Tuesday and the excitement of the Bank Holiday weekend is over, it means I have to get back to training and being active, however apart from training my days “to do” list look more “adminy” than active. So after making my partner a cup of tea in bed and doing my vitals, reasonably good, I get up, take my morning meds and head for the garage and the rowing machine. There can be no compromise today it has to be an hours row, so I set the session up and get underway with my ear buds in and radio two playing. Its a very tough session indeed, my body really does not want to do this with the result that the final outcome is not up to par but will have to do for the day.

I record the session and make myself breakfast and notice my partner has got the incinerator out in the garden and is burning documents. No complaints from the neighbors today. I join her in the garden and we walk around it looking at what has come up and what work needs to be done, I explain my plans for the new shed. I’ve already researched racking and floor covering for it. After a quick lunch I move onto the main challenge of the day, mending my laptop. Its taking me hours, I’ve run tests on the hard drive and the memory and they are all tickerty boo, so it has to be the BIOS system and when I get the dreaded error code that tells me my system is corrupted at the point of loading I know I am in trouble.

I finally get to the point where I have to reinstall Windows from a software USB stick. Its going to take ages to do this as it has to create a file called “Old Windows”, so things could still go wrong. My guess is that this is going to take hours so I start to draft todays blog and plan a shower and other activities while the small note book grids its way to instillation. There is no guarantee that this process will work, patience is the watch word.

Bank Holiday Monday and there are just two things to say about today. Firstly it started with the surprise of bacon sandwiches in. What a luxury and a great way to start the day. Secondly, I’ve ordered a a new garden shed. This is great, its custom made, the size and design I wanted. Having driven to the garden center where the suppliers are based it was great to sit with the supplier and get down to business and cost exactly what I wanted. The bonus? a bloke came out to us by 5 o’clock to do the survey and confirm the details, what service. Now I have to wait while they build it, paint it and then come and install it. Even better they are going to take both of my old sheds away for the price of one! This is the start of Phase Two of the garden development, which I thought I would have trouble getting off the ground. This all comes from having a conversation with our neighbors yesterday while walking round the village VE day event. Its clearly good to talk.

On the down side I am trying to mend my other laptop which refuses to load, so i am running diagnostics and recovery programmer but will probably have to factory reset it. Hopefully my external drive has captured all my files. I can feel I have run out of spoons (energy) so this is where I leave the blog today knowing that I have night meds, finger splint and scar massage to look forwards to. Tomorrow there is much to do including more work on the poetry collection.

Sunday and I wake to a sunny day and my partner reading. After a bit of time I get up and warm drinks. After breakfast and the morning meds my partner and I wander into the village to look at the VE day celebrations. There were several displays of various aspects of 40’s life.

After much wanderings my partner and I return home where we have a late lunch and I rest by watching a football match. With the match at an end I return to drafting my partners family tree. During this time my laptop is trying to repair itself, a long and tedious process, which I doubt will be successful. As I work through the information that I have on the family tree I get a message from a friend that her daughter has completed her “muddy run” for charity in support of Cancer research. She had put my name on her bib as supporting someone she knows has cancer. I am very touched by the thoughtfulness. It is a complete surprise. I continue to fill out the family tree until I finally get to the point of where I run out of data and all that I can do is literally draw the connecting lines in. By then its time for tea and the family eat together.

I slide into the evening popping into to see how my laptop is doing but the screen is not changing so while Black Snow is running in the background I start to draft the blog. It is soon time to take my night meds, strap on my finger splint and try to get a nights sleep.

Saturday and I wake up in a groggy state and not sure why but I knew that this was going to be a low energy day. My partner brings me my usual hot water to drink and then goes to the gym. I listen to part of Meet David Serdaris before taking my vials, that are okay, but not optimal. Eventually I get up and make toast and try to pull myself together.

In order to be active I get all the materials and tools together to up grade the handrail on the patio. Its a small and doable job that I feel I can manage. So I am in the garden sanding down the handrail and then applying the wood filler. It begins to set quickly but I leave it to set fully and watch the first half of the early football match. At half time I return to the handrail and rub it down and then apply a coat of furniture varnish. By now my partner has returned and is pottering around. Having watched the second half of the football match and downed some paracetamol I return to the handrail to check that it is drying well. I’m pleased with the out come and then join my partner planting the last remaining plants that are waiting for a place in the garden and the swathe of pots that are part of the garden. With the plant in new positions I have a look around the garden and mentally note all the work that needs to be done. There is a lot of weeding to be done. While planting the plants my partner uprooted two horse chestnut trees that had rooted from conkers buried by the squirrel last autumn. I have planted them next to oak tree that was also curtesy of the squirrel planting an acorn. So at the end of the garden there is the start of a small forest to augment and eventually replace the ageing fir trees at the end of the garden. They will be big but that won’t be my problem but they will be a brilliant screen from the houses over the back.

