Friday, I wake up after a reasonable night and check my cyber messages, mail and litter. With that done I check my vitals, all good there, and then what sport and programmes are on today. My partner brings me a hot water and then my final pre rising act is to book tickets for Carmen in April. With all that life admin done I get up and make myself breakfast, during which I check the blog and begin todays version. The world is then my oyster.

It is not long before I am hanging up my washing and then heading for the Shed to write more letters. The air is feeling chilly and I hunker down in the Shed and scribble away stopping only to get an apple to nibble and my seal ring to seal the letters. I pack up my things but before I leave the Shed I refill the bird and squirrel feeders. The trip to the post office tells me that it is getting colder. I post my letters, grab a paper and return home to do the crosswords. Today I am on form and flash through the crosswords without having to resort to Google. I note I am flagging and watch the quarter final of the snooker as I try to muster more spoons to get through the evening.

The evening arrives and there is no word from the book project team so I guess that will be that for the weekend. I dine with the family and then return to drafting the blog and watching the second snooker quarter final of the day. There is a choice of things to watch tonight and I am not sure what I will end up doing. I am bored drinking hot water so I get a selection box of teas out of the kitchen cabinet that was a present from a friend a long time ago and have a go a at one of the berry ones. It brings taste and a much appreciated change to my taste buds. I shall work my way through them and see what grabs my attention.

Already my attention has turned to tomorrow when with luck and a following wind my partner and I will go shopping for a new mattress. Neither of us can tolerate our current one any longer and we both agree we need a much firmer mattress. Shopping is not my favourite activity but needs must.

During today I re-read my two most recent poems that are rather dark and decided I would share one. I think it exemplifies how under my mundane life at the moment there is an undercurrent of cancer that continually flows and affects me.

I’ve just seen myself,
I’ve been written down on a form, 
“my terminally ill husband”.
Just when I thought I was getting away with it.
Of course, I’m not stupid, 
I know the score, 
My bladder and my gut
tell me everyday 
it’s getting worse. 
Pain when I piss, sometimes,
unpredictable bowel movements,
it’s all there,
written in the toilet,
where no one wants to go, 
least of all me.
I was scared enough as it was,
But now my not so secret,
Secret is out, 
I’m terrified. 
My drink of necessity is now hot water,
my food plain,
my hope draining away.
This is a terrible place to be,
I try to move and find I am pinned.
I flounder and thrash a little
as I try to see a poetry book through.
I try to fight, to see things happen,
to put up a good show,
but its miserable and 
I can’t help knowing it’s going to get worse.
Its stark and bony
like my poetry,
like stepping from light to dark. 
There is no argument to be had. 
This is how it is,
and yet I want to fight,
to struggle and to go on.
It seems rude not to,
a betrayal of the those that love me, 
So just one more poem, 
one more moment of trying 
to capture the moment, 
to be honest,
and to be alive.
Maybe, just maybe,
this is the side effects 
of Chemo and twenty-eight day jabs,
but palliative means “sorry mate,
your fucked.” 
But pity me at your peril,
I have pen and ink
and in these I have strength. 
I am scared but not defeated,
I will fight, 
I will find ways for little victories
before I go down,
I’ve not even reached 
the morphine stage yet.																		

Thursday and I wake after a reasonable nights sleep. The usual checks on my phone get made and before I get up I check my vitals. There is no sign of the first draft of my book. I have breakfast and then I get myself off to the Shed. I stay there all morning writing letters until I take a break for lunch. I return to the Shed to keep catching up with my correspondence. The afternoon darkens and by four o’clock I have finished my letters. I have enough time to close up the Shed and make the trip to the post office to send my letters on their way, taking the opportunity to pick up paper and some chocolate.

