Saturday, I am up the blood results are in:

Its the all important drop in PSA that is the crucial score. I am relieved that it is going down again. My kidneys and liver are good and the rest of the systems are holding up well. Now is the time to keep training and paying attention to my diet.

Time for a leisurely breakfast and then my partner and I go off to buy a new i-pad. Its of course Currys we go to and we wander around and look the goods over. The deal gets done and we head for the gym. Rather than head for the gym floor straight away we sit in the lounge with coffee and and have a long chat about where we are and managing what is going on for us. We eventually get up and go to the gym floor to get a machine. I cross train for 50 minutes and manage to burn 554 calories and travel 6. 36 kilometres. My back is hurting a bit. I shower and return to the lounge for coffee and a cookie. We drive home and have a sandwich before getting ready to go out for the evening.

I drive my partner and I to the pub where we are to meet friends we have not seen for two years. Its very busy and car parking requires all my skills to get the car into a parking space. We get our table and wait for our friends to arrive. It is as if nothing has happened, we settle back into catching up with each other and sharing our news. It is a lovely evening and very good to renew the conversations. Before we leave we get another date in the diary. Given our ages and the fact that my partner is the only one still working full time we all appear to have very busy lives. There is clearly no shortage of things to be doing be it supporting family with new babies or just maintaining a fit and healthy life style. We say our farewells and drive off to our respective homes. My partner goes off to bed and I start the blog but the pain in my back is getting worse and I am tired. I give in and go to bed.

I am up again at three o’clock in pain and taking paracetamol. All my old fears about my kidneys resurface but I know from the blood results that things should be alright. I return to bed but wearing an old wrap around back support to try and ease the pain. I doze fitfully until the morning.

Sunday. My back is hurting. I make drinks and take the back to bed and start the Dr Google routine. Of course once I start that all sorts of possibilities are revealed to me. Kidney problem is still my best bet, kidney stones to be precise, followed by muscle tear, but I think that unlikely. Of course a relationship with my cancer comes to mind and I wonder about spread. In the end I ring 111. It took what felt like an age to wade through all the information intended to deflect me elsewhere but eventually I got through to a very helpful person who ran me thorough an assessment. There was a brief pause while she consulted a clinician. I was to see someone in 12 hours and she found me an appointment for 5:30 pm today at a health centre on the other side of town. So I have breakfast and continue, and extend last nights blog draft. I shall while away the day and try not to fantasise too much before my appointment. It could be an interesting end to the day. As the nurses in Jamaica would say as they waved me off from the dialysis clinic “See you on the other side”!

Thursday and I wake up in the hotel, there is time to blog before breakfast. I m soon in the hotel dining room feeding myself and watching my fellow diners. The one next to me was a bit taken aback when I swore vehemently when my unstable table caused me to spill my coffee. I was not amused, which the woman next to me became aware very abruptly. Full of hotel food I return to the room, pack my back pack and then check out. Its a short walk to Prescot Street and the home of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. I check in and make my way to the new café downstairs. My manager joins me and we do my 1 t0 1 there. Its a constructive and supportive meeting and we arrange my future. The rest of the team join us and we chat. This is the first time we have been face to face in over two years and it is a real pleasure to see each other. We get a tour of the remodelled facilities and then settle into our meeting room for the rest of the day.

The meeting goes through its agenda of updates and specific items till lunchtime when we return to the café for more food. At our return I give my colleague the birthday present I had brought with me. The rest of the meeting passes quite quickly and soon its time for me to leave. I get into the underground and make my way to St Pancras. I am feeling tired now and I ache so I am very pissed off when I find my ticket will not let me on a train until 7 o’clock. I am tired, hurting and had enough so I dash to the ticket office and upgrade my ticket, what is more I upgrade to first class. Its a fortune to do so but I just want to get home in the most comfort I can. I dash back to the platform and just manage to get on the 5 o’clock fast train which will get me into Leicester just after 6 o’clock. As a result of getting into first class I get a free bottle of water and short bread. Such are the luxuries of first class travel, it used to be free wine.

I get to Leicester and make my way to the taxi rank. There are a lot of Italians around as Leicester are playing Roma in a semi final first leg this night. I get a taxi who quotes me a price which is at least £5 over the usual but I do not care, I just want home. The driver is fast and delivers thrills along the way but I am pleased to pay him and get in home. I strip and change, feed the hedgehog and then sit on the sofa to watch the football on TV. I go to bed totally spent.

