Monday was jab day, which I got up early for. Apart from some necessary food shopping and life admin I did very little waiting for the after effects of my Dexarelix injection to kick in, which it did late afternoon. The nurse had trouble getting it all into me today, which did not bode well, but a slow day and some paracetamol seemed to have eased the process. By the time the evening came around I had idly written my Christmas cards and this included a very brief “this is how the family are” letter. Not something I would usually do, but for some reason I thought it worth the effort as I had already received a couple that were quite up lifting and not the usual Christmas strophes of doom that I had become used to over the years. So I ended the day with my meds and and probably too much TV, in particular Blindspot, a very American series with far too many adverts. The episodes last 40 minutes of which I swear 50% is adverts, clearly the “show” is no more than an advertising vehicle, which reflects the Americans ability to pat attention to anything. A truly goldfish race.

Tuesday saw me being a slug as my after effects of yesterdays jab were at there worse. A brave would have trained but the cowardly me got the better of me and after breakfast I spent time wrapping some Christmas goodies. It was a day of “Puttering” and doing the fiddly odd jobs like mending my fitness band and when failing ordering new ones. It was a major discovery that my fitness tracker can be popped out of its wrist band and popped back into a new one. The new ones wrist bands can come from Amazon and are as cheap as chips so needless to say a ordered a job lot. I spent a lot of time casting around for Christmas presents for the family but I keep running into my lack of creativity to find something that goes beyond the “socks and smellies” category. I did update my Excel spread sheet of my vitals in preparation for the following days oncology review. My arithmetic is good, better than its been for while and overall I am functioning pretty well. I am thankful for the messages and occasional phone calls that I get, which encourage me. The day progresses with a quick trip to the post office and the doing of the daily crosswords before an early evening football match and meal. The rest of the evening is more Blindspot, but I am loosing interest init. There are six series and I am only half way through series two, and predictably the script writers are running out of viable and believable story lines so that it falls into the realm of the ridiculous, much like NCIS and other American series. Of course we in England would never do such a thing like that as demonstrated by Midsommer Murders, Father Brown, The Sweeney, Morse, Poirot, not to mention Peaky Blinders, Up Stairs Downstairs and Bridgerton. Time for night meds comes around and I take myself off to bed hoping for good nights sleep.

Wednesday arrives and I wake feeling quite chipper, I take my vitals, have breakfast and up date my blood pressure spread sheet. There is some elementary chores to do before I sit down to catch up on drafting the blog while I wait for “he who made a pact with the devil” to ring me for my oncology review. Its likely to lightening fast and my prediction is that he will give me three more cycles of of my chemo therapy pills and see me about Easter time. When I look at myself compared to his other patients I guess I am a success and a low maintenance one. Perhaps I will send him my “The Cancer Years” series as a Christmas present. This reminds me that I need to wrap my next poem for the poetry Stanza meeting later in the month, they have been really helpful over the past year so I’m going to gift them my collections. What else would a self obsessed vanity poet do? It also prompts me to get back to writing and proper reading. But for now I wait for the oncologist to ring.

“He who made a pact with the devil” finally rings. It is by far the shortest review in history. Me, “I am fine, my PSA is going down, my blood pressure is good, I am on minimal meds, I’m training again and my Dupuytrens Contracture is being operated on by your friends Dr U, who sends his regards, on the 30th of January. ” That took thirty seconds. My Oncologist “Good I’ll see you in 12 weeks and prescribe you three more cycles, give my regards to my Dr U, anything else?” Me; “no”. Oncologist: “Good, have good Christmas and see you in twelve weeks, goodbye”. click. In all no more than 180 seconds. Session went as predicted. I am promoting myself to star patient. Given all the other people he sees who must be in dire straights and present in a really distressing manner, who must be a nightmare to deal with I am a doodle. Come January this year I will have survived for six years, given that the original arithmetic suggested 26th months I am doing doing really well so my self presented accolade of star patient is well deserved. A friend sent me a poster thing that sums up where I am at.

