Tuesday, a slow start, a very slow start to the day. I wake feeling decidedly off. I eventually get myself out of bed and make a coffee to get myself up to speed. Once it had oiled the wheels, I make breakfast and take my meds and sit doing very little for a while. Eventually I get myself to the Shed and spend the morning writing a letter to a friend. At lunch time I eat with my partner and find that the plants I had ordered have been delivered. It sets my activity for the afternoon. Accompanying the post was a letter for me from a friend and colleague in the Elders group. It was a generous letter that included both a painting and a poem. It was a very welcome tonic. I have already ordered a frame for it, and it will join the other pictures by the same person in my Shed gallery. Perhaps I will include it in the blog at some point in the future.

In the afternoon I post my morning letter and then I pot up the new plug plants that arrived. They are Echinacea or cone flowers. They are drought resistant and live in north America naturally. They flower from June to September. They in fact form “colonies” which can be divided and re planted as they get bigger.

I’ve just about finished when the garden guy arrives, and I present him with a coffee and a bag of daffodil bulbs to plant around the garden. It’s a challenge to find spaces to surprise us in Spring. I retreat to the sofa, my injection egg is sore and it has worn me down over the day to the point where I just want to sit, so I do. I eat tea, watch a Bond film followed by a women’s international football match. It crawls to a nil nil draw. I draft the blog, take meds, say sleep well to the universe and go to bed.

Monday and I wake up about 8 o’clock and realise it is injection day in one hours’ time. I of course know it is that day but each injection Monday when I wake up there is a moment when I have to realise it. It sets the tone against which everything else is done. So I dress, drink coffee and discover that my drugs wallets are empty so while sipping my drink I refill them and then take my morning meds. I follow these with a couple of prophylactic paracetamols and then I am ready to wander down to the GP surgery.

I arrive just before 9 o’clock and check myself in. My bum doesn’t make a waiting room seat as the nurse appears and beckons me in. I hand over my box of injection and remind her that it’s the right side this time. I point out that this side is the one that is usually the sorer of the two. We make small talk until the injection is mixed and ready. The “sharp scratch” always burns with this one so I lay back and let the nurse pump me full of the stuff and then we check the clinics diary to find that I cannot book the next one as the system hasn’t got the times up yet. So there is more banter and I get asked about my COVID booster. I declare I am ahead of the game but have to admit I’ve not had a flu jab yet. This cheered up no end as she opened the fridge and cheerily said “let’s do that now then”. So I get a flu jab in the arm, she ticks a quota box and I wander out of the surgery discarding my mask like a fleeing bandit.

Once home I make a fried egg sandwich and more coffee before retreating to the Shed. Before I can move out to the Shed I get a phone call from a friend who is on their way to have a flu jab and do other things. It feels like a long time since we actually spoke so there is a lot of catching up to do around how we are and how our families are. It’s a good call and a real pleasure to be able to chat. I go to the Shed and there I write a letter on my new paper that arrived on Saturday. It is less ornate than my usual paper and will make it easier for people to decipher my scrawl as apparently my writing over the illustrations makes my letters even more difficult to read. This takes me to lunch time and I break to have soup with my partner. Dining over I bring the garden camera in and check to see if the hedgehog has been around and crucially whether the addition of holly to the defences of Fort Hog has deterred the cats from stealing the food. I am pleased to say that it appears that the cats do not fancy the cats’ mats augmented by holly and the hog seems to be the one eating the food. I copy the relevant files and then replace the camera. I notice that some of the flowers are trying very hard to put on a late show and indeed I discover that we have Quinces for the first time.

Then it’s on with the jobs. There is a loose eaves board on the Shed to screw back into place and the overflow pipe on the water butt needs to be extended. By a stroke of luck and my anal trait od not throwing stuff out I find I have hose connector of the right size and some spare matching hose. So in a relatively short time I am able to complete my jobs and feel I’ve got something done, which is good as I am beginning to feel sore around my injection site. In a quick burst of extra energy, I go and post my letter and note in doing so that the postal workers are going on strike very soon.

By now I am feeling relatively crap so I sit down for a coffee and another couple of paracetamols. In a big effort I get into my training kit and go to the garage for a half hours row. Its slow and arduous but I get it done. It’s not a good session by any means but better than nothing.

