Its Wednesday and I wake up to find my partner already gone to work. Really gone, not just trotted downstairs to the office but real drive a car to work work. I make coffee and take my meds and then I think I ought to have something to eat so down a bowl of muesli. As I stand at the kitchen window a squirrel bounds into view and proceeds to dig up some of the lettuce seeds I planted in the raised bed on the patio yesterday. I am powerless to do anything and smile as I realise that the squirrel is teaching me about symbiosis. There is a balance to be had here. I’ve made up my mind to go to the gym today. I do not feel like it but I pack my kit and my portable office and drive off to the gym. I was not feeling good at all and considered turning round and going home. I said loudly to my self in the car, “Its just anxiety get on with it you are psychologist deal with it, ” so I did and got to the gym. Once there I get onto the changing rooms still not feeling chipper but made it upstairs to a cross trainer. I climbed aboard and got myself going. I did 55 minutes at a regular pace and get to the end hot and tired. I had forgotten my i-pod so had to rely on my fantasy world to get me through the time.

After climbing off the machine I walk around the gym floor trying to cool down and consult my fitness app. I am okay on the heart rate and my SATS are 98%, normal, so basically I’m okay. My fitness age according to the app is 41. Amazing, I cannot believe the algorithm has got that right, but its supposed to be based on results from over 300,000 people in Sweden over 30 years. I shower. What a luxury, a walk in shower with all the hot water I could want. I spend time showering and washing my hair, no mean feat given how long it is now. I change and blow dry my flowing locks. That’s an interesting experience in a men’s changing room. I’m past caring now, people will just have to get over it. I dump my bag in the car and return to the club lounge with my portable office and settle down to write letters. I sip americanos and devour a sausage and a bacon buns. By three o’clock I think its time to go home especially as I find I have not got a lighter with me to enable me to seal my letters properly.

Back home there is a pile of redirected mail and our own mail. I find there is a letter from the tax man about my sisters estate. There was also a letter from an insurance company threatening to stop the London house insurance. I ring the tax man and give them my solicitors contact details. He says they will write in due course. God knows how long that will be. I email the solicitor with photos of the letters and tell her what I’ve done and ask her opinion on the insurance. I finish sealing my letters and pop across to the post office to send my letters. I return home to find my new Claire North book The End of The Day waiting for me. It will see me through Easter hopefully.

I do some death admin while listening to the radio and then start to draft the blog. Yesterday was such a lovely sunny day and as I walked back from posting my letters today in the rain I really felt the loss of sunshine and warmth and it made me feel the depth of missing people. I am clear that keeping myself locked away in the house is not healthy. My conclusion is that I am a sunshine hermit. When the sun shines and I am in my Shed writing with the life of the garden around me I can do being a Hermit but not in this miserable wet weather. I should adopt the Buddhist stance and know that sunshine will follow and to cultivate patience in myself and continue to be kind. My WhatsApp has been busy today which has been really nice as people ask how I am and share what they are doing. So my evening will be a meal, followed by some TV but mainly I will get stuck into my new book. Some bloke was on TV this morning talking about a project to get people back into reading and how good reading is for our mental health and becoming a better person, (no idea what that actually means), and an assortment of other things which I forget. It would appear I am ahead of the curve, I read, exercise (fitness age 41), don’t drink, smoke or do drugs, I write and occasionally paint, in fact I am a paragon of self betterment. Strange how I don’t feel like I am in peak form, maybe its the fact that I have stage 4 prostate cancer that somehow gets in the way of a sense of immense well being. Night meds and bed will see me end the day.

