Did we take out tow cover on the car?

No of course not. A is now stuck on the hard shoulder of the M25 and will probably need towing home. Apparently the garage couldn't work out that the flickering battery light was a failing alternator - no shit Sherlock!

So we have to wait now to see what the action is going to be. Probably a hefty bill for the tow and the repair bill. Great.

At least we had the breakdown cover I suppose. Mind you I'm still less than happy about making a journey of that length in a car that wasn't fit to do it. I'm sure that they knew I would have questioned the decision given those facts.

Oh well - let's hope everyone learnt a lesson this weekend.

It may not be apparent

But one of the huge things that happens to you is that your self esteem and your confidence take a terrible knock when you get Cancer. It takes lots of conscious effort to do things you used to do before and take as granted. Not so much everyday things but for me, if you look back, getting onto a train, working a 9 to 5, going to a concert and other things brought on panic attacks and an attack of the jitters.

You can't always build yourself up and you can't as easily switch on the charm. Being and playing the part of host (like yesterday) takes a massive amount out of me these days both physically and emotionally. Sure I'll recover but the build up to such things and the events themselves tend to be little ordeals in their own right.

So if you wonder why I have huge mood swings in my writing it is most probably that I'm in preparation mode for something when I could be low or after an event when I could be high. What you don't need when you are low and forcing yourself onwards is yet another piece of news or event to make you feel worse than you already are - such as the last few day's posts. There were a series of events last week that did little to improve my overall outlook.

Anyway, that is behind me but remember that you aren't always delivered the real me in any of this stuff, sometimes it is clearly linked to how I feel and my level of self esteem and confidence at the time. That can change quite quickly.

And so ends

One of the busiest days of the year made no easier by worrying about my daughter and getting a shocking onset of the glums. I was with a friend this afternoon who is dying and is under care of the local Hospice. He lives life for every day, to the full and just gets on with it. he isn't going to die this side of Christmas and maybe not even next year but if he got a nasty cold or Flu or some infection that could well see him off. Now that's the sort of thing that happily isn't my situation but I think it is fair to say that he and I fully understand that attitude and most people who haven't had a critical illness can only imagine.

I have a pessimistic view and I reckon that something will get me sooner or later. I've had a guy I know die this week, I've talked to this chap today and sometimes I am just a bit down. Today though, I was really doing well, I had my table in stitches and we had a good laugh and I hope that everyone enjoyed themselves. Flocky and I worked really hard to make sure everything worked well and it did!

I'm probably feeling more up than down at the moment but it is just one of those things. Just because everyone is out to get me doesn't mean I'm Paranoid - or does it?

Finally

Nailed some shut eye about 2:30 after hearing that all was OK and that the car was fixed and back on the road.

Up now, showered and soon be ready to go off to my meeting. There are only three of these a year but they are a lot of hard work. I thought that I wouldn't be doing this one this time but ended up staying on another year. Perhaps I will get away next time.

Living on my own

In a house full of people. It's a bit like that episode of Star Trek where half the crew were in a time shift and no one could see them but they were actually there.

It is getting a bit like that here. No one tells me what is going on, somehow I have to use my psychic senses. Things just happen and I'm told afterwards if at all. People just wander off and don't say goodbye, goodnight or sod all. I can be waiting up for one of the girls to come home and be told didn't I say they were staying over at .... perm any one from 50 names. I suppose I just had to guess that A was driving to Wales this weekend.

We don't even sit in the same room anymore which can be a bit bizarre, the magic room syndrome and either I'm going crazy or that is just the way it is these days. I can sit in one room all night and not see another soul and yet they can be heard moving in and out of the kitchen and up and down the stairs. I can enter a room and someone will leave. Sometimes I enter rooms and the TV is playing to itself like the Marie Celeste of houses.

I've actually got to the point where I'm sort of past caring about it. I haven't quite played their game back on them yet like just disappearing off and then telling them later but perhaps that may be a future ploy.

I'm just sitting back and doing the "people watching" bit and wondering what the hell has happened here? It is like a train wreck happening around me all in slow motion and I'm wandering through it and all chaos just washes over me. I cannot imagine that I've changed so markedly that no one needs to talk to me or consult me but perhaps I'm completely non approachable now and perhaps there is something downright scary about me. Whatever it is that is going on here feels pretty strange and it seems to be the way that everyone reacts. I wonder if it is like that film The Sixth Sense and I'm really a ghost and no one knows I'm here and I died sometime ago? Maybe I died in July 2006?

By the way - I am writing this sober and without the aid of mind bending drugs in case you were wondering :-)

I'm just moving around in a different place to all these people that are my family - how strange is that?

