Tuesday and I am awake and taking my vitals early as today I am off out for coffee. So I down my morning meds, take a shower and drive off only to find the one and only direct road to the road I need is closed. So I double back on myself and start to navigate a new and novel route to Ashby-de-la- Zouch. As a consequence of my detour I arrive about ten minutes behind schedule. I pick up my friend and we head for Staunton Harold where there are craft shops and most important today a café.

I eat breakfast and chat with my friend and that is me until late afternoon. We exchange books and talk about how we are and what we are doing. We also talk about things or people that have caught our attention. One in particular, an organist, Anna Lapwood who is making the organ sexy in the world of music. At the end of the afternoon we stroll round the garden centre looking for bargains bit find none so go and sit by the lake and watch the signets float around and the herd of cattle drift across the field on the other side of the lake. It is quintessentially English.

I drive my friend home and head for home myself. I get close to home only to find the road into my village is still closed. This truly is a pain in the arse as I have to drive miles out of my way through at least two other villages before I can get home. I have a sandwich and and settle down for the evening and of course the Great British Sewing Bee’s fashion icon episode. At the moment there is no standout sewer, it all seems a bit a patchy. I take my night meds, put the bins out and go to bed hoping for a decent night’s sleep.

Wednesday and today is the last day of Cycle 27 of the chemo. My partner is up and away to visit her mother with the brother before I have taken my vitals. My vitals are good this morning. I get up and get into my training gear but before I train I have breakfast and get my blood pressure spread sheet up to date and tomorrows new cycle page ready. My spread sheet calculates the average blood pressure over the latest cycle, which is 119.9/69.3. This level is good and means I am fighting off one of the main side effects of my chemo. As long as I can control this and keep my PSA from rising I will be able to continue on the current chemo, which is definitely my preferred option.

I get myself together and finally get to the garage and the rower. I elect to go for a 45 minute session. The machine is set up and I get with the row. I start off quite sharply and keep going and in the end surprise myself by rowing over 10 kilometres, my standard for 45 minutes is 9 kilometres. So I am pleased with myself and feel I am becoming fitter despite the interruptions of the 28 day injections.

I achieved this whilst listening to the Dr Who Promenade concert from this year. It was okay but I clearly did not have the visuals. Shower comes next and then I drat the last two days blog while listening to Elgar’s Cello concerto being played at this years proms. By late afternoon my mind turns to the show the family are going out to see tonight at the theatre, it is the Addams Family, which should be fun. Unfortunately my youngest daughter is unable to come with us as she has a cold, but I’ve sent her cake and rascals to help her through it. I think they are enjoyable sources of energy when someone is ill.

So on this last day of Cycle 27 I am doing okay and I am hoping to continue in that vein tomorrow when I see the hand specialist for the last time tomorrow and I can cast my night finger splint away. Tonight I shall wear it for the last time and then true to this section of the blog I shall be moving on.

This is Anna Hopwood showing that organ music can be sexy and fun, just like life really.

Monday and due to my enthusiasm to get Tesco delivery done in the morning I am awake and up quite early for me, but not before I take my vitals. There is a brief breakfast and a lot of puttering about before Tesco arrive with my order. When it arrives its all hands to the pumps and some expert squirrelling of the goodies away. With that done my partner goes to the gym and I am left to make my own amusement. What I decide to do is train. The last session on Saturday was appalling so I need so up my game today and get back to something respectable. I get into my training gear and head for the rower in the garage. Its to be another hour so can compare my performance. I start slow, possibly too slowly but by the end I am going at it in a steady rhythm and pulling hard. By the end of the hour I am an infuriating 83 metres short of my personal best for and hour. This is a vast improvement over Saturday’s miserable row.

I record the session in my journal and cool off before changing to go to the garden centre with my partner to get a pie and other goodies, among them liquorice torpedoes, a favourite of mine.

