Monday, Easter Monday and I wake up again having had a poor nights sleep. My fitness App confirms my senses about the nights sleep, not enough, irregular and interrupted. I go to the bathroom and get back to read more of The End of the Day and accompany Charlie, The Harbinger of Death to Iraq and a miserable war torn episode of pain and horror with mouse traps and a broken poets pen thrown in for good measure. I am relieved to get up and eat a bacon sandwich still in my leopard over blanket and Bedroom Athletics furry slippers. My partner goes to the gym, I cannot be arsed frankly, I’ll row later. I watch the the lone squirrel feed busily from the feeder before I take down several cookery books and retreat to the sofa to plan next Saturdays meal. We have guests for dinner so I need to plan a meal I can prepare and have time to attend the poetry Stanza meeting in town. On TV an Andre Rieu concert plays. I am interested in how this music makes me feel the same way as the music I listened to last night on the Freddie Mercury film. Its the opera components I think. Monserrat Caballe and the trio of tenors just make sounds that are beyond belief. Music in general I think is something incredible. It is my greatest regret never to have had the patience, strength or moral fibre to learn, to practice and to play. I know people who have learned and then never played again, the accomplishment having such a painful association that they could not face going on with it. It is beyond me, both the acquisition and the abandonment. It is the effect it has on others that is so atavistic, so fundamental. It leads me to question what I have ever done to make others feel happy or to experience something beyond themselves. I think music is a form of giving, and there are those who are naturally good at giving and those that are not, a continuum. It does not feel that I am on the Giving end of the continuum.
I choose my menu, mark the pages and list the ingredients I need to get. Friday will be my main cooking day. The Andre Rieu concert goes on until my Amazon deliveries arrive so I am able to indulge in fresh coffee and newly arrived Amoretti. I clear the recycling, empty the kitchen bin and assemble my new pond pump with the intention of fitting it immediately but it is throwing it down with rain. I divert myself by starting to draft the blog. More coffee and more Amoretti till the rain eases and I am able to get into the garden.
The sun comes out, briefly, and I am out there in the garden like a rat up a drain pipe. I un-net the pond and install the new more powerful pond pump and outlet head. Although it it is now over caste the new solar panel works a treat and I have a strong flow. I should fit one on my bladder to give my cancerous prostate something to think about. I’m sure I could make a solar array into a piece of jewellery to provide the power. One way to increase my flow. Anyway I decide that I want a wide flow not some fancy fountain effect and the pump and outlet duly oblige so there is a steady flow of water in the pond now that keeps the surface moving at a steady rate. I am pleased, this the hoped for improvement. I remove the old pump and outlet and re-net the pond. A good job well done, now all I hope for is the conditions to attract more wild life. Time to train.
It starts to rain hard as I go to the garage to train. It is striping the blossom from the cherry trees determined that the beauty will not linger. So I am in the garage and strapped in, only an hour will do as I’ve sat on my arse most of the day. The controls are set all I need know is to decide what I am going to feed my internal environment. I’m fed up with pop, rock and Radio 2 so I go looking for something a bit more in tune with how I feel. BBC sounds has a classical section and there I find a broadcast from the metropolitan opera house of Tosca. That wil do me thinks I and so I row for an hour to glorious opera. The session in terms of rowing is average, probably due to the fact that there parts of the opera that I slowed down to listen to properly. I still managed to burn 800 calories and do my basic requirement of 12 kilometres. So I’m pleased, I’ve fed my body and my mind.
By the time I emerge from the garage I am feeling more chipper than when I went in. I crawl out of my kit and discover that Radio 2 is doing a Queen best of show, so I plug in the ear phones again and listen to the show as I put my washing in and set the machine going. I return to drafting the blog with a fresh coffee and yet another amoretti. I’m not sure that a diet of bacon sandwiches and amoretti is a recommended healthy diet but I’m willing to give it a try. The evening approaches and its a TV desert so I intend to read for the evening. I feel I want to finish with the Harbinger of Death and move on to another author, although I am aware that Claire North has written other novels. I’ve also had a quick look my poem bank as I’m trying to decide whether to take a poem to this Saturdays poetry Stanza. I’ve two in mind. I have put then below just for completeness of what I’m doing at the moment.
Running, dribbling man A madness high pitched Contained by soft hands Another world lived out Amidst the dour closet Full of moths. Running dribbling man A husband, father, son All come to this. Mindlessness, being consumed A brain no longer working Confined, atrophied, starved A beastly end. Running dribbling man Wide eyed and panicked, No words to tell No vocabulary left Only an impulse to the unseen, Not knowing why or how. Running dribbling man There is no deep meaning No strange wisdom This is man at his end Already dead and waiting For the body to follow suit. Still and dry This came from my time in a Hull Mental Health Hospital as a visiting psychologist. The next one is a combination of stand up and fatigue.
Settle down you’ve seen a pensioner in a suit before. Maybe not vertical, more wood encased on a rainy afternoon with a lot of people looking into a hole and wishing it was all over. Except that no matter how hard you try, you cannot help thinking, “Did he leave me anything ? Am I in the will?” I’m just getting my monies worth out of mine before an unsuspecting stranger grabs it as a bargain from Sod the Aged. I hate old people, Why cannot they all die tragically young? Why do they hang on till everyone is guilt ridden? Thinking it would be a relief when they go? Yes yes a couple of you love nanna but what a pain she is. How many times has she buried her teeth in the garden?
Clearly I am in sober mood but part of it is my irritation of the “hello birds hello trees” type of poetry that seems to be prevalent and popular amongst the members of the poetry stanza. Nice people but..I can’t resist the temptation to play or be a bit delinquent. For now its the evening, night meds and bed. There is still another 38 days before my Radiotherapy Oncology appointment, I’m not even half way, I’m pissed off with marking time, I’m not good at waiting when I know my life is at stake. I know I live every day and will die only once but I would rather it was later rather than sooner.
