If you are a dedicated iPad person I want to highly recommend two apps which significantly extend it's functionality.

First up is Splashtop Remote. This app gives you control of your PC from your iPad. It allows you to play your audio and video collection on your iPad without having to load the media to the iPad. In other words it streams your multimedia files from the PC to the iPad. The app is remarkably low priced compared with other apps which provide this type of functionality such as Logmein Ignition.

My only slight wish list issue would be the ability to zoom in and out on the remote screen especially when trying to operate small controls. I found myself occasionally teeing things up on the PC to make life easier so that all I had to do was connect and hit the play button to watch the film I had already decided I wanted to watch. In this sense I was taking advantage of the streaming function but not particularly the remote control aspect of the app. Not exactly behaviour consistent with the design principle but needs must etc etc.

The second app is StreamtoMe. This app can be used on either your iPad or iPhone. In a nutshell this app allows you to stream your multimedia collection from your PC to your TV. The first thing you need is a free app installed on your PC called ServeToMe. This permits the PC to serve up media files to the iPad or iPhone. On the iPad you connect to the PC app over your ŵireless network, connect your device to your TV using a component cable and hey presto you can serve up your iTunes library or your video files from your PC and play them on the TV. Again a remarkably low priced app for the functionality provided.

ServeToMe is a bit fiddly to setup manually, you need your PC's IP address and you have to give permissions to the folders on your PC that contain your music and video files but it's a one-off process and only takes a minute or two. StreamtoMe I found to be entirely intuitive to use, very simple and straightforward.

These are two exciting apps at a great price that give you control over your music and video libraries and the capability to play your files where you want them.
Sent from my iPad

Sent from my iPad

Journal for Monday 18th October

Woke up this morning with a serious case of the blues. No real idea why it hit me this morning. Was also in bit of pain this morning so took additional morphine which causes me to keep dropping off to sleep in the chair which feels a bit demoralising because it makes me feel unable to get anything done and unable to contribute and by extension just a burden. Does that spiral of negative thinking make sense? The fact that I recognise what's going on is a step in the right direction but it's also not a solution. The sad bit in all this is that there isn't a solution to what is wrong with me. Felt steadily better as the day wore on. Not sure if I should continue with the journal. I won't stop writing but I'm just not sure if a daily recounting of eating cheese on toast is worth it.

Tuesday 19th October

When things aren't going well I have a saying along the lines of "I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop". It was a feeling I couldn't shake that something was about to go wrong. I've been feeling like that for a few days now. I just want some peace of mind. I can't even see what it is that would make me feel that much better or even sufficient at least to shrug off the feeling of helplessness. I need to find my happiness mojo.

My mum has been in a nursing home for several years. She had a stroke and when my Dad passed away she was found a place not far from where my brother lives. She spends most of her days sat in her room and I have to say remains more cheerful about that than I seem able to achieve at present, although I'm currently more physically capable than she is. I shall have to ask her how she keeps her spirits up, although I know in advance that part of the answer is that sometimes she gets depressed about it. Nevertheless she does seem able to shrug that off most of the time. She is always telling me to cheer up.

Had a long chat with Mum, and it seems for her the secret is watching TV and listening to the radio. Not sure that could ever be the trick for me, but glad it works for her. Mum was having one of her better days, stress free as she described it.

Had a long chat with best friend. Great to catch up with the gossip from work. There has been quite a lot of turnover at my office, I'll hardly recognise the place.

Wednesday 20th October

It's proving to be a tough week. I can't shake the sense of impending doom I'm feeling and find myself crying last thing at night and first thing In the morning. It was suggested to me today that I should think about speaking with someone, a qualified counsellor to be precise, who is experienced in talking to people with terminal illness and their families. It had never crossed my mind that there were counsellors who specialised in this field, don't know why because I'm totally aware of counsellors who work with the bereaved, and it makes sense that counselling is available both before and after.