Tuesday and I wake up knowing that today I need to get going, to perk myself up and get into a new rhythm as I move towards my May oncology appointment. I get up slowly and have breakfast and then set about getting myself going. I put my washing in and then get into the garden and open up the greenhouse. I spend the morning sewing seeds in the green house and sewing some early lettuces in one of my raised beds. There is also a new bed of cornflowers. It feels good to be getting things growing again. Working in my garden is a good way to wind down and occupies me in a positive way. By lunch time I feel I am making head way. A friend rings me and we talk about how we are and what we are planning for Easter. Its good to share how I am and of course its helpful to share how I am after my sisters funeral. After the call I take some pictures of my efforts in the garden.

Dinner is a mug of tomato soup which I drink while I watch the web caste of my sisters funeral. It is a thoroughly modern phenomenon to be able to watch a funeral replay and one I think is useful. I found watching myself at the funeral reassuring. My contribution to the service was good enough and the presentation of my sisters life was, I thought , well balanced and inclusive. The choice of music worked particularly well with the life presentation and I am glad that we chose Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, Spring, as the exit music, it seemed that it was suitably uplifting to send people on their way. The readings also worked and reflected my sisters life. As I finished watching the funeral a friend rang me while on her way to an afternoon tea meeting. We talked about how her holiday had gone and how her husband coped. We compared noted on what we are doing and how we have both coped with recent events.

As I finish the call I become aware that I have had a delivery, namely my latest Arizona Coyotes ice hockey jersey. This is their special reverse colour retro shirt. I gave it to myself as an Easter present. Of course I go and try it on and cannot resist a selfie with it on. I like it.

Time is moving on but I take time out to order a new book to read. Another Catherine North book The End of the Day. I get changed into my training kit but before I can get to the garage the garden guy turns up so there is coffee to be drunk and a chat to be had. I finally get away and get to the garage where I strap into the rower and go for a 45 minute session. Its 6 days since I last trained due to the funeral event and I feel sluggish. Completing the session is the goal and I make it. What is more I make 9 kilometres, the basic I would expect of myself.

Before I change out of my sweaty kit I put the bins out for tomorrows collection. I record my session and then eat tea. I am now pretty knackered and settle down to an evening of TV until the family go to bed and I am left to draft the blog. I do my evening meds and add some paracetamol before setting the dishwasher going and going to bed. Tomorrow the challenge is to get to the gym, to get out of the house and to write letters to again.

Monday, jab Monday and I wake up feeling below par. I put on my leopard over blanket and sit in bed and finish reading Touch. Its a good book and has held my attention for a few days now. If you like the idea of being able to jump from body to body, then this one is for you. If you like the idea of there being “estate agents” who will find the right person for you to jump into for a while then this book is really for you. I come to the end and decide I should probably get up.

There is a cereal breakfast and coffee to try and get me going but it doesn’t and I slob around disconcertedly for a while. I clear the kitchen, empty the bins and still feel no better or energised. It comes round to half an hour before my GP appointment to have my 28 day injection. I get dressed and set off for the surgery clutching my boxed injection. As I walk along I become acutely aware that there is a profusion of flowers and shrubs in bloom. The cherry trees are in blossom, the magnolia trees are heavy with blooms and the more I look the more I see. As I walk down one of the jitties I am struck by the smell of new mown grass as I pass a small but neatly mown front lawn. I breath it in deeply. All around me spring is in full force but my body won’t join in. Usually at this time of year I get a lift, a burst of energy, a skip in my tread and silly ideas, like taking up jogging again. Not this year, at least not yet. This year my body is resisting. Although my senses drink in spring, spring inside is not happening.