On returning home I find that there is an email that has the initial draft of my book with it. I open it and my initial response is one of disappointment. I had set my expectations too high. I put it aside for a while and then returned to it to pick it apart and make feedback notes for the production team. When I was clear about what I want I emailed the team and told them what I actually want. An acknowledgement came back quickly but I now have to wait to see if I am getting closer to actually having a book. The evening rocks up and Amazon delivers my new fluffy training bottoms that I’ve taken to wearing for comfort when at home. I eat with my partner before she does her singing lesson and I watch a snooker match. My evening concludes with drafting the blog and night meds. I wonder how my book is going to turn out. Tomorrow I must make the effort to get out of the house and be a bit more active. Today has been a day of catching up with my letter writing now I need to move on.

Wednesday and I wake to a cold and frosty morning so I huddle down and do my usual cyber checks for messages and litter. Before getting up I’ve done a Tesco order, taken my vitals, checked televised sport (none today worth watching), checked my internet banking and bought some new fluffy joggers. So by the time I get up and dress the basics are done.

Breakfast is a fried egg sandwich and more hot water, morning meds and then I check my blog to see if anyone is looking at it. So my day starts with a quick blog update and I plan the rest of the day. I am quite excited by the fact that the first draft of my book is supposed to arrive today but as its coming from America its going to be later in the day. There is life admin to be done and some domestic chores till lunch rolls round and my partner and I settle down to a bacon sandwich. My partner has been filling in forms and in them I am referred to as “husband who has a terminal illness”, it struck a chord and I start a poem which I continue after lunch when my partner goes to see her mother. Like the poem I wrote two or three days ago it is dark and raw and again I do not feel able to share it here just yet. I need time to think my poems through before I put them here even though access to this site is confined to friends and family.

Its a cold day and I am still sore from Mondays injection so rather than heading for the Shed I hunker down on the sofa and write letters and watch a snooker match. Snooker can be addictive, I am discovering, and when people play poorly I realise just how skilled the good players actually are and that there is a fine line between the two states. I am engrossed in a final frame decider when I realise I’ve missed the post and all I can usefully do is bring the bins in and clear the place up a bit.

My partner returns from visiting her mother and our evening begins. Food followed by an evenings TV entertainment. Every so often I check my email in the hope that the first draft of my poetry book has arrived but I need to be patient and remember that America is many hours behind us, but I am curious to say the least. I guess it may not arrive before I’ve taken my night meds and retired for the night so it will be a Thursday delight, fingers crossed.

Tuesday and it was a rugged night as my jab side effects kicked in. When I woke my partner had gone to work and I settle down to check my messages and cyber litter. I take my vitals and find them to be all good, and am considering breakfast when a friend rings me up to wish me Happy New Year. We compare notes about our festive seasons and all that has been going on for us. Its a real pleasure to have the conversation and t catch up with we both are at the moment. There is significant juggling for both us to do in this new year to keep our energy and to achieve what we want to. After forty minutes we say farewell and I head off for breakfast and my morning meds.

I am sore from yesterdays injection and I had already decided to have an easy day so I sit on the sofa and eat my fried egg sandwich watching the last episodes of series 3 of the Mandalorian. By lunchtime I have finished my binge watch and make myself lunch. I send a couple of messages to the crew in America to chase my book and get very predicable chat bot responses back. I watch Wonder Woman on Disney+ and continue my lazy afternoon watching the snooker on TV while starting to draft the blog. While doing this I nibble snacks and rediscover apples. I realise that my fruit consumption of late has dropped off radically so it was nice to rediscover the humble apple. A quick sortie to put the bins out for tomorrow and before my partner returns from work tells me how cold it is outside.

My partner returns from work and we chat about the day and how we are before we slip into the evening. For me it will be a continuation of my resting and making my way to an early night. So far I’ve managed to avoid taking paracetamol and have kept myself comfortable. I’m hoping I can maintain this. If I can, then perhaps I will be a little more adventurous tomorrow. Sometimes I feel like I need to crawl through the mine fields before I can fight again.

