Saturday and its excitement day as we, my partner, eldest daughter and I are off to Birmingham to see Cirque Du Soleil. We breakfast and I check the train tickets. By about 9:45 we are ready to leave so I summon up an Uber to take us to the station. The Uber driver had an interesting approach to speed limits, he ignored them. We arrived at the station with time to spare and while away on the platform. We had discovered that although I had ordered the tickets together and asked for reserved seats, the seats allotted us were not together, clearly too difficult. Anyway, we found our seats and settled into the journey and experienced the “being packed in like sardines” experience. We eventually arrive at Birmingham New Street and find our way to the world.

We walk through the centre of the Bull ring and find our way to the canal path that takes us to the Utilita Areana. We have hours to kill before the performance, so we dive into the Cosy Club to have lunch. It looks plush and we settle in and order. My choice, a dirty chicken burger was a mistake, not good. What is noticeable is the reduced quality of the Cosy Club menu, it is much poorer than it was. No more ham hock hash for example. So, it looks posh but doesn’t live up to the look.

I cannot move on without pointing out that in their wisdom the owners of Cosy Club seem to think that those of us using the “gentleman’s” toilet do so wishing to be observed by a bevy of young debutantes from the pages of Country Life! Not only do they overlook the urinals, but they sneak into the stalls as well. I present a couple of examples and hope that Cosy Club have paid the royalties due and have consent.

Having whiled away enough time we move on to the Utilita Arena. We get through the security and take our seats, discovering that the start time is half an hour before the time printed on the tickets. There is of course no filming or taking pictures of the performance, but I did snap the drop curtain.

The show is just excellent and full of real theatre and some touches of absolute brilliance. There is a twenty-minute break before the fun continues. The second half is also excellent. I am enthralled by the musicians especially the guitarist that also plays accordion, the whole musical backdrop to the stage performance is amazing. The end comes too soon for me. We leave and walk back by the canals until we pick up a taxi to the station. The journey back is less crowded and when we pull into home we hop into a taxi after stocking up with chocolate goodies. Home and I feed the hedgehog before settling down to eat the chocolate and watch football. I go to bed tired by the travels of the day and very much peopled out.

Sunday and I am up early to watch the England rugby team thrash their latest opposition in the women’s world cup. I go back to bed and wake again at about 10:30. I set about trying to mend or stabilise my collapsed plastic greenhouse.

I get the tools away, my new plants under cover and then indulge in a bacon sandwich. The Sunday call to our youngest daughter gets made late but we arrange to visit her in November. My afternoon is full of rugby, league and union, and then I pack for the conference I am going to for the next three days. Always a problem to decide on which image and wardrobe to choose, but I decide on an ice hockey jersey-based look draped in a long black cardigan. As the conference is going to be at a Quaker conference centre, I decide I need to take survival rations. I take a walk down to my local Co-op and stock up on chocolate, wine gums and other “can’t live without” items. I pack my “technology backpack” which in effect is my traveling office and run through my pack and to do list. Tea follows along with Dr Who and a Strictly catch up. My final tasks of the evening are to feed the hedgehog, clear the kitchen and put the final touches to my packing. Of course, I draft the blog not sure if it will be possible over the next couple of days, but I hope to be able to post something. I shall go to bed nervous about the coming conference but just hope I am able to juggle my spoons, yesterday took quite a lot out of me and I think I shall need to keep a sensible pace for the next three days.

Friday, and it’s throwing down as I surface to consciousness. I grab my phone and do my social media before getting up. I go for the comfort of a fried egg sandwich with real coffee. My task of the day is to patch the Shed roof. I gather together my resources and get into the garden. Ladder up against the Shed I climb up and try to identify where water might be getting in. I mark out an area of seam that appears to be the most likely source of the leak. I cut a roofing felt patch and then work the adhesive into the roof. Finally, I lay the patch in place and tape it off. Hopefully a job well done. Its lunch time after I have cleared away my tools. After a dish of soup, and putting the evening meal in the crockpot, I go back to the Shed to write a letter only to find the Shed still leaks, so I improvise.

