Sunday and I find my partner up before me so I wander down stairs and make toast and marmalade with coffee after weighing myself in. Not good news, 96.8 kilos is a gain of 0.5 kilos. I need to focus. We chat for a while to plan the day over a pot of fresh coffee and decide to face time our youngest daughter early. We find her with her partner making cheese on toast for breakfast with the the second loaf she has baked in the bread maker we bought her for her birthday. We chat for a while and discover they are going to continue to redecorate two of the bedrooms in their house. So they were spending their day with paint brushes in their hands. My partner irons and hangs out washing and calls me out to see the first frog in the pond this year. Of course I take a picture.

Not only is it the first frog of the year but it has chosen to appear on the vernal equinox, which today is. The sun is shining and it is looking good for a few days, so my decision to mow lawns this weekend may prove to be sagacious. I think the Vernal Equinox means it is equal day and night and marks the start of spring. To try and counter my ignorance I look at the link a friend has posted to one of the groups I am on. I include it hear for clarity, or not.

Are you any the wiser, I think I am a bit. Its the 6th round of the cup this weekend so there is an early match to watch, which takes me through to a lunchtime dish of soup and bagel. I pack my gym bags and my partner and I go off to the gym. The place is practically empty, however when I get on the gym floor I find all four of the cross trainer are taken, outrageous really. I straddle a bike and pedal for an hour , but just for fun I use the machines course option and take a ride through champagne country learning interesting champagne facts as I go. By the end of this educational pedal I have burnt 596 calories and travelled 25.01 kilometres. Its a while since I cycled and I notice two things, one my bum is mildly numb and two, once again I have forgotten to put my Fitbit on my foot to get the steps benefit. In the end its a reasonable work out. I shower and repair to the lunge for a coffee and to wait for my partner. Today I am wearing my Honka football short as my favourite Finnish football team won the Finnish cup yesterday, beating Inter Turku 3-1. It looks like it could be a good season. The season is the shortest in Europe due to the cold and the lack of daylight in Finland. It seems to me that being a Finnish football fan is ideal for those with short attention spans.

We finish our coffee and drive home where my partner gathers in the washing and I set about mowing the back garden grass. It goes reasonably well for a first cut. I am hoping the next few days will dry the under layer out a bit and encourage new growth. With the grass cut the garden looks more inviting, but I have been careful not to disturb the hedgehog’s domain and left that area wild. As far as I can tell from the camera evidence out hog is coming out every night now.

I pack the mower away and now I am feeling the gym effort. I settle on the sofa to watch another football match adn to eat tea. As I watch the match I sip coffee and draft the blog. The Amazon knocks on the door with a package with my name on, I am bewildered as I have no outstanding orders, my partner says she has not sent me anything, I open it, intrigued. This is what was inside:

So if you were responsible for my surprise present thank you very much I really like and will be wearing it very soon. Now its time to do the weekly Tesco order and to prepare myself for Peaky Blinders and an early night as I have training to attend tomorrow and my partner is actually going to work.

Friday and its a sticky and slow start, in fact I find it difficult to get going. Its a full moon, not that will make any difference to me. I message my friend to wish her happy birthday and that her planned day with her children and wife goes as planned. She has claimed the bum of her Collin the caterpillar birthday cake as a birthday privilege. My morning is slovenly and I finally mange to shift myself to the gym at lunch time. I get to the gym to find it very sparsely populated. I do an hour on a cross trainer burning off 725 calories and going 8.28 kilometres. My post training shower is most welcome and I retreat to the lounge for coffee and an egg and bacon brioche. I take my time to recover and finally drive home. There is a trip to the shop to buy rugby watching treats and a newspaper. My partner returns from visiting her mother with her brother. Its not been a good visit as there has been great aggravation trying to get the bank to pay the carer. The bank are convinced its a con and refuse to move the money the first time. They insist on talking to my partners mother who when talked to made the immediate response of asking her daughter what the answer is. It sounds farcical but its anything but funny, with the result that eventually the carer gets paid but its been impossible to set up a regular arrangement so there will be more aggravation in the future.

The evening starts with watching the Leicester Tigers lose their cup game, which is followed by an evening of Red Nose entertainment. A the end of the day I go to bed tired but dissatisfied that I have used the day usefully.