Jab Monday rolls up and I am awake at 7:30. Today is the fourth anniversary of ending Chemo I back in January 2020. So here I am still having my 28 day jab regular as clockwork. I am not sure whether to take comfort from that or not. My partner brings me my morning hot water and I check my messages, emails and cyber litter as usual. I am reluctant to get up and choose to do my vitals. They are all okay, so the arithmetic keeps being right. I watch a couple of comedy snippets from my news feed and finally decide to get up. Having got dressed I have a clear out of old drugs and out of date COVID tests, before having breakfast. I put todays Jab on the radiator to warm through as an experiment. I am hoping it will cut down the viscosity of it so it goes in easier later in the day. I do not want to keep taking prophylactic paracetamol as I think it causes constipation and I can do without that. So on this jab I’m going to try and ride out the side effects. Not what I would ideally like to be thinking about on a Monday morning but there you go. I was think about what people with cancer do apart from having cancer. Of course I do a lot of ordinary stuff, life is full of that. I know some people go on a “mission” a sort of “fuck cancer” life statement but I am more into being in the ordinary. The ordinary of life for me holds a lot of wonder so I am content with that. Plus the fact that is what my energy levels (spoons) allows me to do most of.

So having done breakfast I cast around for my next ordinary and find that the tumble dryer has stopped working. It has stopped rotating so its a case of clearing out the filters and then when it still wont play nicely, takin gits back off. Of course that requires clearing everything out around it including lost socks adn other items that have fallen down the back of it. With it in a cleared work space I get the back off and inspect and then manipulate the drive motor. It has jammed due to the front door filter having been full, that’s the power of aggregated fluff for you. A little gentle teasing unlocks the motor and it is soon rotating and driving the drum. Having done this manually I test run it dry for a few minutes. All good so I add a pair of wet jeans on quick dry to check all is really good. On checking the garments are still damp so I pop them back in on a longer cycle to check the drying elements are actually working.

I while away the time drafting the blog as the window cleaner creates the illusion of rain outside. I’m not sure if the windows are any cleaner after they have been. I feel like I’ve entered into a collusion of some kind but I am not sure what. I’m not an expert on window cleanness and I am not sure I can tell the difference between the effects of the window cleaner and a bloody good downpour. I take it as an act of faith that the window cleaner is worth the monthly £22. I BACS the money with my usual text follow up as evidence I’ve paid and that’s it for another month. So I settle in for the rest of my day, looking forward to lunch, taking in the Tesco delivery and then going for my jab, after having my seeing a medic shower of course. After that the dark will set in.

I lunch with my partner after moving the car of the drive so Tesco can deliver an discover how cold it is out side. I settle down to read for a while. Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari is the book, a present from a friend at Christmas. I have read his other book Sapiens, but Homo Deus is a prediction of what humans will become. It was published in 2016 and has as its last section The Data Religion and it is now out of date in that the explosion of AI has gone far beyond the predicted dataism that Harari foresaw. He does however raise the interesting the questions of the future, the most interesting and challenging being “what will happen so society, politics and daily life when non-conscious but highly intelligent algorithms know us better than we know ourselves?” One recent study, post Homo Deus, showed that Google based on a 100 likes was better at predicting what choices we would make than our closest and most intimate friends. So how has society, politics and your daily life changed? My own thought is to engage with the algorithms as little as possible but assume that the “world” knows everything about me anyway and to not give a toss. I have no Facebook or TikTok, my X account has never been used (I never really understood how to use it). My phone is my personal assistant, message taker and sender. Anything not a personal letter, a bill or a hospital appointment that comes through the post gets binned. Cold callers on the phone have it put down them, I buy nothing at the door or by phone. I am interrupted by my Tesco delivery.

The evening is front loaded with the Mandalorian and then moves onto the BBCs quiz evening and the new series of Silent Witness. As I watch and try oy relax I can feel my injection site getting sore and my spoons ebbing away. Because I had the jab later than usual I am going to bed knowing its going to get worse during the night and I will be waking up with it getting worse. I wash my night meds down with a 0%rum and coke and finish off the blog. Tricky times.

