Friday and I wake to find everyone else up and busy. I have a muesli breakfast, coffee and then settle down to review a draft report of a service review that was done before Christmas. Its a tricky report and take some time to tease a way through. A friend calls and we chat about how we are and what we are doing. We decide that at some point we will do a zoom or a Teams meeting as we both want to have the opportunity to chat and be able to see each other at the same time. It would seem that zoom and other platforms have taught us that the good old fashioned telephone call is just that, old fashioned. I continue on with the report review. At lunchtime my partner and I go for a walk around the village and to pick up a paper and some food. I have a brief lunch and do the crosswords during which a friend rings for a chat. She has gathered produce from her allotment and was on the way to play golf so it was a quick chat.

I looked for a treat in the infamous third kitchen draw down, where we keep the treats and indulgences. I was disappointed as I had forgotten that I had feasted earlier in the week on some rather lovely gingerbread iced cookies. I highly recommend them, they are very moreish.

I prepare the evening meal and put it in the slow cooker and then change into my training gear and head for the Shed. I had previously had the brain to turn the heating on earlier to warm it through. I go to the Shed and climb up on to the bike. Its the first time for a long time that I’ve used the bike and I am not sure how this is going to go. I use my training mask for he first six minutes but have to abandon it as I am so hot. I shed my top layers quickly as the Shed gets hotter and hotter but I keep going. I do an hour at a steady pace. I need to remember to use the bike more often, however it is not as effective as the rower or cross trainer at burning off the calories.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

I end the session and return to the house to record it in my food and training log. I change out of my kit and then flop on the sofa. I watch TV as the dinner continues to cook. The evening drifts by in TV and rugby until I am on my own when I settle to write the blog. The highlight was getting the cake out of the fridge and having a celebrator slice to mark the second anniversary of the end of chemotherapy. No headway on the poetry competition front other than reading through some and picking out ones that meet certain length criteria.

Thursday, I’m up early and having toast and coffee before de-icing the cars so my partner can go to the physiotherapist. I notice that I am still sore from Tuesdays injection. I then go to my work meeting, first one of the year with the team. Its a useful meeting and goes well. Just before the end I get a call which I take. By the time the call comes to an end the team are all leaving the meeting. I do some admin tasks and then get myself off to the gym.

Its another session on the cross trainer for an hour which burns off 727 calories and takes me 8.4 kilometres. Unusually the bar is open so I have lunch at the club and do a Tesco order before driving home and heading to the Shed. I spend the rest of the afternoon writing letters and then getting them to the post office before collection time. So evening arrives along with my favourite tuna pasta. My partner settles into her singing lesson and I start to go through my poems looking for possible candidates to enter into competitions. There are three possible competitions to enter in the immediate future. Its a strange world, so I have been looking through my poems for ones that are less than 10 lines and between 11 and 50. Eventually my rummaging comes to an end and my partners lesson ends. We spend time watching “Hope Street” until my partner goes to bed and I write the blog. So today feels like it has been busy and partially productive. I’ve kept myself busy as a distraction from the fact that tomorrow is the second anniversary of completing chemo therapy. The therapy that was sold to me on the basis that it would prolong my life by 18 months. Well I’m still here, so what’s next? I guess I just keep wining till I don’t.

Wednesday and its bin day, an exciting start to the day wondering if the bins will be cleared. I cook a bacon and egg breakfast and then head for the Shed. I spend all morning writing letters punctuated by a coffee and biscuit break. Once the Shed gets warm it provides a really cosy space to sit and write at leisure. I break off at quarter to two to do a work meeting for half an hour, which turns out to be very productive. A quick lunch and I am back in the Shed finishing letters. At about 3:30 I realise I might miss the post so I take a walk over to the post office, buy stamps and send my letters on their way. I return home and close the Shed up but take pictures of a couple of little wonders in the garden. Despite the mornings ice and frost these little gems where still there in my garden to be found.

• 

• 

With the Shed tight for the night I head back to the house and work up the motivation to train. I get into my kit and head for the rower in the garage. The garage is cold so I get started. I feel like I would be cheating if I just do half an hour so I set the clock for 45 and get underway. I start slowly and build up over the time. It goes okay and I end up with a decent session.

