Monday and I am due to go to York, so I get up and have breakfast and morning meds and then pack. I shower and then moves cars around so that I can take mine to the garage and fill it and check the tyres. This all went well until the tyre check. The tyre pump deflated not inflated my tyres so I had to resort to my temporary pump that plugs into my lighter socket. Not a good start. To add to this my partners mother was found to be unresponsive this morning and her brother had to dash across to her house to support the carer. Fortunately she recovered and did not need to go to hospital. I took my partners car to the garage and filled it. So with the chores done I drove off to York. At the first opportunity I pull into a service station and check my tyres. Feeling confident in my tyres and happy I continued my journey.

I get to my destination at 2:30 through some tricky road works and then settle down with my friend and mentor. For over three hours we talk about how I am and and how the world is, teasing out issues and taking time to think about some of the things that are facing me. I am fed chocolate biscuits and coffee but most importantly listened to and asked the difficult questions. It eases the no mans land I find myself in and I come away calmer and cleared about some of the things I can do. There is a lot going on at the moment and finding space to do what needs to be done is the trick.

Check in at the hotel is swift and I am soon in my room drafting the blog before I go out with a friend for a meal. Still no sign of the missing blood results but the issue with the house in London has been delayed. The funeral directors want to know whether I want my sister ashes in wood or plastic (no brainer) and have quoted me the prices and delivery charges. Apparently there are rules about sending dead peoples ashes to other people which appears is an expensive business. All in good time is my first thought.

Early evening I go and pick up a friend and go for a meal in town. It is really relaxing to be able to eat at leisure and to talk about TCs and work experiences. I note that tomorrow is the tenth anniversary of my retirement, My friend pointed out that when I retired I said that I was going to do absolutely nothing and that in fact I then spent the next nine plus years being busy with my own practice, the CQC, and the enabling environment project at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, plus of course a spell with the Barchester Group in Hull and a couple of lecturing gigs at Hull University. There were some Therapeutic Community reviews in there as well. So as my friend pointed out I failed miserably at doing nothing. My friend is suffering from long COVID so by the time we have eaten and chatted she is tired and needs to rest, so I take her home and then go back to the hotel to finish the blog and talk to my partner before taking my night meds and going to bed. As always my visit to York is proving to be vey useful and I feel that I have a lot to think about and process. All of it is so useful in helping me prepare for whatever is to come as a result of Thursdays oncology appointment.

Sunday and I wake up knowing the missing blood results are not in, but I check anyway. Still not there. I make my partner and I warm drinks and we laze in bed till we are ready to move in on the day. I down my trusty muesli, another coffee and my morning meds and head for the garden. Its a labour of necessity today as my front hedges have burgeoned this spring. I gather up my tools, which includes a heavy duty hedge trimmer. I start be dealing with the passage way down the side of the house. I cut back the hedge so that I can get the recycle bin out to the front garden, and then attack the front hedges. I shear my hedges and then gather up the clippings, compacting them as I go. Its a high spoon activity and it does not take long for me to work up a good sweat. After some hours of work I have run out of spoons so I pack my tools away and sit on the pation with a coffee and a scone.

Clearly scones and coffee are good for me as I have a burst of energy and plant out some of the bedding plants that were bought yesterday. By the time I’ve done that I’m ready to watch the rugby semi final on the TV. My team Leicester Tigers lose to the Sale Sharks, they clearly miss my season ticket support. As the sun abates I once again head for the garden and put in a couple of Lavatera (Mallows). My jasmine has died as has my long standing fuchsia so I put in my mallows to replace them. I am hoping that in due course the new plants will establish themselves. If I’m successful the new plants will flower from June all the way through to September or October. I really am out of spoons now and retreat to the reclining sofa and watch Country File. Tonight my partner and I dine on pasta and strawberries before we slide into the evening. Maybe the BAFTA awards, maybe more Night Agent, hopefully football highlights as my team won today. What is for sure I will not be waiting up till midnight to see if the rest of my bloods are in. Tomorrow I travel to York to see my mentor as part of my readying myself for Thursdays radiotherapy oncology appointment. It is the time to gather up my resources, check the resilience batteries and have options for all the possible/likely outcomes. At the moment I think I am in for a bit of a grind in the near future with the medical profession.