With the review over and another three months of cancer pills ensured I finally get to go to the post office to send my Christmas cards. The piddling sized post box that this village has is really inadequate but I manage to get my cards in and then get contraband from the shop, retuning home to continue drafting the blog whilst sipping comforting Lucozade and marvelling at the shrinkflation of Rolos. I am sure that even as a child a whole tube of Rolos would have made me throw up but these sad modern day Rolos pose no problem at all. My partner has returned from the solicitors where she signed her Will, something that has been on the general family to do list for a while. She makes us lunch and goes off to see her mother while I begin to audit how my Christmas organisation is going. In passing I would note that it is ten years to the day that I became an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church, a fact that Brother Walter reminded me of in his Greeting Rev R W email. It is ten years since that day when I became an ordained priest and holder of a Doctorate of Divinity. I remember it well, it was an afternoon when I was bored and seeking distraction when I came across the Universal Life Church that is open to all regardless of belief or non belief. It was the same afternoon that I bought my Louisville Slugger Baseball Bat, which I use to this day to open the loft and for it to provide a comforting presence lounging potently in a bedroom recess close to hand in case of a home invasion. Armed with my metal Billi club torchlight and the faithful Slugger I’m pretty sure the household is secure. Anyway, depending on where I am in the world I could, if so moved, conduct weddings, funerals and any of the other rituals that church’s do. I have my certificates but I have stopped short of buying vestments and wedding packs, but if things get financial tight I might start my own YouTube based congregation based on the efficacy of Tithing. Perhaps I should buy a camper van and start Barnstorming around Britain, exalting people to give generously to the cause of Kindness and my petrol bill. Alas I fear I might have left it too late.

I move on in my Christmas admin and preparation whilst drafting the blog until my partner return home and we settle in for the evening, she to zoom meet with a friend and me to watch football or rubbish TV before night meds and scampering off to bed. I am feeling more chipper and tomorrow will train again in earnest and start my serious run into Christmas.

Sunday and after a late night last night to wait for my bloods I wake late and take my time getting up. I seemed to have fitted in a lot yesterday and today I feel the effects of that. My partner and I have breakfast and then we both get ourselves ready to go food shopping at the local garden centre. The weather continues to be foul so its a case of wrapping up in the waterproofs and getting from one dry place to another. Our trip yields the food we need and also some new Christmas tree lights and a single bauble that caught my eye. Over the years I’ve collected Christmas tree drops rather than baubles. The closest I find is a fat drop, so I add it to our collection.

On retuning home I slob about with a headache, I had planned to write cards erect the Christmas tree but I am not up to it so I cruise doing small admin chores and having the TV on. It is a meander into the evening to tea and the Strictly results. Of course there is a Tesco order to do but I will mostly preparing for tomorrows 28 day jab, which will be taking prophylactic paracetamol, night meds and an early night. My plan now is to get jabbed do as much Christmas stuff as I can before the after effects of the jab kick in, When that happens all bets are off until I come out the other side.

Saturday and my alarm wakes me at 7 o’clock and I get myself out of bed and ready to get the GP surgery in the next village to have my bloods taken. Its cold and wet to be out and about this early but I get to the surgery in good time for my 8 o’clock appointment. My bloods are taken quickly and I am soon home and having breakfast. I decide to tackle putting a new door latch into the range door. So I gather up my tools and get to work on the oven door. The job goes okay with the usual unexpected fiddly bits but it gets done, so the oven door now closes properly. I am pleased with myself and I have time to have a break before driving to meet friends for lunch.

My afternoon is spent with friends having lunch. They are all ex work colleagues and friends and some of them have travelled three or four hours to be at the lunch, braving the storms to get there. We exchange Christmas cards and presents and then catch up with our news and plans for the future. One of my friends tells me that she stumbled over someone at work who was in tears reading my poetry. I was really taken aback, I had no idea that this could happen. Apparently the person, who had been a colleague many years ago, had bought one of my collections. We finish our meal and say our good byes and I drive home.

Once home I settle down to watch Strictly and some TV before drafting the blog while I wait for my blood results come in. So at midnight I check my phone to see if they have come in. My results are in and the news is good, my PSA has dropped below 1 and there is nothing else of consequence in the results. My eGFR (kidney function) is 63, which is a good function level for some one with my history. So I can go to bed content that my bloods are good.

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I’ve been away with my partner to a Spa. So I have indulged in healthy food, an occasional afternoon slab of cake washed down with a glass of prosecco, and a treatment. In my case I got rubbed down with a wire brush and then moisturised. I thought of it as being rubbed down with a hedgehog and then with an oily rag. It was a very good feeling and left me very relaxed and probably tricky to grab hold of. The real luxury is that everything is brought to you and people smile and say “no problem” a lot. Then of course there is time to read, laid out on a sun lounger or a sofa wrapped in a white fluffy towelling with nothing else but swim wear on. Everyone is in a fluffy white robe so it feels like one is part of a flock of pampered sheep who are being fattened up and prepared for the check out. To be honest I do not care it is worth the price to have some luxury time.

I did find my way to the gym where I buckled up on their version of a rower. It was a proper chain rower and made me work hard than mine back home. After half an hour I was dripping with sweat which was just fine and set me up for for the gingerbread roll and prosecco experience a little later.

Of course on Thursday it was my partners 65 birthday a big one which is why we were treating ourselves to the luxury break. The getting away was the main thing and having time to indulge and reflect and I think we did that well. By the time Friday lunchtime came around and it was time to leave we were both chilled and ready for the coming Christmas stuff. I drove us home and we unpacked and tidied away before I went to the chemists to pick up my monthly prescription, my cancer is never far away from the surface in one form or another.

