Wednesday and the Chinese New Year, the year of the Snake arrives and I wake up to the sound of the Builder Badgers finishing the block paving outside. I take my vitals and get up and into my training kit, although I will not train till later. I make the badgers a coffee and go and chat to them, they reckon they will be off in about an hours time, job done. While they are finishing off I have breakfast and check messages and socials and make the all important pre hospital check list for tomorrow.

The badgers finish their work and I go out for the farewell chat. They have done a good job as they always do and they are a handy crew to keep hold of for future work and they have a useful network of tradesmen who have turned out to be good as well. They leave and I get on with replacing the worn insulation on the exterior overflow pipe from the heating system. Before being re-piped this pipe would freeze up and stop the boiler from functioning properly, once insulated it never froze again and the-system worked. The ravages of time had taken it toll so I replaced the major part of it encountering a huge garden spider who obviously likes the warm and most environment of the overflow outlet. All in all a productive morning.

I take a rest as I feel I am getting through my days allotted amount of spoons quite quickly and I have lots still to do. While I rest I start to draft the blog. This may well be my last two handed draft for a week or two as from tomorrow my right hand is going to be bandaged like a mitten leaving me to accomplish everything one handed. I am sure lots of people have experienced this but I have the feeling that it will be the obvious everyday things that will be the most difficult like showering, using the toilet and in my case rowing let alone other things like driving and getting dressed. So my future blogs maybe more pictorial for a while or very short due to my one handed typing and key board skills. It will be an adventure, all I have to do is survive the general anaesthetic.

Time to train. And train I do for an hour on the rower, just trying to make the most of the time I have. So I grind out an hour and it turns out to be a reasonable session as I manage to make 11+K and burn 700+calories.

With the training out of the way its time to do some chores and have lunch. Amongst the things I finally get done is to re-pot the “money plant” that I managed to “steal” two Christmas’s ago. Apparently we had to steal them because it is lucky. Where other’s plants have grown into vital plant mine has struggle in its tiny pot and even survived outside for a while. so while I have two hands I decided to give my plant a new environment. I hope my efforts bear fruit.

With the indoor gardening done I am changed and off out to collect my monthly drugs prescription, some cash and a newspaper, I am hoping that this will push up my PAI score. Once home its time to start packing for tomorrow. Of course once I have my hand in a mitten like bandage I will need something easy to get into and out of. Luckily I have a collection of ice hockey jerseys that will do the job nicely. I reread the pre op instructions and load up all I need, including entertainment options. Once I am happy that I have everything including the list of the crowns in my mouth for the anaesthetist I return to the blog and then to an evening meal, last before I go to the hospital tomorrow.

Now its all about relaxing, sleeping, drinking water and having a shower in the morning before getting an Uber to the adventure. So there maybe a break in the blog but I am hoping my creativity and adaptability will rise to the surface First things first be organised, have the operation, survive the general anaesthetic and get home. The rest will be another story. So I will see you(blog) all on the other side as the Jamaican nurses used to say as they waved me off after dialysis.

Tuesday and I wake to my partner leaving for work and the builder badgers arriving to put in more paving for a bin refuge. I take my vitals and get a nasty shock, my blood pressure is up. I spend time listening to meditation music and repeating my vitals measurements. I try to empty my mind and not indulge in an internal dialogue as I try to get my blood pressure down. After a few minutes I manage to get it down to 133 over 75. Its cleat that I must train today. If my raised blood pressure is a side effect of my cancer drugs I need to try and control it and as my oncologist keeps telling me exercise is the single most effective way of doing this. So I get up and get into my training gear.

There are of course things to do before I can train like having breakfast and taking my morning meds, which have been adapted to meet the needs of Thursdays operation. I make coffee for the builder badgers who are putting in the concrete base to house the block paving for a bin refuge. Its raining hard but they are persisting. By eleven o’clock the concrete is in and the badgers are packing up to leave as they have to let the concrete set over night before they can do anything else. It is at this point that I head for the garage and the rower. I am not feeling like training but it is an essential today, so I set up for a 45 minute session and get going. Its tough, I feel stiff and not on top of my game. Finally I get to the end of the session to find that my Fitbit has run out of power after the first 16 minutes so I wont get credited with the full amount of PAI points on my fitness App. As it turns out I go more than 9 kilometres and and burn over 600 calories so I am pleased with the outcome even if I am sweating profusely and feel knackered.

