the hard standing and with great aplomb, faith in my judgement and proud of my creativity back onto the field adjoining the parking area. All goes well until I try to pull off to get in to the now vacant parking spot. I’m stuck in the mud and nothing I do backwards or forward gets me anywhere. Now its pissing with rain. A bloke comes over to offer help but we cannot move it. He goes off to get help from the farm. It is now throwing it down, we are both soaked with sodden shoes and having trouble to find anything funny in our situation. Eventually some farm workers come and we are able to push it back out of the mud ruts and then drive it up on to the hard standing. Wet, muddy and slightly peeved we do our shopping, top up with fresh milk and then get back in the car. I back out very carefully and get us home, where I strip off in the porch and head for the washing machine. The new food is squirreled away, my washing put on in the machine and then its time for hot chocolate and a scone. I put more stuff away, empty bins and generally get things ready for my daughter and her partners arrival later. It turns out that they decide to come tomorrow after all. I’ve been happily wandering around in my underwear intending to cut my toe nails when I get a text message saying the smoothies that I ordered had been delivered. I go to the door and find… nothing. Not at the back door either. Its a mystery so I check my DPD app and sure enough it says the item has been delivered and there is a photo of it in a porch, the problem being, its not my porch. I check the address and find they have missed me by one number, so now I am forced to put on trousers and plod across the road to the neighbour. The box is still on the porch but has been opened, no lights on, no cars in the drive, I pick it up and liberate it from its abandonment. Home and I unpack the box to find my pouches of goodies. Having popped them in the freezer I can get my trousers off again and cut my toenails, one of those simple pleasures in life. ever since my chemotherapy which thickened my nails I’ve had to be quite rugged with them and take a decent file to one or two of them to keep them in check. In all honesty for me its more like taking a horse to a farrier to have its hoofs trimmed. Only one thing to do after that and that is hoover round every where.
So the washing is done dried and folded to go away, bread made and another loaf on the way, its time to tidy my office end of the sofa, have a beer and write the blog early. I’ve no idea what I am going to do this evening, TV perhaps, banjo perhaps, write perhaps, bath and tarting up perhaps, read or draw perhaps, but now I am hungry and need to eat before whatever I choose to do. Whatever happens tomorrow I will do nothing except indulge myself and my family as we ready ourselves for the great turkey eating.
Tuesday and the end of the to do list is in sight. breakfast as usual and then some tidying up to do. Today was a prosaic day of getting ready for the whole household to log off and stop working. It is coming down to the last chores of turkey collection, veg storing and doing the restricted Santa run to relatives in the village.. Still the odd Amazon afterthought arrives. In this case some more lights that I put up in the hall way at the same time as I hook the seasonal wreath on the front door.
There is yet another set of lights to go up but I am restricted by the number of available sockets. I also attend to tidying up some loose ends at work and send the services I work with an electronic Christmas card.
The words that went with it were more jolly and positive. At the end of the morning a friend rings and we have time for a prolonged catch up and chat. Her children are very excited about being excited about being excited about Christmas. Which I think says it all. We compared notes on our state of Christmas readiness and compared to do lists. We also compared the way our families have had to compromise in the face of the latest COVID restrictions and how that has created heartache and the need to adapt. It would seem every reasonable rational family is having to accommodate the discomforts and disappointments this Christmas. It was however good to know that we are not alone in trying to stick to the rules and trying to adapt the best we can. It feels like there is no real wining in this situation at all. It was a good conversation and a good reminder of what this isolation is costing all of us. Its patience that will get us back to where we would like to be.
Post lunch I was hanging lights, tidying and finalising the Tesco delivery, which prompted me to book another slot post Christmas. It mean an eleven day break between deliveries but I see this as a blessing as we will have to eat our turkey mountain. I think we are now sorted in to 2021 just in time for a no deal Brexit and a gallop up the tiers. Just how many tiers do you think Boris can create between now and Easter? The family stop working, turn off computers, come off line and sigh a sigh of relief. My partner and eldest daughter go off to do the relatives Santa drop, which affords me the chance to trim and oil my beard my beard for Christmas. In the post decorating throw out I threw away my expensive but unused beard oils, so I had to resort to baby oil from my overnight travel bag.
So with the lights twinkling in the hall, the family out of work we settle down to await my partners singing teacher to arrive to deliver a Christmas present to her. In the meantime while we wait I order smoothies from an internet supplier in anticipation of my post Christmas food guilt. I know I am going to over eat, over sugar myself and get really dissatisfied with my self at which point I will begin to train like a loony, radically amend my diet and swear to a life of abstinence and artistic endeavour. We wait till the event has taken place before for we eat and relax for the evening. Having eaten I settle on the sofa to write the blog. I intend an early shower and an early night after all this man has to be up and off to collect the turkey and the turkey breast early in the morning. We will tour the local farm shops to top up with local butter, cheese and milk and whatever local pie makers have to offer. As long as we are back by 2pm in time for the now much amended Tesco order to arrive. With that done Christmas cannot come quickly enough. I am like my friends child, excited about feeling excited about Christmas and determined to enjoy it regardless of what is happening in the rest of the world. I am aware that this is not quite the spirit of Christmas but if I have to isolate then I am going to enjoy it to the fullest while I am able.
