Tuesday I wake surprisingly perky and in a definite up yours mood. I get up and make drinks for my partner and I and take my vitals. All good I am pleased to say. I eschew reading and prefer to check my messages and mail. Nothing, so be it, I get up an dress ready to go out, for this morning I and my partner are off to the Rockpool Café for breakfast. Because we can and its a holiday. I take my morning meds before stepping out into the rain. All I can say is thankfully I had the sense to put my Heli Hanson rain wear in the car before we came.

Having taken the short step to the Rockpool we settled in at a table and ordered breakfast. My eggs Benedict with salmon and a large hot chocolate were a real treat, which I enjoyed immensely, even to the point of eating all the spinach that came with it. Such a surprise to my partner that she wondered if I had hidden it in a napkin. A good breakfast is no substitute for sunshine but this one certainly helped. After loitering in the warmth of the café we head for the shops to buy tonight’s tea and to replenish this nibbles store. It rains of course but we achieve our targets adn return to the apartment to stow the goodies adn then go out again to get stamps and some odds and ends.

Back at the apartment I settle down to do the crosswords in todays paper and to have a cup of decaf. I breeze through the cross words and move onto selecting which poem I am going to take to the Poetry Stanza on Saturday. I have some newish ones but I go for one I wrote on the Arvon course at the end of 2021. We were asked to write something in response to a New York Times short story about a man called Anders who gets himself shot dead because he laughs in a bank robbery when the robbery uses the word Capiche. I have met and worked with many of these sorts of Capiche guys so I wrote my version. I add that I never laughed out loud at them although I was inwardly amused at times.

Capiche!
Like Anders I laugh
Aping the Cat A
Walk, bow legged
Arms akimbo
Like a carpet
Deliverer having
Lost his rolls.
A tattooed strut
That says;
“Does it look like
I’ve got Victim
On my forehead?”
Hours in the gym
Putting on the armour
To ward of anyone, 
To be safe.
This is the image.
Poke your finger 
Through it and feel
The empty space.
The person so lost 
That they became the image.
This is what you see
This is what you get
Capiche?

So I send my poem off to the group and see how it goes down at Saturdays meeting over zoom. The rain breaks and the sun comes out as I finish the first drafting of todays blog content. Now is the time to dash out and walk, eat ice cream and play crazy golf in any order, or dally a while and eat cream and jam laden scones.

As it turns out I and my partner manage both a round of crazy windy golf and a walk along the back of the long natural pebble ridge that runs the length of Westwood Ho! beach. It seems that the Northam borough council has a whimsical sense of humour as they warn people not to take pebble or the elves will get them. Here is the proof.

On retuning to the apartment I check my vitals and then spend some time reading Cloud Atlas. As the sun comes out my partner and I eat our traditional Devon pasties tea. The evening stretches into continuing to watch a Spy Amongst Friends and finally to taking my night meds and heading for bed. I am finally spoonless.

Monday and I wake in a very strange state. Post dreaming of fish tanks, monkeys and mermaids, it all seemed so real and bizarre. It takes me a while to get up, when my partner makes me a defcaff coffee. Its wet, its warm, it has a vague coffeeish taste but basically its not coffee and tastes crap. It does get my intestines working and makes me crave food. We have breakfast and I take my morning meds. I am still not sure what my dreams were about, I’ll work on it later. Its raining hard and people are huddling by with hoods up and not looking kike they are having fun at all. I do my vitals, all good there and settle down to doing sod all really apart from a welcome shower, where I notice how long my hair is getting. I check my messages, my emails and other bits and bobs on the laptop. I notice I have some files in my emails that are redundant, as for instance one for some one who died a while ago and a company I did some work for. There are one or two others that need to go. So I erase them. Strangely later in the day as I walk the beach a short poem occurs to me as I ponder the going of old messages.

The pyre burns
Words to ashes
And I grieve.
Left with the 
Imperscriptibilty
Of experience.  