There is some Christmas admin to do before tomorrows lunch with friends, however storm Darragh may have an effect on whether everyone can get there. I settle in for a quiet evening of TV, my night meds are taken early and I am drinking a lot of water as I am due to have my hospital bloods taken at 8 o’clock tomorrow morning at the GP surgery in the next village. Yep its that time in my 28 day cycle, I am due my injection on Monday and my Oncology review on Wednesday the 11th. It comes around so fast and it means I will loose the first two or three days of next week.

Tuesday and I start the day with my usual waking routine and the taking of my vitals. While my partner gets breakfast and continues to shift the data from her old phone to the new one I take my morning meds and get ready to go car hunting. Late morning we drive off to the Jeep supplier in Leicester. I’ve been fancying a Jeep for ages and I am eager to be looking them over. We get to the dealership and I am in and sitting in them like a rat up a drain pipe. The outcome is that I am hugely disappointed, they are neither higher nor more impressive than I hoped for. No matter how often I sit them and play with all the toys I feel no joy and have to admit that my fantasy is just that and that I will never own a Jeep.

I drive my partner to one of our favourite garden centres for lunch, where we find that they have started their Christmas menu, so I could not resist the turkey and stuffing panini accompanied by mulled non alcohol wine. It was delicious and could not resist taking a photo of it.

Once home I am on recycling duty and get the bins out before getting to work on replacing the door seal on the cooker. To my chagrin I find that it is the door latch that is faulty. So I clean the existing seal and then order a new door latch and door pin. An unexpected project for when I return from my brief break away. By the time I’ve cleared my tools away, done the days crosswords its time for tea and an evening of TV. I get to night meds time and draft the blog. Its been an active day of mixed success, tomorrow is the start of the brief Spa break.

Monday and the day is wet and grey, I really do not wan to get up. I do my vitals and follow my partner down to breakfast after a shower. So today I am going into town with my partner as she buys a new phone. Having parked up and found the O2 shop we spend a long time with a very helpful assistant as we play dub and ignorant punter and ask a lot of questions. He takes us through the process which ends up with my partner getting the phone she wants on a cheaper plan. The real arse ache is that they will no longer do the data transfer in the shop as they cannot risk being accused of a data breach, so the transfer will have to happen at home following a crib sheet that they have given us. Sounds tricky to me but it will be my partner who does it. With a new phone tucked under the arm we head for the Apple shop to check my partners password to be met with a resounding, “sorry we can’t do that but here’s the number you need to ring to do it”. So the telephone sales guy who told us to pop into Apple because they can do it easily was talking bollocks.

We decide to snack while in town adn go to one of our favourite little cafes. Its is packed out and we just manage to squeeze onto the last table. It is neither as quaint or nice as I remember it. We order , chat and devour before heading home. I skip to the Post Office and send the Sweden box off to my son. When it will get there will all depend on how long Swedish customs feel they need to hold socks, jumper and a rain jacket. I guess it all depends on how paranoid they get about kids clothing. Last time it took them weeks for a football shirt and a pair of goal keeping gloves.

Once home I settle down to do the days crosswords, which I complete with out the aid of Google, so it is a good day. I unwrap the new external door mats and deploy them at the back door and then stare into space for a bit before trying to hunt down the Christmas cards I ordered, in the end I reorder them as I can find no record of ever paying for any to arrive. My spoons are ebbing away and I find myself drifting into the evening meal of risotto before starting to draft the blog. My partner is at her singing lesson tonight, and as time goes on we both get more twitchy that the phone to phone data transfer via the cloud may not be going to plan. All we can do is to wait and see what happens. I feel a perturbation coming on.

What ever happens I shall wend my way through the evening to the taking of my meds and a retreat to bed hoping that I can renew my spoon account for tomorrow and do all the packing and organising for the drive to the Spa on Wednesday for a well earned luxury break to celebrate my partners birthday.

There is very little to say about this day other than the fact that I’ve done a lot of Christmas puttering today. For the first time I have drafted a Christmas letter and made it as positive as I could. The good news of the day was that I weighed in at 99.9 kilos, so that’s my first weight goal reached.

My second thing of the day was to train late in the day. I did a 45 minute session before the Strictly results show. I had been feeling decidedly off the last couple of days so training was an effort both of mind and body. It was an okay session that will see me through the next couple of days.

The rest of the day was rugby, Strictly, TV and a bit more Christmas puttering, however I forgot to adjust my Tesco order so it will be interesting to see what gets delivered on Monday. The blog gets drafted, my meds get taken and I take myself to bed.