Its Saturday but last night I stayed up till gone midnight to see if my blood results got posted. The answer is partially. To my disappointment only one set of results are posted. The missing set contain the PSA result which is the crucial one. The ones that I have got are not brilliant but then again I had a crap cold when I gave the bloods, so perhaps the less than good results are to be expected.

So I crawl off to bed at 1am feeling less than gruntled. I sleep irritably and wake again at 8 o’clock the following morning. So Saturday starts with coffee and a lay in while my partner and chat and plan the day. My partner makes me a bacon sandwich and we both have a morning of tidying the house and getting our environment in order. By the end of the morning all our washing is done and our clothes are away. Beds are changed and the cars have full washer tanks and one has a new rear wiper. Having sorted the house we drive to our local garden center and top up our shopping. On the way back we drop in on another garden center and indulge in scones and coffee.

During all this I’ve been wrestling with one of my laptops which refuses to start up. My afternoon is taken up with watching a rugby semi final and keeping an eye on a laptop screen that occasionally changed which hue of blue it felt like. I slide into the evening and also into the Eurovision song contest. It is a tour de force of techno modern noisy irrelevance but in some respects fascinating. Its going to be a long evening mostly because I know I will not go to bed until I know whether the rest of my blood results are in or not. It is rumored that tomorrow may be sunny, if true I shall be in my garden trying to impose some sort of order on my rapidly developing jungle.

Friday and I am awake early as I am having bloods done at 9:10 this morning. I have time for a shower, a coffee and my morning meds before walking down to my GP and settling into the reception area. I am soon called in and in the blink of an eye I am walking out minus a couple of vials of blood. I return home to drive my partner to garden centre we discovered yesterday for breakfast. However we find the tea room closed so we shop for plants to liven up my pot collection and to fill some holes in the flower beds. By the time we had loaded the car boot with the new plants it was time for breakfast. Eggs Benedict for me and more coffee. My partner and I chat about hypnotism and pain control and wander into the realms of different types of consciousness. More coffee and tea are ordered. We leave and drive home to unload the plants and get them undercover in the greenhouse. I spend a bit of time filling bird feeders and skimming some of the floating weed from the pond. Its over cast and damp, in fact bloody miserable for May and further more its forecast to be this shit for the rest of the month. Apparently the Gulf Stream is “wobbly” and failed to rise to its normal northerly latitude, hence the crap weather from the north. I realise that I am in danger of “Pilgriming”. There is a John Bunyan line that goes “Whoso beset him round, With dismal stories, Do but themselves confound.” In fact Maddie Prior can sing it to you.

My point being that there is so much shit going on that its quite possible that we are making it worse by going on about it and confounding ourselves. Certainly I’ve stopped watching the news, in fact most programmes as there is an underlying tone of doom and gloom in them all. Even the stories meant to uplift arise from a traumatic or despairing start point. I do not find these uplifting, it might just be me but I’m not engaged. However I shall try to emulate the Pilgrim and “His strength the more is.” in the face of the a world and media that besets me with dismal stories.

A friend calls and we chat about the arrangements for her daughters birthday party this weekend and the myriad things that have to happen in order for it to go to plan. Its a lengthy chat as apparently there are many things to do and attend to whilst, at the same time, balancing a spoon economy that is still fragile in the face of long COVID, It seems that in general the world has forgotten COVID or at least that there are still many people that have been left battling the aftermath of it.

My partner and I go to the gym. For me its a kill or cure option to chase off my cold. I get there and get a cross trainer. I had forgotten to take my phone up with me so I could not capture the outcome screen and had to resort to remembering my figures. As it turns out they were identical. 5.08 kilometres and 508 calories burnt during the 50 minute session. I am well pleased with that and it seems to have done me good. Sometimes you just have to show your body who is boss. Another shower and then in to the lounge for yet more coffee and a cookie while I wait for my partner to emerge. As we sit sipping or coffee a rabbit appeared outside the lounge window and happily hopped around oblivious to the cars parking by it. It was a very Blaise rabbit.