I write my letter in the Shed and then take a trip to the post box. The drip in the Shed bugs me and I can’t leave it alone. I go into my man cave and look for a solution. I find some frame sealant and return to the Shed to try a new approach. I fill the ingress point for the leak with filler and smooth off with a pallet knife. I rehang the drip pot just in case. In the toing and froing from the Shed I notice that my gutters are overflowing, the water is pouring over the top. I cannot leave it, so I find the steps and set about clearing out the guttering. My gutter hedgehogs had not been cleaned this year and as a result a blockage had built up. I spend my time standing on a low wall cleaning out the blockage and rearranging the hedge hogs. I finally get it done and get the stuff away. By now I’m wet and tired but remember that the real hedgehog needs to be fed so I’m back to the garden and refiling the hogs bowl in Fort Hog.

The evening is the crockpot meal then TV rugby followed by Have I Got News for You. Then there was the final ever episode of Mock the Week. All that is left for me is to draft the blog and to prepare for tomorrows family trip to Birmingham to see Cirque du Soleil. It is an adventure that will test my spoon juggling. Night meds and bed now.

Thursday, and I wake very late and blunder my way into another day of political cluster fuck. I have my muesli breakfast washed down with fresh coffee. As I sit feeling increasingly wired, I watch the unfolding resignation of Blunder Truss. One moment there is a man introducing the podium team and the next Tosser Truss is resigning. Ding Dong the witch is dead, it’s a Dorothy moment.

For the first time in years politics is entertaining and fun. Much better than loads of poor dramas on TV. This year the TV license is well worth the money. Where else could you get such intrigue, farce, incompetence and a blood bath? Now we are going to get the unedifying spectacle of the auctioning of the Ceasarship, it like watching the Fall of the Roman Empire.

I have a celebratory peanut bagel and prepare to train. Today I’m doing 45 minutes on the rower at my “gentle” level. I get changed and while my partner is visiting her mother, I settle to my session in the garage. It’s a session that goes reasonably well as I stretch out the stiffness from yesterday.

Post session I put out the recycling and empty the dishwasher. I check Fort Hog and find an empty food dish, so I put in a refilled fresh dish. I notice that there is a leak in the Shed. It’s been raining all day and there are drips of water on my writing table. I look for bitumen spray in my man cave but there is none, so I order some to arrive tomorrow. I guess I know what I will be doing tomorrow at some point. I change into my Merlin robe and settle down to watch an early evening football match on my laptop. My partner returns and makes tuna pasta we settle down to a cosey evening of film and TV. My daughter rings to say she cannot get a taxi from her circus skills class. The reason for this is that the taxi drivers will not take out of town rides if Leicester are playing at home, which they are tonight. I pull on clothes and drive off to pick my daughter returning home to watch the end of the football match that had denied my daughter a taxi. The evening goes on until I draft the blog and then take my night meds and go to bed. It’s been an entertaining day and it seems the fun is going to continue for at least a week.

Wednesday and I wake up to slow, that kind of slow where you know it’s going to take a while getting going. I eventually do get myself together and have my usual muesli breakfast but today it is accompanied by fresh real coffee. I enjoy my coffee immensely and then head for the shed to write a letter. I am there till lunchtime when I am tempted out by the promise of a bacon sandwich. While filled with bacon sandwich I book train tickets for our trip to Birmingham to see Cirque de Soliel. I return to the Shed and get a call from a friend. It was a luxury to have the time to chat at length and to catch up. I am fortunate that I can pace my life as I wish most of the time but that is a luxury she does not have as she battles long COVID and still has to provide for her family. Its half term soon and the demands will be intensified. At the end of our call, I go to the post box and then return to train. I go to the garage and put the resistance up a notch on the rower and decide that I will do 30 minutes. This level is my standard level so half an hour at this stage begins to feel like a move back to normal training. It’s tough going but with Seasick Steve in my ears I make it and do a reasonable distance.