ON arrival at the GP surgery I check in on the screen and sit and wait to be called. The nurse beckons me in and soon she is pumping me full of chemicals that in theory are saving my life, holding back the cancer and giving me more years. All this, except my PSA is rising, it becoming more difficult to find a non lumpy place to get the needle in and I am still being sore for two or three days afterwards as I nurse my egg sized lump along. I return home and have coffee. Its time to do more death admin. I might have buried my sister on Friday but here I am sorting out some of the donations to Cancer Research UK that people have either addressed to me or have asked me to forward to the charity. So I duly juggle the IT to pay in cheques and then make donations on the website. I write short letters to people thanking them and telling them that their donations have been made. The trip to the post office includes getting a paper and some no alcohol beer before I return home and for no reason watch an art programme on TV. I start to draft the blog as the sun continues to shine brightly. I feel my injection site getting sore and so make another coffee to wash down some more paracetamol. I should really put the camera back in the garden, fill the bird feeders, top up the hedgehog canteen and train, but right now I just want to rest. I will see how it goes for the next hour. I should say that friends have messaged me today with accounts of the fun activities that they are doing and offers of books and coffee at some point. All of this lifts me and encourages me to grit me teeth and get on with things, so perhaps my garden wildlife will be fed after all.

My hedgehogs, squirrels and birds are all fed so I made the effort. I once joked with a friend that in the unlikely event of this atheist finding himself at the pearly gates being weighed in the balance and being asked if I had any argument for admittance, I would find that all I could offer would be “I fed the birds”. I’m not sure that along side my other stuff that this would swing it. I settle into my evening with coffee and pain killers. I end my evening with my night meds and more paracetamol.

Saturday was grim really to start with. I think I had eaten something that had not agreed with me. I got up slowly in my hotel room, took my meds, and packed most of my stuff. My partner and I went down to the hotel restaurant and tentatively ate until my eldest daughter and son joined us. As we finished, my youngest daughter came and said goodbye to us all before she and her partner went off to see other relatives. I packed the car, sorted the room bill land then packed the family into the car. At about 11:30 I drove out of the hotel car park and headed for home.

Thankfully the journey out of London and back to Leicester was a relatively smooth one, with just one one comfort stop on the way. We all unpacked and sat around doing little for the afternoon. I restocked the hedgehog canteen and checked the garden camera for the last 14 days. In that time the garden had been visited by the usual squirrels, pidgeons, cats and pleasingly the hedgehog. The fox put in an appearance but to my surprise so did a couple of black Labradors. The latter appearing at 4 o’clock at night. Not what I had expected to see.

The evening was spent having a family meal, catching up and then watching a strange film together. By the time the football highlights came on I was the last one awake. My family including my son had all gone to bed by the time took my night meds, set the dishwasher going and went to bed very tired.

Sunday arrived all too soon, and everyone stayed in bed for a long time until finally there was coffee. I send a birthday greeting to a friend and manage to get her name wrong on the WhatsApp. It turns into a joke thankfully but I am embarrassed. Slowly we all got up and my partner made us all breakfast. There was time for more catching up and some international dishwasher mending by phone. My son got ready to go and visit with his mother who he had not seen for a couple of years, however before I drove him over to her he presented me with another ice hockey jersey for my collection. A rare local Swedish one, which I of course immediately put on.

I drive my son to his mums and then return home. My partner had gone to see her niece to give her a birthday card and present so for the first time in a few days I am alone. There is time to stare into space at the cherry blossom and the front garden while the TV plays an international rugby match. I start to draft the blog until my partner returns.

I still have a sense of relief that the funeral is done. There is part of me that is curious to download the service and to watch it back, Since zoom and COVID created the situation where it became common place to attend funerals by web cast it also created the ability for those at the actual scene to watch it back. A strange phenomena, I think. So I shall be able to watch myself deliver my tribute to my sister. I think this is part of the process of reassurance that the funeral was okay. That I did okay in doing her proud. I tell myself that I can now move on, that I do not have to worry about her but there is a nagging feeling that it is not going to be as easy as that. In one sense me getting on with it is working through my wait before my assessment for Radiotherapy. All ready 27 days have passed and there are another 46 days to go. In all I will have waited 73 days knowing that my current medication is not working adn that my PSA is rising. I sometimes think I get glimpses of anxiety that I am not acknowledging, I think I have become super sensitive to small changes in perception or proprioception, any change in my body is noted. When I weighed myself today I came in at 98.8 kilos. A weight gain that wiped out my weight loss of last week. A couple of days of hotel living has done that adn once again I am reminded that no matter what is going on I need to keep fighting or I lose ground. The problem is that over the next 46 days I am going to lose more ground. I am in damage limitation and I find that difficult to take. Somehow it seems to take more energy to motivate myself in that situation. However tomorrow is injection day so my cycle starts again and I will set out on a new Monday to once again take up the fight.

