Sunday and I wake up and read Moominland Midwinter. I make my partner and I a drink and we continue to read. I finish my book. It is a lovely book and full of adroit observation. These are more philosophy than children’s stories and full of perceptions that provoke thinking. I get up and eat a late breakfast, take my meds and then wave my partner off to the gym. I clean the house as my partner is having difficulty due to her damaged tendons in her right arm. It makes hoovering and other task difficult and painful. So while my partner goes to the gym I set about hoovering, dusting and polishing. There is a clearing up and clearing of the decks as I reorganise some things. After a while my nose streams with the disturbed dust and I get to the stage where the world smells of Mr Sheen.

Eventually I can do no more and sit with a cold non alcoholic beer just as my partner returns. I watch the English hockey team win gold and then a mixture of boxing and athletics. I feed the hedgehog having down loaded the garden camera earlier, so I am pretty sure that it is actually the hedgehog eating the food that I am putting out. My partner and eat tea and then watch the final races of the athletics at the Commonwealth Games. It fills the evening until everyone has had enough and I move on to drafting the blog. Its been a truly domestic day and tomorrow the day will start with taking my partners car to the garage for an MOT. I also have to contact a builder about the office floor so the coming week has a work feel to it. So its an early night for me, meds and bed.

Saturday: a lazy start, breakfast, meds and then my partner and I go to the garden centre to buy vegetables to see us through the week and come away with a beach shelter and a new kettle. We return home to an early lunch.

Of course there is Commonwealth Games action to watch, our boys in the beach volleyball seems surreal. I change to go and train in the garage. It is my last session of the week before the Sunday weigh in. I go for an hour at my standard resistance. In setting up the rower I realise that yesterdays session was done on a lower resistance. So today is a real test. It goes reasonably well given I am coming back from a period of inactivity and illness.

I get my kit off, get a drink, put my washing in and find I have two packages to open. I settle down and open my new book arrivals. I am extremely fortunate as I have friends who feed me books, either as presents or recommendations. This keeps me engaged and continually puts new things in front of me to think about. My two new thought provokers are Tove Jansson’s Moominland Midwinter and David Robinson’s The Expectation Effect.

It would appear I am well provided for to survive the end of the Commonwealth Games. I have a growing pile of books that I can read in those waiting moments, like waiting for the MOTs to be done next week. When I check my messages I find an extraordinary YouTube clip sent by a friend to a group of us who occasionally meet to eat together. If you have the time just sit back and enjoy it

Isn’t that just fabulous. I start to draft the blog and move towards evening when I continue to be addicted to the Commonwealth Games but think I shall also read. Of course today is the start of the football season so there will be Match of the Day to enjoy, I can hear the groans already.

Friday, up early and a coffee and omelette breakfast. Morning meds, clear kitchen and off to the Shed to write a letter. I spend all morning writing the letter and tidying my work desk. It comes round to lunch time quickly, so I take a break and have a soup lunch, complete the residential voter form on line and start to draft the blog. I check my visitor numbers and hits to the site. Once again there is an inexplicable spike of over a thousand hits from 23 visitors so far today. This cannot be right and I suspect it might be associated with the renewal of my SSD certificate, either that or someone has inadvertently set up an automatic revisit. On the other hand the servers for the site are in America, so anything could be happening. I will check again this evening but now its time to post my letter and train. It needs to be a long session today due to my tardiness yesterday.

Then its into my training gear and into the garage and strapping into the rower. I set off on an hours row at my usual resistance level. It is tough going but after a while I get a phone call. The wonder of ear buds and blue tooth allows me to answer the call and continue to jog along on the rower. The call is from a friend on holiday and we spend tine catching up and exchanging views on the trials and tribulations of holidays, HR departments, bosses and the life admin required to make a holiday go smoothly. At the end of the call I return to my session and up the pace once again. It is enough to satisfy my exercise needs for the day.

I record the session and change so that I can feed the hedgehog. That done I settle down to the Commonwealth Games while the meal cooks. My partner and I eat dinner and watch some TV as my energy drains away. In the end my partner goes to bed and I draft the blog. Its been a day of plain but useful things, however I need to be getting out and about again before I get too confined to the house. Night meds and bed for me.