I feel sad in part because my plan was to beat the cancer, or at least the prognosis with happiness. It feels, when I drop, that I'm failing in my goal, that somehow I'm dropping the ball. I must try to snap out of this but I need some goals, something to do with my time. Some way of feeling that I'm not spinning my wheels. Part of me wants to write a book, I feel like I could write but I don't have the plot of a novel in me and I don't have enough material to write a non-fiction book about something like personal productivity or mind mapping or PowerPoint. An old friend was due to come round to see me today but has come back from holiday with a virus. It's the right decision because the last thing I need in my condition is to pick up an infection of any kind - with my immune system shot to pieces by the chemotherapy. We've re-scheduled for next week. I miss my friends and wish I could get out a bit more. I can't wait to get to the end of post chemo recovery and perhaps get out and about a bit. I'd like to get into Maidenhead and see the gang from work. I work with a terrific bunch of people and I miss them a lot.

Thursday 21st October

I'm finding it hard to get wound up about the cuts which are all over the news, the newspapers, the TV and my blogs. Possibly because the impact on me is going to be minimal but only because I won't be around by the time they bite. A bit selfish of me I suppose but this is one time in my life when it does make sense to put myself first. Feeling marginally less blue today than I have for a couple of days. Managed to get out into town under my own steam for an hour this morning. I guess I am coming back, finally, from the last chemotherapy session. Did a few chores and treated myself to a greasy spoon breakfast. Bought a chicken for dinner on the way back home.

Friday 22nd October

Feeling a bit better in myself. Slept well. Still have the feeling I am spinning my wheels a bit although I did get wrapped up in trying to solve an iPad issue for a couple of hours this morning which felt good when I realised the time had just ran away with me.

Out of the blue I've slept a bit more this morning than I am used to from the pattern of this week. Not sure why that would be as I slept well last night. Best friend coming round next week for a twitter lesson. Feels good to know that people still think that I have something to offer. I always enjoyed teaching at work and wonder if that could have been a profession I could have entered at some point in my life. I always loved it when people in a class suddenly "got it" and understood what you were trying to get across.

Had a really good day doing some work getting ready to do a bit of a "how to" for Twitter. I feel much better and looking forward to putting my feet up tonight and doing not much watching some TV. I have an iPad podcast (This week in iPad) downloading from iTunes that will entertain me for an hour or so as well, but it's coming in really slowly. So that might have to wait until tomorrow.

Saturday 23rd October

Woke up about 3am and could not immediately go back to sleep so went surfing on the net and found a couple of elusive ELO related albums on You Tube. Spent a pleasant hour or so listening to a blast from the past. Woken up for 7am to sign for a Parcelforce delivery. I guess that's what you call justice, having managed the original project to implement hand held scanning (and therefore electronic signature on delivery) for Parcelforce, although they have now replaced the original scanning devices. I wonder how different my life would have been had I stayed with them. On 30 seconds of reflection I did the right thing for me when I made the move. The mistake was the first company I went to when I left, but who knew what it would be like, and I guess the whole saga was just part of the journey to where I (happily) ended up. Just wish I'd found my "home" earlier. Anyway, that's a whole other story, perhaps for another day.

As I have an extra week in the schedule before my final chemotherapy session (which is on Thursday the 28'th) I'm feeling pretty good at the moment and can almost sense my taste buds coming back to something like normal. Things are beginning to taste almost the same as they used to prior to chemotherapy starting, which holds out the hope that once I'm over the final session then my taste might eventually get back to something like normal. Until you lose your normal sense of taste you've no idea how much you feel on the outside of what everyone else is experiencing and how much we all rely on things tasting as we expect them to. My weight is coming back a little too, although I'm still considerably lighter than when this all began. I went to get my haircut yesterday and both the hairdressers remarked that I was looking much better than I did last time they saw me... which I think was fairly early in the chemotherapy lifecycle. It was also not long after an actual session of chemotherapy because I recall wanting to fall asleep in the chair from fatigue. So all in all both mentally, having found a few things to keep my mind occupied, and physically, because I'm getting over the last chemotherapy session, I feel like I am in relatively good shape. Looking back over the week it's amazing how much my underlying mood can swing in such a short space of time. I'm not out of the woods yet because I do still have the final chemotherapy session to go and the recovery from it to soldier through but it bodes well that I should be able to finish out the year strongly and in the best shape I could be in, under the circumstances.