With training out of the way I have a shower and record the session in my journal. I take a walk down to the village shop and get a paper and some odds and ends before popping into the dentists. The receptionist is very good as I explain that I am being asked for the details of my dental work for Thursdays operation. Unfortunately my dentist was not available but she promised to talk to her and let me know if they could do it. Back home I rang the post operation therapist who explained to me what was going on and how much she charged. I booked an appointment for one week after the operation, so I am now all set up. I do todays crosswords and then set about drafting todays blog. Not until my partners friend and our house guest for the night appears do I stop to be host and make tea. Once my partner and friend have gone out to eat do I return to the blog. My dentist has come up trumps with the information I need for Thursday so I settle in for the evening.

I have realised now that I have one day of training left before my operation and then I may not be able to drive or row for a while, so I am going to have to think about what I am going to do and how I am going to do it for the next couple weeks when I can get some use of my hand back. Looks like I might be going to the gym to sit on a bike or walk on a treadmill. The blog is going to take longer as it will have to be a left handed type fest and letters will also take longer. So I hope anyone that comes to the blog will forgive the more dyslexic look to it than usual. So tonight I wait for Tesco on my own and think about things while nibbling panettone. Ultimately it will be more adapted night meds and bed. Tomorrow is train and pack day.

Monday and I wake to my partner leaving the house to visit her mother, the builder badgers sawing paving blocks and the thumping of bricks into the ground. By getting Alexa to play Meditation Music and taking my vital, which are good. When I do get up adn make breakfast it is time to make the badgers a coffee adn get an update on progress. The sideway is almost complete just some sanding to do and then the work on the bin bay can be stated in earnest. Before the bin bay can start there is a big old pine tree stump that needs to be fully ground out and the lead badger tells me that it is likely to happen later today or tomorrow. BY lunchtime the badgers have done all they can for the day and pack up just as stump grinding man appears with his beast machine. So one workman in as two leave which means fresh coffee to make.

With everything and everyone in place I have time to sit and reflect on how I am. Out of this comes a poem, a bit unexpected but that’s the way it goes.

430 
I ask myself why,
Why am I having this operation,
an optional op?
I look at my crooked finger 
and I am repelled and fearful
that this is how I look inside.
My misshapen digit reminds me
that I am invaded,
that there are tumours,
contained but threatening 
to consume me 
at any moment.
I see the bumps on my hands,
I see the power 
of cell biology rampant
and I am afraid again.
Every time I try to
lay a palm flat 
or type, or clap,
or retrieve from a pocket,
pouch or draw
I am impeded and once again
I know I’m fighting invisibility.
The days tick by pretending
all is well,
a proverbial cognitive ostrich,
but this outcrop 
catches me cold.
Sitting here trying 
To capture my fear
I find myself stranded 
like so many bodies
sitting in homes 
staring and being alone 
and not knowing, 
feeling the want of 
warmth.  
Its lonely,
if only I can get 
my finger straight 
I can wear the rings
again, and give the finger
to my inner enemy.

							430 27-01-2025

I have just about finished writing when the stump grinding man finishes, loads up and dives off. As I put his used mug in the dish washer I notice that the sun shade top of the garden swing seat has been ripped off by the high winds and is hanging on by a single screw. Nothing for it but to grab my tool box and get to it before it is torn off completely and whisked away by the wind. The joint at one end has given way and will not be a repair I can do so the only option is to remove it and put the cover over the separated parts. I am in the middle of wrestling the cover over the two parts when my partner reappears and helps me get the cover in place. It is clear that the wind is going to pull the cover off again so I sacrifice one of my rolls of gaffer tape to put a securing band round the thing. With that done its time to go for lunch.