Friday and I am up early as I have bloods to do at the GP. Its coffee, meds and the walk down to the surgery. I am in and out quite quickly minus a bit of blood. I pick up a newspaper, kitkats and grapes as I return home. Just as I get back to my front garden I get a call from a friend so I sit on our garden chair and chat. We talk about how work is now more expensive and getting out and about is costly and how we both ration our energies at the moment. We say our goodbyes and I go in and stow my shopping. I ring the hospital to find out how my sister is. The nurse runs me through what is going on and I pass this on to the rest of the family. I have a work meeting to prepare for and log in on the appointed time. The meeting goes well and I come away with some admin to do. My partner goes t see her mother, my eldest daughter goes to the gym and I have lunch and then have my half hour afternoon nap. Feeling a bit more spoonful I prepare the evening meal, set the dishwasher going and feed the hedgehog. I set about trying to organise a locksmith and a glazier to put my sisters house right. I email local providers and wait for responses. My last meaningful task is to do my April invoices and get it sent off knowing it will not get seen till after the bank holiday Monday.

My evening starts with a phone call from my youngest daughter who wants to talk about my sister and when people are going to visit her. She also raises issues about what my sister might be needing in terms of night clothes and personal items. My daughter may come to see us on Monday. We eat tea and settle down to watch the evenings rugby match, which turns out to be a cracker. We follow this up with Have I Got News For You and then we watch the first in the new series of Great British Sewing Bee. Its a joy. I shall now meander to midnight and see if my test results are in.

Wednesday and I am up early to move my car so that my partner can go to work. Its the first time in ages that she has physically gone to work and not just popped downstairs to the office. So after a toast breakfast I am free to prepare for the training session I am leading in the afternoon, to pack for my trip to London and to do all the chores I need to do in order to be away with a clear conscience. Its a slow start but I get underway with the training preparation. A friend calls me. We have not spoken for a while and it is a real pleasure to talk with her. She is still battling long COVID but her daughter has got better enough to return to school. We have a long conversation about income and the perils f shopping and how we shop around for the best deals on food and how we navigate the tricky choices between own brand foods and name brands. Some are tolerable others are not so brand names become luxuries to be bought only when special offers apply. Lockdown, COVID and the current inflation has taught us much or at least accentuated what we were doing already to provide for our families. I continue my morning of chores and preparation. Lunch is simply soup and anxiety as the training slot approaches. I organise my travel back pack, I’m going light today but need to check I have clean underwear, my meds and a present for a colleague. It do quite well but when I get to London later I discover I have no hair brush, which for a man with a luxuriant pony tail is a critical oversight.

At 2pm I am hooked up to my laptop starting a training session. Its an Enabling Environment session in which we are revising the standards of Boundaries and Development. I split the session into two 50 minute sessions so that we all get a break and I have time to check the new slides go up properly. The session goes okay, I have a chatty sort of style and tend towards a supervision type interaction where I just encourage people to share their experiences and ideas. It seems to work okay. My major gripe is how much I hate Teams. I just do not like the format. I get to the end and with some relief sign off.

Now my adventure starts. But before I can get going I get parcels delivered. More hedgehog food, picture frames and best of all a surprise chocolate cake from Bettys. It is a gift from a friend and old colleague to ease the current strains and stresses. It is a lovely gift adn just the lift I needed. It will be a treat fro my return from London on Thursday. I order an Uber. My first time. I use my newly down loaded app and to my surprise and relief the techno works. So I am ferried to the station in luxury. My electronic phone ticket gets me onto the platform and I get an earlier train than I booked so I arrive in London at 6:30. I brave the tube and clamber out at my station to find my way to the hotel. Its a short walk but already I am back to not liking London especially now it has rampant psychopathic cyclists zipping about and worst of all silent, illegal electric scooters. Its just one big hazard. I get to hotel, check in, make my room and phone my colleague who is in a hotel a few minutes away. I walk to his hotel and we pop across the road to an Italian restaurant. A small, very Italian restaurant, London classy sort of place. We eat a really nice meal of freshly made pasta and sweet goodies as we chat work, history and of course football as Liverpool are beating Villareal tonight. My c0llleague walks back almost all the way to my hotel with me before we part way and I return to put myself to bed. Its been a long day and I am tired but its been a real pleasure to eat out with a colleague for the first time in years. I write the blog in the morning before I go for breakfast. Go me!

Tuesday an exciting day to start with as I am in front of the laptop and talking to a team in Australia who are bidding to build and put in place a therapeutic Community. Its a stimulating conversation and it was particularly good to see some colleagues on the call. For the first time in ages I walk to the village shop, buy a paper and stop off in the café for a bacon and sausage. When I get home my partner is still experiencing pain in her arm so she cancels work for the afternoon and we set off to Leicester Royal Infirmary A & E. Its was an experience. Long waiting times, packed rooms, the odd person queue jumping by collapsing in the waiting room, hats off to that person. At some point I was not allowed to accompany my partner so I wandered the hospital, snacking at various points. At last it was off to the x-ray department. A brief wait and then it was back the tent, yes tent, in the car park. Good news, no breaks, no chips and no cracks. So we had established that it is tissue damage, we can deal with that. We drive home.