I am now out of spoons (energy) and retreat to the recliner to rest and watch the football results come in on the last day of the championship. My partner and eldest daughter go for an ice cream at the village heritage V E celebrations. With the relegations and promotions sorted out I take to drafting the blog, followed by some up grading of my partners family tree.

The evening is TV and other stuff, which I cruise through, I’ve not the energy to do anything else but I have a mental “to do” list which I keep visiting. Its a dissatisfying place to be and all I can hope is that tomorrow I have more energy and I can train and go and explore the village festivities. Its one of those “itchy and scratchy” times with little energy and a lot of frustration.

Friday and I pan an easy day, so as my partner goes off to the gym I laze in bed and check my vitals. All is good there and then I spend sometime thinking about what I am going to do with my next poetry collection. Of course it leads me to write a poem and in doing so it gives me the tittle of my next collection. I decide it will be called, the Cancer Years; ordinary brave.

445
There’s a lot written
about being brave, 
lots of slogans
and wise sayings 
but none seem to 
quite fit.

No one asks to be
Cancer brave,
it’s an unwanted
accolade.

Quietly many men
and their loved ones
get on with things, 
each being brave 
in their own way. 

There is no media fanfare
or out pouring of admiration,
nor is there a rush to do things,
fund raise or join a movement,
just the soft tread through the fear.

If there are tears 
they are shed privately
once the mundane is done 
and there is a quiet moment
to reflect.

Anger is dissipated 
gently, released in gardens,
and in putting things 
in order in consideration
of those to be left behind.

It is the resilience unexpectedly 
found in the depths
that makes us brave
in ways that can only 
be ours.

Ordinary people being 
ordinary brave
in ordinary ways
with one eye 
on the end of
our days.


                                                  445  02-05-2025

I get up and get into my training gear. After a bagel breakfast I head for the garage and the rower. Its been 7 days since I last trained due to a combination of weekend and injection. Its got to be a meaningful session so I go for a forty five minute session. Its a real pig of a session and although I try to pace myself the end of the session is a real grind. I manage just over 8 kilometres so it could have been worse. It will do for a session after a weeks break.

I record the session and then eat my lunch on the patio with my partner. After a chat my partner and I go to the local garden centre and pick up so gardening essentials. Once home my partner sets to in the garden and I start to draw up my partners family tree starting with my partners mothers side. It takes me ages to get all the people mentioned into the right generational line and then to sort out which line each person belongs to. The information is jumbled and there appears to be one or two people who do not fit the tree. I get as far as I can and before dinner is served I replenish my dosettes for the next two weeks.

The evening sees me drafting the blog while having one eye on the TV. Its going to be a lazy evening. tomorrow our village will be celebrating VE day so I expect there will be military vehicles rolling around and people doing strange things in uniform. Already there are poles appearing along the road so there will be unexpected informative boards everywhere. Rumour has it that there will be a fly past. I hope I can sleep with all the excitement, or maybe its just the desperation of having a Reform dominated county council. I go to bed full of meds and a sense of foreboding.

Thursday and I wake up early as this is going to be a busy day. So I make warm drinks for my partner and I earlier than usual. My partner gets up for a shower and is quickly followed by me. There is time for toast and morning meds and then I am off to see the hand physio. The amount of bendiness is measured and the scar tissue examined. The decision is that I should concentrate on massaging the scar with Nivea crème and using the night splint with the latex dressing. We agree that I should return at the end of July when six months of splint wearing comes to an end.

I arrive home and wait for my partner to return from her physio appointment and when she does we drive the cars to our local garage. My partner’s car get left at the garage for its newly acquired “crunchie” sound to be investigated. We return home in time for my partners friend to collect her for lunch. I sit on the patio, have soup and then I spend the afternoon trying to put together the contents of a fourth collection of The Cancer Years, for which I have no title for yet. At one point I take a break and draft another poem.

444
The drooping broom
trying to sweep
the lawn edge,
this and a profusion
of green 
is what I feel
this May day.
A sunny time 
that belongs in summer
as the temperature rises.
There is much to do 
but I do no stir,
sitting quietly
like the garden before me.
“behold the lilies
of the field 
for they neither
reap nor sow”.
I am not sure 
I can live 
Like that.
So I find myself
pen in hand
jotting while birds
sing and Spring
takes a sprint start.

