Sunday so no rush to get up, when we do its bacon sandwiches for breakfast and an hour long face time with our youngest daughter. I get the suitcases out that we are going to use from tomorrow and begin to pack, however I pop a few ice hockey shirts in to wash while I’m doing that. I am so irritated by the ancient vegetable rack in the utility area that I order a new one. I settle down to watch the bronze medal match at the world ice hockey championships. An interesting game but in the end the Czech republic run out comfortable winners over the USA. I do some more packing and then take the car to the garage to check the tyres, stopping on the way back to pick up some cash.

Once home again its time to give my eldest daughter a tutorial on feeding the hedgehog as that kindness will fall to her over the next week. It goes well, I think basically she is a natural. I download the garden camera and save the new pictures of the hedgehog and then return it to the garden. Time now to watch the ice hockey final, Canada v Finland. A rocking match, which is played at incredible speed and huge physicality. No score first period. Second period Canada goes 1 – 0 up. Third and final period the referees make a terrible decision which results in Finland getting two goals. Canada come back and draw it up to 3-3 with a minute to go. It goes to overtime. Its exciting. Finland nick it with an overtime goal.

So the rest of the evening is sorting out a Tesco deliver and finishing my packing. It will be an early night as there is a three hour plus drive to do tomorrow and all the excitement of checking into a new hotel and settling in. With luck I will get to look out over the water of Windermere before I sleep that night.

Saturday and I am up early to read Muriel Barbery’s The Life if Elves. I read and drink coffee until my partner gets up and we return to bed to read. Eventually we get up and have breakfast. I take my meds and find that I have come to the end of my course of antibiotics. I assume I am cured. I return to reading and finish my book. That is my fourth book this week.

There are things to do like fit a new windscreen wiper on the car, feed the hedgehog, fill the bird feeders and get the suitcases out. That takes me to the first semi-final of the world ice hockey championship. Finland beat the USA. Having seen the result my partner and I go to the garden centre and buy vegetables. While there we indulge in a late lunch scone and coffee during which the hotel we are booked into next week rang to ask me what our car registration is and what time we would like breakfast. Its a strange request to be asked when you are going to need breakfast for the next week. We plump for 9 o’clock. We drive home and I watch the second ice hockey semi final between Canada and Czech Republic. Canada come out on top 6 – 1, so the final will be a repeat of the last two finals, which stand at one a piece so it should be a good game tomorrow.

There is the odd chore to do like help put a new duvet cover on he bed, put my new book ends in the Shed before the evening meal. Its a heavy evening of European football final. Liverpool lose. Its time to draft the blog. Its been a day of contrasts, lovely book, nourishing, and self indulgent sport watching, which I think is my way of avoiding not training and the attendant fear of whether I will pass blood again. However I can feel myself getting fat which I can not tolerate so it is inevitable that I will train soon. Tomorrow is a packing day, a check the tyres day and most important of all, train the eldest daughter to feed the hedgehog day.

Friday and as treat I am brought a coffee in bed. I check my emails and messages and then get up and while away time till it will be possible walk down to the shop to get a paper and indulge in a village café breakfast. I finish the quick crossword before the breakfast arrives adn when it does its huge. I had forgotten just how expansive their English breakfast was. I eat my way through it as I do another puzzle. I idle over the food and the paper until its time for my first meeting of the day. I have just enough time to hang out the washing I put in earlier. It is my last meeting with my area contact and we decide how to tell the services that I am retiring and what the interim arrangements are going to be.

After the meeting I draft the notice and send it to the managers to edit and then send off. So another step on the way out and into my transition has been taken. I head for the Shed. I sit and write a letter. Once its finished I wander over to the post box and send it on its way. I return home and find my next Muriel Barbery book has arrived, title The Lives of Elves. I am hoping its not just a load of Hobbity tosh, but I think it unlikely. I settle in the Shed to read. After a while I am moved to write another letter, I had almost forgotten a friends birthday so I catch up with a letter. Again I take the trip to the post box. On my return I feed the hedgehog and water the pots at the front of the house. My washing is dry to I gather it up and put it away. I am now out of spoons and need to stop, its almost tea time and the family decide that as its national fish and chip day that we celebrate it appropriately. So while my partner and eldest daughter go to the chippy I start to draft the blog.