Once home there is gardening to do, angelica to cut own, weeds to clear, watering to be done and Mallows to be staked. With that out of the way I do more life admin. There are emails to respond to and new skirmishes to be had. The Shed folk want to charge me to rectify their mistake, so that was fun email to send and then the response to my publishers. I am going to have a website just for poetry to disentangle this blog from the poetry work. There will come a point where this blog for family and friends will need to be short and informative so need to simplify things now in order to get where I need to be. I will still put poetry on this blog but the wider world will get poetry through the new website, so soon my publishers will be working on that along with an anthology of my work so far with and an audio book. It seems I have a direction again and a project to take forward.

I start to draft the blog and wait for tea before setting about todays crosswords. I intend a quiet evening, a shower and of course the humiliation of Only Connect, before night meds, finger splint and sleep. Tomorrow I go out with a friend for coffee.

Saturday and I am away and more itchy scratchy than ever. I do my vitals, that are all okay and then get up. At some point my partner and I go to the supermarket to gather up the things we need for our eldest daughter’s birthday tomorrow. With the goodies stored and the crosswords done I am still restless and ill at ease, in an attempt to focus I wrap birthday presents, whilst my eldest daughter is out. In a final fling of the dice I decide to train, its the last thing I want to do, but its all I can think of to shake myself. I get ready and go to the garage. In for a penny in for a pound so I set up for an hours row. I have the test match, England v India in my ears as I set off with my first pull and that first pull tells me it is going to be a long hour. It is a tortuous hour but I do get to the end of the session. Its a terrible row, well below par but it is done.

So I get into my evening feeling tired but pleased to have trained. I watch Saved by Ruby a true story of a Canadian K9. It is a story of a trooper who was desperate to be a dog handler but had to get his own dog, train it and prove himself, and his dog was up to it. Heart rending eh. It was the real life pictures of the dog and the handle at the end that were fascinating. And so to bed via night meds and the finger splint which I shall now wear only 3 more times. I am desperate for sleep.

Sunday and its my eldest daughter’s birthday. I take my vitals and get up to shower. While I wait to leave for the lunchtime restaurant I draft a reply to my intended publishers as I have changed my mind about what I am going to do next. Lunch time arrives and we head off to the local restaurant. The meal is very tasty and I finished off with my favourite Affogato with a shot of Amarreto. Back home my daughter elects to have presents after the England v Spain women’s football final, so we re watch Safed by Ruby and I draft the blog until kick off time.

England win! It takes a penalty shoot out but they do it. There is much whooping and the family eat birthday chocolate cake. My Eldest daughter opens her birthday presents and seems happy with them. We are all exhausted after the penalty shoot out, so a cheese and pickle sandwich seems in order and finishing the drafting of the blog. A Tesco order is put together and finalised before I take my night meds and head for bed. Tomorrow is a day of getting on with things as I finally seem to have got through the aftermath of my injection on Monday Its taken longer this time to get through the side effects, I am not sure why I am just thankful I have.

Friday and I wake late, take my vitals and head for breakfast. I have nothing on my to do list that can not wait. The result is that I spend a lot of time in the garden, clearing paths and taking stock. There is a quick jaunt to the village shop for a paper and treats. So I garden and crossword my day away until the evening when I dine and watch a new TV drama series. Its not an exciting, creative or productive day but a day that gives me rest. So I draft the blog late before my meds and beds. This is terrible I feel I am slipping into some sort of sleep walking through my life and not paying attention. Tomorrow I must awake up.

Thursday and I wake knowing that today I must make an effort to train, its been 8 days since I trained. With going away for the weekend and the aftermath of my jab my exercise has been interrupted and it is a necessary part of warding off the side effects of my chemo. So I take my vitals and find my heart rate up a bit but the rest okay. I felt itchy and scratchy and getup and into my training gear. I know this session will be a short 30 minute session just to get me going again. So I take my morning meds and head for the garage and the rower. I feel dreadful, my body really doesn’t want to do this but once I’ve pushed go on my Fitness band there is no stopping. Its a cruel session, nothing feels right or flows and it shows in the figures at the end. I do not make my 6 kilometre standard and burn few calories, however I finish and that will have to be good enough for today.