At the end of the session there is little time to rest, so I shower and put on my glad rags ready to accompany my partner to the hospital. We set off and arrive at the hospital in good time and wait for the consultant. He turns out to be a real sweetie and just expertly professional. He listened attentively to my partners account, took her hand in his and gently put a finger on a spot and said, “It’s here, isn’t it?” and it was. He then told us exactly what was wrong and what to do with it. He provided the required injection there and then and told us that if by chance it persisted to come back again. Our decision. We go home to fish and chips. Before I can settle for the evening, I have to check Fort Hog in the dark. The food dish is empty, so it gets replenished, and I am free to don my Merlin robe for the evening. I settle down to draft the blog and while the rest of the evening away. It’s been a good day. Night meds and bed, but not before the Home Secretary is dismissed and the Chief Whip goes. Such fun.

It’s Tuesday and a meeting day for not being an Elder anymore. So, I am faced with what I can usefully do with my additional time to myself today. I think about this after a late breakfast and clearing the kitchen. I open up the green house so my Echinacea colonies can have some sunshine and peruse my garden. I load up the dishwasher and set it going and then embark on my chosen joy project for the morning. I have decided so throw away all the socks and underwear that no longer bring me joy and to empty my store of new “just in case” socks and underwear. It seems my unconscious wants to play “out with the old and in with the new”. I just love it when my unconscious steps in and decides to run my life, its far less anxiety provoking and nearly always fun. So I end up with a bin bag full of old socks and pants which can be junked, and tidy new draws filled with favourite worn garments augmented by brand new, in the packet ones. I also end up with a much depleted but tidier reserve cupboard. The exercise is fun and in doing it a rediscover six brand new shirts, a pair of reserve slippers and a new tracksuit. I am not sure how I feel about a pack of sleeveless vests but retain them against a harsh winter. Feeling suitable happy I start to draft the blog.

I am pleased with my efforts as it means when people ask me what I want for Christmas I can revert back to stereotypical father responses of “pants and socks”, although I will stipulate “Step One” pants due to my liking of the glide panels and comfort pouch. These things are important to a man of a certain age. So, it comes to lunch time, and I have the joys of expectation before me. Will the hog have eaten he/she’s food, will I make it to the gym, will I have time to mend the bathroom light properly if the new fittings arrive and will my single cafetiere arrive in time for a real coffee post evening meal? I am slightly disappointed that there are no further developments in the Blunder Truss saga today, it has degenerated into a media fest of people guessing and fantasising about the future, which is always boring but probably necessary for them to have careers and to tell themselves that they are keeping them informed. I’m sorry to break the news to them that I am perfectly capable of making up my own guesses and fantasies and that they can go and lay down for a while to calm down.

Time to gym. Or so I thought as Mr Amazon trotted up my path with the goodies I was waiting for. So, without any hesitation I set about replacing the dodgy light fitting in the bathroom. It was a straightforward snip off the old one and attach a new one. All went well and now it should be sound for years to come.

So, job well done I decide to indulge in my other new acquisition, my new single cafetiere. I fill the gleaming new pot and pour myself a real coffee to sip as I catch up with the blog. It is all part of working out what gives me joy and fresh coffee, is one of those things. I am hoping that I will drink less coffee but better coffee at the start of the day. As I type I almost get a phone call but for some reason it gets cut out. It’s a shame but life can be hectic and perverse where technology is concerned. Now it really is time to go to the gym, I must get out.

I went to the gym via the garage to check the tyres. Lucky, I did really. The front which should be 36 psi were below 30 and the rear ones that should be 33 psi were hovered in the mid 20s. Once I had got them up to pressure the quality of drive adn handling suddenly got a lot better. Onwards to the gym where I found a cross trainer and did a 50-minute session. I’m not sure how it went beyond the numbers, I wait and see how my body reacts to the effort. As usual Rammstein was loud in my ears but when I had finished and was walking round the gym floor to cool down, I played Bette Midler’s When a Man Loves a Woman. What a performance. I detest the part of going to the gym where I undress and then dress again post shower. I no longer like my body, its fat, misshapen and marked, not something to flaunt or parade in a changing room. At least the shower was hot.

So I go home, update the blog while downing a pint of squash and a packet of mini cheddars. At some point today I ought to eat some protein. Tonight, is a family planning night, (not a euphemism), we are going to sort out our trip to Birmingham on Saturday to see Cirque De Soleil, so there are trains and taxis to sort out plus of course all the other things that go with a family trip, like snacks, emergency clothing and anything else required to deal with the collective anxieties of the day. So, I expect an interesting evening and an early night, but before all of that Fort Hog has to be surveyed and food supplied if necessary.