I come out of the garage and find our guest has arrived. I change and make coffee and start to draft the blog. My partner and friend go out to dine as its pie night at one of the local pubs. I continue with the blog knowing that my eldest daughter is waiting to jointly cook and that we have a Tesco order to take in later. So, the evening will not be finished until our provisions are stored at which point, I shall retreat to bed with a book and more paracetamol.

Sunday, I sleep late and get up to a fresh croissant breakfast thanks to my partners earlier trip to the village shop. However before my early morning treat, I weigh myself. It is bad news and dispiriting; I weigh in at 99.3 kilos an increase of over a kilo. Post breakfast we ring our youngest daughter and chat about their new bathroom and upcoming interviews. Having got organised for our house guest tomorrow my partner and I head for the gym. It is my first visit to the gym floor and a cross trainer for 145 days. So I do thirty-five minutes on a cross trainer and burn off 344 calories and go 3.48 kilometres. In order to get to 400 calories, I get on a reclining cycle for a few minutes and burn the required additional 56 calories. It’s a measured reintroduction to the gym, enough for the first time back. I shower, a good perk of gym membership, and then indulge in a hot chocolate in the member’s lounge. I am joined by my partner for coffee and then we return home.

Once home I have to face my fear. Will I piss blood after my gym exercise. Eventually I get to find out and it is good news, no blood. I am relieved (no pun intended) and will use today to get me to go to the gym again this week. I settle down to watch the end of a rugby game and some football. In this way I drift into the evening and my first dose of prophylactic paracetamol before tomorrow’s injection. The evening comes and drifts by in TVs Strictly and Sherwood till I draft the blog, take my night meds and another dose of paracetamol.

Friday, yesterday and almost out of memory already. All that remains is a book delivery, an attack of rhinitis, which stopped me going to the gym, collecting my drugs and England’s women beating USA at football. Of all these the book delivery was the most important. Two new books both by the new Nobel Literary Prize winner Annie Ernaux.

I read Exteriors at one sitting. They are a set of observations of real ordinary everyday life made in her journals. They are clear and perceptive and raise all sorts of emotions and ideas. In describing her observations Annie Ernaux says “I believe that desire , frustration and social and cultural inequality are reflected in the way we examine the contents of our shopping trolley or in the words we use to order a cut of beef or to pay tribute to a painting; that the violence and shame inherent in society can be found in the contempt a customer shows for a cashier or in the vagrant begging money who is shunned by his peers – in anything that appears to be unimportant and meaningless simply because it is familiar or ordinary.” and “Thus a supermarket can provide just as much meaning and human truth as a concert hall”. I like that, it as it calls to both the poet and the psychologist in me. She says that she has kept journals since the age of thirteen, which at first strikes me as odd but on reflection is not so unusual. The fact that I have been writing a log now everyday (almost) for over three years now seems to have passed me by. This couples with the fact that when I look at the end of the sofa where I keep myself I find I have at least five journals or logs going. I keep a training and eating diary, a cash book (vital since re-retiring) and at least three other journals that I use for observations, planning and poems. On top of that I write at least two or three letters a week. So I guess I am quite a “jotter”.

As evening approaches my eldest daughter and I cook tea so that a meal is ready when my partner returns from the gym. The evening is then all football, Mock the Week and Have I Got News For You. By the time all that is done its time to take my meds and go to bed.

Saturday and its 5:30 in the morning, my nose is running and I am sneezing, this is shit. I get up don my Gandolf gown and make myself coffee and toast. I plonk my sniffy self in front of the TV and watch the women’s rugby world cup matches being played in New Zealand. England thrash Fiji and New Zealand beat Australia and my nose begins to get less sniffy. The rest of the household slowly gets up and eventually my partner and I go food shopping at the garden centre. We tarry over hot chocolate and jammy scones while chatting about how we are and life stuff. Its normally the conversation we would have on a Saturday morning before we get up, but my sniffy nose put pay to that today. We eventually arrive home with food, daffodil bulbs and some plants. I settle down to have a coffee while I draft the blog and get myself ready to plant the new acquisitions, although I think I might need more bags of compost.