• 

• 

I get back into comfortable clothes and sit down to dinner and early evening TV. Having eaten I start to write the blog. It will be a short blog, I’m still sore and will be tucking myself up early tonight. It seems that the world is like the universe, slowly drifting apart as we all acquire more complex COVID personal baggage. As we all strive to be normal our normal becomes more onerous and the connections more demanding on us. I think it is this that continues to motivate me to make the effort to go on writing letters, the blog, the newly found Poetry Coyote and WhatsApping. Perhaps its just me, maybe the world out there is carrying on regardless.

Tuesday and unusually its a 28 day jab day. So I am up early and have an early breakfast before a shower. I tuck the injection pack under my jacket and walk down to my GP surgery. There is no nurse available so my GP does the honours. The nice thing about my GP is that he always is at pains to explain what he is doing. Its like a mini workshop but very reassuring. The injection done my GP checks the future prescriptions and then we say farewell. I return home collecting a paper and some strawberries on the way. I sit for a while over a coffee and the crossword before packing my bag for the gym.

I get to the gym, get a bottle of water and get myself a cross trainer. One session later I have burnt 733 calories and gone 8.72 kilometres. This is a good session and I am pleased with myself. I celebrate with a large americano and cookie before driving home. I have a snack and go to the Shed. Its important that I go to the Shed regularly as it keeps the books and papers in there dry. I settle in and write a letter but alas its too late to catch the post. I review my poem catalogue and begin to pick out the poems for the second Poetry Coyote collection. It will be based on poems written in hotels over the years and probably I will include some written in restaurants. As I work away I become aware how sore my injection site is becoming. I finish up and go back indoors. I begin the blog feeling progressively more sore and take more paracetamol before dinner. It will be an early night as tomorrow I have my first work meeting and a report to review. I am also aware that I am behind with my correspondence, letters will come. I go to be feeling increasingly sore.

Monday: Poetry Coyote is born. Rough, self indulgent but a response to the unpoetic like poetry industry.

After a breakfast and a trip into town to collect my partner’s spare glasses I set about creating content for Poetry Coyote 1 on my YouTube channel, prost8kancerman. So before I throw the switch and go public here is an exclusive preview. Feedback welcome. I know its rough but future collections will get smoother, perhaps.

So there you go. The actual YouTube video is to big to embed in the blog and it is age restricted to adults, so just follow the directions above. I shall be training late tonight and tomorrow it is 28 day injection time.

Saturday, 1st January 2022, an important day in my life. I have made a decision. After many hours (literally) of jigsawing I have decided to never do another one. I was so taken aback by how many hours I spent today aimlessly putting bits of jigsaw in place, depicting something that did not even match the picture on the box, I realised just what a waste of my life time it is. What is someone with a life limiting dose of cancer doing playing with jigsaws? Wasting their time was my conclusion, so I won’t be doing it again. Having spent the majority of the day jigsawing I have a long call with my sister in the evening, the reconnected landline proving its worth. I catch up with Dr Who, a childhood habit and then watch the latest BBC serial “The Tourist”. I go to bed feeling that I have wasted a day and not got the flying start to 2022 that I intended.

Sunday and its kill Christmas day. First it is weigh in day:

95.8 Kilos, which

official makes me a fat

bastard.

I have managed to put on 2.1 kilos over the Christmas fortnight, which is not good, so as from Monday, tomorrow, I shall restart my eating regime coupled with my exercise sessions. I’m contemplating joining Football v Fat at my local community centre. I might have to wait to get a place but I think I would enjoy playing at a team game even this late in life. Its meant for fat bastards with a BMI over 27.5 so I would qualify. I figure I’m still fit enough to run away from even wobblier blokes. Its a long time since I owned a pair of indoor football boots.

Having weighed in I had a muesli breakfast and then my partner and I went off to the garden centre to get food for today. Nothing like a butchers pie and beans for a filling meal. We also laid in bacon and sausages for tomorrow in case Tesco decides to deliver late. Back home its time to de-Christmas. I get the boxes out of the loft and start the process of undressing the tree in reverse order. My partner dealt with the hall while I pack away “the god in a box” set bought in Barcelona and the nesting nativity dolls we bought in Prague years ago. I am very organised with boxes and packaging for all the different types of tree ornament that we have. Over the years I have collected a large number of drops and these are the ones I like most along with the more recent ones that have been given to us as presents. It takes a long time to reach the naked tree stage. The boxes get put back in the loft for another year. The disposal of the tree is always a challenge in terms of how to minimize the needle drop and the ensuing months of being speared by errant pine needles at unexpected moments. This year I put the garden recycle bin at the front door and saw the tree down in sections which get rammed into the bin. Eventually I am left with the thick end of the trunk which ends up in the garden. There is sweeping and dustpan and brushing a plenty until it is safe to move the TV back into the bay window. All is done, Christmas gone. I celebrate with a can of coke and watch a rugby match.