After much lazing about the rain abates and my partner and I got to shop for odds and ends. With limited success we called a halt and dropped into a little café for a late lunch. We decide to dine then as the tide was still going out and making room for us to walk the beach later. We ordered and waited and admired the wall paintings done on what looked like old pallets. I quite liked them.

Having eaten (note to self, body doesn’t like cucumber any more) my partner and I go shopping for tonight’s late tea, simple nibbles stuff with no cooking required, my partners plea. We return to the apartment and stow the food and try to decide what is appropriate clothing for the beach walk. Footwear is proving to be an issue and in the end I decide to use my boat shoes. So we set off across the moist sands of Westward Ho! with an eye on the leaden skies. I’m not enthusiastic but I am not training today so I make the effort. Its a walk to and back from the coast guard station. By the time I return to the jetty I am tired and by the time I am back at the apartment my feet are complaining. I change and find my feet have bled slightly where the shoes have rubbed so I discard them and settle down with the paper to do the cross words and begin to draft the blog. I do the early evening vitals and return to the blog, all the time the rain worsens and people become fewer and fewer passing our sea front patio. I suspect I will succumb to Wimbledon or a film tonight punctuated by our picnic tea at some point. Then the inevitable night meds and bed, perchance to dream again. Perhaps more mermaids as I am by the ocean.

Its Sunday my first full day without the new drugs, it feels okay. My partner brings me decaf coffee in bed and we plan the day. I do my vitals, all good and then we have breakfast against a darkening background out to sea. We go to Tesco to get a paper and tonight’s meal and then we take the long way back to the apartment to gauge the receding high tide and to see what the life guards do at that time.

Back on our patio we do crosswords and read until the the approaching downpour reaches us. Its inside for a while as we watch the heavy rain.

At this point after a conversation with my partner who complained that I did not give due credit for her hole in one on the crazy golf course yesterday, so below I post the score card. Note the mighty hole in one on the tricky 10th hole.

I continue to do crosswords and for the first time in my life actually complete a general knowledge one and pop it in an envelope to see if I can win the £1500 prize. I doubt very much that I am going to be first out of the winning correct bag. I brief lunch follows and as it is still overcast and chilly I start to draft the blog, empty the dishwasher and prepare for the beach walk that has become part of the daily routine. However due to the inclement weather my partner and I walk up to the “haunted house” and back to the now busy ice ream van where we indulge in post walk 99s.

Its afternoon vitals time, which are all good, and then I boxercise for a while just to feel I am fighting back a bit on holiday. It would seem that the freebees that come with David Lloyd membership are being useful at last. The boxercise earns me Physical Activity Intelligence points and keeps me above the 100 PAI mark, which is the level at which it is claimed people live longer if they maintain it. Got to be worth a try and it adds discipline to the one thing I can do to help myself fight cancer medication side effects. I am appalled at my loss of agility and bendiness, I have some strength (avoid being frail at all costs)and some capacity for endurance but no suppleness. I need to begin to do some yoga before I seize up completely, perhaps a retreat, time to get my friends book out and use it.

By early evening the sun comes out, England win at cricket and Westwood Ho! has the buzz of an English resort on a Sunday evening as it braces itself for the season to start properly with the release of children from learning prisons all over the country. Fresh pasta for supper tonight and probably time on the sofa with a book or TV. If I am lucky I might get to see a sunset, one of those where if you listen carefully you can hear the Shhhh as it sinks into the sea and switches night on. Mmm that what comes of seeing my first rabbit among the beach huts today whilst on our walk.

Its Saturday and last night was the last of my chemo drugs. What starts now is an interval week before my next cycle starts so I may find myself experiencing something different for a while. I make drinks for my partner and I and then do my vitals before breakfast. The tide is up so there is no morning beach walk, its time to shop for tonight’s meal. Tesco provides what we need including a paper which I take back to the apartment and extract the crosswords from.