Post row I shower and listen to the radio, mostly radio 4 quiz and comedy satire programmes. When my partner returns from her gym session we have a light lunch and then walk down to the village shop to get a paper and the rest of the ingredients for the curry I am cooking for tonight’s tea. Once home I settle down to the crosswords until its time to cook the curry. I get the big cooker top pot out and pretty soon I am dicing chicken and vegetables and making up my secret stock and curry mixture. With it all in the pan it gets left to gently bubble away until its time to get the rice, nans and poppadum’s sorted out. While I am doing this the garden guy turns up and my partner gives him the instructions for the the day. As a result we now have a whole host of home grown mallows around the garden, which if they all take are going to be very impressive. My meal comes together and I call the family to the table where eat tea together.

I feel better for hearty meal and slump on the sofa with a few after eight mints and watch the second Enola Holmes film. Eventually I get to clear the kitchen, take my meds and then as midnight approaches I draft the blog. I wonder how many people go to bed this late? I look at my sleep records and find that I am rarely in bed before midnight, half eleven is an early night for me, Is this normal I wonder. I publish the blog and go to bed still having the damn finger splint to put on. At least I can give that up in 5 days time.

Tuesday, post jab day and I wake up with a very sore and aching injection site. I feel chills and feel quite shaky. This is a day of rest and paracetamol, definitely not one for making decisions or spending money. The bottom line is I spend the day on the recliner taking paracetamol and idling time away doing crosswords, sending WhatsApp messages or responding to messages and watching the news. That’s it until England pay Italy in the European football tournament. The only other things of note was that my friend had to have Onion the family cat put down and Ozzy Osborne went down under his own steam.

451
Farewell Onion,
you have gone
on the same day 
as Ozzy Osborne.
Both have run their course
and in their ways 
lived their lives to the full.
For one a domestic life
for the other a rock star,
but both meant so much 
to those around them. 
One quietly in the bosom 
of a family
the other in the glare. 
One sat gently purring 
the other roaring. 
Both were fun
both independent
but Onion never
bit the head off a bat;
a mouse perhaps 
after all that's  what
cats do. 
                                                   451 23-07-2025

After England had struggled past Italy in extra time in a great escape act I went to bed full of night meds and paracetamol hoping for sleep and relief from the soreness as the following day there are things to do, but not before putting the bins out and setting the dishwasher going, a kind of night time compulsion to start the next day afresh.

Wednesday and having slept quite well I take my vitals, which were okay, and get up as I have the Builder Badgers coming in to correct a fault on the patio they put in. A small job but an annoying oversight. They arrive on time and willingly accept coffee while they size up the problem and then get to grinding off the offending corner that is impeding the patio doors opening fully. We chat once the job is done and then they depart leaving me to get ready to take my car for its MOT. On the stroke of noon I roll my car into the garage, hand over the keys and stroll down to the café in the village. I order hot chocolate, a bacon roll and an fried egg roll expecting muffin sized food. What I actually got was two rolls the size of a pair of breeding tortoise. I munched my way through them as I scribbled lines, firstly what came to me about a dead cat and a dead rock star, see above, and a longer one on where I am at the moment or at least on the day.

452
This jab has been bad,
left side sore and raw,
with all the accompanying
junkie shivers and chills.
It reduces me to paralysis 
unable to think or move
without pain of some sort.
Yet it is saving my life,
my tumours dying
in back and lymph,
although my prostate 
remains the host 
to cancer.
There should be joy
but my capacity is muted
by years of caution,
by years of treading carefully 
and not quite sure what 
was going on.
so I draw my shell around me
trying to maintain routines
and monitoring all. 
It feels like it could 
be the calm before the storm.
I've made seventy seven
surely eighty is possible,
that would be something. 
Around me contemporaries 
fall away,
my youths icons die,
the world changes
and politics become toxic,
nation fractious,
and old power hungry
men display their
insecurities and lack 
of humanity. 
Is this just and old man
getting older and bizarrely
trying to stay?
I don't know 
it's difficult to remain 
reasonable and rational
in the noise of technological
trickery. More difficult than ever
to know what is real. 
The snares of ego 
are all around,
the voice that says,
"blow it all on a new car",
or "get a publisher"
or " a website,"
"monetise your poetry",
and "come and join us".
All I want is Cicero's prescription
of a library and a garden.
It is so loud this world.
Shoosh!