Monday. I wake late not feeling my best. The fried egg sandwich and coffee do little to lift me and then I watch yet another chancellor scrap a mini budget. The basic message is that our latest prime minister is thick, does not understand the economy and basically is innumerate. I check my social media for signs of life, there is none beyond a passing hello. The highlights of my day are going to be a Tesco delivery and the arrival of a long cardigan to wear at next week’s conference. Doubtless I shall go to the Shed and write and then train at some point in an effort energise myself. I realise I am seething inside although not completely sure why. I can locate some of it as being the aftermath of stepping out of the Elders group. I think it is the sense of being taken for granted and the phrase “familiarity breeds contempt”, rings true to my experience in this moment. Perhaps it is a wider experience. For the time being I will sit with it, write, read and go about my business.

I spend time doing small jobs around the house like fixing the bathroom light and the lounge light. I check Fort Hog and find the hog has not dined. I throw the old stuff away and refresh the food dish. Tomorrow I will check the garden camera. It occurs to me that now is usually the time that the hedgehogs start thinking about hibernating, perhaps the non-eating last night is the start. It’s a tricky time as I have just ordered another tray of Mr Prickles meaty super for my hog.

Jobs done I and my partner walk down to the village shop to get dish washer tablets and so spontaneous buys. Back home my partner has lunch and I begin to think about training. I am not feeling my best physically and I’m still full of my “seething” so I am slow getting into my kit but once I am I drop into my “all or nothing” mode. I hit the rower for an hour with Rammstein loud, very loud, in my ears. I discovered years ago that loud music can surface the unconscious and coupled with physical effort can be a vehicle to confront what is going in the “Dark and Tricky” that lay below the surface. I strap in and row, closed eyed with the music drowning everything out, in this state I let my body get on with the effort of exercise and let my mind roam and see what rises from the deep. It is a state in which everything else disappears and nothing can intrude. I stand alone with myself in the desert and it’s a reaffirmation that I stand on my own without fear. In this space the confrontation between who I am and what cancer is trying to do to me come face to face. Ultimately there maybe only one outcome but between now and then I win the battles in this space. At the end of a session I am stronger.

I emerge from the garage, change clothes and then move the car from the drive so that Tesco can deliver. While I wait, I watch the continuing cluster fuck that claims it is a government. The message is that when incompetence fails there will be more austerity that the poor will pay for. I begin to wonder if this Guy Fawkes anniversary there might be a successful reincarnation. Tesco deliver and I return to the political blood bath on TV. I catch up with social media and continue to draft the blog. This evening I plan to eat tea, watch a rugby match and go to bed early to read. Tomorow is an empty day that will either see me in the Shed or the gym.

Saturday and I am up early and showered as today I am meeting friends for lunch. It’s to be a day when I will wear “normal” clothes, shirt and real trousers with actual shoes with laces. It feels slightly odd. I have breakfast and then walk down to the village shop to get some cash. By the time I get back its time to start out. It’s a familiar drive to the Whinnery in Burton and goes smoothly. It feels like a while since I have driven but in truth it’s not that long ago that I have driven to and from north Devon. When I arrive, I find one of my friends has already arrived, so we sit and chat over a drink as we wait for the others. Two more friends arrive, and we settle down to drinks and to wait for the remaining people to arrive. We get a message that motorway work has delayed the arrival of our friends and that we should order our food and continue without them. They will arrive late and then catch up with us. We eat and chat until the remaining two finally arrive some two hours later and in need of a stiff drink. One or two of the group need to be away quite early and leave the rest of us to drink and talk. There is a lot sharing of how we are and there is a great deal of laughter as we recount the ups and downs of dealing with our relatives and the anticipated frustration of neighbours appallingly tasteless Christmas Garden displays. It’s well past 5 o’clock before we contemplate leaving. We find a new date to meet in December and book a table before wandering into the car park where we say our farewells.