I was right I did need more compost, so my partner and I go to our alternative garden centre. While there we acquire yet more plants. So loaded down with bags of compost and new plants we return home. My partner gets on with some laundry while I watch the end of a rugby match during which I plan what I am going to do with the new plants. The thing about my garden is that it doesn’t matter how many plants I buy it’s impossible to fill the garden all year round so there is always room for more. By the time the rugby ends I’m ready to garden. So, I spend time digging holes, filling them with compost and gently planting our new acquisitions. I’ve acquired things that if I am lucky will be low maintenance and will grow from year to year. After some sweaty graft everything is ready to be watered in. Of course, this is not the end of the garden action as I still have to check Fort Hog and refill the food dish. Finally, I wipe round the garden taking pictures of the new arrivals. I think my camera is my record of the garden over the last few years.

At last, I am done and ready to return inside and clean up. There are a few minutes to rest and then it’s time to eat tea while watching Strictly. Well, that’s the evening gone once the football highlights are over. Tomorow is a gym day and a paracetamol day in preparation for jab Monday. How quickly the damn jab comes round.

Thursday and I wake up decidedly less snotty than I have been for days. I sniff the wind of change. Down stairs the same old same old, TV politics and the office murmur. Breakfast and I am ready for the day. So after a studied breakfast time I set about rebuilding the water terrace with the replacement tanks that arrived yesterday. So much muck and water leeches wash around in the old and split top tier tanks. First job is to get it apart and fit the right pipes, bungs and trays. Its wet and fiddley work but it starts to come together.

Slowly but surely it all comes together. I test each level to ensure the overflow works until finally it is complete and working. I improve the overflow outlet so that it flows more directly into the drain. It’s a good job well done and should see us through the winter safely.

I clear away the debris from the work, recycle the packaging and wash up. Its lunchtime by the time I finish and so I prepare a dish of tomato soup and chat to my partner. She goes off to see her mother with her brother. I fancy a post lunch bit of chocolate and go to my eldest daughter who has been entrusted with our “secret” stash. She has eaten it all because she’s not been feeling well. Nothing for it but to go over to the shop and replenish our supplies. I will see how it goes. I note on my news feed (I’m so down with the kids, so well gnarly) that Annie Ernaux has won the Nobel Prize for literature. I read a review and decide that she sounds like my kind of author, so I order a couple of her books from Amazon to arrive tomorrow. I’m hoping that I have discovered a new author to devour. I will let people know what I think after tomorrow. As I am feeling much better than I have done recently I decide to train. It’s been 34 days since I last trained adn 29 days sine i last swam. I am appalled that I have let this go for so long. In fairness I have been feeling shit, but I am nagged by the thought that I should have made more effort sooner. I go and get changed including the full track suit. I already know that this session will be 30 minutes, on a low level and slow, hence the track suit to keep me warm and protect my out of practice muscles. I climb aboard and tentatively take the first pull on the rower, from then the muscle memory takes over and I slowly stretch out. It goes quite well, and I am pleased to have made the effort. My heart rate at the end is up to 123, which is okay however the time to reduce takes more time than usual which is what I would expect with a loss of fitness over the last 34 days.

I get out of my training gear, make coffee and open a bag of peanut M&Ms. While I enjoy these, I start to draft the blog. As it is Thursday the rest of my day is predictable. The garden guy will turn up and have coffee, my partner will cook tuna pasta before going to her online singing lesson and as it’s a European football week I will be watching a football game. I’ve already got tomorrows to do list in my head and this time it includes the gym. But before any of that can happen, I need to check Fort Hog and ensure my garden beast is well fed and protected.

Wednesday and I wake up feeling a little less snotty and have hopes for the day. I breakfast in my Gandolf blanket and watch the latest machinations of the Tory party conference. A coffee and a fried egg sandwich did nothing to make anything I saw and heard palatable. At times like the this the only place to be is in the Shed so I load up my office backpack and go to the Shed. There I stay all morning writing letters and reflecting on my current lack of inspiration. I stop for coffee and biscuits but still I lack verve and vision. Lunch is a dish of soup and the unexpected pleasure of post, which included a real letter. I retreat again to the Shed and read my letter at my leisure. It’s a good letter and I am moved to write a reply straight away. I beaver away until my pen and ink have nothing else to add. The rain lashes down and at one point I think I detect a leak in the roof of the Shed. It might be real or a result of the force of the rain. Whatever it is it will have to wait for dryer weather.