Saturday and I wake to a coffee with the morning well on. My partner and eldest daughter decide to go into town to shop so I make toast and get on with cleaning the fish tank out. Its a satisfying job as the fish reappear and for a while the view of the fish will be clear. Of course while I have been doing this my weekly wash swishes around adn is waiting for me to drop in the dryer once my fish duties are done. Time to down load the garden camera and to my delight I find that the hedgehog is appearing every night and seems to be hail and hearty. Below are a couple of recent pictures of our new garden resident.

The surprise is the reappearance of the fox who has visited us twice in the last five days. I thought that the first sighting would be the last but clearly we are on the foxes regular route. What amazes me is how the hedgehog, the fox and the cats that visit the garden at night seem to be able to avoid each other so deftly.

All this activity of down loading the camera means that its getting close to the first international rugby match today. I nibble some goodies adn settle down to watch what turns out to be an amazing match. Believe it or not Italy manage to beat Wales with a last minute try. I take my opportunity to cut the grass in the front garden before it becomes a jungle. The front garden gets more sunshine and looked as if it had dried out enough to be cut. It was a good decision and although the cut was not perfect it will allow the under layers to dry out a bit further. If I am lucky I will get to do the back garden tomorrow providing the weather stays warm and slightly breezy.

So having sorted the garden, I top up the hedgehog canteen adn put out fresh water before settling down to watch the Ireland v Scotland rugby match. Its a bity game and I find myself drafting the blog. So by the time the Irish celebrate the triple crown I’ve eaten tea and got most of the draft done. So now its onto strawberries and ice ream followed by France v England, the deciding match in who wins the Six Nations this year.

England lost, another heroic failure, very British. So on to other things. Two new books have come into my life today. The first was a recommendation from a friend who had read my battles with food on the log and suggested the book she uses as her food bible when she wonders why she is eating too many pastries. It is called “Eat to Beat Disease” by Dr William Li. I have only very briefly glanced at it but I note chocolate, cheese and beer are not so bad, I therefore am likely to read more.

The second book was a surprise gift from my partner and chimes in with the current hedgehog action in the garden. It is by Pam Ayres one of my favourite English poets. It is a dark tale and a plea for us humans to be more hedgehog kind and aware.

So now its the end of the evening and I take my drugs and go to bed wondering what awaits me on the scales tomorrow. I know the lawns need mowing and I will probably need to go to the gym.

Thursday, I wake with ten minutes to get to my work meeting. I make it with a coffee in my hand. The meeting goes well and I chat to a colleague afterwards before picking up the admin work. It takes me through to late morning when I make some toast and check the hedgehog has fresh food and water. Somewhere in there I download Yammer and manage to get to the Elders Blog. I’m not quite sure how I managed it but I am now connected to my Elder colleagues. It remains to be seen if we use it. I go to the gym and burn off 725 calories and go 8.05 kilometres. I rest in the gym lounge and indulge in an egg and bacon brioche before returning home. All I do all evening is watch football, draft the blog, put the trash out and watch Mock the Week on Dave. One thing I do want to share is a poem that a friend sent me yesterday, which amused me greatly.

Wednesday and I wake up in the York hotel after a disrupted night, the meds again. I have an early coffee and shower and take my hair out of its braiding as it is beginning to unravel. It would seem that using a series of smaller tight braids works the best and as my hair gets longer it will be possible to keep it in longer. I have coffee and a basic breakfast, it is a dank and misty morning so I dawdle and indulge my morning before preparing to drive back to Leicester. I do not rush and try to take my time, being kind to myself. The drive back is in the rain and road spray but I make reasonable time.

Once home I unpack and survey the state of the bird feeders. Its now throwing it down with rain and shows no sign of stopping. Eventually I go to the post box to send the letter I wrote last night and while I am wrapped up in jackets I fill the squirrel feeder and the bird feeders. I check the hedgehog canteen and find the dishes empty so I replenish them and finally retreat to the house. I am tired now, the physicality of the day has caught up with me and I sink into an evening of food, football and finally the news broadcasts. The Ukraine of course dominates. I shall take my drugs and take to my bed.