I can't get away this side of Christmas myself unfortunately - I have something on each week to screw me up. I felt I needed to get a break to sort myself out a bit. I've decided not to try and walk through any walls or doors just in case my assertion is wrong!

Now to hang around and see what the hell is happening to my daughter stuck awaiting the breakdown man.

That is the end of a night's sleep then

Big girl A is stuck at a service station somewhere along the M4 - can't get the car started and needs to call the breakdown people. Pretty lucky then that breakdown cover was taken out just a few days ago? That's what I thought too......

That is either amazing foresight or - oh I see - so a warning light has been flashing and no one has done anything about it - you've sent my daughter off in a car that now is stuck in the middle of nowhere just gone midnight and you'd like me not to worry (now that you have woken me up) and come back to bed as I've got a heavy day tomorrow.

Perhaps you note the sarcasm in my voice? I get pretty p1ssed off that somehow everyone is sorry about it now and I have a daughter in the middle of nowhere crying her eyes out. I bet it turns out to be my fault somewhere along the line! Guaranteed that one is.

She isn't answering her phone - maybe she is talking to the breakdown people. But what were they thinking about why not run the car into service and get it checked out for goodness sake, how difficult can that be? They knew she had a few hundred miles to do this weekend - although this is the first I've found out that she was going away for the weekend - that also tends to happen a lot. Maybe I don't listen to anyone?

I suppose I had better get ready to drive down there if things don't go right. Bloody typical - they'd have known that I wouldn't have let her go in a dodgy car if I had known about it and fixing it isn't a problem - hell its not as if we can't afford to service a car.

So I have had my rant and that is probably my sleep gone for the next several hours so I might as well have stayed up until 4 am anyway.

What have I missed

The preparation work is done. I've completed all the paperwork fro tomorrow and I can hardly believe it. Normally I am struggling on until 3 or 4 in the morning. I suppose I've had a whole day off to do it and also I have a new assistant in young Flocky who has taken miles of the pressure off me this time.

It will be interesting to see quite how it goes tomorrow. Numbers are OK but slightly down on normal perhaps because it is half term.

Anyway, we will see I am looking forward to an interesting day and having a couple of beers and a glass or two of wine as a reward!

It's been 4 years

One of the very worst things I had to do. Had A & L with me with my parents in a Flower Nursery place and got a mobile call from my cousin. My Uncle had just died - my Mum's younger Brother. I had to tell my Mum what had happened. I'd taken the kids up to see their grandparents and this happened. They were great really and they did what they were told and let me get on with things and make sure that all was as well as it could be.

It was also useful for my mum to be "doing something" and so we struggled on that day and I remember coming back a week later and going to the funeral. I did one of the poems and as tough as I like to think I am I had to fight to control it. The place was packed and being at the front I hadn't seen everyone come in and so it was a shock to turn around and suddenly see so many people mostly standing.

My uncle was a really nice guy and it still seems a shock that he is no longer with us, he was quite young when he went and I remember the vicar saying that it was probably better to have this quick death and remember him as he was all happy and laughing than for him to have endured a long illness or to have spent a long time slipping away. I can see that. I can see that we will remember him like he was in his prime. Strange way of looking at it. It is funnily quite comforting to me now to think of it like that.

4 years ago. It was only a short time later that all my troubles started of course.

Oh well, life goes on - there but for the grace of God go I....

Doh! Missed it again

One of the things I have always wanted to do is to go to an American Football Game. I missed it last year (or was it the year before) when it was on over here. This year we have the Patriots Vs the Buccaneers (Tampa) at Wembley on Sunday. When did that happen? Oh well, at least we will get some TV and Internet coverage I suppose but I've seen nothing about this until today.

What a nuisance.

I suppose I had better get back to the grind ready for tomorrow. It was nice to get a few beers with Flocky at lunch time and a Ploughman's lunch (I imagine the Ploughman wasn't too happy about that though). Interesting talk about how the mind continues to beat me up even though I'm pulling clear of the disease.

Another day off tomorrow

I need it as I have to get ready for the Lodge meeting on Saturday and I also need a break. I'm not really enjoying work at the moment, just a blip I am certain but there is little to do at the moment and it is all slightly anticlimactic after the forum.

I forget that "people" don't move at the same speed I do....

I must remember to update my diary as I have a crazy few weeks coming up and already my time for the next 6 to 8 weeks appears almost to have evaporated.