Saturday and little of it remains as I write this on the Sunday. It was a bad as I woke with very few spoons. I did not feel fit for anything really and had hit a low. I remember spending lot of time deleting over a thousand redundant photos off my camera before getting up. Once up I wrote a poem trying to allay my fears and put into words where I was. It was a grim strophe that I do not think belongs here at the moment, perhaps when a little more time has passed. Having completed it I tried to make an effort to get myself going, or at least make an effort so I washed out the stinky kitchen bin, giving it a good hose out and a bleaching while my partner was out at the garden centre buying vegetables. The rest of the day was a slothful mixture of football, rugby and the rest of Fool Me Once. By the time night meds came around I had nothing left. My new addition to my diet is hot water, in my paranoid state I think anything like coffee or diet coke irritates my bladder and contributes to my discomfort, so at the moment I am hot water total.

Sunday and I wake up, weigh myself and find myself to be 99 kilos a loss of half a kilo over last week. It is just reward for no sweets or biscuits, cake or other sweet goodies alongside my hot water regime. A small step but a forward one. I am very sleepy and do not really wake up until my partner brings me a hot water. Slowly I surface and get down to a breakfast of bacon sandwich ad another cup of hot water with traces of kettle fur. I have a burst of activity and with the help of my eldest daughter I get the Christmas boxes into the loft and the new rat proof bird seed bin, with seed, into the garden Shed. The final act was for us to find I home for the artificial Xmas tree in the garage, all neatly boxed and taped back up for next year.

Continuing in an energy burst the family sat down and pawed over the plans for the proposed new drive and patio. Eventually we reached agreement on what we thought was best. It will not change the bottom line by much but it will make the whole project clearer and simpler. Having reached a consensus I draft and email to the person who has sent the quote and share it with my partner before sending it off into cyber space. I take my vitals, which are once again okay and then draft the blog. Its afternoon already and I feel myself flag and also thinking about my pre-emptive paracetamol given that tomorrow is jab Monday. This month my jab time is 4 ‘clock in the afternoon, which means I will get my side effects through the night and the following 36 hours. Since being on this latest bout of Chemo these side effects seem exacerbated and last longer, perhaps by as much as another 24 hours. Its not fun so I plan my schedule to try and take this into account. Perhaps there is time for afternoon tea and a scone somewhere.

There is indeed time for an afternoon jaunt to the favourite garden centre tea room where I indulge in the full Monty hot chocolate and a toasted tea cake. It is here that there is a serious conversation about moving house or extending the existing one and the potential of developing the garden. My partner and I left having had our conversation and returned home. I settled down to watch a third round FA cup match which conveniently concluded just as the evening meal was ready. The evening is TV and blog as I watch the new series of Vera. Vera is a secret passion. As the evening goes on I begin to calculate when to start taking my prophylactic paracetamol to counter tomorrows twenty eight day jab. I settle for an early take to give my gut a break before I take todays Chemo before bed. And so it goes, the next cycle.

Friday, its been a bad gut day, just one of those days when all that is upper most in my mind is the state of my gut. Occasionally I get these days, I suspect it is a combination of my medication and muesli. So today I just list what I’ve done between being concerned about my gut.

• Deleted over 1000 images off my phone
• Filled in new years wall calendar
• Took the Christmas decorations down, striped the tree and re-boxed it
• Collected the next lot of drugs from the chemist
• Read a letter from a friend.
• Took delivery of 15K of bird seed and a rat proof storage bin.
• Watched more Mandalorian and binge watched Fool Me Once on Netflix.

I finally get to the end of the day, take my meds and go to bed with a growling gut knowing that I am heading towards Jab Monday. This is not a good place to be right now, so I hope for sleep and a settled gut in the morning. Not too much to ask is it?