Monday and I go to York in the morning. I deliberately drive slowly, well under 70 mph all the way. The motorway is clear and I have a very relaxed run all the way to eh hotel in York where I am staying. The Holiday Inn is relatively basic but clean and predictably so, it is my usual haunt in York when I return. I am here to have conversations about moving forward in my intention to stop working and how I am managing my illness. These conversations are an extension of my days of clinical supervision. I used to think that clinical practice without supervision was the definition of negligence, now I think that life without reflection is hazardous. I find that I have overlooked some elements of managing my cancer or at least the inevitable outcome. I have things to write and to prepare.

For the first time I choose to order room service for my evening meal. I went with pizza as a safe option. Having scanned the QR code stuck on my mirror I sat and wondered if it would appear. It did indeed turn up in quick time and made my NCIS watching useful. I get an email asking if I am interested in supporting a team in Australia who are bidding to open a new prison with a therapeutic community. A surprise out of the blue, which of course interested me. So I will wait to see if the proposed Teams meeting gets organised. I put myself to bed with a head full of thoughts about all sorts of things but mainly how I had managed not to do more to create the poetry coyote since my first flush of energy in December. It was after all one of the major motivating factors alongside my cancer that made me decide to stop working soon. I need to get back on track, but I am concerned that I’ve got so side tracked.

Tuesday and I wake feeling my usual birdcage bottom self. These addition meds appears to up set my gut as well as making me tired. So I get myself to the restaurant and get some cereals and toast down me, plus coffee of course. Midmorning I go to see a friend for coffee and conversation. She is suffering from long COVID. It was good to chat to her and her wife about how things are and how the future looks. After lunch I return to the hotel to catch up on my messages and emails before starting to draft the blog. I’m spending time jotting notes and pulling things together at the moment. I’ve one eye on the clock as a bit later on I am having coffee in the lounge of the hotel with another ex colleague. Its a lazy day before I travel back tomorrow morning. I no longer rush around, I can no longer do it and no longer want to as I think being kind to myself needs to be the priority. I write a letter and then meet my friend for coffee before she goes of to have a meal with old colleagues. I retreat to the room and watch football on my laptop, drink coffee, take my meds and tuck myself in for the night. Tomorrow is back to Leicester and an attempt to reset the transition and of course the gym.

Sunday, a brief laze and then up to croissants and toast. Over this we decide on a family time out at the Richard III experience in Leicester. In the excitement of this I forget to take my meds. We head off into town and wave our hastily pre-booked tickets at the staff and enter the experience. Here are some of the pictures I took:

This is the Pall that now rests over the modern tomb of Richard III which is now in Leicester Minster. It took 18 months to stitch and depicts the people of the time of Richard III and the people who discovered him and did the science to prove it was him.

It was a surprisingly interesting experience and once we had our fill of the 17th century and all the attendant violence that went on non stop during the 1660s and 70s, we headed for the White Boar Café and found they did wizard pasties and coffee. Once replenished we drive home and my youngest daughter and her partner head off home.

I settle to watch rugby, eat tea and then write the blog while watching the BAFTA awards. Prizes for the made up. It fills a gap before Peaky Blinders and match of the day. I am so shallow. I’m tired and looking forward to me bed tonight.

Saturday and I wake to coffee and a departing partner and daughter, one to the gym and one to the hairdresser. I get up, have a muesli breakfast, check my messages and then spend time with the garden camera trying to find the right data cable. I succeed eventually and download the latest pictures of our hedgehog. He/she seems to be eating well and avoiding next doors cat very well. I of course start the blog so that I can include the hedgehog update.

My partner returns from the gym and we go off to the garden center to buy meat for tonight’s birthday feast and to top up or egg supply. I wear my Puck Futin hoodie for the first time in to the world. No one comments, why would they, but a couple of people do give me a second look. Bizarrely it turns out that my partner did not notice I was wearing it so was oblivious of any response whatsoever. Mission complete we return home.

The afternoon sees 14 man England lose to Ireland at rugby. A good game but an inevitable out come when you are reduced to 14 men after 82 seconds of the match. From there we move to feast my youngest daughters birthday with a roast meal, chocolate cake and present giving. It is good to sit around the table and chat, reminisce and plan for the future. Eventually I leave the table to finish the blog and to watch the football highlights. I have not trained today and I have feasted so I am not hopeful about tomorrows weigh in. However my weight battle and indeed my cancer battle, are insignificant compared to the battles in the Ukraine that rage through my TV screen at me. There is no good ending to this war, there will be an ending but at a much greater cost than we are seeing now. We either deal with this bully or suffer the consequences. If we are going to act it needs to be sooner rather than later.