Back home there is time to write a card to my sister and get it posted, feed the hedgehog, clear the kitchen and get the bins out and then its time to draft the blog. I’ve still got a to do list untouched but it will have to wait as I work my way through the priorities. What I’ve not shared is the lovely card I got from a friend I sent The Little Prince to. It is a lovely picture so I share it here.

I note along the way that life is being a challenge at the moment with an awful lot going on for family and friends. It seems that everyone has their plates full at the moment. Interestingly when there is so much going on the blog is getting briefer a sure sign that my energy is lower than usual. I guess the temptation is to withdraw and minimise engagement but I think that is not the best way to go. So I shall try and give the blog more attention.

Monday and I get up to toast and coffee before trotting down to the GP to get my monthly injection. It goes reasonably well and I collect a paper on the walk back home. I do the cross words and then go shopping for window lock keys and the things that Tesco tell me they are not delivering. I indulge in a bacon and sausage sandwich before returning home. There is a curtain rail to put back up, and my sister needs a radio and some art books sent to her, and I hoover through the house while my washing gets done. All in all its a busy day. I train on the rower for half and hour, it goes reasonably well.

I take a long bath and try to ease out my aches. The evening is food and then TV. I am tired and sore from the injection. I draft the blog, briefly as tomorrow I have a Zoom call with a team in Australia about prison therapeutic communities early in the morning, now that could be fun.

Saturday, I wake to find gifts of teas and bath bombs from a friend. A good way to start the day and much appreciated. My first job is to find my sister’s ward at the hospital. I ring and unlike last night I get straight through and ascertain her ward and talk to her nurse. I later found out she is in a room of her own, I suspect she is being isolated as a precaution until they ascertain her COVID status. The nurse says she was admitted to the ward at 5am, which means she spent almost 12 hours in emergency. I share her location and the ward number with the neighbours and indicate that I am more than happy for people to visit her.

There is practical stuff to do while my partner goes to the gym but we manage to watch the second half of a rugby game together later. I train on the rower in the garage for the first time since 11th of March. It was hard but I managed to finish the session.

My partner makes tea and the family settle down to watch a film for the evening. I watch the football highlights adn go to bed. Tomorrow we are driving down to my sisters house to make sure it is secure and to tidy up after the hurried departure.

Sunday we drive to London in good time and get in to my sisters house. My partner, eldest daughter and I set to and clean, tidy and organise some of the house. Where the police broke in the glass from the back door was still strewn all over the kitchen floor. We beavered away for several hours filling the bins, changing bedding and clearing the decks a bit so there was room to move. By early afternoon we had run out of bags and to be frank energy. We packed away locked up and said farewell to the neighbours. The drive back was slow due to at least two accidents on the way. We stopped for a break once we got to Northampton and then continued home. We had coffee, I fed the hedgehog and uncovered the garden furniture so we could sit outside for coffee. My partner went for a well earned bat h while I and my eldest daughter ordered take away as no one could face cooking. As we wait I draft the blog. Tomorrow is injection day so it will be paracetamol and bed for me.

Friday, a slow start, I’m feeling sluggish but I get up and make a bacon bagel and coffee and get under way. My day is stop start as I take calls from social services and the GP. I also talk to my sisters neighbour who is an absolute hero. Finally I get the message that someone is going to see my sister at 4 o’clock and my sisters neighbour has agreed to meet them with the key. I take a lunchtime walk to the chemist to get my meds but they are not in and I am told to return tomorrow. I shop for bread and a paper before returning home. I have a call with a friend and hear how she is coping with the demands of birthday parties. I get another call from the GP and we discuss if it is a good idea for her to be there when the carers call on my sister. I field one or two more messages about my sister and then I get ready to go and row in the garage. I do not make it. My sister is admitted to hospital as the GP finds her in a difficult state and decides admission to hospital is the wisest decision. I plan a visit whilst biding my time before ring the hospital and finding out where she has been admitted to. We will eat tea, I will make the calls and then hopefully this evening we can all rest and get an early night. These days feel arduous but I remind myself whose crisis is this and of course it is my sisters.

Against this background the world continues and the garden grows, as a constant reminder of what is essential.