Thursday arrives and I am awake early for me. I check my cyber litter and messages and then get up. Before long I am walking down to get a paper and then on to the village café for breakfast. I settle down and tuck into to both the crosswords and the breakfast. Its a treat for me and I sit in the window and watch my village as I listen to the various people who pop into the café for their cobs and take away breakfast boxes. Once I have finished the crosswords I meander home and take my vitals before getting my vitals spreadsheet up to date. Having got up to date I start the work on my second poetry collection in anticipation of the first one going to plan. It is my Hotels and Restaurants collection, which have to admit has its darker moments and some quite acidic times. I clearly did not think much of Hull or Middlesbrough but I doubt anyone is going to read them anyway. This is after all is vanity poetry. While I am doing this my two new baseball caps arrive. These are the result of a conversation in which my partner said she never knew when I was available for a conversation or not. Jokingly she suggested I should have hats that told her when I am available. Well I’ve taken her at her word and today they arrived. So now I can be undisturbed or available as I like.

Einstein requested that his first wife stopped talking to him if he requested it. This was one amongst many conditions that were made as his relationship with his first wife fell apart. Clearly Einstein was a real bastard but I think it is helpful to let people know if you are “in” or “out”. I like to think my hats are more like Granny Weatherwax’s notice of “I ain’t dead” which she displayed when she was off possessing animals. She always had trouble retuning from bees as it left her head in a buzzing condition when she retuned fully to herself. I clearly have times when I am “out” when I am writing or trying to think through things in my head, or just following an idea or fantasy. My partner likes them so we will see how they work. I sit drafting the blog wearing “I am out” of course. I’ve no doubt that should a real crisis arrive my “I Am Out” state will be overridden. Note the colour coding, red and green, the closest I could get to having a traffic light implanted in my forehead. So much done and its only 13:50 .

I return to my poetry and begin to work on my Herod’s Children collection. A small collection, but everyone of them has been rejected for publication or competition. So I am going to publish my failures as an act of defiance to the poetry industry and a true piece of vanity publishing. I would not mind being the Florence Foster Jenkins (born Narcissa Florence Foster) of vanity poetry. Unlike her I would understand the mockery, she was by all accounts well named as Narcissa, although many think she knew exactly what she was doing. Apparently she trained in opera and thought that smoking, booze and debauchery ruined her voice. They flocked to Carnegie Hall to hear her. Two days after Carnegie Hall she had a heart attack and died two months later. That bit I do not intend to copy.

I finish what I am doing and find myself up stairs with my training kit bag open in front of me. Instinctively I pull on some gear, plug my ear buds in and head for the garage, with the the words of the oncologist ringing in my ears, “once you stop its difficult to start again” and ” exercise is the best way to counter the drug side effects”. Once in the garage note the rower display is blank. Its a heart sink moment, I really can’t be arsed to be pissing around with batteries and a screw driver. Muttering “FFS” I slap the display and miraculously springs into life, it clearly realises I’m in no mood to be buggered about. I strap in, set the controls and fitness tracker for 30 minutes and get going. Christ this is hard work is my over whelming feeling, everything bloody hurts and it takes me a while to get into a rhythm but I keep going. I make it to the end of the thirty minutes and I also make 6 kilometres! This is a big surprise.

I get back to the warmth of the lounge and record the session in my journal. I count back to the last time I trained and I am shocked to find it is 48 days. Not since the 16th of November have I trained. In fairness to me there has been a lot of crap happen in that time but I am taken aback by the time. Its little wonder that this session was so much hard work and makes getting to 6+ kilometres a good out come. I am so delighted to have come through this session that I am inclined to have a 0% Captain Morgan’s spiced rum and coke and a wedge of Pantone. What a find Captain Morgan’s 0% rum is, I can rum and coke to my hearts content and as it is on offer at £10 a bottle at Tesco its an affordable indulgence.