I'm sticking with my X Factor prediction, Matt Cardle to win. For me he is the stand out act this year. I didn't like Rebecca's styling this week, her hair was awful, but what a voice, she's still my second choice. Both of my first two have great recording voices. I'd part with money to buy their records and I don't often say that about X Factor acts. Still not impressed by Cher. She promised a lot but hasn't delivered. She doesn't have the X Factor. Mary has turned into a one trick pony with the big ballads and she is losing confidence, not good in an industry that relies on confidence to perform. One Direction are just boring. Simon looks silly when he gushes on about them. Aidan turned in a disaster of a performance. What a poser. Time for Wagner to go home. Awful song choice by / for Katie. My guess is Mary and Wagner for the bottom two but I'm generally not as good as picking the bottom two as I am at getting the top two right.

Sunday 24th October

Up fairly early and feeling good. Today I want to get out of the house and do something, and by something I mean anything really. A few options are open to me including a visit to a local craft fair, a visit to Northampton Museum in town, and a trip to Stratford-on-Avon. I don't mind much which I end up doing, the larger target is just to get out of the house. I read a short article yesterday on the concept of "living in the moment". I'm still ruminating on it but I think it might be worthy of further investigation. It's a bit of a zen concept which I already have a bit of time for, in the sense that when I "teach" my little personal productivity session called "Inbox Zero" I talk about the concept of achieveing a "mind like water", a state of mind where you are ready for anything and in which you do your best thinking and problem solving, basically because all the rubbish you are normally thinking about is either dealt with or parked on a trusted list where it will be dealt with in due course, at the appropriate time, but in the knowledge that you won't forget about it.

Had a fantastic few hours out in Stratford. Just wandered round the shops, bought some magazines, and a couple of hobby type activities I'll talk about later if they work out. Battered Sausage & Chips for lunch. It was warm in the sunshine, cold in the shade but damn it felt good to be out. Obviously overdid it because I then spent most of the afternoon fast asleep in my chair, but who cares. Not I, not one bit.

I cannot generate any enthusiasm this year for Strictly Come Dancing, certainly at this stage of the competition. Last year was spoiled by John Sergeant hanging in until about week 6 when clearly in a dance competition he should have gone earlier. This year Ann Widdecombe has taken the "spoiler" role and frankly it's just tiresome. It's not even entertainment, which is how is gets excused by some commentators. I'm gonna give it a miss for a couple of weeks and come back for the later stages, basically after la Widdecombe has gone home. By the way no one should take this as saying I have something against Ms Widdecombe, you'd be completely missing the point of my argument.

If Cheryl can get away with miming her new single on the X Factor, does she have the credibility to judge people who have to sing live every week? Wow, Wagner got through the public vote. Is this a singing competition? That's exactly the same credibility issue as Ann Widdecombe on Strictly that I was just banging on about. And what is TreyC doing in the bottom two? She's good. I hope this was about song choice. Oh dear, she picked a turkey for the sing off. Does anyone else think John's hair looked like a mushroom?

Journal for Friday 15th October

Awake quite early today and downstairs for a brew at 5am. Posted yesterday's journal and started one for today. I am in the home stretch for my personal target of a week's worth of daily journals to assess whether to continue in the same vein.

Really funny email from a colleague at work about a recent trip which didn't quite go to plan. Genuinely made me laugh out loud. Early decision to have Birds Eye chicken pie for dinner. There's a cunning plan involved in that choice... can I avoid another cooking disaster?

Am sat on the bed trying to work out what to get up to today. I want to dust the Wii off over the weekend and have some playtime, so I might prep that today. I have some syrup to make for my ice maker. But that's a kind of 10 minutes here and there over the course of the day job, so I will get to that anyway. Hmmm...

