Thursday and after the usual rituals of meds, vitals and a fried egg sandwich its time for a trip to the recycling centre to get rid of old carpet tiles and underlay. My partner accompanies me, its a bit of a day out. The bloke at the entrance of the dump is less than cheery so when I ask which bay my ties should go in I get a gruff ” 8″ without any sign of recognition that I was human, its not like the place was busy, I’m sure we could have found time for a chat about the current geo political situation but I feel I might have got a “its shit” response followed by a terse “fuck off”. No doubt he was just doing his job, he could for all I know have been interrupted by me just as he was struggling to find a rhyme for orange.
With the old tiles jettisoned into bay 8 my partner and I dove to an out of the way rural centre for bite to eat and a wander round the various little shops on site. This is where we come for diffusers and odd presents. As per usual we bought diffuser refills, which I later found I could get on Amazon and some new diffusers, these being no more than cane sticks. The going rate for 10 sticks is £3.50, which I found on Amazon for £4.66 for 120 sticks, that I think is the price of POSH. On the way home we dropped into one of our favourite garden centre and picked up soem more plants but alas failed to find trailing pansies, all sold out. Bit of a blow but I am sure we will recover.
I am still sore from Mondays jab which is a bind, usually I am through it by now especially if I have trained, but it appears not this month. A decide to make sure I know where I am going on Saturday for the next meeting of the Poetry Stanza meeting, its a new venue. I Google Maps it and virtually walk up and down the road till I find what I am looking for and feel confident that I know where I am going and what it looks like and importantly where I can park. What follows is the decision of what poem, if any to take to the meeting. I go through several of my latest but they are not my cheeriest but in the end I decide to give them a choice between a cat and donkey and run off enough copies of both to take with me. I am hoping this solves my indecision and might might prove interesting to see if it taps into the groups unconscious. I provide both below for you to choose.
451
Farewell Onion,
you have gone
on the same day
as Ozzy Osborne.
Both have run their course
and in their ways
lived their lives to the full.
For one a domestic life
for the other a rock star,
but both meant so much
to those around them.
One quietly in the bosom
of a family
the other in the glare.
One sat gently purring
the other roaring.
Both were fun
both independent
but Onion never
bit the head off a bat;
a mouse perhaps
after all that's what
cats do.
451 23-07-2025
468
Half Eeyore, half Polly Anna,
but it seems only Eeyore
drops onto the page.
My partner grumbles
"what about the happy stuff".
She's right of course
and I wonder
"where does the good stuff go? "
Seen but overwhelmed?
Felt but swamped,
in a war
where only the poppies
get noticed
at the end?
There you go again!
Bloody Eeyore!
468 06-10-2025
Both have the merit of being short, so I leave it to you to choose. With the poetry admin out of the way I cook myself pasta and settle down to watch more of the HACK on TV. Toby Jones is just superb as the editor of the Guardian, in a star packed caste. Its off to bed early once the kitchen is cleared and my meds taken.
Friday and I over sleep! So after the taking of my vitals, drinking my hot water and checking my messages and social media I finally get up. A quick fried egg sandwich to accompany my morning meds and I ready to draft the blog. I thought I had done it but in my haste to get to bed I clearly did not. While I am tippy tapping on my laptop my partner plants the new flora that we bought yesterday until there are no more plants at which point its time to seek lunch. Of course we go to the local garden centre and have a snack and dump all the old and empty pots that we have acquired over the last few week as we have replenished the gardens beds and pots. Doubtless we will be back at the garden centre picking up old pots when there is the next flurry of potting on to do. All that’s left to do now is get the tools and the garden furniture undercover for the winter, should it ever arrive and clean down the patio. After that we will have to make alternative activities count for the winter months. I do buy a hygrometer to check to see if the floor in the study is damp.
As soon as we are home I read the hygrometer instructions and then look to see if I can lift one of the original tiles in the office to test the underlying media for damp, but find the underlying floor tile service is sound so there is no entry for the tester to go. I see this as a result. and settle down to do todays crosswords in the paper. Today I am on form and whip through them like a dose of salts. As I am coming to the end and contemplating training Amazon deliver my bargain reed diffuser goodies and my driving shoes. I am have taken the desperate measure of getting driving shoes as I have found that the memory foam that gets into so many shoes make for crap driving shoes, tomorrow I shall try them out when I drive to the poetry stanza meeting .
The evening arrives with a hearty stew to be eaten before watching a rugby game on TV followed by the concluding episode of HACK and of course Have I Got News For You. The night meds will be taken of course before I get to bed knowing that “Bob” the floor tile remover will be knocking on the door at 9am. I check my dairy and try to get a sense of how long I have to go before my next oncology review, of course I know the dates but it is what will fit in between now and then, some of it medical and some of it diversion. My anxiety is that I become very busy in an unwanted way after the middle of November, until then I am edgy, I am not sure the arithmetic will hold the logic am looking for. I have a sense the oncology boys and girls will be pushing more of the decisions onto me as they run out of options. Maybe I will be surprised.