The chosen place for a late lunch is a garden centre near the police HQ towards town. I drive us there and that were dine and chat till early afternoon. Before we leave we buy fruit and veg from a stall and then drive home, park up and settle in to our cosy home while another storm rains in the evening. I check my phone and find I have missed a call from a friend , this always irks me as I know in a busy life it s difficult to find such spaces and I miss the chance to talk to friends and hear a voice outside he family. When I check my emails I find that the chair of the Poetry Stanza has put a proposal to the committee of a local writing and publishing shindig to be held in March and if accepted I might get to read a poem publicly. It would be a new challenge and an experience. It could be fun or a nightmare, or of course both. With the life admin done I draft the days blog in the gathering gloom of early evening and look forward to something, I am not sure what, to fill my evening. However what ever happens it will end in night meds and the hope of a restful night.

Sunday and apart from a quick walk in the latest named storm to get such prosaic goods as frozen peas (apt), chicken and potatoes I have done nothing today apart from watch sport and think about about whether my new track suit would arrive. The track suit arrived mercifully too late to think about going to the gym. I have adjusted the contents of my Dosette Boxes so that I do not take some of my medications before my operation on Thursday. I did not know that the daily dose boxes where called Dosettes until I read my pre operation instructions. Apparently I can not take them to the hospital and have to take what I need in the original packaging so that the nurses know what they are. Reasonable I suppose, but I figure I could look after my own regular medication unless something goes wrong, it just feels slightly off somewhere.

My ambition for the evening is to eat and read the letters I have to catch up with. There are still one or two from Christmas that I stuck in the back of my journal and never got to the end of. I should really be framing replies to some of them. As for anything else it will just have to happen or not. However it would be nice if the builder badgers returned tomorrow to complete the work they are doing. The other challenge is to decide if I am brave enough to ring someone and ask if I can join in at a local writing and publishing fair. I will see how I feel.

Saturday and I wake up feeling quite chipper after yesterdays celebrations. My partner brings me a hot water and before long we are both up, me having checked my vitals and socials, all good. Today is a tricky day as its today I plan to submit my tax return. First I set right all the things that got blown over by store Eowyn and while I am at it I refill the squirrel and bird feeders. With the kitchen cleared I can no longer avoid doing the work to prepare to put my tax return in. I spend ages ploughing through my bank statements to calculate one of my pensions over the relevant year and making up an account book to record it all. Once I have the figures I fire up the main office computer and log into the HMRC site and my account. Once I am into the account I follow the prompts and then spend a lot of time checking and making sense of the figures that HMRC are automatically filling for me. Eventually I am satisfied and push the send button. When I run off all the acknowledgements and calculations the all wise HMRC tell me they owe me money, which is a pleasant and welcome surprise. I just hope they respond to my plea to be exempt from future self assessments.

I celebrate this annual torture by brewing real coffee and nibbling a couple of the Italian biscuits that were bought at the delicatessen yesterday. With the tasks of the day done I settle down to watch a double header of rugby till the evening meal and the slide into an evening of media entertainment. I’ve already sorted out the medications I need to omit for this coming Thursday’s operation and ordered a new track suit and trainers prior to renewing my acquaintance with the weights machines at the gym. I have decided that I need to try and put some muscle back on as the older I get the more difficult this becomes as I get older. So eventually it will be time for night meds and bed.

Friday and I wake up to the fifth anniversary of my Civil Partnership. My partner is at work in the office down stairs so I take my time doing my vitals, checking my socials and messages before getting up. I take my morning meds. Despite a long train yesterday I decide to train again today and so get into my kit and head for the garage adn my rowing machine. I’ve never named the rower as it seems like an intrusion, the relationship we have is very business like, me getting fir and the machine a professional trainer. I set myself up for a thirty minute session and get going as soon as possible. it goes reasonably well despite it feeling a tough session. By the end I have rowed 6 kilometre plus so that will do. The aim must be to up the level of resistance and be able to row the same distance.

I record the session and have a light breakfast before taking a shower and resting. Both the training and the showering use a lot of energy spoons so I need a brief beak to recover. So while resting I start to draft the blog until my partner finishes work at lunch time. We drive to a garden centre some way away and indulge in a good lunch, including my treat of posh cheese on toast. Its an opportunity to talk about retirement and plans for things that need doing. Surrounding the restaurant there are a lot of craft adn art shops so once having eaten we go to look for a spare diffuser as we bought our last one from here. Not only did we find the right replacement diffuser we also found wheat and lavender pillows to ease us to sleep. Of course there was no avoiding the delicatessen, where we picked up pasties, French biscuits and real liquorice swirls. Then it was home wards.