My back pain is back and has nagged me all day, I am hoping it will pass, so my evening will be lazy. I shall read and and maybe watch a rugby match.

Thursday comes around and I am relieved that I can get in to my website after the maintenance has been done. I spent my Wednesday evening reading and watching the Great British Sewing Bee. Yet a gain I have read a book in a day, I am clearly hungry at some level for something. The Gourmet by Muriel Barbery is my third book in as many days, it seems that my old habit of reading everything by an author once I have discovered them is still with me. Just one more of Muriel’s to go so I need to getting ordering. My one strange act before bed is to order a jacket pattern, inspired by the Sewing Bee. A jacket that I order arrived today and disappointed me with its lack of promised pockets so I decided that I will make my own and add as many pockets as I want. Can’t be that difficult can it?

So I wake on Thursday in time to check the website and then have breakfast with the all important coffee before logging on for a work team meeting. I spend about two hours chatting and listening. I do my update and then join in on the relevant discussions. I admit I am slightly distracted as I realise this will be my penultimate team meeting. Much of what is discussed goes beyond my time and of course I have the odd pang of regret, but I know it is the right decision. During the meeting I confirm a lunch date with friends in mid July. Post meeting I chat t a colleague about football, hotels and holidays until lunch comes onto the horizon. I heat and eat soup and get started on the blog. I am not sure if I am getting better or not but the kidney pain seems to be subsiding. I look forward to watching a video this afternoon of how to search a room. Don’t ask.

The video turns out to be quite interesting in the context of Enabling Environments and there is some thoughtful discussion afterwards. It as an unexpected diversion which was fun. I immediately settle into watch a quarter final in the world ice hockey championship. Its Sweden v Canada. Canada go two goals down and then 3-1 down with two minutes to go. They equalise and the game goes in to extra time. The Swedes give away a penalty and in the following power play Canada score and win. The Swedes look sick. An excellent game, such speed across the ice and real physicality .

I clear the kitchen and feed the hedge hog and take some photos of the flowers that are appearing in the garden despite the cool and dank spring so far.

Then settle back on the sofa however the garden guy arrives so I am on coffee making duty. I go out and chat to him and we discuss what needs doing. Always an interesting conversation about how we develop the garden and the various beds. Tea time soon comes round as I order another Muriel Barbery book. I then have another treat a second ice hockey quarter final between USA and Switzerland. I wonder how my inline roller blades are and I am tempted to have a look at them, I still hanker after seeing if I can still skate. I am aware that I am putting of going back to training and eating too much sweet stuff. I need to do some exercise to break the avoidance. It will either be okay or it wont, either way it needs to happen soon. The quarter final continues as my partner does her singing lesson. In the end the USA win. I sink into an evening of TV and reading before retiring for the night. I do however get my rollerblades out and check they are still in good working order and WD-40 the wheel bearings. They run beautifully smoothly. I might just give them one more run out.

Wednesday and I wake up with a little time before I am to host a drop in morning for work. There is time for a muesli breakfast and a coffee and then I am into the drop in session. There are several takers this morning and I send time fielding questions and explaining things. Gradually people leave and I read while waiting to see if anyone drops in late and to my surprise two services do so there are more questions to answer. In the gaps in the morning I read Barbery’s The Gourmet. Lunch time arrives, the session ends and I make chicken soup and check my emails. One email tells me I cannot access my web page tonight as there is going to be maintenance work on my site by the host from 10am tonight, standard eastern coast time. So this maybe all there is for today. This afternoon a shall read and rest and forget my ills and future invasions.

Tuesday, I am up early enough to make toast and coffee before my 9:30 1 to 1 with my programme manager. The meeting goes well and moves us towards my leaving. It is a secret accept here as a friend pointed out. I doubt anyone who works in the services I support read my blog so I think my secret is safe. As always there is post meeting admin to do so I send my emails, book meetings and generally tidy the desk and the virtual in box.