I gird up my loins and prepare to go to the post office to get stamps and realise that I promised to cook tonight’s meal. On looking in the fridge I found the options to be mince and fish cakes, neither of which I fancied. As life is too short I did a quick consultation of the household and agreed pizzas as an option. With the food politics done I go out to the post office to get stamps, vastly overpriced, and then walk to our local co-op for the pizzas. All goes to plan and I am back home to start the drafting of the blog and to receive the delivery of the parts I need t repair our water terrace. The top two sections have been cracked by dumb arse window cleaners using it to climb on the back roof to clean the windows. So I shall make the water terrace good and arm it with deterrents. First is the daily check on Fort Hog to see if the food is gone and to replenish if necessary. Providing this all goes well I’m in for an evening of European football and Dr Martin. I am acutely aware that I am edging towards another injection Monday and given the experience of the last one I am somewhat anxious about it. I realise that being anxious about it will not help but it is what it is.

Tuesday and I wake up with a snotty nose and itchy eyes. Is it a cold, rhinitis or an allergy? Is it my long hair, who knows. I get up and have breakfast to bring me round. Today I am meeting a friend for coffee so I am getting my arse in gear to shower, get cash and then drive to the nominated cafe.

Everything goes to plan and I find myself sitting in Flitkins in Shepshed by 10:40am nestling a warm cup of hot chocolate in my hands. I sip it appreciatively and scribble a to do list in the pad I’ve brought in my backpack. Always now I take my mobile office with me, although on this occasion I have left the laptop behind. I do not have to wait long before my friend arrives and we settle down to chat. It is really good to see him and hear how he has come to be in his current position. As ever when companies merge, and new investment is made people go as the new structures emerge and savings are made. It has always been like this and unfortunately my friend was in the wrong place at the wrong time and appears to have fallen foul of the old process of “last one in is first one out”. Fortunately he has valuable skills and is already talking to people about new work. In fact he has a call at 1pm today to talk to someone about a possible post. We indulge in another drink and something to eat before he goes off to take his call and I return to my car to journey home. It has been a real pleasure to see him again and I look forward to later in the month when a group, including my friend are meeting up for a Saturday lunch.

Back home I rest for a bit and then go to see if the hedgehog has eaten its food. It has and because I have reset the garden camera, I have videos of the hog roaming my garden. I was going to include a couple here just for the pleasure of seeing my hog alive and well, but my web page is telling me it can’t handle the type of video file I am using. I spend time trying to resolve the blog problem but, in the end, give in and go and buy chocolate. There is a tricky clash on TV tonight, Rangers v Liverpool cuts across The Man Inside, although I have to say I’ve lost some interest in the Man Inside, the scenario started out with a semblance of possibility but has just over stretched itself. Based on the assumption that anyone could become a murder because people happen to people is just bollocks. It’s a fanciful theory pedalled frequently but the reality just is not that simple, I know, I am after all a legitimate expert in the field. The character on death row who is a professor of criminology is also supposedly able to divine the solution to murders by observation coupled with statistics. Again this is limited in the real world and much of this stuff is hindsight, although “profilers” would say not. The reality is that a good detective is just as good as the “profilers”, after all statistics are statistics. So, I am afraid my interest has waned. My family think I am no fun because they think I know “who did it” before the end of whatever film, series or drama we are watching. The reality is that it’s all fictional stuff and as such is predictable because people have to make it up within a context of entertainment, and in that format there are limited options. Any way I shall see it through but no longer care about any of the characters.

The upshot of today is that I have an updated to do list and some days to complete it. So that is my intention even though I know that the likelihood is that my poetry efforts will only add to my experience of failure and rejection, but that’s art for you. However, you can rely on chocolate.

Monday and I wake up feeling crap, a vague light headedness. So I get up for coffee and toast followed by more coffee. My intention was to start to train first thing but feel so shit I am going to concentrate on just getting myself functional. So, I order my drugs, clear the kitchen and start to draft the blog. This is not an auspicious start to my week. I retreat to the Shed and before I settle down I check Fort Hog to see if the food has gone. It has, so I check the camera. There are pictures of the hog but also pictures of the pesky cat. The cat had managed to perch on the narrow strip of now spiky roof of Fort Hog. The greedy little monster is at least persistent. As I have no more spike mats I apply my creativity and adaptability to the problem. My stroke of genius is “holly”. Natures natural spikes come to my rescue and I just happen to have a source of it. I set about shoring up the Fort Hog defences. I am hoping my inspiration works out, tomorrow’s camera shots will show me.