Thursday and I wake up to an empty house as both my partner and eldest daughter have gone out to work. I have a mini wave of nostalgia for the old days when people went to work and day time television was a hallmark of the unfortunate and old. I have breakfast ad morning meds and wonder what I am going to do for the day, I had considered a swim and a trip to town to but I decide against it. Instead I clear the kitchen and the piles of ironing before settling down to a cup of coffee and a letter to read. It is a letter from a friend and ex colleague. The letter is both engaging and inspirational. My friend is bright and insightful and has a huge number of activities going on al of which engage her with her family, friends and community. At the moment the direct opposite of me. On the basis of her letter I decide to “do something” and go out.

I go to the village shop and buy a paper and go to the village café to get lunch. I see people hanging about outside and go into the café to order. It is quickly pointed out to me that the “people hanging about outside” is in fact a queue. I of course apologise and in British fashion join the “queue”. This is clearly a sign of my deteriorating mental health (or Rebecca Vardy Syndrome as its know now) if I cannot recognise a queue. I do the crossword while I wait in the queue and finish it before I get to order my sausage and bacon baguette and a coffee. I sit at one of the tables and do another puzzle while my food arrives. I eat, finish the puzzle and go home.

Inspired by the letter to do something I get myself changed and get out into the garden. There follows hours of severe pruning as my water deprived and sundried garden gets cut back and tidies up. Everything has flowered early and gone over early this year so there is a lot to cut back and clear up. The pots are all dead and need to be cleared. I beaver away filling the recycle bin and compressing it down. I am in full slash adn burn mode when my partner arrives home from work followed very shortly by the garden guy. We all chat for a while and then get on with the garden tasks. I leave the garden guy to it and return to watching the Commonwealth Games. We eat tea and then my partner goes to the office to have her singing lesson while I feed the hedgehog and clear the kitchen. I do more Games and start to draft the blog. I’m reading a present from a friend at the moment. Its in fact a reread, which occasionally happens when friends gift you books. My theory is that if friends are friends they are liable to have similar reading habits and therefore there will be reading cross overs. So it is in this case. The book in question is Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon. It is a touching book but predicted some issues related to human engineering. First published as a short story in 1959 and then as a novel in 1966 it was one of the books of my youth as I read it when it first came out. It obviously appealed to my dyslexic self as the format spoke to me.

Tomorrow is a day I need to train and read, read and train. I also have letters I need to write as a consequence of the one I received today. So for now its time to take my meds and hope for a reasonable nights sleep.

Wednesday. Up after a disturbed night, breakfast and then to the Shed. I spend all morning playing with wax, tools, sandpaper and a blow torch. Outcome was dissatisfaction by lunchtime. My partner made me bacon bagel before she went to visit her mother. I watch some of the Commonwealth Games before filling the bird feeders and the hedgehog meal dish. I put out a message to find someone to assess my office floor and its rising tiles. Time to train. I change into my kit and go to the garage to row. Today its 30 minutes at my normal resistance level. I take it steady and it turns out to be a reasonable session.

I change out of my training gear and sink a cool beer, record the session and watch more athletics. My partner returns and we eat dinner and continue to watch the athletics, until she goes to practice singing and I draft the blog.

I’m tired and need to sleep but most of all I need to find something to do out of the house so tomorrow I might go for a swim. The risk is becoming institutionalised in my own home. The challenge is to balance being a hermit and avoiding debilitating isolation.

Tuesday and I wake up feeling groggy, it’s not unusual as my meds tend to do this to me over night. So I get up slowly and have breakfast and settle into my life admin. I finally get through to the Urology appointment line and cancel my Urology assessment, It would appear that the GP has ignored my oncology consultant or the consultant letter to the GP arrived after the GP referred me. After a brief conversation with the receptionist we decide that they should just discharge me. I then set about looking for the company that made my seal ring. I find their website and send them an email with a photo of the original impression that came with my ring. I hunt through my old emails and find the original invoice and ring specifications so I forward those to the makers. I discover that the ring was first ordered in October 2012, so I managed to hold onto it for almost 10 years.