I get home after Strictly has started and settle down to try and catch up. Not difficult really but then it’s hardly a challenge. We watch it to its twinkling, glittery and sparkly end with no particular favourites. We then nibble pizza and watch the concluding episodes of Sherwood before giving it best and going to bed. I’ve really enjoyed my day and reconnecting with friends over food, it’s a very basic human activity that has been good. It reminded me about how fun we are when we are trying to be kind in the face aggravating relatives or trying to deal with natures changes in us. I discover one thing my current hormonal situation has equipped me for is to be able to participate in a conversation on menopause and the joys of hot flushes. I take my night meds and go to bed.

Sunday and I wake up to a coffee and a chat before getting up to a bacon sandwich. There is the usual post breakfast chat with my youngest daughter. There is good news, the new bathroom is completed and even better news, her partner has a new job with an increase in wage. So, all is good with them. For the moment they are two young professionals building their futures together and building their home successfully. At some point we will go and visit them. Having completed our Sunday morning ritual my partner and I go to the garden centre to buy fruit and vegetables and indulge in a scone and a dink. It’s another opportunity to chat about things and where we are. We return home and my partner goes off to the gym, I head for the garden before television beguiles me. I dig up all the self-sown foxgloves in the garden and then replant them in two patches at the back of the front garden. If all goes to plan next year will see a backdrop of foxgloves adding height to the front garden. I am fatigued by the effort but manage to check Fort Hog and replenish the food therein. I tidy away and retreat to the sofa with toast and a drink to watch some rugby and to catch up with the blog.

This evening will see me watching the Strictly results and then drift towards my night meds. In general, it feels a silent day, a day where I find myself in in the Chinese box and reflective.

Friday and I’ve had a difficult night, a nagging headache and the issue of the Elders membership, so I get up slowly and indulge in cooked breakfast and coffee. I wander through part of the morning and reflect upon what my response to the Elders being drawn into an organisational structure is going to be. Yesterday’s email informing the group of the change has rankled me and stayed with me all night. I am obviously irritated, but I try to ask myself whether I am just being reactionary or whether there are good reasons to be disturbed by the decision. I was not consulted, nor were my colleagues, there was no discussion and no reflection. For me that speaks volumes about how the Elders, and myself are perceived. Clearly the relationship I thought I was in, along with the group, was not the one being made manifest by the relationship proposed, in fact imposed. I found myself in a really difficult dilemma given the work the Elders are embarking on in the near future. In the end when I asked myself “did I want to go through the stress of working through all the issues?” the answer was no. I can stay a friend and colleague to all of the Elders outside of the group. My decision is made, and I send messages to that effect to the group. I am too far down the road to take on more, the stress is not worth it. A friend once sent me a card that expressed it in a very direct way.

As I work my way through this, I have the TV on and watch fascinated as the Chancellor gets sacked having flown back from the USA a day early. Then I see an ex-health minister become chancellor and Blunder Truss give the shortest press conference on record. I am fascinated by the spectacle like a rabbit being charmed by a cobra. Is this the reality that I live in. Children who cannot count, do not know how a budget works and for the life of them do not understand that the logic is in the arithmetic. In an effort for normality, I put a chicken crockpot meal in and then try to capture some of the morning on the blog. There is my washing to be put away, the hog to be fed and then I am off to the gym to try and keep my body going. In the midst of all this I wish my grandson happy birthday. Oh, to be young again.

The reality turned out to be me not feeling well enough to go to the gym, so I indulged in some Hobbity tosh before my partner returned from the gym. We eat the meal I put in earlier and then watch and evening of Sherwood, Have I got News for You and the penultimate Mock the Week. My final chores are to finish todays blog, clear the kitchen and then take my night meds before going to bed with a headache. Tomorrow, I have the treat of meeting friends for lunch, a welcome break from the current world of political mayhem.

Thursday and I wake feeling relatively chipper. I sit for a while and check my social media and messages and then make breakfast and coffee. Morning meds get taken and then I’m stuck. So when in doubt do the Tesco order, which I do knowing I will change it on Sunday. With that out of the way I go to Moonpig to order a card for my eldest grandchild. It’s difficult to know what sort of card to go for but in the end I settle on Dinosaurs and a suitably odd set of words in the card. I think he is the sort of chap that will appreciate a strange grandparent from another land given that he lives in Sweden.