The day seems to have disappeared on me. Despite feeling pretty good first thing, the morning disappeared on me. I perked up a bit by lunchtime and pottered in the office this afternoon for a bit. Watched a film this evening and then a bit of reading on the iPad. What a glamorous life! Saturday 16th October

Woke up at the usual time, a bit groggy. Had a cup of tea, stomach felt really ropey for a few minutes. When it settled I took my pills, had a second cup of tea and promptly fell asleep again. Didn't wake up until almost 11:30, but felt the most refreshed I have in ages. It's like I have a bit of energy, a little bit of fuel in the tank. It feels, dare I say it, almost normal. I hope that it isn't tempting fate in any sense. I don't like to think of myself as a fatalist but sometimes in my darkest moments that's what I think I might be. There's only one way to find out. I will take on the day and see what happens!

So far, so good. NIce walk this morning, now trying to work out what to do for lunch. Feel more thirsty than hungry so I've had a Fortisips. Might risk something when we are out. Feel like a trip to Northampton, don't want to waste time on a journey as such to get anywhere - the gamble being it's looking dark and it might rain and Northampton isn't a covered shopping centre as such. Somewhere like Milton Keynes is a bit further but all under cover. Then again there is Ikea.

Had a great afternoon out in Northampton. Was a bit of a grey, rainy day but I felt good and it was just fantastic to be out and about. Bought a couple of puzzle type magazines which had a bit of an unemployed / hospital stay feel about it, if you know what I mean but I've already had a good hour or so just disappearing into a couple of logic puzzles. I'm kind of interested to see if they will keep my attention or not. Also bought a couple of technology / iPhone mags - will be interested to see if I can find any new apps for the phone, it's been a while since I've seen any recommendations on any of the blogs I read regularly. For some reason I really fancied a roast pork sandwich for lunch, you know, the kind of hog roast job you get at country fairs. For some reason I thought there was a wagon doing them in the market square at Northampton but I'm either wrong or, being kind to my memory, they were not there today. Didn't fancy anything else but we decided to go my favourite diner on the way home. And lo and behold, on the menu is something called a pulled pork sandwich. Boy, that hit the spot! Couldn't finish the whole thing, but that's just the state of my appetite. I enjoyed every mouthful of what I did manage to eat. With cheesy chips and beans to accompany it, great dinner!!!

I see that a WHSmith ebook app has been released. Have downloaded and installed the app and also downloaded a free book to have a look at the reader functionality and quality. I think this is really good news, an app to give the Amazon book store a run for it's money - for example they appear to be running a promotion on the Millennium Trilogy books which are currently cheaper than at Amazon. Some competition on price will be a great thing for readers of ebooks. The reader itself is adequate to the task, although I can't tell if it has the same ability to synchronise across installations as the Amazon app. Overall I recommend the download.

Heard nothing on the X Factor tonight to change my mind, my top two remain Rebecca and Matt. I think the show (and for show read Simon Cowell) would prefer not to turn out another black female vocalist from precisely the same genre as Leona Lewis and Alexandre Burke. So my money is on Matt.

Sunday 17th October

Had another good nights sleep. That's two in a row, long may it continue, although it makes me wonder if there's a downside payback for it somewhere - probably the return of the constipation. Food of no interest this morning so I've substituted in a meal replacement. Planning to go for a walk to in part try out my northamptonshire pub walks guidebook I bought on the cheap the other week helped by the Red Laser app for the iPhone. Not even planning a full walk as unsure if I have the stamina but we can use the map to just walk a section of a route. I've downloaded the YouTube video of Randy Pausch delivering the Last Lecture. If you haven't heard of this, Randy was a US University Professor, who died a couple of years ago from pancreatic cancer. The Last Lecture was delivered when Randy thought he had about 2 months to live. The main theme is about realising childhood dreams. The lecture is in turns funny, sad, poignant and heartwarming. Definitely worth watching.

Back from the walk and knackered. Managed about a couple of miles (or what felt like it) and turned around and came back to the car. Walking is not easy because it feels like I have lost both muscle mass (in weight) and muscle tone, so it feels like I am having to work extra just to walk normally. I'm almost having to will my right leg to pick up - and it's probably why I felt like I was falling over my own feet when I was out in town yesterday.