I settled to draft the blog and to while away the time listening to more Mindfulness Mixes on the smart speaker. The builder badger, only one today, had gone by the time I returned. He had cracked on despite being on his own and has nearly completed the block paving in the sideway. There are only the fiddly bits that need blocks to be cut and then the whole thing sand filled and it will be finished. Providing his fellow builder badger is well on Monday this part of the job may well be finished and the bin stand at the front begun.

Rather than the recently usual sport or TV evening tonight it is to be a meal in a favourite restaurant to celebrate five years of civil partnership. I shall indulge and I may even allow myself to indulge in a glass (large of course) of a rich red wine to wash down the undoubted plate of meat that I shall have, having told the waitress/waiter to hold the vegetables. This place does the most amazing crepes with oranges and grand manier source. I am so looking forward to it. Its the indulgence that I like the whole panoply of flavours and variety of textures that are conjured up with no cooking or washing up required. I no doubt will arrive back home down my night meds and go to bed in a warm and sated, not to mention slightly pissed state. Tomorrow can look after itself although I need to pop into the dentist to see if they will give me a mouth map of my crowns, but that is for another day.

Thursday and I wake up as usual, by which I mean I can take my time and go through my usual routine. Vitals are good, messages and socials are fine all I have to do is get and get on with my day. I get into my training gear but there is a lot of life admin to catch up on today, so I have breakfast, take my meds and write a “to do” list. The weather is wet and so my builder badger arrive, assess the weather and leave. No idea when I will see them again given that storm Eowin is on the way.

My “to do” list is long and bureaucratic, which means hunting out papers from the dishevelled pile at my sofa side office and making phone calls and hunting around on the internet. At one point I get side tracked and book tickets for this seasons Motionhouse premier of Hidden at Warwick Arts Centre in in February. The ticket booking was straight forward, what took an age was booking the parking, what an arse ache that was, and time consuming. It is the fifth anniversary of my partner and I’s Civil Partnership tomorrow so there are things to be done for that. I remember vividly a lot of nice thigs about the day. The worst thing was that I had just finished chemotherapy so I had no hair to speak of and a head like a football from the steroid. There was much “putting things in order” at the time as was on a short clock, as it turns out, happily, it’s something the medics got wrong and I am here to celebrate more than five years on. What better way than good food, drink and each others company. I wonder if I can still get into the same clothes that I wore five years ago. I might just give it a shot, jacket will be okay bit I fear an increased waist might prevent it.

I plough on with my “to do” list until mid afternoon and I am flagging and I am getting irritable. In these circumstances there is only one thig to do do and that’s put Radio 3’s Mindful Mix on and write a poem. Its a kind of catharsis that sometimes works. So I fire up the laptop and dash off a few lines, which seems to confirm I am irritated by bureaucracy .

429
The end of another tax year, 
pension dependant yet
the revenue man 
continues to badger
me for self-assessments.
Leave me alone,
let me be
in cancerous peace.
All those years of grind
boil down to numbers
in a statement devoid 
of understanding.
But as I flail through 
the mounds of sofa side
papers, a result of 
COVID displacement,
listening to the babble 
of others from my office as was 
I am filed with resentment 
and not a little rage.
Once I knew where all my 
documents lived, organised,
neat and tidy. 
I feel like I live on the street,
my world in a heap
stuffed into plastic bags
and not even colour coded. 
So the radio plays,
the Mindful Mix and
I write this to calm down. 
I know why the displaced
become terrorists, 
and I have fantasies of 
doing the world a favour
by not missing Trump
by an ears width. 
It seems a more useful thing
than filling in forms.
Woodie had it right,
Some men rob you 
with a gun
others with a fountain pen.
While cancer robs me of my life
HMRC bleeds me dry.
The builders have cried off,
It’s raining,
and I realise just 
how fucking 
irritated I am by it. 
Watch out rowing machine 
here I come,
and to cap it all
it’s in the bloody garage,
in the cold.
I’m on one!