My evening will be quiet. I have Christmas books to read and the second episode of “The Tourist” to watch. Of course the Tesco order is to be updated. Normally tomorrow I would be having my 28 day injection but because of the Bank Holiday it is delayed till Tuesday so I do not need to start taking my prophylactic paracetamol till tomorrow, so perhaps I can get started on something. I have a project up my sleeve and one or two other things that I want to do. But most of all Mondays are “start again days”, so there is training to be done.

Friday, New Years Eve, I wake to find my partner at work in the office downstairs. I get myself up to make peanut better toast and coffee with my drugs. I have a mission. Today I must get to the chemist to see if they have my injection for Tuesday. Its tricky timing as the bank holiday has pushed my injection date on a day. By the time I have done my washing and stuck it in the dryer it time to go drug hunting. My partner and I walk down to the village chemist. To my surprise and relief the drugs are there including a repeat prescription for my antiandrogens, which have been added on in the assumption that I have forgotten to order them with the rest of my drugs. I am only slightly irked as in the long run it will save me a job. We buy some food at the Co-Op next door and then head home.

My partner prepares lunch but I decline, I think the new drugs maybe supressing my appetite, it however does not stop me taking half a bar of Tony’s Chocolonley with me to the Shed to accompany a mug of coffee. I spend time writing letters and when finished I walk over to the post box. I find that the next collection is Tuesday! This time I am fully miffed, its well before the normal Friday collection time which was indicated the last time I posted from here. There has obviously been an early Friday collection and clearly a buggering off till Tuesday. I return to the shed and Spring clean it. I rearrange some aspects of it, restore my nib collection and empty the waste bin. I promise myself that I will spend more time in the Shed in 2022, it is where I am at my most me. My pen and my ink flow best here.

I return to the house and check the evening meal that I put in the slow cooker earlier. Its doing just fine so I change in to my training gear and go to the garage to row. Its a real effort to make myself get ready and to go to the garage, I am beginning to think that the new drugs are making me tired but it could equally be my going to bed late. I like to have time for me at the end of the day which invariably means I am the last to go to bed. Perhaps in 2022 I should find another evening routine. I get into the garage and get strapped in and row for half an hour. My intention was to take it easy but as always as I warm up I speed up, so what was meant to be a loosening six kilometres turns into a bit of a sprint at the end, with a final distance over seven kilometres. It will do as the last one of 2021. I run a bath and soak in a bath bomb bath listening to a music request programme.

This evening started with dinner and then I retreated to the sofa to write the blog, send Happy New Year messages and respond to those I am getting. I will inevitably Hootenanny into the new year and then wake to my new self imposed regime. My pixies will get drunk and career around my head for a couple of days and I will settle down to a new routine. I should set myself some New Year Resolutions so here we go:

• Stay alive
• Be kinder
• Notice the ordinary
• Contribute
• Spend more time in the Shed
• Train regularly
• Eat protein and fruit, low carbs.
• Enter some poetry competitions
• Keep writing letters to friends
• Buy less on Amazon
• Learn how to plait my own hair
• Play guitar more.
• Tend the garden
• Feed the squirrels and the birds.

That should keep me occupied for a while while I make my way back into the world.

Thursday and its a relatively early start as my partner is taking her brother to see their mother and to do some business. So after scrambled eggs, coffee adn drugs I wave her off and then find myself trapped by the jigsaw. The family do a big jigsaw every Christmas, it has become a tradition and it also means it solves a present conundrum. I beaver away at the jigsaw and I am joined by my eldest daughter for a while. We get so far and leave it for my partner to finish as is the tradition. When she returns home she does indeed complete the picture.