Of the bottom two, probably the right result in the X Factor and Strictly. Simon Cowell gets to crow that the only two groups left are the manufactured ones he put together at boot camp. I can't get particularly worked up about the result because all we're doing is arguing about who goes home first from amongst the losers. Wagner and Widdecombe should have gone by now, but let's face it they aren't going to make the finals. I suppose the gamblers and the bookies get annoyed, but who's worried about them?

All the Chilean miners have been successfully rescued. What a great party they are having in celebration, by the looks of it. The country has really got behind the rescue and they deserve the spotlight.

Wow! Some people are never happy! Today I seem to keep falling over complaints on blogs about the blanket nature of the coverage of the Chilean rescue on Sky and the BBC, to the exclusion of all other news. Spent the morning falling asleep in my chair, apart from a quick trip out to the supermarket. Productive though, managed to get everything I needed on the list. This afternoon I have been a bit more alive and managed to spend a couple of hours in the office which have resulted in me feeling a bit better in myself. Managed to get to that "in the zone" feeling where I was doing a few things which felt useful, including solving a fairly long standing annoyance with my Chrome web browser. Found some useful presentations which might help things along at work and some PDF files that I've parked in my Dropbox to read later on which might give me a few ideas. I'm thinking that it might be time to get my own domain and install a wordpress site or something along those lines. A technical challenge to an extent but only because it's not something I've done before. I will research it more over the next few days to see if I really want to take that on.

Playing with mp3 tunes.com, which provides a 2GB free mp3 locker (to upload mp3's into) and a free app called Airband to stream those mp3's to my iPhone or iPad. I have a bunch of audiobook mp3's where this might be a better solution than the iTunes approach. Anyway, will have a bit of light relief experimenting with that. I guess the advantage is 2GB extra space on the iPhone and iPad for music as the locker takes strain, the downside is that the playback might be patchy on a poor network connection. It should be fine at home on the home network, away from home it's a gamble. I will test out further next chemo day in hospital to see how it does on a 3G connection.

Bugger. I burnt the pizza. Well, not exactly burned but it was a bit dark and crispy. That's two cooking disasters in three days. I promised yesterday to explain how to move documents into applications on the iPad. I found a simple tutorial on how to move documents from your PC or laptop (the device which has your iTunes application on it) into the Pages application (on the iPad). It will only take a minute or two to follow the richly illustrated example and the important thing is to understand the principle... It could be any App that has the capability and for document you can read "any file in the format or formats that the App can use". So for the Pages App it could be a word document (.doc) or for VLC app I talked about yesterday it could be an avi file or for GoodReader it could be a PDF file. Anyway here is the tutorial...

http://www.simplehelp.net/2010/04/03/how-to-import-documents-to-pages-on-your...

I blogged this out separately because I thought it worth it, but here is my solution to the Chrome / PDF problem I have been having... Are you a Google Chrome user? Having trouble viewing PDF files? This has been the major annoyance of my experience with what I have found to be a much quicker browser than Explorer and I finally ran into the fix today. In the browser go to: chrome://plugins/ and enable the PDF viewer. And that's all it needed. Here is the background on the Chrome blog...

http://blog.chromium.org/2010/06/bringing-improved-pdf-support-to-google.html

Woke up to some really good news for a change on the BBC; with the first of the Chilean miners coming up from 69 days trapped underground. Despite the view that the cage would be a tight fit, it looked to me to be quite spacey, although I suspect that coming up the tunnel was a bit claustrophobic, even for people who spend their working lives underground. I wonder how much post traumatic stress will be involved. For the first 17 days with no contact they must have wondered at times if there was any hope left.

Watched Ed Milliband's first PMQ's. I thought he acquitted himself well. He certainly wasn't humbled by David Cameron, who of the two of them came across as the most uncomfortable in their own skin. Immediate reactions were also quietly positive. I suspect that Ed is going to have a field day adopting a fairness agenda. It's a fairly easy target in an environment of cuts to identify a raft of the cuts to label unfair, particularly when you don't have to publish an alternative to be picked apart by the government.