Wednesday and I am up early and packing to go to the gym. I drink a coffee and take my meds and then I am off on the road. The world has gone back to work so the gym is empty and I can have the pick of equipment. I grab a cross trainer, put music in my ears and set off. My legs after yesterdays stint on the bike are stiff and complain. I keep going and end up burning 714 calories and going 7.77 kilometres. Not bad given how my legs were. I get in the changing rooms and have to sit for a bit to recover. I then get into the shower. Its lunch time so I order coffee and a bacon and egg roll in the club lounge. I get a message from a colleague who reminds me that there is a meeting at 2 o’clock. I act cool but I’m thinking it could be tight. As it turns out I get home in plenty of time.

The meeting was on of those that made me wish I had not bothered and it dragged on. It finally came to an end and I was free to spread my wings. A friend rang me from her car outside the hospital in which her daughter was in. There is nothing more guaranteed to challenge us than sick children and to make us feel at our most vulnerable. She and her wife were juggling the care and the family, I’m sure that rings bells for all of us who have children. We go our separate ways , I wish I could be more helpful. I had mistakenly arranged to phone a friend in the evening but had to rearrange as I was reminded that on this night we are going out to eat with friends. Such a rare occasion that I had overlooked it. Of course this brings on the “what to wear” conundrum, one that I have nit had to face for quite a while. I go really conservative, trousers, shirt and blazer. I add a pair of Oxfords to this for security. So my partner and I are whisked away to a pub in the countryside where we settle down to chat and eat a good pub meal. It was really good as the company we were with are lovely. We had not seen them for a long time due to COVID but we slipped back into conversation as if we had only seen them yesterday, it felt very natural and easy. I guess that’s how good friendships are. We of course were the last people in the place. I think other people eat in a sort of hit and run way as if being with the people they are eating with is a secondary consideration. For me its always the people, I guess I belong to a generation that sat up all night with people to talk as opposed to a generation that huddles under the bed clothes with an ipad/iphone and live out a fantasy of a relationship. Soz, I mean init, so olds. Any way we get a lift home and say farewell, and so to bed, after midweek match of the day of course.

Thursday, the last night can of Coke was not a good idea. My new meds are playing havoc with my gut in the night but Coke really doesn’t help. Memo to self “don’t”. I make coffee and toast and get myself in front of the laptop for the Thursday team meeting. It is the usual catch meeting and I am simultaneously catching up with some of my work emails, mostly trying to track people down. Its Easter holidays, no one is at work who has children it seems. The meeting ends and I continue to do bits and pieces of communications till lunchtime, when the family go for a lunchtime walk around the village. A quick lunch and then I head for the Shed to write letters, which of course is followed by a trip to the post box. I keep thinking that I should train but my body is really not up for it, I take a nap instead. I just about come out of my nap to find the guy who does our garden has arrived so I leap into chat mode and and go and talk to him, give him coffee and pay him. While he cuts my grass I feed the hedgehog. There is just time to eat tuna pasta before taking my daughter to her trapeze class and returning to write the blog and phone a friend. My friend is very helpful and supportive and suggests some useful things to help support my sister. We end the call promising to talk again soon. A message tells me my friends daughter has returned from hospital.

I am about to go downstairs when I get a phone call from my sister’s neighbour in London, He is ringing me to tell me about his concern for my sister. We talk for a while and I tell him about the referral I have made and my chat with the GP. We exchange numbers and agree to catch up again tomorrow. I ring the duty team at social services and express my concerns again. I am told that the duty social worker will ring me later. I settle down to watch a TV programme on design but the I am called by the duty social worker who is very helpful and has accelerated the appropriate referral to the team who will do the assessment. They will ring me tomorrow. I make note of numbers and return to the TV programme. It feels like there is nothing else to be done tonight, as uncomfortable as that feels. I take my meds, finish the blog and go to bed full of the sound of inner doors opening and closing.

Tuesday and I am up determined to start fresh and t get back in to the battle for myself. Coffee and meds and I am off to the gym. A friend calls just as I am leaving, she is off to golf but for some reason the call gets lost. Before I can arrive another friend rings and we chat while I drive. Her daughter is not well and there is family juggling to be done. As she goes in for her blood tests I arrive at the gym. The gym is fuller than usual with tubby Easter bunnies working off their chocolate eggs. I get on board a bike and pump away for an hour. I burn 562 calories and go 22.53 kilometres and my calves felt every metre. I shower in showers that are actually hot and head for the lounge. There I drink coffee, eat a bacon and egg roll and reread for the the third time The Little Prince. The book is fascinating me, it clearly resonates with something in me.