On realising how long I had idled away over the jigsaw I get changed into my training kit and head for the garage. I meet my daughter and we decide to erect her Christmas present which is a piece of gym equipment. It like a giant 3D jigsaw. I grab my socket set and get going. First of course there was checking that we had all the bits, not an easy task as matching the pieces with the illustrations provided. It takes a while as we adjust the flooring to an even surface and start to build. It goes slowly as we check and double check each step carefully ensuring we are using the right fixings first time. Eventually we finish the job and the pull frame is complete and in its new position. So we now have everything in the garage that will allow us all to train properly at home.

Having completed the building task and cleared away all the recyclable packaging I train for half an hour on the rower. Its a reasonable first session back on the rower and is a suitable easing back session.

The evening follows with the last of the festive football, writing the blog and beginning to research poetry competitions and how to enter them. There are a couple with dead lines coming up. I found them via the Poetry Review which I now get as a member of the poetry society. So this is my new project, which I shall take at a measured pace. In the meantime drugs, sleep, train, focus. I need Shed time.

Wednesday, bin day, however before I can get into that excitement I wake to find my partner in pain. So it was warm drink and hot water bottle time. There is a dishwasher to clear and breakfast to have. My youngest daughter is up and around preparing to go home today. My watch press arrives and I put my partners watch back back into place only to find that the second hand has detached from the central spindle. A cruel irony. I fulfil a fortnightly chore of filling my drugs wallets, and order my next injection realising that I’ve left it a bit late to order the prescription. It going to be tight on time given the New Year bank holiday is coming up. It’s cancer life admin and its a pain in arse.

My partner gets up having taken some pain killers and makes bacon sandwiches. We hug our youngest farewell and wave her off. I am itchy in my being and need to train. I get like this is I haven’t trained for three or four days. The excess of Christmas goodies only serve to reinforce my “itchiness” and my fears of putting on weight, an anxiety fuelled by the possible side effects of the new medication. I decide to go to the gym.

I fill the car on the way and get a bit of a shock at how much it actually costs in these post Brexit Pandemic days to completely fill the car. So with a full tank and right pressured tyres I drive to the gym. Once again the bar and restaurant is closed. Its beginning to wear thin and will be accruing some less than complimentary feedback on their non existent services. I change and get myself a cross trainer. An hour later I’ve burnt off 650 calories and gone 8.15 kilometres. I shower and sit in the infertile lounge finally checking my emails, messages and apps. Friends have messaged me and phoned me, I feel rude not to have checked earlier or replied. I drive home and the decision is made get a take away as no one want to cook. The evening drifts into football and Shirley Valentine as I write the blog.

It occurs to me that I do not like these festive times, these landmark, punctuations in life. There is something in the unconscious as well as the conscious that nags, that voice that says this could be your last one. Of course the temptation is then to think that it has to be the best one yet, a really good one to go out on. I wonder how often others think that and never voice it. Anyway it is the quiet regularity that affords me the time to think and write that I value the most. In the coming year I intend to pursue some more of my favourite activities. How well this goes might be determined by just how much the cost of living goes up as the Russians starve us of gas, the arabs oil and our politicians of integrity and public welfare.

Tuesday and I wake late as does the rest of the household. After a slow rise we all eat breakfast and drink coffee. I get some of my Christmas gifts together and head for the Shed. I rearrange my desk top and take a photo of it before settling down to write a letter or two, which I post later.

I watch the squirrels and as I do so I notice that that the garden is coming back to life. Those bright green spears have started to poke through the soil and announce the arrival of a new growing year. Spring is here and it looks set to gallop at pace. It always gives me pleasure and a sense of renewal. It will soon be time to get back into the garden and give nature a hand.

• 

• 

I return inside and then set about replacing the battery in one of my partners watches. All goes well. Old battery out, new battery in and then the back will not click back on. No matter what I try it refuses to go back in place. So I have popped it into the freeze to chill it a bit and hopefully shrink it enough to click back on to the watch. Whilst I wait for freezing to take its toll I settle down with a coffee and Panettone and join in the family jigsaw activity. Its a fiendish 1000 piece one with a lot of detail so there is much head scratching and deliberation over a prolong period of time.

Dinner of home made pizza follows. Tonight there will be football, reading and drugs. If I am lucky I will be able to get the back to go back on the watch. I am feeling that I am having trouble focussing at the moment and I am not sure if it is the medication or just holiday lethargy. Go again tomorrow.