I return to the Shed and spend time staring into space and then write a couple of poems. They are not good but are reflective of where I am with writing poetry. They were spurred by my recent contemplating trying to submit more of my poems to magazines for publication and entering them into competitions. Only yesterday I got another “piss off” email, so I was in the mood to put pen to paper.

I am one of life’s accompanists,
a pianist to a singer,
a backing vocalist to another.
All my life I’ve echoed,
I’ve reflected the art around me,
embellished, encouraged and applauded.
All that is my own is sunk,
mired in a talentless shell
that cannot be broken through. 
It is a tragedy to know this 
And yet persevere.
Grasping at thin air 
the hope is to catch that moment
that others feel, recognise
yet could not find the words for.
To communicate before knowing
what meaning it might contain.
Finding the moment in this
 second hand world that lives
for that one sparkling
coming into the light.

I pack up the Shed and go back indoors to have a soup lunch and to spend time looking at which poetry publishers I am going to send stuff to. The various publisher all have different submission requirements and deadlines. I draw up a list of possible magazines and list the main requirements. I’ve sat around too long a get a sneezing fit, so I rouse myself and set about hoovering the remainder of the house and getting the washing in. Whilst doing so I miss a call from a friend, which is always a disappointment. I finally get to sit and to draft more of the blog against the background of economic U turns. At any moment I expect Tesco to deliver and curb my irritation at next door having an Asda delivery and blocking my drive. The perils of first world living right there. As is so predictable the Tesco van pulls up just as I sit down to eat my tea. There is a flurry of activity and then the pleasure of food follows. This evening will be slow and preparing to meet an old colleague and friend for coffee tomorrow morning. All my messages today are about how people are struggling at the moment either with illness or with juggling the Real World, or both. It seems that there is a general craving for relief from it all at the moment.

Sunday, a long lay in, coffee and conversation to catch up where my partner are. After a long chat we get up for a cook breakfast. Before I get to tuck into my breakfast, I weigh myself with a great deal of trepidation as I expect to top 100 kilos. To my surprise I weigh in at 98.1 kilos, a loss of 1.2 kilos. We decide to go for a walk in a nearby park. We drive to the park and walk around the woods and the pond. Sitting by the pond we watch the fish rise and the geese glide around. The Capaccino and the hot chocolate from the mobile coffee trailer tastes good as we sit at a picnic bench and just look at the greenery around us.

Back home I watch rugby before checking Fort Hog and the garden camera It seems the hog has found the food, although not confirmed on camera, but there was no sign of the cat that has been stealing the food. There were pictures of the hedgehog in and around the canteen, so it’s good news, I think. I get my washing away and get ready for the evening, which will be dominated by Strictly, The Inside Man and football. Of course, there is Tesco to organise and other odds and ends. This is the last week of my cycle so tomorrow I will be ordering my drugs and getting myself ready for the run in to my injection Monday.

Saturday, and I am up relatively early to make drinks and rouse my partner as she is going to have her hair done this morning at the salon attached to the gym. We silently drink coffee before having breakfast and driving to the gym. I decide to spend a couple of hours in the club lounge reading and drafting the first stages of today’s blog. I guess amongst my friends there are those saying “why am I not training?” The truth is I still feel shit and full of cold, although thankfully my nose has stopped running. Not a pretty picture but it is as it is. It’s been too long since I have been able to train in the way I would want to, and I fall into the trap of eating sweet things to comfort myself all the while worrying that I am putting on weight. It’s an old pattern and a common one, but although I know it, dredging up that initial act of will to make myself start the long haul back feels daunting. It also feels a little scary as I fear over doing it or how my body will react to the effort. I think what I am saying is that I feel vulnerable at the moment. I wrote to a friend recently about how I caught myself letting, or rather hoping the TV would comfort me. There I was sitting there in the morning watching TV and suddenly realised I was just watching it for comfort. The moment I realised I switched it off and went and wrote a letter as a way of trying to understand it. I sometimes feel awkward and guilty about what I ask some of my correspondents to put up with in my letters. In a Real World full of all the threats and perturbations to us all it does not seem fair to load others with my particular package of woes and anxieties. This is especially true of those friends who are themselves battling with their own life packages which in many cases far outweigh mine.