Time to change and transition into the evening, where hopefully we shall eat and find something to entertain me as I am out of spoons now. I expect the Americans doing stuff on my book (just cannot get over that) may send stuff over in the night as they are at least eight hours behind us, so I might get a late email with material to review. For today having trained will have to do me. Tomorrow I need to follow up with more rowing. Go me. Friends tell me that schools are still out, which feels appropriately Christmassy and something to celebrate, school did nothing for me as a dyslexic in the 50’s and 60’s. I was up the back plating raffia while the normals did real school work and learning. Yorkshire education authority did not recognise dyslexia as a thing in those days , typically bloody minded, ignorant and tight fisted Yorkshire. Today I would have been labelled neuro divergent and provided with all sorts of techno goodies and green gel sheets. However here I am with a blog. Go me again.

Welcome to Wednesday the third of January and the first day of Cycle 8 of chemotherapy II. Not a catchy tittle but it does what it says on the can. I woke to a day where I had nothing in the diary, a good day to get a grip and start up properly. My partner brought me coffee and we mused over whether or not the bin men would take the huge additional box of cardboard I put out last night. My first task is to play “get a doctors appointment”. This is of course familiar to everyone now. Ring and get engaged for at least ten minutes. Ring and get through but put on hold for ten minutes. Eventually the cheery person at the other end books you in. Fortunately for me this bit always goes smoothly as I am booking my next jab Monday. I usually get an early morning one but this time it at 4 o’clock in the afternoon. This is a bit of a bugger as it means my “withdrawing addict post jab symptoms” will not kick in until the night, which is never good as it coincides with my chemo meds effects. In the end I get up slowly and head for the kitchen where I load up the sultana jars and prepare muesli for the first time in ages. With muesli and hot water in hand I sit on the sofa just as the bin men arrive. I see them inspect the additional huge box of paper and carboard and sigh with relief as they toss it in to the lorry. Hurray I think inwardly. Now for my muesli.

It is strange how life can turn from mild elation to one of “Of for fuck sake”. Three mouthfuls of muesli into breakfast and my temporary crown comes off in my mouth. I blaspheme profusely and reach for my phone. So I go through the same routine as I went through with the doctor less than forty minutes ago. I explain my predicament and to my surprise the receptionist finds me an appointment in fifteen minutes. I quickly dress for the outside world, swill my mouth with mouthwash and head out with my detached crown in a clean envelope. Its not long before I am handing my envelop and disgraced crown to the dentist who gives me an “Oh dear, muesli is soft” and then tells me she is putting on a different type of temporary crown. In a trice I am on my back and bespectacled with the yellow shields and she gets to work on me in double quick time. With my orders not to eat for two hours and to keep mini brushing the gaps ( I hate those damn things) I leave free of charge and buy a paper on my way home.

The crosswords are tricky, or so I think, but I just have a slow start and I am soon giving myself ticks for completing my usual puzzles. As my partner prepares to go to see her mother with her brother I get organised to go to the Shed for the first time this year. The Shed feels damp and so I put the heater on full blast and light my scented candles as I settle into write my first letter of the year. I am distressed to find that my new writing paper will not take real ink. As I write the ink slowly blurs and looks like the smudged handwriting of a school boy, the gorilla of 4B to be precise. That young boy who is ferally mucky and disruptive who gives not a fig for tidy anything. I change to a conventional rollerball and proceed. There I sit trying to write my first letter of the year and it is sticky, sometimes the flow is not there or difficult to get going but I persevere to the point that my seal ring and wax are required. On my way back to the house to get my seal rings I am surprised by the first snowdrop. In all this miserable wet weather it is a most welcome sight and lifts me.

I complete my letter and pack up the Shed for today, but not before filing the squirrel feeder and discovering that rats or mice have chewed through the bird food storage box. The plastic box is wrecked and so I order a metal replacement, they will have to forage elsewhere. I also drain the top two sections of the water butt to ensure it can cope with more rain. Jobs done, Shed packed, I return to the house and then take a brief walk to the Post Office to send my letter on its way. By now I am hungry as I have not eaten since seeing the dentist earlier. I make coffee and cut myself a piece of panettone to eat while I draft the blog.