Having sent the email I retreat to the Shed and write letters. It feels odd writing them and knowing I could not seal them as I usually do. I write until lunchtime when my partner cooks me a bacon sandwich. We watch some of the Commonwealth games and then I go back to the Shed. After a while its time for me to get myself up for training. Its not easy, I’m finding it difficult to get myself motivated at the moment. I remind myself that endorphins are good for me and that vigorous exercise is the one thing I can do for myself in my battle against the cancer. I hate it really and resent the fact that I cannot stop, never take time off as, as I have said before, cancer never takes a day off. It is remorseless and unrelenting and I have to be to. It is my only option based in any science or rationale argument. I am aware that at times others around me pay the price as at times I have no energy left for the niceties, especially when people ask how I am. Anyway I get into my kit and go to the garage. I strap into the rower and set it up for an hour at my lower resistance. The idea is to do a steady hour to burn off fat, and I’ve got lots to burn. Its a tough session, my legs complain and the vest rubs the tops of my arms, but hey that’s how it is. It turns out to be a good session in terms of metres rowed and calories burnt.

I finish the session and recorded it straight away before getting my kit off and cooling down. It takes a while and a cold 0% alcohol beer to get cooled down enough to get into some clothes and go and feed the Hedgehog. My partner goes out for dinner which is when I discover I do not know where the second set of car keys are for her car, which means I cannot put the bins out. I have tea, watch some Lucifer and Commonwealth games athletics. I check my emails and find a reply from the ring makers. They have found my original specifications and have quoted me a price for a new identical ring. The price in ten years has increased by 50%. It was an indulgence the first time but will be even more so if I decide to reorder. In all honesty the experience of loosing the ring has been interesting and made me realise how much a part of me it is. I guess I will be ordering. I draft the blog and when my partner returns I put the bins out. So the evening will end with a little more TV and perhaps a read and of course my meds.

Monday its August, I wake up thinking about the office floor and my lost seal ring. Not a good way to start the day. I have a protein breakfast and watch a bit of the Commonwealth games. I take a walk to the shop looking for my ring along the way. At the shop I look in the flower bins for my ring as I bought flowers here yesterday. I buy a paper and ask the shop assistant if anyone has handed in a ring and show her a photograph of it. No luck of course but now they are aware.

Back home I feel overwhelmed by the things I cannot fix or cannot find. It is a temporary paralysis so I decide to do at least one or two things that I can control and do. I finish the crosswords of the day and then I fill the tower water butt in order to clean it out and to check that it is working. I discover that there is a leak, most probably caused by the window cleaner using it to climb up to the top windows. Dumb bastard. Anyway I put a temporary plug in and will monitor it over the next few days. I move onto hanging out my washing and then onto pond maintenance. The solar pump needs to be overhauled and cleaned, which I do and get it working again. I clean the pond of fallen leaves and surface weed. A single frog sits and watches me as I do the work. The solar fountain goes back in and I top the water level up. Time for a lunch sandwich and then its onto mending and adapting an old vegetable rack to be a storage rack for my new jewellery tools, which goes into the Shed. With the tools racked tidily I can clean my desk surface. Time to train, its the last thing I feel like doing but its part of the fight to stay well. So I gear up and then get myself into the garage and strapped into the rower. I go for a 45 minute session at my usual resistance level. It turns out to be a pig of a session, really hard and an big effort.

I record the session and then feed the hedgehog and bring my washing in . The evening begins with a meal, more commonwealth games, the drafting of the blog and taking in the Tesco order. I need an early night so that I can get on with the difficult stuff tomorrow. I think sometimes it is necessary to do something other than the immediate perceived crisis. I had a mentor who always advised to have a chat with the frontal lobes when feeling like there is a crisis going on. Asking the question “is this really as much as a crisis as I need to fight or fly” quite often makes me realise that the “crisis” is not one and that there is more thinking and resolution time available than first thought. Today has been that day.

Sunday, another slow start but first things first the Sunday weigh in. I weigh in at 97.6 kilos, which is a decrease of 1.2 kilos this week. At last the resumption of training is beginning to pay off. So today is a rest day but tomorrow it is back to training and sensible diet. So having weighed in its time for a drink and meds and then some chores before walking down to the village shop to buy flowers for our lunch hosts. A friend of my eldest daughter turned up unexpectedly and she disappears for an hour before returning in time for us to drive over to our friends for lunch. We spend a lovely time being fed and and chatting in our friends garden. Then comes the event of the day. The women’s European football final. It goes the distance into extra time and as if a fairy tale was called for England win 2-0. The after party went on for over an hour apparently. So having had a very pleasant day we return home to the humdrum things like the Tesco order.