								429 23-01-2025

Indeed I was on one so I do go to the garage and it is cold but I put in an hour on the rower. It turns out a reasonable session and cathartic as hoped, by the time I finish I am out of energy spoons and flop on the recliner to drat the blog, realising that apart from a giant crumpet with Marmite and diet Coke followed by a Crunchie I’ve not eaten much today. Thankfully I ate lot yesterday.

So with the Blog drafted go off to change into something comfortable and look for food before tonight’s big football match on TV. It’s going to be an early night for me tonight, meds and bed so I can party like a pagan tomorrow.

Wednesday and I wake up with a start at 8 o’clock and reckon that I have just an hour to get across town to the hospital for my pre operation assessment. I have time to down my morning meds and head for the car only to find it iced over. After a hurried de-ice I drive off to town leaving the builders who have arrived to sort themselves out. Of curse its rush hour and Google maps takes me into the centre of town to take me out the other side. I get to the hospital a couple of minutes past 9 o’clock, park up and go to reception.

The reception in true hospital style take an imprint of my credit card and hand me a 12 page health questionnaire and a pen then direct me to the first floor pro operation assessment suite. I sit in the waiting room filling in the form. It is at times like these that I am glad everything goes into my phone diary as I have to constantly refer to it to provide dates of various medical adventures. I also carry my current prescription with me so I can fill in my medication details accurately. The pre op nurse calls me and asks what page am on, I am age 5, just to more to go. When she reappears I am ready and follow her into her clinical room. We go through everything I have ticked and she asks me confirm things or to explain things. Once we have flogged through the paper work she explains what will happen on the day and what and when I need to stop taking some of my current medications. Apparently the order on the operation list is decided on the day by the consultant and the theatre team at the risk meeting, so although I will rock up at 11 o’clock with my dressing gown and fluffy slippers I may not get operated on till later on in the afternoon adn then I will have to recover from the anaesthetic before they will let me go, so I could be released quite late on into the evening. Before I go the nurses will instruct me on keeping my wound dry, which might have implications for showering, but I think that will be okay. With the chitchat done I am weighed, height measured, blood pressure and heart rate and stats done. Then as a cherry on top she does an ECG, the fast one I’ve ever had I have to say. IT looked to me like my pqrs wave was in good nick. So that was me done with her so she shuffled my off to the nurse next door who asked who I was and the usual identifiers before taking bloods, a nasal swab of MRSA and sent me off to the toilet to take a swap of my own groin crease for MRSA. With that all done I was free to go.

I let my satnav take me home a new way avoiding the centre of town, the roads were much clearer so I made good time. By the time I got back late morning the builder badgers were cracking on so I made them coffee and went to the village café for a full English breakfast and hot chocolate having grabbed a paper on the way. Its a treat to sit in the window overlooking the roundabout at the centre of the village while eating breakfast and doing the days crossword. Unfortunately the village café is closing for ever on February the third do to the Co-op taking over the plot and cottages to install a bigger shop. Its a shame, I shall miss the quirkiness of the cash only café with no toilet and an array of calorie laddered cakes like no other all made by the cook. Workmen in the village will miss it as they could get breakfast boxes and take away anything they fancied. So life moves on.

The afternoon is well on by the time I get home so I make the builders more coffee and change into my training kit intending to train when the builders leave and and my partner returns from seeing her mother with her brother. So while I wait I write a letter to friend during which a friend calls and tells my about her piano adventure, which includes delivery folk whose van is too big to get down the tiny road she lives on and cannot be bothered to carry of wheel it down the road to her house. The upshot is that she is collecting on from the shop and transporting it herself home.. Nit something anyone get to do often in life. I finish my letter and take it to the post box in my training gear. The builders are clearing up for the day when I return adn soon after my partner returns, by now I am too tired to train and so I draft the blog.

I note that according to the site stats it has over a hundred views today so far, lots from the USA and Germany, I don’t know why this has happened but if you are one of them reading this, thank you. I draft the blog and drift into the evening in hope of a decent football match to watch and an early night accompanied by my night meds. The last few days I have been out of my usual routine and I need to get back to training and focus on some things I need to do, like a tax return, read the meters and prepare for my operation by reading the info that is being sent to me.