I settle down to write postcards. Its a tradition I like and I like to try and find something to to say, I’m not sure I succeed but I give it a go. Lunch comes and goes and the tide recedes enough for an afternoon saunter down the beach. My partner and I walk for an hour up and down discussing things like who is good and bad in We Hunt Together and the related issues of keeping ones feet on one side of the line. I find the walking tiring so return to the apartment but I find all my effort has earned me very few activity points on my fitness tracker, I’ve not made the 100 points I need so despite feeling tired I take myself of to the bedroom with my phone and choose a 20 minute dance work to get my points. What follows is beyond words really. No sense of rhythm, timing or co-ordination makes for a painful experience. Yesterday I discovered my body no longer jumps and today I discovered my body has four limbs that do not seems to communicate with each other. They certainly do not have the ability to copy someone else’s dance moves. There was a lot of fumbling free styling but it earned me the points I needed to hit my 100 point goal for the day.

After my unsightly gyrations I flop on the sofa and watch the England under 21 team beat Spain in the European championship final. An interesting game in effect won by the English goal keeper saving a last minute penalty. My partner and I eat tea and then watch the final episodes of We Hunt Together. Its a sort of poor persons Killing Eve or at least the adventures of a female psychopath. There will be a second series no doubt. There is of course tennis, with English players falling by the way side. I draft the blog to the background of Pink Floyd. So this is the beginning of my chemo interval. Hopefully I might get a brief respite from the side effects of the drugs. I am not sure my body is going to thank me for the last couple of days workouts. So with these last thoughts I take myself off to bed and hopefully some sleep.

Friday, my first day into my fourth quarter of a century and I am alarmed awake by Alexa at 8 o’clock. Its a slow rise with vitals being done a coffee drunk and morning meds taken. We prepare to leave the apartment when the housekeeper arrives to give us our half way spruce up. We exchange niceties and then get on with our mission. Next door pub/B and B does breakfast till 11;30 so we pop next door and get one of their outdoor shelters and order breakfast via the scan code. Almost immediately the drinks appear and not long afterward the food arrives. Its not Cordon Bleu but hey we did not have to cook it and we can sit in the sunshine and eat while chatting and watching other people and their dog/children.

Breakfast done we return with some shopping to the apartment to find a fresh bed and clean towels. The shopping gets squirrelled and I do the crosswords while my partner continues with her secret knitting project. By mutual consent the time for the beach walk comes around so I don my boat shoes and we head beach ward. Todays the day I get my feet in the sea and it is cold, very cold, the sort of cold that leads me to utter “Fuck that’s cold” numerous times until I acclimatise to it a bit. My partner and I walk the beach for over an hour mostly with our feet in the waves, its hot sunshine and the sea breeze is strong. By the time get back to the slipway I’m knackered and want the comfort of the apartment. The beef curry I had last night as my birthday treat is wreaking its revenge. In retrospect should have dunked my bum in the sea.

There is a period of lazing and reading until I work up the energy to actual do a work out. I pick a David Lloyd 33 minute Blaze workout, intermediate level that includes some boxercise. I must have looked ridiculous as I tried to get my body to do things it has just forgotten how to do and is no longer capable of anyway. I’ve discovered “jumping” is not something my body does anymore, at least not in the confines of a small bedroom, but I suspect anywhere. Anyway I sweat through an embarrassing 33 minutes and get to the end, earning just short of the 100 PAI points I need to live longer. I strip and do my vitals and then ready myself for tea. A light affair of salmon and salad. After a post tea negotiation in which it is clear that if I want an ice cream I am going to have to shift my arse and and accompany my partner to the ice cream van, we both go to the van, We sit with our 99s on the “village green” and enjoy them as we watch the “green folk” devour a range of goodies or smoke and chat before going off to whatever night life Westward Ho! has to offer. I and my partner do a quick shop and head back to the apartment for tea and beer. I draft the blog and then it is a TV series We Hunt. I am hoping that my exercise helps me sleep to night and holds at bay the drug side effects. Its been a good day generally, unfortunately we appear to be losing the sun tomorrow, so it might be time to write the postcards.