Alongside all of this is the discomfort and frustration of loosing my seal ring. I realised it was not on my hand when we reached our friends for lunch. I immediately searched the car but it was not there. On my return home I search the house but with no luck. Tomorrow I will search again, and again, and again. For now its meds adn sleep.

Saturday and its a very slow start with warm drinks and chat before getting up to start the day. I cook myself a cheese omelette, and take my meds and then its on with the day. I am set on entering the Poetry Society Spring Competition before the closing date of the 1st of August. There is a set theme to this competition of “Our Houses”, so I dig out a poem from the collection that I wrote back in the 1980s and enter it. I am just about through the process of entering the poem when my partner tells me that she thinks the floor in the office has raised again. I go and look and sure enough there is a pronounced bump under the desk area. Nothing for it but to investigate. I gear up in work trousers and get the tools I need from the garage. It’s going to be a challenge, so I start by removing the carpet tiles and underlay.

At this point I do some google research and reach the conclusion that I am going to have to get a tile up to have a look at what is underneath. The tile proves to be resistant to my probing so I do more research and discover that there is a thing called a grout saw that will do the job. I haven’t got one so I order one at the local Wickes on click and collect. So there is a bit of time to spend before I can go and collect the tool so I open my new Amazon parcel that has arrived. It is my blow torch that I intend to use to help me create wax reduction pieces from wooden moulds. I fill the blow torch and give it a whirl ,very pleasing.

Time to collect my grout saw so I and my partner drive to Wickes. The pick up goes well and we return via the garden centre to pick up some bacon. Once home I get to work on the office floor tiles. I saw out some grouting and manage to get a bolster underneath it and ease it up. Unfortunately it does not come up in one piece. What I find underneath is a bit of a surprise, its red sand. Clearly the building of houses in the 1930s was very different from today. My concern is that the sand is damp, I think. So I will need to get someone in to look at it for me. Time to read the house insurance.

There is nothing more I can do with the floor now till its been seen by someone who knows what they are doing, so I pack away my tools and set the issue aside for the day. I reset and get my new blowtorch into my Shed and also feed the hedgehog. Time to train. I get changed and get myself into the garage. I set up for a half hour row at my usual resistance. It turns out to be very hard. I’ve run out of spoons and so the half hour is hard work. A typical end of week session.

Kit off and session recorded its early evening and time to eat. I start to draft the blog as I watch some of the Commonwealth games, mostly swimming. The evening will be quiet and some more research on building techniques. Tomorrow is weigh in day, lunch with friends and then of course the final of the women’s Euro football championship. A busy day.

Friday and its a poetry day as my blow torch is not arriving till tomorrow. So a muesli breakfast and I am settled on the sofa office with both laptops fired up. I decide to submit some poems to the Poetry Society Poetry Review. I decide on what I will send and then set about trying to use the submission link. I format the poems I’ve chosen into a single document and then fill in the on line form. It goes relatively well until I am asked for my membership number. What follows was hours of frustration of as I try to find my number. In the end I send a pleading email to the society and give them my details. To my surprise I get a reply by the end of the morning so am able to send my submission. I have sent five of my poems into the dark and will not know the outcome for at least three months. Having completed the first submission I ready another four poems and enter them for the Winchester Poetry Prize. I ready the poems and then sort out my fees via Paypal, which turns out to be a nightmare. Eventually I think I have manged to pay and get a receipt number that I have to include in an email to the competition. I compose my entry email and get it sent off. Its lunch time and I have spent all morning in front of screens. So more of my poems are out there and likely to become more of my Herod’s children as I call my rejected poems.

I lunch on soup and watch some of the Commonwealth games. It then comes to the point where I cannot ignore the need to train. So I get ready and get myself into the garage. I strap into the rower and decide that today I need to do an hour at my usual resistance. I set off at a reasonable pace and manage to keep a reasonable pace all the way through. It turns out to be a good, if demanding session.

It takes time to recover from the effort of the session and to record it in the daily food and exercise log. Then its time to change and cook tea, which goes okay. I eat while watch more Commonwealth games and then draft the blog. I have little energy left but need to feed the hedgehog and then just veg out till sleep comes along.