In my distant past I worked for almost 15 years for the Post Office. Privatisation seems to be back on the agenda although I haven't a grasp of the detail so difficult for me to comment in full. Frankly I would worry for any commercial organisation that considers buying a stake in Royal Mail to be a wise investment. Nevertheless when I see people like Billy Hayes spouting his union style claptrap it makes my blood boil. Dinosaurs like Billy are why the Post Office is in the mess it's in ( although not the only reason to be sure). I'm never quite sure why management did not sort out the organisation years ago to achieve a fair days work for a fair days pay. Today it's an organisations of contrasts with pockets of old fashioned, unproductive, union run locations and some modern, productive but unhappy sites. Almost as an aside it's worth remembering that Alan Johnson is a former CWU General Secretary.

A sleepy day. Woke up, slumped in my chair, at about 5pm. Would hope to be awake now for the evening to watch some TV and have a bit of dinner. Nope, fell asleep again and woke up when I poured the remnants of a cup of tea over myself. Damn it, feel like an idiot when I pull stunts like that. It makes me feel like I'm definitely heading backwards rather than making forward progress, particularly because stuff like that was pre-chemo behaviour. Now I know why I have gone steadily downhill over the course of the day. I went to get my evening pills to discover my morning pills were still in the cup untouched. What a plonker. Not much I can do about it now other than take my evening pills with a top up of quick release morphine. The Apprentice is underway. The girls lost tonight and the bitchiness came out in the Boardroom, big style. Karen Brady was right, the girls were so unprofessional it was funny. Road kill was my comment off the cuff. They all could have gone home for me. My advice was to calm down. Clearly Lord Sugar does not like it when the aggro levels are high and real companies don't function that way. "Gobshites" don't go far. I'm surprised at the decision but I don't think any of that final three will make it far. Wrote a couple of iPad app reviews...

Simplenote & Dropbox - would recommend these two apps to anyone as cloud based storage, note keeping, document carrying applications and probably the only two you will ever need in this area. I have them on my work pc's, home pc's, iPhone and iPad and they allow me to carry around almost anything I am going to need, including things like PDF's

VLC - allows you to load up files directly via the app section of iTunes and being VLC plays media files in almost any format (I was already a fan of the VLC app for PC's). Very handy for any videos downloaded from the web e.g. from YouTube and various webcast formats plus any avi's you might have. Certainly saves having to convert files between formats to try to get iTunes to play them. GoodReader - the Swiss army knife of document readers. Again you upload files to it via the App section of iTunes.

I know from experience that getting files into Apps is not intuitive. I'll try and find a link to a "how to" or I'll get some screenshots myself to illustrate. Something to keep me occupied for a bit tomorrow.

In my role as Chief Happiness Officer at work, Roary was a mascot for a weekly players player award for a contribution consistent with our values. He arrived in the mail this morning for a visit...

I probably won't post this entry today as it's probably going to say naff all. That's because I have, once again, slept the day away whilst feeling exhausted when awake. Not my finest day. Feel less than a useful member of society on days like this.

Got up at about 5:30pm to try and have some quality time before bedtime. I've made a home made toad in the hole... but was promptly sick before preparations were complete. Hopefully that was a clear out and I can have some dinner later, but suspect it's just a sign of how fragile my stomach is right now. Anyway, will try a cup of hot, sweet tea and see how we go.

Everywhere I turn at the moment I am finding friends running into serious medical problems or those running into economic problems caused by the downturn and the coming "cuts". The mood of the country is changing from upbeat to decidedly maudlin. I want to live in a world where "it's great to be alive", but sometimes you get the feeling that the majority don't think that to be the case.
I loved the last words of Agony Aunt Claire Rayner, “Tell David Cameron that if he screws up my beloved NHS I’ll come back and bloody haunt him.”