Friday and I am not sure how my day started other than I went through my waking routine and took my vitals as usual. As the household was at work I walked down to the village café for a bacon and sausage baguette and a decaf coffee. Having bought a paper on the way I dawdled in the café till I had finished the days crosswords. Once home there was some Christmas puttering to be done, I ‘m trying to have everything under control by December, even some of the wrapping has been done. I get the strong sense that I am not alone in this, friends tell me that they are doing the same and the general rush at the shops seems to confirm that people at large are doing the same thing. It feels like there is an element of people wanting to get it over with so they can back to the ordinary ” winter making ends meet”.

In the afternoon I accompany my partner to the garden centre to eat and then return home to continue the Christmas puttering. Friday afternoon slides into evening where TV awaits and finally the medication before bed.

Saturday comes as a bit of a surprise I have clearly slept deeply and it takes me a while to get myself together and to get to go through my usual rituals. When I do get up my partner has gone to the hairdresser and I find my eldest daughter dressed as Wednesday Adams as she prepares to go to Comicom. I make breakfast, take my morning meds and wonder why I feel so rough. I do more Christmas organising until the garden guy turns up. With the garden guy given coffee I accompany my partner to the garden centre where we pick up food for the weekend and return home.

I’m still not feeling chipper but I find the energy to fill the bird and squirrel feeders and then watch a rugby match followed by a football match. I try to clear the decks and in doing so get the gas fire in the lounge working again. I also get the Christmas post box done ready to send to Sweden for my older grandson who has become a Leicester City fan. The family eats tea and settles down to watch Strictly, its getting difficult to call. The evening dibbles away until I take my night meds and get myself off to bed. Its been a lack lustre day so I must train tomorrow to get myself going again.

Thursday and I wake up after a good nights sleep and set about my waking routine. Vitals are good and my socials and messages are all run of the mill. I’m feeling sluggish and it feels like this is a day of few spoons, however I had decided yesterday that this needs to be a training day so I get up and get into my training, down my morning meds and eventually get to the garage and the rower. I make a bad choice, I choose to listen to a BBC radio beat compilation while I row, it is not only boring but intensely annoying, so I will not be doing that again. I row for 45 minutes on level 4 in a state of irritation at the sounds in my ears. Eventually the session is over and to my surprise I have rowed a personal best for this new era of training. Perhaps I row better if I am irritated!

By the end of the session I am almost spoonless. The session gets recorded and I stare into space for a while as I listen to the Infinite Monkey Cage and gather up my self. I do a bit more Christmas shopping on the internet before having a shower. Feeling clean and refreshed but with no more spoons I invent a new sandwich after staring into the fridge wondering what I really want. This is how the peanut butter/ tinned salmon/ corn beef sandwich gets born. Actually protein packed and surprisingly tasty especially when washed down with diet Red Bull.

The blog starts to gets drafted as I listen to The Infinite Monkey Cage on Hedgehogs, Elasticity, The Science of Baby Making and A Starless Word, so it is like an intensive brain meal to go with my new protein packed sandwich. Already the sun is going down and the evening is crawling over the garden and the view from my recliner. I feel like a spider waiting for things to come to fruition so that I am partner birthday ready and Christmas ready. One thing about having limited spoons is that life becomes more strategic so that my energy gets spent more efficiently. I could have done with this skill years ago. The secretary of the surgeon who is going to deal with my Viking disease rings me and explains that she needs the quote for my operation in January so that it can be adjusted to take account of the post operation finger physio. I promise to share as soon as I get it.

My evening might be football focused or reading focused or a mixture of both, whatever I do it will end up with me taking my night meds and hoping for a good nights sleep.

Wednesday and I wake to the sound of the house at work, I go through my getting up rituals, vitals of course get done and are good. I spend time checking my tine table up to Christmas and working out what I need to do when, some of my to do list has gaps which I need to think about. With the morning gone I go to the village pub with my eldest daughter for brunch, where we chat and enjoy the emptiness of the place. Having eaten well we return home via the co-op for a paper.

My partner goes to see her mother taking my new power cleaner with her so that the handy man at her mothers can power wash her patio. I settle down to check what has arrived for birthdays and Christmas and begin to wrap some things. It goes quite well but I am still waiting for my bespoke cards and wrapping paper. Its an exercise that makes me recognise the shopping still to be done, so over the next few days I shall be topping up and badgering people about what they want. Finally I can do no more and settle down to draft the blog and prepare for this evenings football match and Shetland of course. Tomorrow must be a training day and a further Christmas organising day. With December close its time to get the cards written. I might even write a Christmas letter, I shall see if I can be inspired to write an upbeat one that indicates we are all still alive and kicking even though there have been some things that definitely did not bring the family joy.