So, I drink a large black americano and contemplate how I am going to get started again. There are a few options, but I know that I favour getting back onto the rower and building up slowly again. Realistically I must set goals to achieve but they need to be in a sensible time frame. Anything I start now must be geared towards Christmas time. Ideally, I need a bit of weight to spare to cope with the Christmas indulgence. I am encouraged as I sit here in the gym lounge and look around at those who are far more corpulent than I and by their obvious efforts to stay fit and to exercise. For me it is more than weight loss, exercise represents my only way to fight my cancer. Everyday I do not make the effort cancer wins. It nibbles a bit more of me away and debilitates me by another iota. This is what scares me more than anything else, the fact that I might give up on myself. It’s tricky, because friends and family are supportive and encourage me to rest, to be careful, to be kind to myself and not to do myself damage, however I must take the risk. It is tempting to go along with this intended kindness but in my heart, I know I must push and push persistently. My next oncology appointment is on 1st November, so I have a month to make a dent in my complacency and my weight. Then it will be Christmas. I think the answer is to simplify and to routinise my life more constructively. A friend made a good point the other day when they said to me that I should consider training early in the day rather than waiting to later when I sometimes have run out of energy. It is a good point. Perhaps if I exercise before breakfast, it will significantly change the rest of my day’s activities. It’s worth a try. I know this may not be interesting but at least if I say it publicly, I might actually do it, a sort of commitment. All of this is a part of my process, of how I have to find ways to externalise what I am pushing around in my head. I know that if I do not do this, I will continue to push the stuff around and around in my head and I know that my head is very good at fooling itself, it will delude me, mislead me and try to comfort me with cognitive dissonance. Although I trust my brain not to hurt me it has some funny ways of doing so at times. At least being a psychologist and therapist taught me to take time out and to talk to my frontal lobes on occasions just to check out what is going on. It also taught me to check out with others whether it makes sense or whether I am just falling into old patterns or just talking bollocks. It would appear that this blog is one of the ways I try to disentangle my ongoing internal dialogue and how I interact with the Real World of material survival. It goes back to one of my basic beliefs, a lynch pin of my personal universe and that is “a central purpose of our lives is to make meaning and to build a personal universe to explain our existence and to make living possible “. I clearly carry the influence that Irvin Yalom had on my practice and thinking. In my personal universe I have cancer pushing me for answers and understanding. That brings me full circle to the need to live as long as possible in order to make as much meaning as possible and to live as well as possible. Time for another coffee and to read before moving on with my day. Actually, during this typing my nose goes into overdrive, I sneeze like a machine gun and my eyes water profusely, it’s almost like I am having an allergy attack, except I do not have allergies. I take an Actifed and fairly soon I feel the slightly light head effect of the pseudo ephedrine, but crucially my nose stops running, and I am able to function.

My day moved on. My partner emerged with a fresh hair style and we drive home to get shopping bags before moving on to the garden centre. There we bought fresh veg and salad and returned home. I’m feeling tired and descend in to watching half a football match and then follow it up with a rugby match. My local team the Tigers are playing Saracens, and they get thrashed by almost 50 points. It’s a disappointing afternoon. I rouse myself to open my Amazon parcel and find my cat deterrent panels have arrived. So with a supreme effort I set about making the hedgehog canteen into a a fortress. I name it Fort Hog.

I have replaced the garden camera and replenished the hedgehog food in Fort Hog. Now all I have to do is wait and see what happens. Pictures to follow. I notice that the garden is still trying it best at this late time to produce flowers and to thrive. The flowers in the front garden are providing late pollen for the bees.

In a fit of optimism, I have added a planner to the wall of my Shed. It was kicking around spare so I decided to use it. The dry marker does not work it’s been laying around for so long. There it is in all its virgin glory waiting for me to plan and also to find some new dry wipe pens. At the moment I quite like its blankness.

After all this unexpected activity I am done. I’ve no energy left apart from enough to semi complete the blog draft. I am about to watch Strictly, eat tea and then give myself up to whatever my family want to view. I shall no doubt nibble along the way, sip some sort of drink and finally take my night meds and go to bed. The poetry, the war in Ukraine, energy prices and the next chapter in the Blunder Truss saga is just going to have to wait. I’ve got a busy October so I need to get on form, sleep first.