Friday and I am awake quite early for me. Its cold and the wold is frosted outside. I have breakfast while the Shed warms up. When I think the Shed has the chill off I get down to the Shed and spend my morning writing letters. Ironic really as today is a postal strike day. I write till lunchtime at which point I return to the house for lunch.

I have coffee and then I walk into the village with my partner to collect my drugs and buy some eggs. When I get back I have soup and spend some time wrapping some of the present that have been delivered during the morning. By the time I have finished wrapping and filling the bird feeders its time to watch the quarter finals of the world cup, but not before I go to the post office to send my letters. The afternoon drift into the evening as Croatia defeat Brazil on penalties and Argentina knock out the Netherlands on penalties. Its a rollercoaster of a championship and good watching. Tomorrow England take on France, could be a close match.

In the later reaches of the the day I draft the blog to the background of a country music documentary. Tomorrow I get to have a late lunch with a group of old colleagues and friends, it will be the start of Christmas which will contain visits to hospitals, injections, blood tests, scans, visits by relatives, poetry meetings and meals with friends. A real mixed bag of pleasures and pains. All I hope is that there is a space to slow down, to just be with family and to be idle. They are all of course Rocket days and days in the fight to lower my PSA, lose weight, get fit and continue to fight cancer.