My partner and I walk to the village shop to buy a paper and get some cash. It feels like cash is coming back into fashion, in these days of inflation, commercial robbery and profit taking in the face of shortage I think there is something comforting about cash, a sort of sense of control and power over the economic tides. After all the banks are as avarice ladened as any other venture seeking to relieve us of our hard earned cash. Cash in your pocket can be mastered unlike banks who object to you having any control over your own money. We return home to bacon sandwich’s for lunch and the distraction of crosswords. Both sandwich and crosswords are successfully navigated and I was beginning to wonder what I was going to do next when Amazon deliver me rescue packages. The squirrels will be happy that there food has arrived which means they get the joy of real in the shell peanuts and sunflower seeds. I am happy as I have two new books by Muriel Barbery the author of The Elegance of the Hedgehog. Again I read the first page of one of them and I am hooked, it feels like I am being rescued from my intellectual slumbers and reinforced to slow down at the moment. To think a dyslexic is saved by reading is quite a journey.

I top up the squirrel feeder and then I clean out the hedgehog canteen and renew the food supply so my spinney friend is good for food tonight. I check my work emails one last time and send a couple of WhatsApp messages with the intension of reading for the afternoon. My progress to my reading is stopped by a phone call from the General Hospital responding to my GPs referral to them. They suggest a date I cannot do and we settle on June the 8th at 9:30am. The woman confirms the time and date and hangs up. I am struck by panic and immediately start to write the blog. This examination will be horrendous, this is the one the friendly medical profession will shove a camera down my already tight urethra to look at my bladder. The thought is just soul destroying. It is one of those grit your teeth and be British moments when being able to dissociate yourself from your body and to relinquish any sensibilities about being a person and giving your meat self up to the process. My partner makes me coffee and I write this. I am numbed at the thought of my body being invaded again and my drug induced shrinking manhood being publicly displayed and interfered with. The dread is palpable.

I read all afternoon, my partner goes to the gym and I read on. I read and read until 7pm, finishing my book A Single Rose by Muriel Barbery. My partner returns to find me in sombre mood but I am surprised as this is the first time for a very long time since I read a book in almost a single sitting. It feels like feeding myself and countering my fear of training. I know I need to be active and to train again, what I fear is passing blood again the way I did last time. There is only one way to find out so perhaps on Thursday I will go for a gentle row in the garage. But for now it is going to be an evening of Wanted and an early night as I have a drop in session to run tomorrow morning. My immediate wish is for a night of sleep.

Monday, jab Monday. Up early and down to the GP surgery. A stand in nurse who is a bit cavalier. So I get my monthly jab and for good measure I also get my block B12 jab. I go home collecting a paper on the way. I spend the next two or three hours sitting wrapped up in a hoodie doing the cross word puzzles and reading The Elegance of he Hedgehog. While I read the squirrels join me and I watch the young ones learn to lift the lid on the feeding box. Another generation that do not need to go hungry. At lunch time I indulge in toast and cherry jam and then return to reading my book. I finish the book at about 1 o’clock with a real shock and feeling decidedly emotional. I’m stunned by the ending but know I will read this book again. As I reflect on what I’ve just read and how its left me a friend rings me. We chat for a while just catching up, I feel I’m not very articulate, a combination of the jab and the book. We say farewell and I put a meal in the crockpot before I head for the Shed.

I spend time writing lists and thinking. I empty a brief case and jettison some old notes including an old anger diary. The afternoon passes until I feed the hedgehog and pack up the Shed and go indoors. I am almost out of spoons and I am starting to feel grim as my usual reaction to the monthly jab kicks. I take a half hour nap. I get up, watch TV over dinner and then watch some more episodes of Wanted. I am tired but make the effort to draft the blog before going to bed. It would be nice to sleep tonight but I doubt it.

Sunday, the morning after the dinner with friends, which went well, I think. Having said that I am not sure I could taste all the flavours that the ingredients seemed to promise. What I do know is that neither I nor my partner could face clearing away the post dinner wreckage so I wake up to thoughts of a chaotic kitchen. It 7 o’clock when I first wake and I wander down stairs, fill the dishwasher Daisy and then go back to bed.