Gotta Laugh

My Uncle sent me some funnies, this one sort of hit the mark - but I do have a dark sense of humour

Q. What is a terminal illness?

A. When you are sick at the airport.

This can go with "I'm Not Dead Yet" Tee Shirt :-)

Feeling a little bit down

As you do whenever you say goodbye to a cancer warrior you know. He told me some time ago that he had esophagus cancer and was doing well but unfortunately the surgery and treatment didn't work and so it has been a long battle and finally he died on Tuesday night. He was just 72, younger than my dad by a long way and it somehow doesn't seem fair but then life isn't exactly fair.

I'm feeling a bit down about it because I knew him and because on occasions like this you tend to think about your own mortality. He was diagnosed sometime after me and he was really confident about things too. It kind of gets to you more and you get the twinge of survivor syndrome and to be honest with you you say to yourself "thank God it wasn't me" and those sort of things and it seems pretty selfish really but that is the way it is.

I enjoyed my day off work though and spent some of the time in very good company and we had a few beers and a spot of lunch which was also most welcome. Tomorrow I really don't fancy going in to work but perhaps I will take Friday off and get myself ready for my big Lodge meeting on Saturday.

The Blog is three years old on Monday and I will be off out so may not even get to post on its Anniversary. What I am amazed about is how I've actually managed to continue doing the things that I have when sometimes all I have wanted to do was to lock myself in a room and feel sorry for myself. I'm glad I have kept active but as I keep banging on, I do find I get very tired quickly.

Injustice

That was what I was furious about on Monday. I just re-read my post - I was pretty angry writing that but I can see why. All the injustices in this world and all the hurt caused through selfish behaviour - will we get to account for it at the end of our lives? Will there be a Judgement Day where we will have to account for our conduct during our time on earth?

I can't say that I've been a perfect specimen of the species but I have always tried to be honest and true to my beliefs. I wonder what these annoying, cheating, thieving, lying toerags will have to say for themselves, perhaps they will continue to deny that they had ever done anything wrong.

BTW - I'm not that good - I doubt that Mother Teresa will have to move off the bench for someone like me :-)

A Day Off Tomorrow

I have a good few days leave to be taken before the end of the year. I have decided tomorrow is as good a day as any to take off and frankly, I need the rest. I managed to once again fall asleep for a couple of hours tonight at home. It is hard work being tired :-)

Work is beginning to get irritating and so many things these days appear to me to be bland and irrelevant. I find most things these days just trivial and inconsequential and if there is a positive side to having had cancer it is that most other things that may have been "important" really aren't when you boil them down. I tolerate most people, I get on with them and yet I'd really love to ask them why on earth they are miserable and sad and whinging when there is a lot to be thankful for just being alive.

It seems to me that you should enjoy the experience and the sensations and yet so many people don't. There was an interesting programme on TV tonight http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8314093.stm all about what makes me, 'me'? There were a few bits that threw me but it was an interesting look into consciousness and I wondered whether having had a critical illness that you become more reflective and more aware and indeed more questioning about yourself, your faith and your confidence and a host of other such things.

I suppose that I might be a bit different to a lot of people anyway in that I do a lot of reflecting and thinking and I don't just get on with things or let things happen. I wonder if I have become a "better person" if there can be such a thing? I feel that I probably have and that maybe only those near enough to me will have seen the change. I know Mrs. F. thinks I've changed. I can't say that it has done me many favours though in some areas and some relationships have fallen apart and some have blossomed and my temperament is so much better. I probably get angry these days but mainly with fools and people who should know better, jobsworths especially hack me off but overall, I am a gentler and more sympathetic person I like to think.

And as Samuel Pepys would say - and so to bed. Tomorrow I hope to catch up on some more paperwork and see if I can get some of this desk tidied up.

One of "those" Days

A letter from a dying friend's wife was disturbing in its open and honest acknowledgement of the fact of the matter situation. Another friend facing the decision of what to do with the rest of his life now his past may finally be able to be put behind him. Another seeing his child about to take up the challenge that my youngest has just completed. Another with Bladder Cancer finding out what the future holds.

Another Monday and people's lives everywhere playing out in the way that they do. Where I work in a charity I am always amazed at how those who have money ask to be assisted and those who don't and could do with our help are too proud to ask. Funny old world and a disturbing fact of life. Those who know how to play the system can get an awful lot out of it. Those who desperately need assistance cannot get to it through denial in some cases and inability to articulate their need.

Life is bloody unfair sometimes and it can make you quite angry. I''m really annoyed that one of my colleagues has an angry letter from someone that is bang out of order. It is rude, callously composed, personal and untrue. What can we do about it? Not a lot - the author believes he has a case to go to law and that will be fun indeed. They wont let me go around with a small baseball bat and explain the facts of life to him. He actually stole money from us and when we found out and stopped it, is making my people's lives intolerable through his dishonesty.