All these flowers,
trees and plants
do everything that
is beyond me.
When did I stop
paying attention,
let myself not listen,
let myself not see?
It’s time to put the pen;
Down!

                                     444           01-04-2025

Having written I return to preparing the collection. Mid-afternoon and the garage rings to tell me that my partners car is done. Thankfully it is only disc pads that needed replacing. My partner and I go and collect he car and return home. The resources to begin to make a family tree for my partners family have arrived so I start the process of trying to build a tree from the notes that my partner gave me a few days ago. It is a preliminary phase of sticky notes placed on a pre printed ten generational template. After an evening meal I start to try and build adn initial tree. By 8 o’clock its time for me to watch football. Its what I do until full time when I start to draft the blog, taking my night meds and strapping on the night splint before bed. Over the evening I have been thinking about ideas for more poems based on the dedication that I am thinking about for the fourth Cancer Years collection; “This collection is dedicated to men and their loved ones who quietly gets on with their life while fighting prostate cancer. We can’t all be VIPs but we are all, in our own ways, brave.” I think there very many men and their loved ones who are quietly being brave everyday without publicity, without doing things that they would not normally do and just want to live an ordinary life for as long as they can.

Wednesday and another night of soreness from Mondays injection. Sometimes, especially when injected on the right, I lose a couple of days and it seems this is one of those occasions. However I need to make the effort today as I am having my nails done again at noon, at least that is what I thought until I checked my phone. I have a text message timed at 03: 15 on Wednesday night telling me not to forget my appointment for 12 o’clock tomorrow, clearly meaning Thursday. So when the Spa opens I ring and leave a message to ask if this is correct. I then get on with taking my vitals and having breakfast. I am generally puttering around when I get a call at 11:30 from the Spa person confirming my appointment is for today. I drop what I was doing (oiling the windows and putting key rings on the window lock keys) and dash off to the Spa at the gym.

I sit down and present my hands so that the old gel can be removed. Some magic solution is paced on a piece of pad adn clipped to each of my finger tips. Then make conversation with the beautician. We cover the weather, Indian festivals and their relation to both the weather and the Kings Coronation, about rehabilitation and housing for miscreants and the nature of criminality. So with the niceties out of the way my nails are cleaned and new layers of gel painted on while we discuss family, grandchildren and international travel.

Each layer requires that my hand is briefly baked in a small finger oven and while I do this we continue our chat through the issues of the day. I am finally finished and have gelled and shiny nails. It takes quite a while but is relatively affordable so I an going to need to brush up on my conversational Spa talk. Once home I suggest to my partner that we go to lunch, which we duly do. Its a real luxury just being able to drop things and just go and eat some where. By the time we return home there is time to do some gardening. We put into action some of the things we discussed over lunch, so my partner plants the remainder of the plants to be planted and I trim the ferns back and gather up armfuls of “sticky Willie” weed from around the pond. There is of course staking to be done and bulb cutting back to follow on. By the early evening quite a lot has got done. The cars are repositioned on the drive for tomorrows early departures and then its time for tea.

The evening sees me close up the newly oiled windows and put last years industrial sized fan back in position in the lounge. With that all set I draft the blog feeling the oscillating gusts of cooling wind from the fan. No doubt I shall watch Race Across the World as I know one of the contestants and then it will be an early night as tomorrow I am going to see my hand physiotherapist for the last time take my partner car to the garage, supervise the garden guy adn of course vote in the local elections. Somewhere in there I need to train and get back into stride until the next interruption by the next injection. At the back of my mind there are two things that May brings, firstly an oncology review adn secondly the preparation of the fourth collection of poetry in the Cancer Years series, but this time with a British publishing preparation group. So I move on into May taking my night meds, wearing my nocturnal finger splint and hoping all goes well.

Tuesday the day after my 28 day jab and a really crap night. My injection site and the right side of my belly hurt, hurt enough to keep me awake and when I move. Its a a bastard. I get up to make a fizzy paracetamol and go back to bed to try and sleep. I have gone down with a severe bout of NSGS. (Non Specific Grumpiness Syndrome). Nothing is right with the world and my recently retired partner is innocently in the cross hairs of my irrational grumpiness. As I lay around in bed waiting for the paracetamol to kick in she busies herself ready for the day and to be host to her friend who is coming later in the day. No matter what I do I am uncomfortable and I cannot sleep, which increases my NSGS. After a while l try taking my vitals and they displease me, they are not what I would have liked, not bad but not good either. In the end I resort to trying to write poetry.