We drive home and having dumped my kit I remove the rear windscreen wiper from the car as it has torn and order a new one to arrive tomorrow. So begins the evening. I’ve a watch to re-battery, I think, and then there is Have I Got News For You on TV and more of the Night Agent to watch. The issue for me is whether I stay up past midnight to see if todays blood results are posted or not. I know they will be worse than last time because I know the medication is not working. It means my PSA will have risen, the question is by how much and at what rate. Regardless I will at some point take my night meds and go to bed. Or I may just read.

Thursday and my third night in the spare room as I nurse my cold out of myself. I am getting there. I get up and make warm drinks for my partner and I, which we drink while forming a plan for the day. We decide to go into town for breakfast. We drive in to the Merchant of Venice and order our meals and then chat. I share that the family we know in Shri Lanka have been in touch again and sent pictures and a video. Things are tough in Shri Lanka at the moment, the government is bankrupt and the economy is dire, so for our fisherman family, life is difficult in the extreme. The daughter has sent me pictures of the notification of their electricity and water being cut off along with a video of how they have rigged up a car battery to power two lights in the night time. They are getting water from a neighbour. It is unimaginable that they are living like this, but having said that there are probably families right now in England close to this situation. I send some money and hope it gets them straight for a while. I wait to here how things go. We also chat about the possibility of going abroad for a holiday this year, which we both want to do but everything is so up in the air at the moment that it makes planning difficult to do. We finish our meal and pay after a long chat with the waitress about her experiences of working and being abroad. Apparently her experience is that we English are far more welcoming and good to be with than many other European countries. Go us! After a quick sortie to M&S we drive home to post, which includes a lovely letter from a friend and yet another (my last) ice hockey jersey.

I settle down to read my letter and then begin to draft the blog. After while my partner and I decide to go for afternoon scones at a near by garden centre in a village where I first lived when I left London. We wander round the new garden centre and size up the plants on offer, which are actually pretty good and reasonably priced. We head for the tea room and order our scones with me going for a strawberry milk shake as well. Sometimes I just can’t face coffee. We chat a while and then we head home. I settle down to read my David Chalmers book on Consciousness. Its really interesting but its such hard going, I have to read a bit then think and then read a bit more. Its going to take a while but I think the rewards will be large. I get to a point where something he says about the way things are defined can obscure the nature of a phenomenon. There is a graph that explains the concept. I suddenly realise that what is being said reflects the thoughts that were in the poem my friend sent. I present them here for you to think about.

It seems that allowing for questions, doubts and being curious might be a productive way to be. In essence allowing for phenomenon that are not “verifiable” by “facts” opens up some very interesting possibilities and philosophical questions, like what and why is consciousness. There is only so much of this that I can take in one go so I resort to watching football, followed by a new drama series The Night Agent. I finish drafting the blog, take my night meds and go to bed. My morning will start early with a set of bloods being taken, and so the run up to my radiotherapy oncology appointment on Thursday 18th starts.

Wednesday, the second morning I have woken up in the spare room as I quarantine myself from my partner with my lousy cold. That’s me who has the lousy cold not my partner. My partner brings me a coffee when she hears I am moving about. I sip it gratefully and check my emails and social media. Nothing pressing there so I get up and have breakfast. The post man delivers the usual recycling but this morning there is a letter form a friend. So I am able to sip more coffee and have the pleasure of reading my letter. No matter how often I get a letter or reflect upon getting letters I always get the same sense of excitement and gratitude for the writers effort. I read my letter slowly and then I retreat to the sofa to fill up my journal and to get a grip on what I might do today. My initial thought is not much. I drift for a while having half thoughts when out of the blue the solicitor’s office rings me. Apparently the house clearers and other folk have got as far as they can and it is now up to me and my daughters to make our final visit to take what we want before everything else goes.