Friday 31st of March. I wake up in the hotel and I am confronted by a stag, emblematic of Richmond Park. Its a bit of a shock to wake up to.

Today was my sisters funeral, so after a slow start to the day and a careful breakfast my family assembled the hotel reception in their best black. A limousine took us to the crematorium where we met mourners and accompanied my sisters coffin into the chapel. The service itself was appropriately non religious and according to her friends reflected her well. I delivered my tribute in the middle of the service to be followed by the visual presentation of my sisters life and work. We left to the sound Vivaldi’s Four Seasons Spring, hopefully giving people a bit of an appropriately seasonal lift as they left. The usual pleasantries over I shepherded my family back into the limo and back to the hotel for a post funeral drink. My first brandy in four years.

The family dispersed to divest itself of black and gathered again later to go for an afternoon coffee and sandwich at a nearby café, albeit a trudge through rain to get to it. Back at the hotel some use the SPA and I draft the blog. This evening we will wine and dine as a family at a nearby pub before going our different ways tomorrow. My over whelming feeling is one of relief. I feel that I have given my sister a funeral that she would have felt at home with and those attending and watching via the webcast felt that it was the person they knew. I feel a sense of completion for her life. There will be months of dealing with the finalisation of her estate and the fulfilment of her Will but as far as she is concerned I feel that she has made her contribution in person and that is up to all of us who have her in our experience to continue to ensure her contribution lives on through us. There is a quote from Terry Pratchett that I used in my Tribute which I think sums this up well.

“No one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away, until the clock he wound up winds down, until the wine she made has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone’s existence is only the core of their actual life.”

Its Thursday evening and 9:30 and I am spoonless as I lay on the bed in the hotel room 10 minutes drive from the crematorium where tomorrow the service for my sister will be held. Its been a long day from breakfast to bed I’ve been engaged with family and death admin. Firstly the drive to London, finding the hotel and then waiting for the family to arrive. One didn’t arrive as it was possible to divert him straight to the solicitors office from the airport where he had just landed. I and my two daughters got a taxi from the hotel to the solicitors where we met my son. It did not take long to do the actual business we needed to do but it was essential legal stuff that means the solicitor can get on with the job. We took a breather over coffee. The first time I had been with all my children for years, it was good to see them together and bring them all up to speed regarding the business in hand. We Ubered back to the hotel in atrocious London traffic. I hate London more now than when I left it 49 years ago.

Back at the hotel we all were checked in and met in the bar for a quick drink before changing and going to the Marlborough for a family meal. My partner had managed to find a pub with good food, a music free dining area and good service. We ate as a family for the first time in years. We ate well and when it came to go we booked again for the next evening, same table. When I said the place was music free that is not quite true as upstairs in the toilets there was loud music and space to have a quick dance before returning to the table.

So I am laying in bed drafting the blog hoping that I sleep well tonight and that tomorrow goes well. I take my night meds and give myself up to the waves of the night.

Wednesday and its been a ducks in a row day. In essence I have been preparing to go to London tomorrow for my sisters funeral on Friday. No sooner than I was up when the funeral director was ringing me and sending me stuff to okay. I was then contacting all my children to keep them all organised for tomorrow as we are going to see the solicitor mob handed to prove who we are, where we live and that we all have bank accounts. This was generated by the call I made to the solicitor to check I had got it all right and to fix a time. So busy busy busy. Being paperless myself I had to download a statement and then print it, which seems to defeat the object of the exercise of being paperless. In the midst of all this the garden guy turns up so needs to be given coffee, money and willing listening ear. It starts to rain so after a while he gives it best and goes. In the intervening time I’ve legged it down to the co-op cash machine and got wedged up. I have also take the car the garage and filled the tank and checked the tyres before tomorrows drive. On the way back in I retrieve the bins and start putting stuff in the recycle one.