443

Its the morning after
my 28 day injection,
right side, the worst,
and I'm fucking sore!

Not been this bad for
a while.
Early morning paracetamol 
has been downed
while my partner
spruces up for the day,
shower, shorts
and then tidying,
even round me.
 
How irritating can this woman be? 
Bloody irritating is the answer.
Especially to a man with
Non Specific Grumpiness Syndrome.

This retirement transition can be difficult.
Expectations about joint adventures,
building social networks
and all the unexpected consequences
of not having to be useful, productive,
structured and contributing,
lead to tidying, cleaning
and all the things feminists
railed against!

My old preserves of garden 
and garage invaded,
if I am not careful 
I won't get first go 
on the new power washer. 
I am feeling crap in the middle 
of domestic hygiene
and another's search 
for meaningful days
and meeting of
unmet needs.

For God's sake woman 
will stop dusting the
head board before 
I get up!

The truth, 
the truth is 
this moving on
is tricky for us both. 

                                                     443 29-04-2025

The poem goes in a direction I do not expect but it is true that adjusting to retirement together can be tricky at times and its made no easier when I am on one of my bad days. So I languish in bed for a long time trying to get comfortable and hoping the paracetamol kicks in soon. I think I might have drifted. Eventually I get up eat and do the crosswords in todays paper I make an effort to tidy up a bit before retreating to the recliner with my laptop, a bag of nuts and a Red Bull to draft the blog while my partner and her friend sit in the garden and chat before going out to eat.

My plan for what remains of the day is to receive and squirrel away the Tesco deliver later in the evening whilst watching football and then to get myself to bed early in order to face having my nails re-gelled at noon tomorrow.

Sunday, a day of rest and preparation. So after a slow breakfast its out into the sunshine garden and a lot of garden pottering. My partner and I garden in bursts through the afternoon until I retreat to the sofa and watch a football match. Early evening I read a little more of my newly acquired poetry pamphlet before returning to the TV drama that is currently being watched. It is soon time to go through my night ritual of meds, finger splint and last minute chores like setting the dishwasher on its way. This night I add some paracetamol in anticipation of tomorrows 28 day injection.

Monday and its twenty eight day jab day. Its a day a loath. I am up early to shower and take my normal medication and go to the GP surgery where I bump into my brother in law before being called into the clinical room for my jab. It does not take long. I always think I might get away with it this time but inevitably I am proved wrong. I take a paper and croissants home where I share them with my partner on the patio as the sun is shining. My partner gardens as I firstly red and then open my post. There is a letter from someone I went to school with and is a big and welcome surprise. I set about filling out my application form for the Author’s Licensing and Collecting Society, apparently this writers organisation collects “secondary royalties” for authors works and pays them out twice a year. Strangely the application is hard copy only but once they accept me I cam go on line to add all things I’ve written for which I hold royalty and copyrights to. On the form I had to just provide one of my ISBN numbers to prove I am eligible to join. I am interested to see what happens next. In the same post my new bank account details arrive with the new debit card. All this means is that I have to make up two new files to go into my newly organised filing draw in the office.

By mid afternoon my injection site is getting sore, but I go to the post office to send off my application form and then return to the sofa to read more of Terry Pratchett’s Night Watch. I can feel my body increasingly trying to reject the mornings injection. By early evening I am very sore (always worse on the right hand side) and I drift into the evening. There is more reading, some TV and then I draft the blog, a terse and short addition. I take my meds and slouch off to bed hoping for sleep.

Saturday and I surface slowly to find my partner has already risen and had breakfast. She brings me hot water before going off to meet a friend for lunch. I get up and walk down to the chemists to collect my drugs and return to make a late breakfast. The Pope is getting buried on the TV so there is wall to wall coverage that is all red and chanting. Today is poetry stanza day so I select a poem to take with me and run off copies.

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

								429 23-01-2025

I drive to the Quaker meeting house where I meet up with nine others of the poetry stanza and spend the next two and a half hours reading, and talking about the groups poetry. It is a good time and full of ideas and images and phrases that are new and evocative. The chair of the group has recently published a poetry pamphlet and so I was able to buy a copy from him before leaving for home.

I drive home with a head full of images and comments and immediately settle on the sofa to watch the English women’s rugby team narrowly beat the French, followed by an FA cup semi final. With a fresh burst of energy I go to the chippy and get tea for my eldest daughter and I before an evening of TV drama until my energy starts to ebb and is time to take my meds and draft the blog. The usual going to bed rituals see me flirting with the midnight.