Without thought I commented to my partner if she fancied a trip to London tomorrow. I do not know where my head was at, having ignored two rather salient facts, one, I have a cold and feel below par so driving would be a pain, and two my partner is on annual leave and the last thing she wants to do is be going off to London to a dead persons house to rake over old belongings. She made this point very clearly. Neither was too chuffed so a period of displacement activity occurred. My partner went to the shop and I went to the Shed to write bad tempered poetry. My partner returned and came to the Shed where we able to be the reasonable rational adults we usually are. There will be no annual leave trip to London nor a “I’ve got a cold” one. There are more important things to be thinking about right now, including the health of my partners mother and my up coming Radiotherapy oncology appointment next Thursday. I also need to prepare myself for that and will travel to York on Monday to talk to my mentor. This process helps me contain all the various aspects of managing my situation. Its difficult to keep making the right decisions when the oncologist keeps telling you there are no right answers. I’m not inclined to live the rest of my life on the toss of a coin on the basis that any answer or decision will do, my personal universe does not work like that. There are always options and some are better than others, the problem is that sometimes the better options are not and vice versa. Hence the need for reflection and hearing the thoughts of those outside the situation.

My partner goes off to collect her brother to visit their mother and do the weekly check in with the carers. I continue to use my inks to colour in an old board. I’m not n the mood for the Shed and its artistic possibilities so I pack up adn move back into the house for a soup lunch. I am not long back on the sofa when a friend calls from the very rainy York. we of course talk weather as Brits are honour bound to do and then compare our domestic to do lists before moving on to how we are and what lays ahead of us. It was an unexpected call and prompted me to get myself moving again. Going to the gym or training is not a today wise idea so the least I could do is bring the bins in. That done I settle down and start to draft the blog and as I do so I discover that Alexa will play me Scheherazade, so I am able to recapture some of last nights delights from the concert.

Tonight I want a quiet night of watching football and the last in the Race Across the World series. A bit of a misnomer as the contestants are just racing across Canada, which appears to have really shit public transport system. Apart from that I shall read my book on Consciousness, a small bit at a time before downing my night meds and probably quarantining myself for one more night. The tax return, car insurance and the house clearance can all wait.

Tuesday and I wake up in the spare bed as part of managing my cold. I’m up at 8 o’clock and breakfasting as Tesco are booked for this morning. I take root on the sofa feeling decidedly grotty and settlle down to read my latest book that was prompted by Sophie’s World. Its David J. Chalmers book The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Functional Theory. Its a fascinating but hard read. Its one of those books that you have to pay attention to, but then philosophy books are like that.

This is definitely a book that is going to take a while. A friend recommended small bites and perhaps a lay down afterwards. I have to say it is a fascinating issue and one that chimes in with my old psychological and therapy life. It is also pertinent to some of my thinking about where I am at the moment. A sort of sorting out what are priorities and what can be jettisoned. This morning there are timely diversions from the heavy stuff like a Tesco delivery and the post also arrives. There is a Tesco flurry of unloading and squirreling and the excitement of unwrapping the Blackburn Hawks ice hockey jersey. Yes I know I said I would not get any more but this was a snip and I liked this one as soon as I saw it.

Lunchtime rocks around and I discover I have not printed off tonight’s concert tickets. My partner and I are going to hear Rachmaninov’s Piano concerto No.2, the really difficult one that is pretty dynamic, followed by Scheherazade. It should be a great concert. Post lunch my partner goes to the gym and I retreat to the sofa to draft the blog and to contemplate a short burst on the rower. Suddenly there is a thunderstorm and hail! So this is Spring?

The evening is spectacular. The concert is just brilliant. I am still awestruck by what happens when an orchestra plays. I listen to most of the concert with my eyes closed, and let it flow through me. I remind myself that it is always worth the effort to go to live music. What an evening. I get home with my partner and watch the last ten minutes of the first leg of the European cup, a pleasing away draw for Manchester City. I draft the blog, take my night meds and go to bed totally spoonless with my phone and book hoping for a calm night with as much sleep as I can muster.

Bank holiday Monday and I am up at 7:30 and in the shower as I am off to the hospital for an MRI scan. There is time for coffee, muesli and meds before I get myself in clothes with no meatal and I remove all my jewellery. I try to distract myself with morning TV but it just irritates me so I stare into space for a bit and fill in the medical questionnaire about the history of metal in my body and allergies. I was asked the other day if I had an allergies when I bought a bottle of water at the gym. Firstly why would I buy water if I had an allergy to it and secondly if I had an allergy to water I would be dead given the water content of the average human body. Another mindless arse covering ritual that has crept into the world. Peanuts on aeroplanes I get, water for humans not so much. Any way I drive to the hospital this Bank Holiday Monday to find the car park almost empty (that is a first) and the hospital itself equally bereft of people apart from the odd person outside in a dressing gown having a fag.