Friday and I get up to a small breakfast and a list of chores to do before the arrival of my youngest daughter and her partner later today. I get a load of washing in and draw up a shopping list. However before I can go shopping I prepare a meal for the evening and pop it in the Crockpot. I drive to our local Sainsburys and gathered up goodies to celebrate a birthday. On the way home I fill the car and check my tyres in readiness for going to York on Monday.

Once home I stow the food and have a light lunch while doing the crosswords in todays paper. I then set out to empty bins, hoover around the house and generally clear the house before my daughter arrives. I take a moment to check the hedgehog canteen and replenish the dishes, no time to check the garden camera, perhaps tomorrow. My spoons are running out but I am nagged by the need to at least do some sort of training today. I change into my kit and go to the garage to row for half an hour. Its a few days since I’ve rowed and it took a while to get myself going but in the end it turns out a reasonable session.

So after a few minutes rest I change and wait for my daughter to arrive, which they do almost immediately. So for the first time in a while the family eat a meal together around the table. The family chat and I leave them to it to watch the Wales v France rugby game. A good game. The family drift off to bed at the end of the match and I sit and draft the blog. So this is the domestic life, thrilling in a whole new way.

Thursday and if I was counting antiandrogen days it would be day 79. Of course I am pleased that the antiandrogens have lowered my PSA and I am hoping that they will go on doing so, but I am experiencing more tiredness than before. This means that I can do two main things a day after which anything else is a bonus. I can gym/work, gym/garden, gym/shop, gym/ go to rugby, gym/Shed, gym/hoover. If I do not gym then I can combine any of the others depending on the degree to which I do them. It appears that spoon theory is spot on. In any one day I only have so many spoons of energy and when its gone its gone. I have had to lower my expectations of myself and accept that I need to pace myself but that my well being in terms of cancer means I need to invest quite a lot of spoons into keeping exercised. I thought I would just put that out there in case anyone was thinking of inviting me to Zumba classes.

So this Thursday started with an early start. I needed to move my car so that my partner could go to physio. This done there was time for a marmalade toast breakfast before I hit the work screens at 9 o’clock. I useful meeting and afterwards I did a bit of admin. I umed and arrrd a bit before deciding to go to the gym again. By this time the guy who helps with the garden turned up and was setting about the weeding so he needed to have tea and a chat. I packed my kit but then took a call from a friend who now has a child on crutches after a visit to a hospital last night. A trampoline mishap resulting in ligament damage. We chat for a while as I drive to the gym. The world seems to be giving everyone more to juggle just when they do not need it.

I get in the gym and get a cross trainer so that I can do another hour of “vigorous exercise” as my oncologist would define it. So I do my hour and burn of 605 calories whilst going 8.18 Kilometres, marginally better than yesterday. I spend a bit of time on the weights machines, arms and back mostly, and then head for the showers. I sit in the lounge with my customary coffee and egg and bacon bun whilst checking my social media and recovering. It takes about an hour to get myself recovered and then I am off to Sainsburys. I’ve been promising to try alcohol free Guinness for ages but its never been in stock at Tesco’s. To my vague surprise I find some, so I have a treat to try tonight as I watch more European football. I drive home adn find my Puck Futin hoodie has arrived. Its try on time and of course a photo opportunity:

I replenish the hedgehog food and provide fresh water in the dish so hopefully it will continue to eat and who knows one day there maybe Urchins. I clear the kitchen and with my last energy draft the blog. Tonight I shall watch football, drink alcohol free Guinness and go to bed early, again.

I am struck by my buying such overt signals of Ukrainian support and link it to a comment I made at yesterdays Elders meeting. I said that I thought it is important for things to be visual, that there should be reminders in the environment so that people could not avoid the conflict and the realities of war. I realise that there are parallels between the blog and the clothing. It is the sense of relentlessness that I experience with cancer and in what the Ukrainian people are experiencing. Anyone who experiences cancer, I believe, experiences that sense of constant threat that never leaves one alone. The Ukrainian people are living with that sense of remorseless threat day and night with no sight in end. I find a ray of hope in all this. No matter how I fight or battle I will ultimately loose, on the other hand the Ukrainians can win, if not in the short term ultimately they can. So for me I think the keeping the relentless conflict visible is a way to acknowledge what is being experienced.