                                                  452  23-07-2025 

I return to the garage and have that moment of joy when my MOT is a pass. I pay and leave for home where I spend a little while distributing home grown plant around the garden with my partner. My spoons (energy) have all but run out so I retreat to the recliner and draft the blog. I feel a nap coming on to prepare me for tonight’s semi final between Spain and Germany in the women’s football tournament. A friend rings and we chat for a while before I set about my evening. Of course Spain wins and I take my meds and go to bed determined to celebrate my MOT pass by training again tomorrow.

Sunday I wake in a strange bed and I am roused by a small boy, my youngest grandson, waving at me from the door way of the bedroom, which then led into a bout of peek a boo. It was a slow morning as the two year old involved all the family in play before we went out to The Rising Sun pub for Sunday dinner. It was an interesting experience as the dining area was set at one end of the pub and was clearly in this century whilst the other end of the pub, which had to be traversed to get to the toilets, was still in. the last century. There was horse racing on TV, a dart game and a pool table in full swing and loads of blokes with beards and tattoos being blokey and loud clutching pints. There was going to be live music at 3 o’clock but until then people were playing the jukebox, everything last century. The food portions were enormous and one woman who spotted my sparkly fingers nails commented to her partner ” I hav’n’t time for that.”

My partner and I stayed a bit longer to have ice cream before retuning to our youngest daughters and an afternoon drink and laze before it was time to load up the car and drive home. Given it was a Sunday afternoon the journey was reasonable, just slow at times where road works slowed everything down despite the lack of any apparent construction activity. In the evening I watched the final episodes of the current drama series and then some Mock the Week before taking my night meds and heading for bed. Tomorrow is 28 day jab day, not my favourite time.

Monday arrives and take my vitals, all good, and shower before walking down to the GP surgery to get my jab. My regular nurse is there and kindly tries to find a non lumpy part of my gut to pump the thick liquid into. Once in I get a fluffy cloud and a bit of tape and we then book the next one and this time an extra set of bloods. I leave and get a paper before going to the pub for breakfast. I know that I’m good for the rest of the morning to do stuff but I know that as the day goes on I will get post jab symptoms of chills, shakes and fatigue.

I get home and then set about a raft of life admin that means calls and emails, but by the mid afternoon I’ve updated my Green Flag requirements, chased the solid roof for my new shed, booked my M.O.T and found shelf space for the folding camping chairs in the new shed. By the time the Tesco guy arrives early I am knackered and already taken my first paracetamol. I am feeling shivery and junkie like as I draft the blog, not quite sure how the rest of the day will go. The usual response to these jabs is that I get to be a withdrawing junkie for about 48 hours after the jab but sometimes it persists for 72 hours. So now I will settle down as the Tesco delivery has been done and I have drafted the blog to see how my evening goes. Sometimes I fall asleep other times I get very restless. There is nothing I can do other than take paracetamol and sit it out and now I can hold onto the fact that I am metastasis free according to my latest scan. Pace is the key I think, that and wonderful sights, like bees on a sunflower.

Saturday and I sit to write the blog as I stand guard over my youngest grandson while my partner and youngest daughter go to shop for light continental food for super after a day of barbequing and celebrating my youngest grandsons second birthday. Its been a day of relatives and therefore joyous but tiring. Strictly speaking my grandsons birthday is on Monday but getting everyone together is a weekend job, besides which I cannot stay till Monday as that it is the day of my next 28 day injection. It is just another way my cancer intrudes into what would be a normal life.

