Its Friday and I wake up late and rouse myself to get up and make breakfast and take my morning meds. Its a tricky timing day as I need to wait for somethings to arrive before I can send out the review copies of my latest collection. Eventually the posting boxes and the labels are all together and I can start the process of packaging things up. Firstly I have to make sure that I have the right addresses for the recipients. It takes a while to do the research but I eventually get the ten or so addresses that I need. Three daily news papers, two radio stations, a TV channel and a couple of prostate cancer organisations. Armed with my research I start to assemble posting boxes, which I realise I will need to tape up for security. I go and root out my collection of coloured gaffer tapes and in doing so manage to drop a pack of them on my head. Undeterred I carry on and make up the first boxes. I also dig out foam envelopes for the book to go into and then run off the Ruler’s Wit letter head letters to various editors, managers and directors. Of course if anyone responds they will respond to Ruler’s Wit, the publishers so I may never know, at least not quickly. With all the component parts.

By four o’clock in the afternoon I have a pile of ten boxes to go to the Post Office. I load them into carrier bags, which my eldest daughter and I lug across to the post office. The chap behind the post office till does a sterling job of stamping up the posting boxes and eventually hands over my list of tracking numbers. While I have been “boxing” my eldest daughter has gathered up a paper and treats for the evening. I return home relieved that the task is done. Somewhere in the day I have exchanged emails with the publishing team and decided to have hardback versions of my last two book made. It means that all of the Cancer Years series will be in hardback and may physically survive for longer.

The evening is filled with watching the end of The Recruit and the start of a series called Cracked. The later is poor and I think I will be searching for a more engaging series to watch. Finally I go to bed having taken my night meds and watched some of a Timothy Daulton Bond film. I conclude that he was underrated but I do not stay to the end of the film.

Saturday and it is a Poetry Stanza day, via Zoom today. I wake quite late to find my partner has gone with her brother to their mother in the care home. I spend time having breakfast, taking my morning meds and preparing the office for me to attend the poetry stanza meeting. This includes reading all the poems through and thinking about which one I will offer to read. There are some really good poems this month. Unfortunately I cannot share them here but perhaps in the future they will become available. I will share mine though, it is one that is not in the latest collection.

552
It’s the persistent alive
that are the pain.
The thankless resentful
who cling on,
making their children pay
in guilt and anxiety
with no regard for the  
anguish the others
have to contain.
As everything fails 
the character hardens,
the anger and pettiness
rises and is released
on those that love the most,
those that work to
make dying humane,
the care enough
and the pain less.
Fighting to the end
means everyone is the enemy
and all are in the cross hairs 
of discontent and frustration.
Death knocks loudly
but has the door
slammed in its face.
There are more days,
more opportunities
to express displeasure,
to vent the fear of going
and the loss of selfhood.
Everything is taken by nature,
the growing old, the infirmity
of a being ending. 
All around the family 
grits its collective jaw
and makes the arguments
for patience, tolerance
and doing the right thing.
Partnerships absorb the tears,
the helplessness, and self doubt,
and sometimes, just sometimes
whisper “ it would be kinder 
if they were dead”.
But dead they are not
and until they are 
there is no relief 
for anyone.
Either Nature has got it wrong
or medicine got too clever.
Humanity no longer understands
how to do this?

                                                            551 13-08-2026

I spend time before the meeting with my partner on the swing seat and then fill the bird and squirrel feeders before returning to my partner on the swing seat. In very few minutes the squirrel appears as do the birds. They have an uncanny knack of knowing when I have just filled their feeders. No chance of them starving this winter.

The poetry stanza goes well and my “on the nose” poem seems to be accepted. Some of the other poems are just brilliant, especially the ones about how our modern internet living is excruciating. The discussion and analysis of the poetry is always informed and intelligent, there are many good brains in the group. It is fascinating to hear what other people are picking up in the world and what issues move them to write poetry about it. It was a really good meeting.

Post stanza meeting I settle down to draft the blog for yesterday and today, while my partner prepares tea and we both wait for Tesco to deliver our weekly food shop. Tonight England play Spain, so we shall be watching that before sliding off to bed. Tonight is an important night. It is the last night I shall be taking 5mg of my steroids. Tomorrow I start the serious tapering off of the steroids, so I will be down to 4mg as of tomorrow. I have also decided that this is the moment to start to train, so tomorrow I will get my arse back on the rower and endeavour to kick start my body back on the road to fitness. It also means this is my last night of treats, no more sweets, biscuits and sweet snacks. My aim is to be body fit for Christmas. That’s just three short months away.