Cooking disaster. My toad in the hole didn't work. Had to rescue the sausages and do them with some mash. Ruddy hell, I can't get one thing right at the moment. A friend wrote to me today to say that it upset them to see my words "before I die". My friend is struggling with the idea that I will die, still believing that the chemo will pull me through this. If you have read my writing you will all realise that the whole "will I die" issue does play on my mind quite a lot. I think my friend is in the same camp as my mother, sharing the belief that there will be a miracle. I'd like to believe but it's not really a matter of belief. The chemotherapy has certainly made an impact on my tumours but it hasn't made them go away. Eventually they will come back. Happy to talk about the philosophy of this with anyone but it is a philosophy argument rather than a medical one. If there is a fight it's about how long I get after the chemotherapy and that is the battle I'm in. My prognosis is a year. But what if I can significantly beat that. That's worth fighting for, so in my pragmatism, never think that I have given up the fight because I have not.

Fell asleep in my chair reading my book. Woke up feeling toasty and warm. Off to bed. But I guess I will post this journal first. Turned out I did have a few things to say today.

Sent from my iPad

Mentally a tough day to push through. A reasonable nights sleep but I knew before I really got going that I was not in as good a shape as yesterday. There is probably an element of having overdone things yesterday but I would not change a moment of the day for all the tea in China.

Spent most of the early part of the day drifting off to sleep. On one occasion I was sat in the office and must have drifted off just sat there. Woke up when I almost fell face forward into the laptop screen. LOL!

Finally seemed to turn the corner a bit by mid to late afternoon. And then late on an old friend came round for a visit. Was really great to see him. We talked about the cancer, about work and then got the iPads out for a good look at the Apps we both have. Quite liked the look of his Korg synthesiser app, but I'm not very musical and it was a bit pricy when I looked in the App store. It was great to spend a couple of hours outside the cancer bubble and I hope he will pop in if he gets up this way again.

I'm back to having thoughts about "the point". Need to try harder to find something to keep myself occupied tomorrow in terms of contribution. I have an iPad podcast to watch tomorrow and I might get the Wii out for a bit, but those are time fillers rather than useful contributions. It feels like a whinge and probably sounds like one. No one should feel sorry me and ultimately no one will. If people do for some reason, they will vote with their feet and stop reading my writing and that's fine. I recalled today why I write this stuff. It's basically for my benefit and it's cathartic for me to work through my issues into the written word and compartmentalise them as a result. In other words the writing helps me to let go. It's partly just a record of the roller coaster I have been on since the diagnosis. It was partly about finding out if i could possibly write a book before I die and I think the answer to that question is probably no, although I will probably keep examining that. It was suggested to me today, twice, that I could write one. And the final reason is the more obvious cancer legacy - if just one person reads about the symptoms I was having and gets an early diagnosis then it will have been worth it - see my very first blog post about cancer.

Watched Spooks. Probably best TV series on the box at the moment but something not quite right about it this time. There's a lack of threads running and it all seems to be about Lucas. Even the Harry / Ruth saga has gone quiet.

Friday October 8th

Seemingly overwhelming support in the immediate reactions to the last post for a diary / journal format. I wonder if I am able to be that conscientious? I guess we will find out, I have banged on about how much I like the format for a while.

Shadow Cabinet seems to have caught the commentators out, at least as far as the Alan Johnson decision is concerned. Once you accept that one, the decisions on Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper make sense although I did laugh at the family implications of a married couple getting the home and foreign office briefs. Talk about home and away. My other thought was that they both get to keep their powder dry in the Shadow Cabinet on cuts, ready to take the Chancellorship in a future government. Alan Johnson taking the fire through to his retirement and taking it for "the team" is one way of looking at it, taking a slightly Machiavellian viewpoint. Alan does appear, on the face of it, underqualified. Osborne, on the other hand, is regularly referred to by City sources of commentators as a lightweight. Scary, isn't it. Worst financial crisis in memory and all we have is a lightweight being held to account by the underqualified.