Tuesday and I wake up to an empty bed as my partner has gone to work and the builder badgers have also arrived and parked on the drive. I struggle up and make the badgers early coffee and then make my own breakfast. I am barely sentient when I realise a very large builders delivery truck has arrived and is unloading huge bags of materials.

So while the badgers continue to move piles of hard core and filler I get on with a day of writing letters and reading. My day is all letter writing and making coffee for the builder badgers. There is no break until about three o’clock when the badgers pack up for the day as the gloom gathers and they drive off. Half an hour later I am walking to the post office to send my letters and to pick up a paper.

At home there are the bins to put out and some kitchen clearing to be done before my partner returns from work. As I have a paper I do the days cross words which I do wearing my new cardigan. This the garment that was advertised as an Icelandic heavy knit. It is not, it is a cardigan but quite thin and clearly an Chinese knock off. I suspect I will wear it as a garden jersey. I am clearly out of salts and taken out of my stride by two early starts and my lack of training and it is not going to get better tomorrow as I have my pre-operation assessment at the hospital tomorrow morning at 9 o’clock. I need to rest and get back into my routine once I have dealt with tomorrow. For now I will settle for shower, night meds and early night.

Monday and I am awake early aware that the Builder Badgers are coming today. I make warm drinks for my partner and I and then get ready for the day. The Builder Badgers arrive so there is a quick strategic chat with them followed by coffee making before I have my breakfast and check my messages and socials. As the Badgers create a spoil heap I start an early draft of todays blog intending to write letters during the day before the Tesco order arrives this afternoon. Its a cold day so I suspect I will also be making a meal. I start to try and write a Villanelle , a form of poem that some of the local poets have been working with. There are very specific rules as follows: 1: it has 19 lines with a specific rhyme scheme, 2:it has five three line verses called tercets and ends in one four line section, a quatrain. 3: the 1st and 3rd line of the first tercet are repeated in the last lines of the following tercets, the 1st line becomes lines 6, 12, & 18 and the third line becomes line 9, 15 and 19. 4: the rhyme scheme is ABA for the tercets and ABAA for the Quatrain. There that’s it a simple sort of poetry by numbers really. Apparently thought up by the Italians or the Spanish. So, here is my first shot at a Villanelle for Villanelle.

428

Oh Villanelle Oh Villanelle how she loves to kill
with any weapon and fashion to inspire
she took their lives in ways to thrill.
This was no ordinary way for blood to spill
nor was it how most gave up the ghost,
Oh Villanelle Oh Villanelle how she loves to kill.
The boots below the tailored twill
would step ruggedly upon a neck
she took their lives in ways to thrill.
no end of ways for hearts to still
liberating souls a darker art
Oh Villanelle Oh Villanelle how she loves to kill.
From acrid poisons to electric drills
Villanelle ran the gamut of invention
She took their lives in ways to thrill.
For body disposal pigs fit the bill
their voracious appetites up to Villanelles,
Oh Villanelle, Oh Villanelle how she loves to kill
she took their lives in ways to thrill.

                                                                             428  20-01-2025

   

There you go poetry by numbers with a hint of literary sarcasm. The builder badgers are done by lunch time for the day and tomorrow they bring in all the new materials and get rid of the spoil heap, so, so far so good. While I wait for the Trump inauguration ceremony, I cannot resist, I write letters only to be interrupted by the Tesco order arriving. With that squirreled away I take my letters to the post office and pick up a paper and return home.

What followed was a scary event: the inauguration of Trump, I had decided to forego the world indoor bowls championship but wish quickly that I had not. The actual “ceremony” was all that you could expect from an infantile 250 year old country, it was the inaugural speech that was frankly terrifying, very right wing, no sign of green issues awareness (drill and be dammed), expansionist (Panama canal reclaim) , authoritarian (no recognition of the complexities of gender or representation) and isolationist ( import tariffs on everything not American). All this in the name of patriotism and “under one God” labelled “common sense”. I should have stuck with the bowls.

The evening starts with the meal I put in the crockpot earlier and then settle down to an evening of drafting the blog and reading while my partner has her singing lesson. As I run out of energy I will find some TV to take me to bed time, night meds and the expectation that I will be up early to greet the builder badgers.