Reception for radiology is closed but there is a helpful message directing me to Area C at the end of a corridor. I arrive at the reception at Area C to find no one there so I wandered about as you do in these case and found an unmasked person sitting in waiting area C who reassured me that someone would be out soon. A useful piece of instant volunteering that seemed apt given this is coronation volunteering day. (The WRVS café was closed, that struck me as ironic). A woman appeared and booked me in and then asked me to wait back in area C. I did as I was told until a nurse (hopefully) escorted me to a curtained cubicle and inserted a catheter in my arm, painlessly and disinterestedly, done one done them all I guess when you get cooperative veins like mine.

So I sit waiting with my catheter in my arm looking at the view wondering if I had enough time to read Terry Pratchett’s Reaper Man that I had brought with me. The view was stark and I was beginning to wonder if I had been forgotten.

At last I was called in to the MRI suite. My bag, coat and hat all went into a metal locker before I entered the metal free area of the machine. Again ironically the key for my locker was metal so had to stay to one side out of my possession. Not a full proof security method but Hey Ho onwards. I was invited to lay down on the flat bed of the scanner and a contraption put over my pelvic region. My catheter was connected up to an automated pump that would at times inject contrast fluid into me. In my left hand was placed a panic bulb and told to squeeze it if it all got too much and then I was slid into the machine with a cheery “we will see you in about 40 minutes”. I always respond the same to these tubular environments and that is to regard it as a time for breathing exercises. I forgot to mention that before inserting me into the machine they put ear phones on me to block out some of the noise. So here I am trying to relax and focus on my breathing when the process starts. The science is fascinating the high voltage surges through the powerful magnetic field creates sounds, the typical banging and chattering that an MRI produces. Its like attending a very bad avant garde music concert. Here is an example.

So after about 40 minutes with only one half time announcement that told me the next one “is quite noisy”, I was slide from the machine with my ears ringing and feeling slightly disorientated. I was shown to the locker, retrieved my things and told I could go as soon as I was ready, then left alone. I wandered out and found my way to the front entry of the hospital where I thought that after a piss I would sit in the café and have a nice coffee and a bun. As I mentioned before the volunteer run café was not open so I resorted to a bag of liquorice all sorts and a bottle of water. No one asked me if I had any allergies! I drove home, made coffee and sat down to draft the blog to find my lap top had a “bootmgr image corrupt” and would not boot. I dragged out my computer box from the garage and retrieved my start up USB and then played for a while to get my machine straight. I succeeded and finally got to start the daft blog, but whilst doing so I notice an Amazon man come half way up the path and then turn round and go away. Almost immediately I get a notification with a picture of my package left at a front door that certainly is not mine. I check my front door and porch and my Amazon cupboard is bare. Time for a quick feedback burst, and then I wonder if I will ever see my book. At this point my nose runs and I head for the Actifed. Clearly this is going to be one of those days! Its likely that from now on, for the rest of the day, anything I try to do will turn to rat shit. As it turns out the evening arrives and I watch football followed by Bill and Teds Bogus Journey. By the time that’s over all that is left is an adjustment to the Tesco order, taking my night meds and trying to get some sleep.

Sunday, and I wake and find a household already awake and sipping hot drinks. We breakfast together lazily and chat about the coming of Dangerous Beans my grandson arriving in July. After our breakfast my youngest daughter and her partner pack up their things and drive off back to the forest. I go to my garden and spend hours pricking out my seedlings until I have trays of small pots of cosmos and cornflowers. There are moments of quiet reflection as I sit on the swing seat and look at the garden; the sky is blue, the sun warm and there are hawks in the sky. I am so fortunate to have this space in the world in which I can retreat and reflect. When I worked all those years for a home I was not aware that this jewel would be part of it but here it is, and as I tend it so it tends me when I most need respite. I check the garden camera and I am delighted to find videos of the hedgehog roaming the garden and also of our visiting fox.