I am gasping for coffee when a friend rings me and describes the perils of needing to buy more Easter eggs to support the secret Easter Bunny! Never had that in my day, what ever next. We chatted for a while until she needs to go, wishing me good luck for the coming couple of days. My partner makes me a roll for lunch and then I’m busy again. I stow the new peanut cache for the squirrels and replenish the hedgehog canteen before retreating in side to hang a rather lovely drawing of a hedge hog on our stair over hang.

Having sorted the hedgehogs out, real and artistic I get to sorting out my clothes for the trip to London and packing what I need. There is the formal funeral wear and the sensible clothes to see the solicitor in. There are of course slob around clothes for the informal time. So I am almost ready and so is the evening meal. I settle down to eat and then draft the blog. This evening will be about doting the i’s and crossing the t’s before we head off tomorrow. Between now and lift off time (11o’clock) I need to collect my weeks drugs, find my long legged swim trunks and ensure that I’ve got all the paper work I am going to need. Most importantly of all is ensuring I have my pack of travel/driving wine gums in the car. So an evening of last minute checking and pampering myself. Of course my words for the funeral are still not complete but it will be alright on the day, to quote Shakespeare In Love, ” It always is, its a mystery”. Night meds and then my last night in my own bed till Saturday.

Tuesday and I wake up to find my partner not feeling well. So its an early breakfast and then I run my partner to the GP surgery for her appointment. We visit the chemist on the way back home. My partner goes back to work in the office and I get on clearing up the kitchen and generally tidying my stuff up. There are emails from the solicitor and the funeral directors. So its a morning of death admin until midday when a friend rings and we have a brief chat about how we are and what is going on in our families. I find these conversations a real support given what is going on at the moment. Lunchtime arrives when I treat myself to a fried egg sandwich.

Post lunch I sit down and begin to type out what I am going to say at my sisters funeral. I tap away looking for inspiration. The words do not come easily but eventually I end up with something that maybe acceptable. I expect that it will be changed before it gets spoken on Friday. I resort to a little light hoovering and cleaning for light relief. My solicitor rings me and we wrestle with the difficulties of getting people and their passports to her in person. Its a difficult teaser which I cannot solve immediately. I decide to train, its the last thing I want to do but it is necessary if I am to prepare properly for the possibilities of radiotherapy. Before changing in to my kit I put the bins out and bring the car in. I change and get into the garage and set up the rower for a 45 minute session at my cruise level. Its a bitch of a session and I struggle to get going but I grit my teeth and grind through the time. I manage 9 kilometre thanks to a burst of effort in the last third, and I scrape a 600 calorie burn.

I record the session, change in to my lounge wear and eat tea. The celebrant rings me and shares what he intends to say at the funeral. Its sounds okay to me and I suggest a couple of amendments and check another inclusion. I am now spoonless and stare at the TV for a while before I draft the blog. I am slipping into a torpor and feel I am just drifting towards the Friday funeral, however I need to lively up in order to do the things I need to get through the next four days effectively. So night meds and bed for me.

Its Monday again and I wake up feeling decidedly shit. Difficult to say why but I felt knackered before the day even started. I felt so grim I could not be bothered to read before I got up. When I did I head straight for the muesli and coffee. I find I am losing my taste for coffee, at least the tinned brand we are using, I might go back to the luxury of filtered coffee, I’m not sure why I left it, now that I think about it. Before my morning gets into the full swing that’s it going to a friend calls to see how I am. Really good to hear a friendly voice and we are soon chatting about our respective juggles. I am reminded that Easter is not far away and note that it might have slipped by without this conversation. We exchange well wishes as I intend to head for the Shed to try and write the words I am going to say at my sisters funeral on Friday.

