Well, hello.

I am now living on my own in sunny south London and I have to say I didn’t know how I was going to feel but I am thriving. The peace and solitude are amazing. I did fear at one stage I would be lonely but that has never materialised and is not going to. In fact, I don’t have enough hours in the day to complete all that I need to. The only noise I hear is the fridge occasionally burping refrigerant and the humming of the dehumidifier.

Yes, I do miss the kids, but I see and speak to them often and their calls for funding something or another is never far away. I had this fear that they wouldn’t be too keen to stay over here but that has been far from the case. If fact, in terms of my son, he has complained that he doesn’t stay over enough. I have four new neighbours. Jimmy, is the only one whose name I know, who is in his 50’s or 60’s and is in construction. Next to him is a middle-aged woman who I have just seen fleetingly and finally an elusive couple live in the ground floor flat downstairs, but I have only seen the female once and said hello.

It’s a one-bedroom top floor flat, which has eaves space. The rooms and the eaves space is akin to a two-bedroom space. The eaves space makes for a fantastic office and the reason I fell in love with the place. The only problem is regulating the flat temperature, particularly the eaves part. I can hear the pigeon’s claws scraping on the roof tiles. There is minimal insulation, so that means there are really only two temperatures. Hot and freezing and 70% humidity if left without action. Happy winter days to come.

I have a new running route that takes me in a circular route straight back to my door. The foxes see me and run. Perfect. None of this stand-off nonsense or getting fresh and trying to come to me like I’m the portable buffet. No urban vermin with a death wish here.

Life is good.

My PSA remains undetectable. I only have three more hormone injections to go. I still get up three times every single flipping night, but I am remarkably functional during the day and evening if I keep away from delicious soft furnishings and don’t try to kid myself that a quick nap would be great. The sweats are regular in the morning before getting up but otherwise they are still random. On the odd occasions where I have been completely drenched before going out the door they have generally not been too brutal.

I was in a meeting for a group for Prostate Cancer and a good friend of mine, who I shall call Mr O, who was also in the meeting came out of the blue with the following nugget.

“How did you get to be so strong about what you went through?”

I am not often stumped but this one had me, and I didn’t quite know what or how to answer. I fluffed up an answer that contained bits about being stubborn, not thinking that I am exceptionally strong and just having to get on with what I cannot change. That was the best I could muster. Even thinking about it later, I didn’t feel like I was any different to any other guy faced with a life-or-death situation. I will admit to being a tiny bit stubborn when I am ready. Destructively so? No. I prefer the term constructively. I mean when I set about trying to get a health MOT all those years ago it took a certain amount of stubbornness to get it done with the hurdles put in front of me. Looking back at navigating the side effects, I was stubborn about not feeling sorry about myself and just concentrating on getting better.

I just did what I had to do. I didn’t know any better. I am glad that I documented the journey through this blog as looking back, I did go through quite a bit.

A couple of weeks later I was driving with Mr K, from Prostate Cancer UK, to a dinner where PCUK was a sponsor. On the way we were chatting away and he said the following nugget,

“I had no idea just how devastating prostate cancer can be as you were my only reference point. You are not someone who wears their emotions on their sleeve, you are quite a guarded person.”

I took this to mean that he thought I was some sort of robot. If it’s possible to be insulted and complimented in the same sentence, then that was it. However, that’s not what he meant. Mr K has known me for many years, so he is saying that from that point of view that I am not an emotional person. I had taken it in the wrong context. But it was very interesting that he had come up with a similar comment to Mr O.

Is that a superpower? Never thought of it like that until writing this blog.

Fast forward a few more weeks and it’s now my son’s birthday. For his present we had arranged a trip to the cinema and wall climbing afterwards. I had never wall climbed before and I was really looking forward to it. The prep talk was fairly straightforward, and we got our harnesses fitted. The main thing to come out of the prep talk was climb half the way up the wall and jump off, with one hand holding the harness. The harness will gently lower you to the ground. You could then try climbing to the top and jumping off.

That last sentence would end up being the biggest piece of bull I had heard for a long time.

Like a big kid, I excitedly tried the first wall. I climb halfway up and let go.

I dropped like a stone. Not a normal stone, more like a boulder in a cartoon.

I was only slightly arrested by the harness a foot or two from the floor, and landed plump on my arse. The same happened on the second wall and the third and the fourth. To say I was pissed now was an understatement. I was halfway up wall number five and I said to a passing worker,

“Is there something wrong with these harnesses? None of them are slowing my fall, I am falling too fast. Am I too heavy?”

Now, each of the harnesses say do not exceed 150kg. 150kg converted to stones is 24. Now before you say I’m just a fat moany git, I only weigh 13.5 stones.

He laughed and said, “Of course not, you are fine” and off he merrily walked.

I was now on a wall that you use wooden pegs that you locate into holes to climb up. I got halfway up and realised that if I let go with the pegs in my hands and the harness didn’t stop me, I would have no hands to protect me. I stepped off, leaving the pegs and yet again free fell and dropped on my arse.

I had left the pegs where they were halfway up the wall. A female worker came along, spotted I had left them there and climbed up without a harness, retrieved them and jumped back down. She dusted off her hands, smiled and went on her merry way.

I stood for a few seconds in irrational disbelief, silently stewing in my own anger. Looking back it reminded me of an episode of the Mr Men when Mr Stubborn was hopping from side to side trying to unsuccessfully ease his anger and shouting out, “I don’t believe it”.

I swore to myself that I was not leaving this place until I had climbed to the top of this particular ‘peg’ wall. I gave it a couple of dirty looks and slowly sulked off.

I tried a couple of other walls. The choice of wall was now depicted by how easy I could climb back down, instead of jumping off. Every so often I would return to my ‘Moby dick’ wall, swear at it, give it some dirty looks and repeat again that I was not leaving before it had been conquered.

In between my red mist bouts, I kept an eye on the kids and eventually my eldest daughter had climbed and jumped off the show piece structure of the centre. It was a set of columns of different heights in a spiral arrangement, from lowest to highest. The lowest pin was about a foot off the ground leading to the highest which was about 25 feet of the ground. The head of these columns was about 10 inches in diameter.

Right, that does not look too bad and then I will go back to Moby.

I attached the harness and up I went, stepping reasonably diligently up them. What I didn’t know what the last five heads of these columns rotate so no more stepping and going back was actually harder than it looked. Then came the tannoy announcement that our session had ended and we needed to make our way back to the briefing room.

Unfortunately, other than the family I was beginning to build up a little audience, led by the worker who laughed when I asked if I was too heavy. I eventually got to the top and worker helpfully shouts up,

“On this one you don’t jump but just step off. You will be fine.” I understood the sincerity of his encouragement but hated it with equal measure, along with the audience.

My hesitation was not of fear but of what the likely outcome would be. I stepped off.

I couldn’t have predicted the outcome.

The big black pendulum that I am, immediately swung rapidly and violently to the left. I slammed into one or two of the columns (don’t remember – they all hurt the same), bounced off another and crashed arse and headfirst, loudly, onto the floor. It’s amazing the noise an empty head can make. Credit to those around me, my body made enough noise to immediately cause concern rather than laughter. I looked up stunned and mentally checked through all the major organs and limbs. All was ok.

I slowly got up, collected the fragments of pride from the pillars, and dusted myself off.

Kryptonite columns and a hard empty head as a superpower. Interesting mix.

I was already thinking about when I would be going back.

My son will be delighted.