As 9 o’clock coms round so do I. My partner makes drinks and we sit in bed chatting. I also take my meds as I am trying to ensure that I am spacing my antibiotics at twelve hour intervals. Today is when my new ones should be kicking in. We get up and continue the clear up of the kitchen and dining table. Eventually the decks are clear and we have breakfast, I have the one remaining quiche from last night. As we eat breakfast we ring our youngest daughter who is about to start some decorating. We chat for quite a long time as we talk work, socialising and Glastonbury. With the call over I grab my book The Elegance of the Hedgehog and sit on the chair in the front garden and read. Its a pleasant time as I am enjoying both the book and being outside. Amazon deliver a new case for my partners new i-pad, which I fit, before returning to the book. There is a treat, England are playing Latvia in the world ice hockey championships. As the Brits battle to a 3-2 lead by the end of the second period as start to draft the blog. I am alone this afternoon as my partner has gone to the gym and my eldest daughter has gone out. I’ve weighed in this morning and found I have put a kilo on over the last week, it just highlights how important going to the gym is for me as I have not been since I passed blood at start of last week. Perhaps tomorrow, but it is injection day so I might not make it depending on how my body responds to it. Its a bit of a lottery given my new antibiotics. But for now its about whether GB can hold onto their lead in the ice hockey. Having lead 2-0 they lose 4-3, so GB. The evening is a pre doctor visit bath (I’m sure I am not the only one), the end of series two of Wanted and then bed.

Thursday and I’m already hazy about the day given that I am writing this on the following Saturday morning. I sometimes think that I am using the blog as my own private memory clinic. The days seem to go from one to another in rapid succession dropping and shedding events and details along the way until only impressions are left or, in some cases, nothing. I find myself referring to my food diary and exercise diary, social media messages and call records to piece together my day. Certain events trigger vivid memories and bring chunks of the day back to me. Using my reference sources also means that I can piece them together in roughly the right chronological order. My sources tell me that I started my day early in a work meeting, which I do remember. A colleague who is a Rangers fan was still mourning the defeat in the Europa cup final the previous night. At the end of the meeting my colleague and I chat football for a while and assess Rangers chances of lifting the Scottish cup on Saturday. We go our separate ways and I head for the garden.

I hang out my washing and then set about planting the excess plants from my partners mothers patio pots. I discover I have a couple of pots that need filling and some spaces in the garden. In truth there are always spaces where I can find room for one more plant. It takes me more time than I expected but eventually I am satisfied with my use of the plants and tidy my garden stuff away. Slightly tired I gather up some recipe books and begin to put together the menu for our guests on Saturday. I settle on crustless bacon and mushroom quiches, Southern Style Chicken with a potato salad finished with a cherry and chocolate tart with ice cream. I am quite pleased with my choice as I can prepare two of the courses the day before, thus allowing for disasters. By now my partner has finished work and presents me with my favourite tuna past before she goes into her singing lesson. I watch some TV until she finishes when we watch Wanted together. Prior to bed I make toast to eat with my antibiotics and then its off to bed to try and sleep but the ache in my kidney region makes that difficult. I could do with out this right now.

Friday and I wake up after a disturbed night with my back aching. I am slow to get think about getting up adn before I can a friend ring me to say hello. We chat for a while about a range of things before she sets of on her day. It was a good way to star the day and prompts me to get a move on, I have ingredients to buy. I get up, have breakfast, take drugs and check my shopping list. I drive to Sainsburys and meander round the aisles following the random order of my shopping list. There are some items where is difficult to know where to look. Buttermilk was one that took a while as was baking parchment. I also indulge in a the purchase of individual quiche dishes, which will make my life much easier with the crustless one I am making later. I pay and put the good sin the car and return to the store intending to have lunch but after looking at the menu and the queue I decide to go home and have lunch there.

Of course once home I am focussed on cooking. I am a “weigh it all out first” kind of cook, so I set about the quiche first. There is something deeply satisfying in cooking. There is the magic of chemistry, the alchemy of heat to create something golden and the suspense of outcome. Burnt or not, looking like the photo or not and of course tasting wonderful and not like the plastic crap from the shop full of guar gum and monosodium glutamate. I toil over my cauldron and behold Quiches appear, and I am pleased and relieved as they cool on the rack.

Onward to preparing the chicken thighs and putting them in the marinade to soak over night. Another task completed so I can move onto the cherry and chocolate tart with chocolate pastry. I already have the cherries soaking in brandy and lemon zest as I set about making the chocolate pastry case. While it blind bakes I clear away and prepare the custard ingredients, full cream, chocolate and fresh vanilla pods. My partner goes to the gym and leaves me to it. Finally it all comes together like a spell and it sits in the oven for its final bake. I am in luck it goes well and comes out of the oven to the cooling rack in good condition. I am a happy culinary warlock.