I drive home, and on the way my sisters GP rings me just to confirm an email I had sent to them regarding my referral to social services to see if they can provide her with some support at the moment. I get indoors and sort out my kit and put the bin out for tomorrow. Somewhere in there I find time to renew the garden waste permit and run of the new bin collection timetable for the year. Just as the Tesco order arrives Ealing Social Services ring me and I have a disjointed conversation with the caller about what I want from them and why I made my referral. He confirmed that they were going to do an assessment of need.

The hedgehog get it food renewed and I drift into the evening which is spent watching No Time to Die. I clear the kitchen and retreat to bed in an effort to get to bed early and to start a more nurturing regime. So I am in bed writing the blog, sending and responding to messages and it is still coming up to 11 o’clock. Today has been a small start, it will have to be enough. I am acutely aware that there are family and friends out there that are having tough times right now so I need to look after myself if I am going to be able to offer support.

Saturday and I wake up lazy in the hotel. Its a slow start to the day as my partner and I make our way to breakfast. We find our selves a table in the foresters court room and tuck into a big breakfast that included fried bread. Neither of us had seen fried bread for years. The meal dawdles along until we get a message from our youngest daughter asking if we are still alive!

We shift ourselves and go and visit them. Its time to laze and catch up. There are pond issues to debate and lunch sandwiches to be had. In the afternoon we all return to the hotel and sit in there garden and drink in their garden. The rose wine flows and we wonder at the number of lotus cars parked up in the car park, there is clearly a club meeting going on. The forest surrounds everything here, an old and rocky forest.

Our daughter returns home with her partner to get ready to go out for a meal later, we return to our room to nap and watch the end of the cup semi final.

The early evening arrives and we get picked up by our daughter and drive off to a pub in the forest for our evening meal. I rare chance to indulge in a steak and Welsh Gold. The later being honeycomb ice cream, which was delicious. It is a luxury to be cooked for and for food to magically appear and the washing up never to be an issue. We take our time and chat until its time to be dropped back at the hotel. We settle down for a bit of TV and an early night.

Sunday rocks up and both my partner and I are feeling pretty crap, not sure why, whether it was something we ate or just one of those night we are not sure. Not an ideal way to be when away but we rally ourselves and decide to have a good old fashion soak in the bath to ease ourselves. It seems to work quite well and we make our way down to breakfast. I cannot face the fried stuff and stick to cereals and toast. Again we take our time before returning to the room to collect the remaining bags, having dropped most of them in the car on the way to breakfast. We pay our bill and go off to our daughters. Having arrived I presented my partner and my daughter with their Easter eggs. I had managed to smuggle the Bettys delivery into home and then wrap them for presentation today. We sip coffee and look at some of the family memories that have been captured as calendars whilst using this years to plan future weekends, including our village heritage weekend in July. At lunch time it time to leave and drive home. The journey is a dream. Clear roads, no accidents, no road works, the issues will be tomorrow.

Home and there is the unpacking to do and the usual post break chores to do. My washing goes in and we indulge in coffee and iced buns for lunch. Time for me to have a post driving nap. I watch the second cup semi final and then we proceed to watch a procession of TV Easter goodies until we eat and while the evening away. I toy with the idea of doing my blood type test that has arrived, an order prompted by a conversation about what blood type we all are with my daughter. I decide tomorrow will do. I’m tired and go to bed.

Monday, again we both wake up feeling less than chipper. I get up and hang my washing out, the cheap option, and then make drinks, returning to the bedroom to deliver them. We chat for a while and bemoan how crap it is feeling like this. We get up and breakfast. at this point I rouse myself and get out into the garden having set myself the goal of tidying the pond. I set to clearing away weed, dead leaves and removing the netting. It goes quite well and at least four frogs put in an appearance along with a large glob of frog spawn. It looks a little sparse at the finish but ultimately it will be a more healthy eco system. At least that’s what I think but I guess the frogs wil be the ultimate judges of that.

Garden job done I turn my attention to the blog. I have a problem the laptop I usually use has suddenly become the ultimate sloth of the laptop world. I try the usual magic tricks to no avail so have to swap to another machine. The intention is to catch up on the blog and then prepare for going back to work tomorrow. I have a lot to catch up on having been ill and then away on holiday. However this time has reinforced my decision to stop working. I need the time to train, which I now haven’t done for five days and I need my vigorous exercise, its another form of medicine. I go on a search for my blood donor card, which I am sure I have tucked away somewhere. After some ferreting around I find it. I find out my blood type and the fact that I gave blood once a very long time again. Apparently about 33% of the population are fellow A RH Positive. Thankfully I am easy to transfuse, except in Jamaica of course who would not give me any.

I work towards the evening and might just talk myself into an half hour row, we shall see. I didn’t, I watched Villanelle die.