I do not make it to the Shed as I have several emails and calls from the undertaker. I find myself proof reading an Order of Service, swapping pictures around, and sending new or duplicate pictures to someone new because they cannot use my PowerPoint presentation as its not “their format”. Its all part of the fannying, farting and fucking about that seems to attend any project or organised event. By the time there is time to breathe its lunch time and the kitchen needs to be cleared, cleaned and organised. Bins get emptied and things made spick and spam and then I indulge in chicken soup.

My afternoon starts with me trying to book my 28 day injection with the GP. I remained being asked to hold for 14 minutes, which seemed like and eternity. I finally got through and agreed a time. I then order my monthly drug prescription. So easy to forget I have to manage my meds at times like these. With this out of the way its time to clear the clothes horse and put my clothes away. A moment to breathe I organise a bit and buy tickets for Fascinating Aida in November. I escape to the garden and fill the bird and squirrel feeders and whilst doing so note that the Peonies are coming through. This is a time of celebration as Spring is truly on the way when the Peonies start to grow, and they grow quickly from small red nodules to sturdy stems in a vey short time.

I finally get to the Shed and stare out over the garden looking for words. It occurs to me that the Japanese have a character for “beyond words”, it is Yugen. I start to write Yugen and end up with a few draft words for my sisters funeral. They will need work but it will get there. Returning to the house I am aware of how time has gone and I have not trained and Tesco are going to deliver. Added to that the Celebrant is going to ring me tonight about the funeral so there is still a lot of admin left in the day to do. I plump for training. It is a real effort to get my kit on, I really do not want to do this but I fall back on one of my reminders “Cancer does not take a day off”. I go to the garage and set up the rower for a half hour session at my standard hard level. I strap in and get going with radio 2 in my ears. It may only be a half hour session but it is hard work and I feel that I am not on track. In the end I get my 6 kilometres and a 1000+ strokes. Not quite the calories I wanted but it will do.

Back on the sofa I record the session and slow go and get changed in to loungers. My partner and I wait for the Tesco delivery that duly arrives. Time for pasta and then I start to draft today blog. I’m still waiting for the Celebrant to ring me, but I assume he will and then I can get on with the rest of the evening. It will be filled with a TV show and reading before I take my meds and head for bed. Hopefully I will l have tomorrow to finish my writing and to train.

Sunday, a day of rest but first their is the Sunday weigh in. Crucial this week as this has been the first week of concerted effort both in terms and exercise and diet. I step onto the scales and await the outcome. I look down anxiously, no change would be very dispiriting. It is 97.6 kilos. Yippee. That’s down 1. 3 kilos this week. Its a good start and encouraging. The maintenance of the effort will be the true challenge. There is time for a short read as the time has leapt forward today as its the start of summer time .

Breakfast is a simple muesli affair before my partner and I have a face to face call with our youngest daughter and her partner. It is the first time we have talked to them since they discovered that they are having a boy in July. Overly influenced by Terry Pratchett books I’ve decide that my grandson to be will be called Dangerous Beans, at least until he puts in an appearance in due course. There are chores done, including ordering flowers for my son’s partner whose birthday is tomorrow, and then I and my partner go to the gym, she to train and me to shower and read. I sit reading Touch and sipping black coffee, and so the afternoon passes. My partner re-emerges and we drink more coffee and nibble toast and jam. My toast being donated to me. I drive us home in time for the England v Ukraine European qualifier.

The evening starts with an England win, a beef stew and a start to the drafting of the blog. Its going to be a slow evening that will end with more reading, night meds and me going to bed hoping not to have to get up more than three times in a single night. Thinking about what I am going to say at my sister’s funeral on Friday is still keeping me awake at night. Tomorrow I will give myself Shed time to think about it properly.