The evening comes around and I am feeling tired already so I suspect I shall eat and watch some television whilst putting new laces in my blue boots. Of course there are the first tablets of Cycle 8 of Chemo II to be taken before bed and then hopefully a peaceful nights sleep to be had. Tomorrow is another day with nothing in the diary but it could turn out to be as eventful as today, although I might get a head start on putting the Christmas decorations away and finding somewhere to store the new artificial tree. To my surprise before I get to go to bed the 2 format examples of the propose poetry book comes through. I review them and send my preference to what I am convinced is a chat bot or some sort of AI, but I do not care as it appears that progress is being made. As its all happening in America there is a time lag so I expect I shall wake up to more emails from my “project team”. Fairly soon my first concrete steps towards being England’s foremost vanity poet will be made.

Tuesday the 2nd of January, the 15th anniversary of my mothers death. I do not think about it often but having spent most of last year surrounded by the family documents and creating a family tree I guess such stuff is rolling around in the background of my mind. I certainly remember the visits to the hospital with my sister and the some of the aftermath, although in reality my sister dealt with much of that. It was the last time that a substantial number of my relatives were alive and fit enough to attend the funeral and the post event drinks back at the house. My recall is probably sketchy but I do remember thinking that the family was full of odd folk who seemed to lack social skills, I think it is a major trait of that side of my family. Any way I woke up with these thoughts in my head until I remembered that I was going to the dentist at 10:30am to have work done for a crown.

So I went into healthcare mode, shower (must never be smelly for a doctor or a dentist), light breakfast with morning meds followed by what I always hope is a redeeming long cleaning of the teeth. Its pissing with rain and I realise that the current stock of footwear that I have in the porch is not suitable for the weather. I rummage in a storage cupboard and emerge with my blue boots. I’ve had these a while but not worn them too often but now they come to my rescue. I order new laces for them as I think I’m going to be wearing them a lot this winter and spring judging by the forecast. The rain is very heavy so once again I resort to my old prison service parka, built to keep out a raging torrent and enough pockets to keep all the paraphernalia of the job dry. So encased in waterproof wear I march down to the street to the dentists but before ensuring that my son in Sweden is able to pick up the last of the delayed Christmas present for my granddaughter.

I arrive promptly on the dot of 10:30 and I am in the chair very quickly. I’m having a crown on a big back molar. Mercifully I am injected with the magic potion to make half my mouth numb and once I am impervious to pain the work begins. My mouth becomes an excavation site, I am drilled, plugged, drilled some more, once again rough drilled and have a trough of putty stuck in my mouth before I am once more drilled. I’ve got an entire building site of equipment in my mouth at times. Having been demolished down to pure virgin tooth I am reconstructed until finally my excellent dentist matches me up for colour and prepares a temporary crown. She also uses a scanner to send off data so that the lab can 3D print my final crown. (That bit is really cool, the rest isn’t so much). My temporary crown gets fitted and I receive instruction on how to look after it till the real one arrives and we book a date to do that. I went in at 10:30 and walked out at 12:00pm. Its been a solid hour and a half of jaw aching dentistry. I pass reception paying a deposit on my crown and wander home in the unrelenting rain. That has been a long morning and I quietly wait for the feeling in my mouth to return and the ache in my jaw to stop.

Once home I move the car off the drive so that Tesco can deliver and then draft the blog while waiting till I feel safe to drink tomato soup with out ending up looking like an over indulgent vampire who has rushed his meal. As the feeling in my mouth returns so does my appetite.

I lunch and then spend an afternoon looking over some proposals to change our drive way and patio. There is a message from HMRC which I check out to find that they have yet to process my payment so they are still sending me emails telling me I owe them. The evening draws in and after a tea we settle down to binge watch the second series of Tourist until I can take no more and put the bins out, down my night meds and go to bed. My jaw aches from the days dentist adventure, tomorrow my diary is empty so I am hoping to get back to simple things like reading, writing a letter and rowing.