I go out into the garden as I notice that a dahlia has flowered. It should not have, it should be over and done with like all the others. So I go out to chat to it and see what is going on. The garden is very still, strangely so, like the time before a storm but there is nothing like that forecast. It’s almost as if the garden is waiting for something. There are no birds and no bird sounds, the pond is still and there is no squirrel dashing around everythign is just standing there, silently. The sun shines ona garden holdng its breathe,and its no talking.

I check Fort Hog and give it a clean out. The food has gone again so I assume my hog is still hungry. I notice for the first time that the big leaves on the Acer tree are not falling and then I realise that my hog wil not hibernate untill there are the materials to build a snug nest for the winter. I replenich Fort Hog and then change into my training gear. I go to the garage and row for 45 minutes, the first time in a long time that I have gone beyond 30 minutes. I abandon my ear buds for my ipod so that Ican train with Rammstein in my ears, loudly. The 45 minutes fly by and I am pleased to burn more than 600 calories.

Back to earth with a lunchtime bowl of chicken soup and orange juice. Feeling a bit more my old self, I draft the blog early. There will be no post for me to look forward to as the postal workers have gone on strike so I make my own amusement. My grandson’s birthday present has arrived in time for his birthday, which is pleasing. All I need now is for his card to arrive as well. I finally get out of my training kit, make coffee and continue to read Getting Lost by Annie Ernaux. I continue to read until it’s time to eat and watch tonight’s football while my partner is having her singing lesson. It will be an early night, night meds and sleep are what I need. My injection site is still enlarged and sore, it drains me.

Its Wednesday and the chicken egg in my gut is sore and painful so I get up latish, about 9am and get myself coffee and muesli. It is a sluggish start to my day and when this happens, I usually retreat to the Shed and today is no different.

Once in the Shed I go through my routine, light the candles, put the heater on for a blast and fill the ink well. I spread my writing pad out in front of me and then stare at it. No one comes to mind to write to in this moment. This does not usually happen, so I just stare at the blank page with my address at the top right-hand corner. I’ve had trouble recently externalising what’s going on inside but there is no forcing it. So I sit with it and see if anything comes up. Eventually I go back to an old habit of drawing my life. For years I’ve occasionally drawn out a sort of life map, with places, people, activities and things. Each one is different depending on what is going on. Over the recent years when I was working there were multiple places but now only one, home and the Shed. I start the process doodling with brush and ink and just let the picture develop. I try to let it just happen and only think about it afterwards, it’s the doodling that’s more important. I just let it create itself and see where it ends up. With my restricted life at the moment I was not expecting much and admit I started out more in hope than anything else. What I ended up with was a bit of a surprise.

I’m not going to explain it as it seems fairly obvious that there are some tangible bits that are easy to recognise but the rest is a bit of a mystery. I’ve no idea what was going on, which just reinforces my belief that my unconscious has more to do with my life than I either realise or understand. I’m just glad I have one as I have a sense that it deals with the things I do not understand or cannot or face in reality. What I do know within myself it is that it will not harm me, it’s part of me and has my best interests at its heart, it is after all part of me. I don’t believe the unconscious gets “ill”, it’s not that sort of process. My partner makes me lunch and I discover that I have post that includes a lovely and thought-provoking letter from a friend who also includes a post card, which makes me smile, so I share it here.

My partner goes to see her mother with her brother just as Amazon man delivers the picture frame I ordered for the picture my friend has sent me. So, I returned to the Shed and framed the picture and hung it above my writing table. I redistributed other odds and ends to make a suitable space and then sat and looked at it. I really like it and share it below. I apologise to the artist if making the work public is tricky but I think it deserves to be seen, it is so evocative.

I tidy the Shed and then drive to the garage to top up my tank and tyres. It’s good to get out and I decide to go to the gym, not for exercise but for a large hot chocolate and to start to draft the blog. Soon time to return home to start the evening, food then football. I bought a book with me but it remains unopened perhaps I will get to take it to bed tonight. The actual outcome was watching Liverpool stick 7 past Rangers, a dismal news bulletin and then bed.