Thursday and I wake up to coffee and Alexa singing me happy birthday. Today I am three quarters of a century old. Many people WhatsApp me to wish me happy birthday. I do my vitals and get up for a bacon sandwich breakfast and to open my cards and presents. There is a bit of time to kill as I am waiting for the oncologist to call me for my review. I read while I wait, Cloud Atlas. At last ” he who made a pact with the devil” rings. He tells me my PSA results, which I already knew and represents a 39% reduction in 20 days on the new drugs. He asks about my blood pressure and I give him some figures. Once again he reinforces his message that I need to train hard to reduce the side effects. He says he will prescribe a new cycle for me and that I can pick them up on the Saturday when I get back. The call finishes and we can get on with my birthday.

I take my partner to the café where we have a cream tea which I augment with a strawberry milkshake. Having indulged, my partner and I go to the crazy golf course. My partner has lost her touch from yesterday but does get a hole and, at which her whoop of joy attracts the attention of all the other folk on the course. We finish the round and then return to the apartment where I read more of Cloud Atlas and do todays cross words. I am incensed that David Mitchell the author of Cloud Atlas has stolen a real life event of a student musician who went to the ageing, blind composer Sibelius and acted as his amanuensis. It is a blatant piece of plagiarism. I shower and my partner and I head off for or restaurant meal.

We pass the fire rescue crew training in the open sea swimming pool. At first I thought there was a crisis occurring but it soon became clear that the team were training.

I indulge myself at the restaurant starting with the worlds biggest prawn salad and ended with a fair size brandy. During the meal my youngest daughter face timed me to wish me happy birthday, nice surprise.

The bill is paid and I and my partner walk back to the apartment where I take my vitals and draft the blog whilst watching Andy Murray battle to a two sets to one lead at Wimbledon. Today has been a good day. Along the way significant steps have been taken to settle my sisters estate and I have had many messages wishing me well. I am pleased that I have started reading again, what remains is to get myself training again. So with three quarters of a century done its on with the next quarter.

Wednesday, what a shit night, I could not sleep and the night hot flushes were grim. Eventually I got some sleep and reverted back to my early morning deep sleeping which meant I finally surfaced at about 10:30. My partner bought me a decaf coffee and I came round enough to do my vitals before a breakfast croissant, yogurt, strawberries and drugs. I check my fitness tracker and find I have plunged below the 100 mark, so apart from a walk down the long beach I will need to find an exercise routine to do today to get my points back up. Not looking forward to that but it is my only weapon against the side effects of the chemo drugs. Onward to the beach then.

An hours walk along the jelly fish strewn beach that is Westward Ho! blows the cobwebs away albeit not as windy as yesterday. Its then back to the apartment for a brief brake before its time for the crazy golf course. There is a queue and several large families already on the course so we decide to have coffee and a large slab of shared chocolate cake before returning to the course. We pay, collect clubs and a score card and set off on our round. I find I am erratic at this sport and loose on both stroke count and holes won. It is all a mystery to me really.

Having done the golf we shop for tonight’s meal before returning to the apartment for coffee and cross words, I discover an App that lets me watch the second half of a football match. England under 21s beat Israel to get into Saturdays final. I draft more of the blog as tea cooks and then settle down to eat and plan an evening. I need desperately to do two things, one, train and two have a bath. That may well be my evening. After all I do not want to go into my birthday smelly.

Tea is eaten and I settle down with my partner to watch TV, Hunted. I clear the kitchen area and draft the blog before showering, taking my meds and going to bed. Tomorrow is my birthday, I will have been alive for three quarters of a century, I do not feel old or irrelevant but I do feel that I am clearer about what my priorities are.

Tuesday the 4th of July and I wake up quietly in the holiday apartment and make myself and partner a warm drink to bring us round. We chat and plan the day before I do my vitals and then set breakfast out. After breakfast and morning meds we do a spot of shopping to top up the larder and to get a pair of size 6 board shoes for my partner. I took the opportunity of adding to the postcard stock on the off chance it might rain. While shopping it is cloudy and threatening.