Sadiq Khan is the worrying appointment, if this stuff was going to impact me in the long run. The new Shadow Justice Minister has a couple of stains in his reputation too many to be credible in that role. He comes across as a bit of a sleaze, and it's way too early for Ed Milliband to get caught out with that kind of problem. A touch of naïveté perhaps, although Ed has not shown himself so far to be susceptible to that charge. You'd be more inclined to say he's made of stronger stuff based on his track record.

The other reminder I got in response was that the constipation I have suffered from intermittently isn't caused by the chemotherapy, it's source is the morphine. Mentally I had been hoping the end of the chemotherapy would signal the end of the constipation but no such luck. Damn.

Saturday October 9th

A bunch of really nice supportive tweets, comments and emails in response to yesterday's posting. I sense that people really want to do the right thing but are not sure what the right thing is. Should they call, or let me rest? Come to see me or wait until I'm a bit better. It's really hard to advise on that too, I know I will feel bad if someone troops up to see me and all I do is fall asleep on them. Then again, that would hardly be the end of the world. It's funny how I still view certain issues through the prism of (pre-diagnosis) what would be considered normal. My life will never be "normal" again. This is all a bit deep for early on a Saturday morning. Had a real drop in energy until around late afternoon. As bad as it's been in terms of lack of energy for some time. Finally perked up a little to watch an episode of Come Dine with Me. Magic Kev was a good winner, I particularly liked his comment that we all need to show each other a little more empathy. He was the least tightly wrapped of the contestants by a mile. There were a couple of highly strung reality show wannabes on parade. It's X Factor season. The live shows started tonight. Can't believe Louis brought back Wagner as his wild card. And Diva Fever, c'mon Simon, get real. Based on the first performances my picks for top slots would be Matt Cardle and Rebecca Ferguson. Right now, if pushed, my money would be on Rebecca.

Sunday

It's 4am, I'm somewhat awake, and the meaning of life is on my mind, once again. The thought I have had is that... LOL.. fell asleep (the benefit of an app that straddles the phone and iPad, is that it's only the phone in my hand when I fall asleep like that)

Think I can just about remember, my thought was that "normal" life is just like my life with the exception that "normal" has a framework to keep my mind from thinking about the dying stuff. Normal has a bunch of distractions. I guess that's where eventually phrases like "wake up and smell the roses" come from - the self talk to ignore the distractions and focus on the important. I wonder if I need to read some beginners philosophy. Would not know where to start with that! I suppose there must be a "Philosophy for Dummies" book, I'll check that out later. [There is! Added it to my wish list, will queue it up for my reading list]

Before I forget to record it, without too much pain, overcame my post chemo constipation this morning. That's almost 9 days, although much of that time I have been on Fortisips rather than solid food. On the other hand I have shifted a fair amount of cheese on toast. My weight is fairly stable at 12st 8lbs. Would be good to get that back to 13st prior to the final round of chemo.

It's amazing how feeling a little more awake, a nice shower and a bowel movement put a whole different perspective on the day. Right now, in this moment, I feel surprisingly upbeat. It will probably be fleeting but the prospect of a good day is so tantalising.

It continues to be a good day. Took a trip to Bicester and the outlet centre, designer labels dripping up and down the road. Managed a good few hours out in the sun, a Starbucks with a ham and cheese toastie and bought a couple of shirts that were on sale. It felt really good just to do normal stuff. Came back and finished watching the first episode of Downton Abbey, which I found myself, unexpectedly, enjoying. Some intriguing sub plots.

Goldie sent home on Strictly. FYD sent home on the X Factor. No justice and the usual evidence that the public don't treat these shows as talent shows but as pure entertainment. Never know if that should bother me or not. I do feel sorry at this stage for people whose dream is ended before it would otherwise. Ann and Wagner, respectively, should have gone, but they won't win either. So, in the end, does it really matter that they hang on and entertain us a bit longer. My theory is that some viewers secretly enjoy the frustration of the wrong contestants getting through. And let's face it, I bet it's by a mile in the leading topics of conversation at work tomorrow (caveats apply depending on the office you work in). Simon Cowell knows what he's doing! A nice quiet evening, reading in front of the TV, capped a really nice day.