Wednesday and its drugs and Elders meeting day. I get out of bed to a coffee and muesli breakfast and then fill my drugs wallets for the next two weeks. At 11 o’clock I log on to join the Elders meeting and of course we talk about the situation in the Ukraine. We are a nice group of educated, caring people but we struggle to find a contribution to make. I express how appalled I am at the difference between our governments response to the humanitarian need and the kindness and compassion of the German people offering room in their homes to Ukrainians arriving by train in Berlin. We manage crisps in Calais and no where to get a visa or anyone to get one from. During our discussion someone pointed us in the direction of the woman who offered Russian soldiers sun flower seeds to put in their pockets so that when they died flowers would grow. I have put below the video and the transcript of what she said. My kind of woman but I have to say the soldier did try to be polite, I wonder what he thinks he is doing. As someone in the group said that’s a classic reality confrontation.

Full transcript

Read the transcript in full below:

Woman: Who are you?

Soldier: We have exercises here. Please go this way.

Woman: What kind of exercises? Are you Russian?

Soldier: Yes.

Woman: So what the fck are you doing here?

Soldier: Right now our discussion will lead to nothing.

Woman: You are occupants, you are fascists! What the fuck are you doing on our land with all these guns? Take these seeds and put them in your pockets, so at least sunflowers (Ukrainian national flower) will grow when you all lie down here.

Soldier: Right now our discussion will lead nowhere. Let’s not escalate this situation. Please.

Woman: What situation? Guys, guys. Put the sunflower seeds in your pockets please. You will lie down here with the seeds. You came to my land? Do you understand? You are occupiers. You are enemies.

Soldier: Yes.

Woman: And from this moment, you are cursed. I’m telling you.

Soldier: Now listen to me…

Woman: I’ve heard you.

Soldier: Let’s not escalate the situation. Please go this way.

Woman: How can it be further escalated? You fcking came here uninvited. Pieces of sh*t

The group will try to do something to support colleagues even if it is only to offer a space in which to talk and exchange ideas and information. We will see how it turns out over the next few days. We end our meeting and go our separate ways. For me it is going to the garden to see if the hedgehog has eaten of the food put out fresh yesterday. It is good news one of the little dishes is empty, I note it is the more moist food that has been eaten so I replenish the dish with some Prickles meat treat. I also dig out the dog bowl that has languished in the garage for a long time, give it a clean and fill it with fresh water. So now the hedgehog has water as well as food if it hasn’t found its way to the pond. I look up some hedgehog information and discover that my belief that baby hedgehogs are called Hoglets is wrong, they are in fact called Urchins. I like the ideas of Urchin hogs. Its time to go to the gym while my partner goes to see her mother with her brother.

The gym is empty. I have the changing rooms to my self and there are only one or two people on the gym flor when I get there. I get on a cross trainer and start my hour. It is painful adn hard going. This new medication is taking it out of me and my energy levels are low. It feels as if I can only two major things in a day at the moment. I can work and gym , or garden and work, or garden and gym, or work and work but what I can’t do is any more at the moment. That is without factoring in reading or music playing or Shed time and Shed time lays at the heart if my future plans for correspondence and the poetry coyote.

So the hour is tough, I burn only 601 calories and go 8.08 kilometres. This is a reasonable distance but a lousy calorie loss. I shower and recover in the lounge with a coffee and an egg and bacon bun. I deal with emails and WhatsApp messages and as five o’clock closes in I drive home to an Amazon delivery of replacement mop heads and a widow cleaners card. Kit into the washing and I settle down to my evening, I’m not hungry so I draft the blog. I am finding at the moment that if I leave the blog to the late night then I’ve not the energy to do it or at least to make a reasonable stab at it. My evening will be a soupy one and a footbally one, after which I shall retreat to my bed and hope that I sleep. My new medication, that I take at night, works its work on me during my sleep, or lack of it, so I wake up feeling tired and needing time to get myself going. It feels as if my daily store of energy spoons is decreasing. This is the practicality of the relentlessness of cancer, to which I can only respond by equally relentlessly resisting and remaining engaged.