Sunday, 24th November, 2024
Incredibly warm but windy night. It was 16C/61F all night and is forecast to remain that way for most of the day. Down at the beach, walkers were leaning into the wind and being buffeted and sand blasted. My skin began to feel like sandpaper and my mouth was gritty.
The beach had been blown back over the promenade this morning and the angry tide was retreating under light grey skies. Actually, the temperature outside has reached 18C/65F by mid day. Quite unusual for the end of November but really welcome.
Walking wasn’t easy and an hour was enough this morning. The rest will be done in the seclusion of the Gym. I have to work on muscular strength as well as fitness and weight loss. The hormone treatment and radiotherapy have definitely weakened my muscle power. It suddenly hit me when I started to lug heavy things (men’s work) around the garden. I was warned of this side effect but dismissed it at the time. I’ve got to build it back up.
This lad above was diagnosed with cancer in his prostate. He had the treatment I did. He thought he was clear but then they found 6 small pieces of cancer had escaped and were populating his body and had developed to the extent that they were incurable. He has a death sentence. I’ve had my dye-injected CT scan to discover if any cancer has escaped or metastasised as they describe it. I haven’t had the results yet. Blood tests on Friday and then the big reveal in a couple of weeks. Can’t say I’m completely calm about it but, at this stage, there is nothing I can do.
I feel dark and searching eyes surrounded by the wrinkles of experience emerging from the mists and gazing on me, knowingly. Fate is there.
Monday, 25th November, 2024
Gorgeous, warm and sunny morning for a walk by the beach. Went out early while it was quiet. Still a few hardy souls were down there breathing the sea air.
Back home in time to meet the Home Security man who was coming to assess our CCTV system with a view to taking it over and servicing it. I need a new software controller to make it more user-friendly and a video-doorbell so that I can speak to delivery drivers remotely. It will come down to negotiating an ongoing price. We won the Lottery at the weekend so that £30.00 will help.
I first moved to the North of England in 1969 and to Oldham in 1972. My memory of that time, particularly in Oldham was of greyness – darkness even and coldness. I found it a harsh and unhappy place, a place like nothing I had ever experienced before. Of course many Oldhamers were far worse off than me. People living in abject poverty. People unable to see a way out.
Last night I watched a bit of Oldham history, a bit of my history played out in a new dramatisation of the Test Tube Baby story called ‘Joy‘ on Netflix. It upset me. I found it very emotional both as a story per se but also the memories of that harsh time I had come through.
There was so much about the story that I didn’t know but particularly the women involved – not just those desperate to conceive but those opposing the whole process on religious grounds and the girl who was central to the success of the whole project, nurse Jean Purdy who saved the project from being abandoned. Oldham Royal Infirmary resisted putting her name on the commemorative plaque until well after her death of cancer at the age of 39. I tell you what also shocked me: Dr Patrick Steptoe was described as dying of old age. He was 74!
Tuesday, 26th November, 2024
I have been recording the minutiae of my life every day for 16 years. Next week begins Year 17. Now, I cannot stop. I thought I was odd, unusual, out of the ordinary by this fixation but I’ve been realising for some time that I’m not at all. So many people have done and still do the same and 17 years is just relatively record keeping infancy. Not all do it on-line, of course, but I found this a couple of days ago in The Observer.
This girl has recorded her life every day for 40 years. That is more than 14,000 entries. Some people want to leave something of themselves to posterity. Some find it therapeutic. Apparently, the habit soared during the Covid lockdowns as people realised that they were living through history. Diaries give you the ability to distil your experiences and make sense of them. I must admit, I often find the whole process painful but cathartic. For historians they are priceless as they record social trends, layers and details that wouldn’t make it into the history books. They plug a gap in the everyday.
The lady in the article concludes that:
…. it’s simultaneously reassuring and dispiriting that I remain recognisably the same me from 40 years ago. When painful moments are written down I can more easily let them go. Seeing life as a story with an unknown number of chapters left to write is both exciting and daunting. I plan to chronicle the days until I can no longer hold a pen. The only part of the story I’ll never get to write is the ending.