At four o’clock I drive my partner to the cinema to see Guardians of the Galaxy chapter 3. I discover that I find the going into a cinema is full of irritations. All mine and probably unreasonable but I find the constant rustling of food packaging and chattering just gets on my tits. It seems that the species is incapable of paying attention for the duration of a film or to do it without eating. Just me I suspect but it is the background noise that permeates everything. The film was very enjoyable and full of humour and some surprising moments of pathos. Without spoiling the film it was tricky seeing Rocket, my internal visualisation for fighting my cancer, be put through the metaphorical wringer. It just goes to show how imaginary characters and fictions can acquire meanings and emotional pertinence in our lives. Like in Sophie’s World the characters reach a point beyond their fiction. In our stories are wrapped our struggles for meaning and knowledge. I suspect this is not new to anyone and more a case of me being a slow learner. The bottom line was that Guardians of the Galaxy was a bit of a surprise.

I drive us home where we eat an evening meal and watch the coronation concert. Interesting content but the drones, wow, the drone pictures in the sky were awesome. I know its all controlled by computer but the effect is stunning. I loved the blue whale in the sky. Football highlights obviously follow accompanied by night meds. Tomorrow I drive to the local hospital in the morning for a MRI scan to set the baseline for my oncology appointment on the 18th of May. This feels like the business end of the stuff I have been trying to do in the Run Up To Radiotherapy. Just eleven days to go now.

Friday, yesterday now, and I recall the day as one of bits and pieces but most of all the day my youngest daughter and her partner arrived to visit us for the weekend. Of course I’m most interested to know how my grandson is coming along. The answer is very well. Of course there is shopping to be done for food and meals to be prepared. On the way to the garden centre to buy food we stop off to drop a package in for return. I note that the local pillar box has been adorned for tomorrows coronation.

Along the way the new powder dispenser for the washing machine arrives. I get the fitting sorted but as yet have not had the chance to test it. The day whiles away but of course regardless of everything I am still in Sparta adn that means that I need to train so I get changed and go to the garage. I decide that I need to make an effort today so although I select to go for 45 minutes I up the resistance level and as soon as I make the first pull I knew it was going to be long session. I am pleased to manage 9+ kilometres and to also burn 600+ calories.

I change out of my training kit and record my session in my journal. When I check the fitness app I find that my fitness age has dropped to 40. Here I am stage 4 cancer and the fitness age of a forty year old. How ironic is that? My partner gives our youngest daughter the things that she has bee knitting in preparation of the arrival of our grandson in July. The industry and skill is excellent.

It’s then time for a family meal and a meander into the evening. I watch Have I Got News for You and then read before taking my night meds and going to bed.

Saturday, coronation day, arrives and I sleepily wake to find the household up . Three things happen, breakfast, coronation and I finish reading Sophie’s World, a book within a book, within a book. A very interesting read. Now its time to see how our village is celebrating in the rain. Of course there is Morris dancing, which in this case provided the spectacle of a washboard player and some interesting dancing.

As is the tradition it starts to rain hard and so we return home. I update the blog and then I get ready to train for the final time this week. I decide a short half hour at my lower level to end the week. I set everything up, or so I thought, and set off. It goes well and I find myself racing at the end to hit the 7 kilometre mark and the 400+ calorie burn. I make it! Go me. However when I check the fitness app on my wrist it has been paused since 6 seconds after I started. “Bollocks” was my response to that.

I finish the session and go to the sofa to fill in my diet and exercise journal. After a few minutes I go upstairs to change and then go to pick up my spare drugs wallet. When I get to my drugs draw I find that the wallet is empty. So I gather up all my necessary drugs and go to the lounge and fill up my drugs wallets for the next two weeks. Just as I finish the wallets the evening meal is ready and once again we sit down as a family and dine. We chat and comment on todays coronation experience. I clear the kitchen, set Daisy (dishwasher) going and join the family on the lounge and draft the blog as I watch Dalgleish. I’m tired and looking forward to not training tomorrow, I am hoping above all that when I weigh in tomorrow morning that I will weigh less than last week, then and only then will I allow myself a treat. For now I cruise through the the rest of the evening looking forward to the day of rest tomorrow. After that its Bank Holiday Monday and I get to do another MRI scan.