Today has been full of vaguely remembered people from other family gatherings and tentative hellos. There has been lots of open air as the family meets in at a BBQ site in the forest of Dean and children are collectively overseen and cared for by grand parents and uncles and aunts. Its a lovely day and by the end of birthday cake and family photos everyone is ready to head for home with some gathering again in a relatives house. I along with my crew return to the house where we settle for the evening. I am out of spoons and very tired so draft the blog early and hope for a quiet evening and a good last of the women’s quarter finals in the football. Tonight France play Germany. I am feeling very “itchy scratchy” the familiar feeling at the end of my 28 day cycle, it means I can only do things in short bursts as it is difficult too maintain focus and concentration. This is never a good time for me to take decisions and my dyslexia plays havoc with my writing and typing. So this is all I am going to write for today and devote the rest of the evening to resting until I take my night meds, strap on my finger splint and go to bed. I’m all in.

Friday and its all about travel today. I am up early and into the shower before making my partner a drink. She has had a bad night and takes a while to get up and about and into the shower. We have a slow couple of ours as we pull ourselves around and I pack the car.

The journey down to he forest of Dean to my youngest daughters is uneventful and a good run meaning that I get to our destination in good time. Despite this I find that am tired, the effort of driving is more than it used to be. So the afternoon is slow and filed with playing with m youngest grandson, who appears to have bound less energy. Pie is made for tea and afterwards the youngest grandson goes to bed and his father goes off to a gaming evening with his friends. My partner, youngest daughter and I watch a couple of episodes of a thriller while I have the Spain v Switzerland quarter final on the laptop playing silently. With the effort of the day catching up with me and Spain winning 2-0 I take my night meds and go to bed. The mattress topper that I had bought and sent to my youngest daughter was a stroke of genius. The spare bed where I and my partner sleep when we visit is transformed, not a spring to be felt anywhere. The result was that I fell quickly asleep, something that had not happened before in this bed.

Thursday and I am tired right from the start of the day. Its cancer treatment tired at the end of of my 28 day injection cycle. I recognise it now on a regular basis, it means I have very few spoons of energy to spend so will have to prioritise what I do today. It means a late rising and a slow start to the day. So by the time I have cooked breakfast and cleared away its almost 11 o’clock. I pack my overnight bag in readiness for tomorrows travel to my youngest daughters to see my youngest grandson over his second birthday weekend. With that out of the way I prepare to go to the post office to send a letter that I wrote yesterday.

I am accompanied to the post office by my partner and eldest daughter. My partner is seething as the delivery driver who delivered a birthday book in a brown paper envelope has obviously just thrown it over the gate where is has got saturated and ruined. So its going back with some strong feedback to Evri whose delivery person it was who was too fucking idle to open the gate and put it in the porch. I think I have captured the appropriate level of irritation. My eldest daughter was desperately seeking a bag big enough to contain a huge cuddly toy dog that gives birth to four puppies. With all our missions complete we return home.

Once home I do the days three crosswords as I sit on the sofa to cool down. The tiredness comes with hot flushes, which are a pain in muggy weather. With the crosswords done, all without the aid of Google to day, I take my partner out for drinks and sandwiches before popping into the garage to check the car tyres and fill the tank before tomorrows drive to the forest of Dean. So with all the preparations for travel done I return home and once again retreat to the sofa to cool down only to be interrupted by the garden guy arriving, who needs squash, instruction and money before I can begin to draft the blog.

Apart from being interrupted by a squirrel on the front garden the day has been one of mundane preparation but in fairness the squirrel was rather appealing. No sign of yesterdays hedgehog yet.

My evening will be geared to two things. One watching the English women’s football team take on Sweden in the European quarter final and two, getting to bed as soon as possible tonight so as to rise early and travel in the morning. Simple ambitions, what could possibly go wrong.