Saturday: time to breakfast and to organise, to do chores and to prepare to eat out tonight, but first there is a trip to the gym. Yes to the gym for the first time in over two years. I drive the family there so that my eldest daughter can have her hair done and I can spend time on a cross trainer. 46 minutes to shed 500 calories, not bad after such a long lay off. I spend a bit of time on a weights machine and then donning swimwear I spend ten glorious hot minutes in the steam room. A shower other than my own is a real pleasure and then its into the old club room.

Feeling fresh and clean we return home to prepare for our evening meal with friends. The meal is splendid and full of care and good conversation as it should be between friends. There was the slight distraction for a while of Radacanu the 18 year old wonder girl of tennis winning the US Open tennis championship. We chat until midnight when I drive us home to finally get some sleep.

Sunday, and I weigh in first thing. 95.4 kilos a drop of 0.1 kilos, I am so disappointed after this weeks efforts. I wonder if this is a test of some sort, but that way lay madness. A simple breakfast of eggs and then we make the face time call to our youngest daughter who is recovering from a cold but in relatively good form. Once done its time for me to climb into my “work clothes” and head for the garden with a Hippo bag. I spend some tine clearing the garden and the patio of all the unwanted old sun shades and seed trays before adding the ancient crockery sets and bed linen that is no longer required. With everything stowed that we want to get rid of I cover the bag and secure it. I return to the garden and begin to trim it for winter. I make a reasonable start. By the end of the afternoon, with beds freshly made, non garden kind, my partner adn I sit on the swing seat and watch the squirrels chase each other as a robin sits in the garden and sings to us. We return to our chores, I start to write the blog from yesterday and today. Today is a prophylactic paracetamol day as tomorrow is my 28 day injection coupled this month with a B12 jab. If things go as usual then I’m going to be sore for at least two days and not particularly chipper. I watch Harry Potter films to remind me that good wins in the end. Its a kind of magic of which, Dumbledore reminds us, words are the greatest of all.