I have just cleared away when I get a phone call from my doctor. Unknown to me they sent my sample away to be cultured and my doctor is ringing me to tell me that I have won a kidney infection and that I need new and more suitable antibiotics. My doctor is a lovely man and talks me through all the possible options and eventually selects one that’s good for the kind of kidney infection I have. We conclude that my kidney infection is coincidental to my passing blood after exercise and decides he will refer me to urology for a camera down (or up depending on your view) of my knob. Just to check that my cancer has not reached my bladder. He says it in such a nice matter of a fact way that I take his openness as a compliment to my resilience and maturity with which I deal with such material. The referral will take anything up to four weeks. He cheerily says farewell telling me to go to A&E if I start to run a temperature, vomit and get diarrhoea otherwise the new antibiotics will be at the chemist in the morning. I watch some ice hockey until my partner returns from the gym when we eat tea and have an evening of Wanted before going to bed.

Saturday starts with coffee and then a walk to the chemist to get the promised new antibiotics. Once home I integrate the new pills into my medicine wallets and remove the old antibiotics that the doctor has told me to stop taking. So I have breakfast with the family and start the new meds. My partner and I post some birthday cards and walk round the village. On our return I settle down to catch up with the blog, which takes me ages, in fact all the way to lunch time. As I said at the start of this episode it takes time to retrieve the days gone by. I know I have omitted at least one phone call from my golf playing friend and one or two other things but I am now preparing to bring together the full book of spells to lay before our guests this evening and I realise I have no grapes to go with the cheese. I am already panicking, give me a doctors call to deal with everyday rather than a culinary challenge.

Wednesday, I wake early and my partner brings me coffee. I need to ring the GP for an appointment so I read till the appointed hour. It is of course an endurance test as I repeatedly press redial and get the “line busy” message. After 20 minutes I get through and I am promised a GP call at about 10 o’clock. The days of seeing a GP is obviously past. I expect to be commanded to take a urine sample to the GPs later, where I suspect they will use the same dip sticks that I have at home.

I settle in front of the TV and get an early start to the blog . My day is likely to be unpredictable although I have meeting at 12 o’clock and of course Rangers are in a European final tonight at 8 o’clock. I suspect I may or may not meet my expected events. To my surprise the doctor rings me and I tell her about blood and exercise and back pain, she advises me and tells me to get down to the surgery and to give a sample. I do what I am told. The reception at the surgery are very good and in no time at all I am handing them a specimen tube of my best vintage and a contact number. I return home and contemplate lunch. What I actually do is get my eldest daughter to help me change the duvet cover in the back bedroom as we have a guest tonight.

My afternoon is soup driven and I settle into my 2 o’clock meeting trying to attend to what is going on. We break for a tea break and then continue. I am interrupted by a text saying I have antibiotics to collect from the chemist. This is quickly followed by a telephone call to tell me the same thing. I of course have no any other business at the end of the meeting and walk down to the village chemist. There are some moments of confusion involving a non working print but the pharmacist produces the goods anyway. I guess antibiotics are a sort of drug trump. I get home and unwrap my new drugs and laugh. I have been prescribed Ukrainian antibiotics, see for yourself:

I get my first pill into me as quickly as possible the rest go into my drugs wallets so that they become part of my routine for the coming week. I empty the dishwasher and clear away before setting off to the garden to feed the hedgehog. As I return to the house my partner adn her brother return from potting up their mothers patio containers and are in need of tea. We sit and chat for a bit and give my partners brother his birthday present with the demand for a selfie when he dons it. My partner gives him a lift home and I take pictures of the incredibly scents Iris that has opened in the garden. It’s one of my grandfathers from Kew Gardens where he was a gardener. It not only look lovely but it has a rich scent unlike the modern iris that are around.

Our evening guest arrives and I make her tea and we sit and chat until my partner returns. retreat to the sofa to draft more of the blog. My evening will start with a game from the world ice hockey tournament and will then be followed by the Europa cup final in which Rangers are playing, much to the delight of my work colleague. If all goes well I shall end my evening reading The Elegance of the Hedgehog. I’m definitely hooked, some of it seems strangely familiar. PS. Sweden beat Finland in ice hockey and Rangers lose in a penalty shoot out.