Back at the apartment we settle down to do the cross words and read the papers before a round of Backpacker. We actually manage a 280 draw. Part of the day plan is a fish and chip lunch so we pop round the corner to the chippy and get our boxed (whatever happened to good old fashioned news paper), fish and chips. We return to the flat and tuck into our lunch. All very seaside holiday.

Post lunch we have drinks and look at the weather, its not conducive to crazy golf at the moment so my partner knits and I watch Wimbledon. We continue to monitor the weather, which is not a positive experience.

Andy Murray wins at Wimbledon, it continues to rain, I take my evening vitals, my partner knits and I draft the blog before taking a couple of paracetamol and having a nap.

There is a picnic tea and then in a burst of energy I and my partner go for a walk along the sea front to blow away the cobwebs. As the sunsets and the breeze gets chilli we return to the apartment and settle down to watch a a film and nibble crisps. I take my night meds and go to bed with the sounds of the waves and rain in my ears. Life is all water, ever changing and flowing.

Monday and I wake up from a deep deep sleep with a bewildered surprise. I am decidedly groggy and wander into the lounge to find my partner already up and reading. My partner makes us breakfast as the wind howls and the rain lashes from the sea. It is England in July after all. I do my morning vitals and take my meds. There is a short trip to the shops to get food for lunch and the evening meal. Before going we collect windproofs from the car, its that kind of day. Having gathered up the food we return to the apartment and stow it away. We then change in to beach clothes, which consist of several layers of windproof clothes.

The walk down to the beach is unsurprisingly people free. When we hit the beach we find we have it to ourselves apart from brave surfers and air surfers plus the RNLI over seeing the heroic few all encased in rubber.

Wind battered we return to apartment to get unwindswept and to eat genuine Devon pasties. There is business to do with the solicitor and the estate agents who are trying to sell the house my sister left in London. There is much toing and froing by email as we collectively try to reach an agreed strategy. My youngest had another scan to day to see how her baby is coming along so there is a long telephone call later in the day. Wimbledon has started so there is a brief period of watching it before we watch the penultimate episode of Crime. We eat a late tea and watch Crime to its conclusion. Not the best series we have ever watched and totally unrealistic, no advert for anything Scottish. I start to draft the blog as we watch a blind comedian visit places around the world. It was interesting what things he connected with and what left him untouched. It demonstrated the indescribability of static wonders of the world like the temple at Petra but the experience of floating in the dead sea was clearly something that made an impression. I take my night meds and go to bed hoping for a calm nights sleep. Tomorrows forecast is thundery showers and a moderate breeze, so ideal weather conditions to start the crazy golf challenge.

Sunday on holiday means I cannot weigh myself. Good in one sense but probably not so good in the longer term as I munch my way through a cream tea for lunch. My day started with doing my vitals and making tea for my partner. A sensible breakfast with morning meds followed and then we went shopping for tonight’s meal. The local vintage car club had lined its cars up on the sea front as an attraction. I could not resist a photo of me with one that is the same age as me to the month.

My partner and I shopped and returned to the apartment to stow food, play the new card game we are learning and then to indulge in another cream tea lunch. We go for our first seaside walk along the burrows behind the pebble ridge that runs the length of the beach. It is a tentative first expedition of the holiday to get the body used to the idea that it is going to be walking for a couple of weeks. On returning to the apartment my intention was to read, or at least try to get myself reading again but I napped. In fact I fell fast asleep and did not wake until gone five o’clock. I woke disorientated and watch athletics on TV. By the time tea was ready I had recovered a little but still had no spoons to do anything other than watch Crime and finally take my meds and drat the blog. So the holiday is underway, so far a breezy, cloudy affair, which I am adapting to. My lack of reading bothers me but I shall work on that. I shall also find a way of doing some exercise to keep the drug side effects at bay. Of course there are always postcards to be written.