I can see a lot of that in me. There is so much of my young character that I see writ large in my senior self. So many of my weaknesses and strengths are just accentuated in later life. One of them is determination and doggedness. I refuse to give in or let go particularly in something where I have established a position. In the last 3 months, I have walked 7 miles a day every day without exception. What this does to a mind like mine is mean I now cannot not do it. Irrespective of anything else in my life, I have to maintain that standard.
In just the same way, after 16 years of recording my daily life, there are few things that would stop me continuing until Altzheimers gets me as it surely will. Only then will people be rid of me.
My wife is already worrying about what she will do when she doesn’t have a lunatic sitting in his study writing away madly. She sees the Blog as the ultimate summary of our Life together and she is worried about losing access to it. As a result, I not only pay for the webspace to post this Blog but I also rent webspace to post a backup copy which I put up every weekend. Now, all I have to teach her is where to find it.
At the beginning of my Blog journey, I wrote about a lad – a man- from my childhood. He was a youth in my village and 4 years older than me. I went to the Grammar School in Staffordshire and he went to the Secondary Modern in Derbyshire. Like his father, he became a police officer and retired in 2002. He spent a lot of his time on the Greek island of Kefalonia earning cash as a pub/club crooner.
He bought a house there and became a permanent citizen. He sounded very popular and happy. Then his wife died and, recently, I think he has had a stroke which has left him quite debilitated. I contacted him yesterday and his reply was totally unintelligble. It was a matter of all the right letters but not necessarily in the right order.
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper..T.S. Eliot – The Hollow Men
Until that time, I will keep juggling the spinning plates – Blogging and Jogging. Going out for a walk right now. See you later …. hopefully.
One day, you’ll look
To see I’ve gone
For tomorrow may rain, so
I’ll follow the sun …..
Wednesday, 27th November, 2024
On one of the warmest mornings of the Winter so far, I have a man coming to remove an old (3yrs) oil-filled, wall mounted radiator in the Gym and replace it with a German made, ceramic stone filled wall radiator which is much more economic and controllable. It is wi-fi controlled and can be put through my Alexa Hub so it is adjustable purely by voice instruction. The ceramic stones hold and transmit the heat much more effectively than oil.
The German manufacturers immediately prove they are a class apart. The packaging is brilliant. The installation instructions and aids are outstanding and the radiator has a 15 yr warranty. I am already saving up to replace it in 2039 when I will be 88 yrs old. That is just the year when I dye my hair blonde. Worth the wait, Dear Reader!
Heavy rain overnight but dry this morning. Don’t know what the attraction was down at the beach but these seagulls seem to have got the memo.
I know I was speaking rather lightheartedly about the next 15 years and my expectations. I am incredibly lucky to be able to speak about it at all. The photograph above was sent to me this morning of a young man who would be my age today. Bob Stevenson was a nice and interestingly quirky lad in my tutorial group in College. He died 52 years ago this week of lung cancer. All that life and love missed.
Thursday, 28th November, 2024
Glorious morning again today. Took a defunct radiator removed from the Gym wall to the Recycling Tip and then went on to the beach. Something very unusual is happening to the seagulls. At least I’ve never seen it before. Today they were massing and marauding on the sea edge and flirting with crashing waves as the tide turns.
Lovely walking but I found myself struggling a bit. I am walking around just over 7 miles a day – 50 miles a week at the moment / 200 miles a month. I also do a Gym routine each day. I think you would class that as moderately active. For a man of my age, the daily calorie requirement is 2,200. I am living on around 1500 per day. I am deliberately putting myself into deficit but this morning I hit a brick wall.
I was a bit wobbly as I walked back along the beach road but didn’t think it merited an ambulance. It turned out that there was no emergency. They had just come down for Breakfast. Ah, Breakfast! I remember that.