Selfishness like that makes my blood boil and no matter what problems he may have - and I think you can probably guess what they are - you don't need to bite the hand that fed you when in fact you are clearly in the wrong and got caught out. I thought it even more amusing that the guy played the Big C card. Well let me come and talk to you about the Big C matey and let's compare notes about it - I'm sure you can tell me why it makes it alright when you have the Big C to go around slagging everyone off and making fraudulent claims! So, when I calm down :-) it might be worth saying that no one took my offer up for me to go and see him or to even chat to him. A shame in my view I really want to face out one of these cowardly ignorant people and just give them a complete broadside. it will do no good as they are generally so ignorant it takes them a couple of years afterwards for them to realise that you've insulted them.

To add to my bad day my Chairman has also managed to p*ss me right off with some transactional analysis nonsense he wants to play through my committee. I'm not having any of it.

So finally I boil down to the worry and that is I am getting too like my old self. I've been here over 18 months now and I'm getting back to my cut loose ways that I used to have in my old job. I really don't do fools, jobsworths and the like and I am surrounded with incompetents, amoeba and other soap dodging, Politically Correct liberal wet good for nothings that in a short period of time I will explode and explain just what a waste of O2 these people are and how Darwin missed out a whole sub species that will never evolve but will continue to maintain their leech like qualities forever.

Other than that - it hasn't been such a bad day.

I Keep Banging on about being tired

But it is a complete constant and rules my day-to-day life. Yesterday I slept in a bit and in the afternoon came downstairs and sat down and promptly fell asleep for a further 2 hours! Last week was quite full on for me. I was mentally and physically spent by Friday. I can lay some of this at getting old but even so I'm only 52 for goodness sake. It has to be the after effects of the treatments I've had for cancer and the work my body has had to do with repairing itself.

I am however now beginning to enjoy being cancer free and enjoying the feeling of a healthy - yet tired - body.

I am hoping to get some time off work soon and need to check how many days I have. A holiday would be nice if I can squeeze one in.

Zombie Day

I was definitely Mr. Zombie today - I was asleep on the train there then cleaned up the room and everything else at work and sorted out loads of things. By the late afternoon I was really struggling to keep awake. The train journey home went in a flash as I was asleep for most of it and then I got home, had a bit of tea and when everyone went out must have had 2 hours sleep in my chair. I'm off to bed in a minute to get a good sleep.

I have done so much work this week - I am looking forward now to a reasonably quiet time so that I can recover.

Wipe Out

Oh my - what a day - absolutely knackered and just settled in gone midnight after 2 days of intensive work. I don't mind the work it's the re-work I hate. I got to my second meeting as it was wrapping up but in enough time to square away some of the "head 'em off at the pass" questions.

I am absolutely shattered and need to get to bed and then go to work somewhat dressed down to go and clean the place up! It appears to have all gone down well. Let's hope so.

Like a hole in the head

I needed today's news like a hole in the head. I kind of knew it was coming but my friend dropped me a line and asked whether I could book a room and as it happens I managed to do it but today was the second busiest day of the year for me and tomorrow - when the meeting is needed is going to be hellish.

Now - everyone knew that it wasn't a good day, that I couldn't make the meeting without a LOT of difficulty but they went a head anyway and they realised that as I was running this huge event that none of the usual rooms would be available - as I am using 4 rooms for the event.

Given that they've had 6 (yes six) weeks to organise this it doesn't bode well for this team binding together to get things done on time which is what the meeting is about really. I hope I get there in a half decent frame of mind!

Whew - what a day - setting up the conference and syndicate rooms the food, the exhibition areas and my "bosses" changing the slides at the last minute after I've printed out the handouts and after the delegates have gotten their packs.

So - tomorrow - the big day - I've got the best punchlines but I haven't got the key note speech this year :-( just some statistics and figures which I hope will be just what is needed. Other than that my job is to "drive" the IT all day long.

Luxuriate in my wording

My Consultant has a duty to write to my GP (General Practitioner - my local Doctor).

Nice words:

"I saw Mr. Ferdinando in the clinic today. I am happy to say his recent bladder biopsies showed no evidence of malignancy or carcinoma in situ. He remains well and had no problems post operatively. We will continue to monitor his bladder and I will arrange to see him in six months for a general anaesthetic cystoscopy and biopsy with urine cytology beforehand. Yours sincerely etc"

I am reminded of the words in the film Blazing Saddles where Taggart says to Hedley Lamarr after a particularly interesting soliloquy where he said "My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives." Taggart then says "God darnit, Mr. Lamarr, you use your tongue prettier than a twenty dollar whore. "

I have no idea why that drifted into my mind at all but there you go randomness is as randomness does.