Saturday, and I am brought a coffee in bed and my partner and I then spend a couple of hours chatting and wondering about the future. It seems that this Saturday morning ritual is becoming our usual catch up and planning time. Eventually we get up for brunch. Today is the anniversary of the end of chemotherapy for me. This time three years ago I was bald with ridged nails and all the other joys of chemo. The chemo was supposed to give me an extra 18 months to add to the 8 months that the survival curves for people with a Gleason score of 9.5 gave me. By reckoning that’s 26 months, and here I am 36 months down the way from the end of chemo. That’s 10 months beyond prediction. Every day of my life now is a free gift of time. That’s quite something and something to hold onto as I get into 2023.

Brunch is something my partner can eat on her pre endoscopy diet. Between now and Tuesday she is eating a specific diet, so we dine and then slowly get ready to go to the gym. The post arrives and brings my son’s Christmas card. The kitchen gets cleared and sport gear gets organised as we ready ourselves to make the effort. We drive to the gym in clear weather as the rain has abated for a while. The gym floor is busy but I get a cross trainer. I set a session for 45 minutes and plug into the TV function so I can watch Leicester Tigers get thrashed by Newcastle. I get myself going and try to get into some sort of rhythm. It seems a long 45 minutes but when it does arrive there is a 5 minute warm down to do on the machine. I photograph the display and then walk the floor to cool down and finish my bottle of water.

I indulge in a long warm shower and then head for the members lounge and a large black americano. I watch some rugby while waiting for my partner to arrive. We both have coffee and chat a bit more about our up coming brushes with the medical profession. The journey home is in driving rain, in which we navigate the road closures in the village. I find my eldest has discovered that Amazon Video has Rammstein available so watch for a while once my kit is sorted. Amazon has delivered my new stainless steel honey dipper. An addition to the household implements that I discovered we needed when forced to use a jar of honey rather than a squeezy bottle. There is football to watch and tea to eat as I start to draft the blog. Tonight’s film is The Girl in the Spiders Web. The evening meanders to its conclusion with me taking my night meds, tomorrow sees me start my prophylactic paracetamol in readiness for Monday’s injection. At the moment my social media is full of jokes about a prince, sometimes I wonder about whether speaking ones truth in public is a good idea as it seems kindness is at a premium. Having said that some of the humour is witty and sharp. Its an ethical conundrum.