I’m watching a hauntingly sad dramatisation of the 1970 – 1998 IRA struggle for a free Ireland. It is a desperate part of my/our history, Dear Reader. The bombings, the shootings, the incursion of the British army in Ireland and the infiltration of Irish bombers on the mainland.
Just as in Gaza, there is no real excuse on either side for attrocities BUT, in Gaza, the Israelis have kept the Palestinians hemmed into a relatively small piece of land and continued to annexe more land for a greater Israel. The Palestinians have understandably got frustrated by this process which has denied them Statehood. As a result, they have become increasingly aggressive-resistant.
I have always believed in a United Ireland. It would mean reversing the British annexation that began in 1649 with Cromwell’s invasion of Northern Ireland which outlawed the Catholics and awarded their lands to English gentry and continued through the reigns of Charles II & James II. It was barbaric annexation and ethnic cleansing on the part of British imperialism in the same manner as the Highland Clearances. No wonder the Irish were/are angry. No wonder they took up arms against their oppressors and they were proved right. The British government would never have come to the negotiating table without the brave men and women who stood up and in many cases died for their principles. And now, they are on the brink of an ultimate win.
Friday, 29th November, 2024
You light the skies, up above me
A star, so bright, you blind me,
Don’t close your eyes
Don’t fade away, don’t fade away ….
Oh, all the stars are coming out tonight
They’re lighting up the sky tonight
For you, for you ….
Last night the sky was wonderful as the sun went down and then as the stars came out and shone across the sky. It was magical.
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Dylan Thomas – 1952
This morning, I have an early appointment at the surgery for tests to inform my Oncology meeting next Friday. The tests are for Testosterone & Prostate Specific Antigen and will be used along with the full body CT scan to decide whether any cancer cells escaped the original treatment. I hope to continue raging against the dying of the light for a little while longer.
The world is such a beautiful place that none of us should hurry to leave it. Walking by the sea this morning, the tide was coming in, the sky was cloudless, there was no wind and the sun was shining warmly. The strange thing is that, instead of just appreciating the moment for itself, I have an irresistible urge to give it meaning by sharing it with my friends, my readers.
Saturday, 30th November, 2024
The end of November is celebrated in two ways down here. First thing under a dull and brooding sky, the Park Run becomes a Beach-side Run today. I didn’t sign up. I don’t sign up for group activities as a rule.
As we went down the promenade, volunteer marshalls were preparing the administration of the event. Some people just like organising and wearing pink vests. The tide was still coming in as we walked and the waves were roaring and crashing on the beach noisily drawing pebbles back into the water on retreat. Very warm and windless. Just missing the sunshine of the past few days. Well, it is nearly December.
The second thing which seems to happen in the first weekend of December concerns Christmas or Xmas as I prefer to call it being an atheist. It doesn’t matter really. I am the original humbug. Xmas really does little for me and even more so when I am on a diet. This year, festivities are completely cancelled for me.
Anyway, the neighbours around here get together to help each other decorate their houses outside. The men carry ladders around offering help each other decorate their homes by lining their eaves with lights. Electricians and builders give their expert support. The women make coffee and carry round mince pies (What else would they do?) and they get together in each other’s house to drink mulled wine and sing carols. Yes, I know. Now you can see why I abhor Xmas.
Fortunately, the householders around us are lovely people who don’t go over the top with their decorations. We don’t have to suffer garish, flashing displays. They tend to be moderate and tasteful and some are token, minimal offerings like this weeping tree. They go up this weekend and come down by the first week of January without fail.
There was a traditional Christmas Fayre in our village of Angmering last night with a brass band, food stalls and the trees on the village green dressed with lights.
I still feel obliged to send Xmas cards especially for those without emails although we will try to send digital ones to many people. Pauline has made Xmas cakes and puddings for others but not for us. We are deciding to eat a medley of fish this year – scallops, smoked salmon, langoustines and crab instead of turkey and no alcohol but I will also integrate my exercise routine into the day.