Still on the football theme, this is a five-a-side team made up of members of the Eastern Counties Newspapers trainee course in spring 1991. This would probably have been taken in May or June. I am on the left, of course, and continuing left to right we have Tim Miller, Darren Kemp, Robert Liddle, Mike Randall and Siobhan Hand. In the background at the right is my son David, then about 19, who played as a guest (against the regular reporters, I think). No idea what the score was, but I think we did reasonably well. In case anyone is wondering, I was teaching on the course: local and central government and techniques of journalism. David Paull ran the course and was law lecturer: Frances Burrows taught shorthand. We’re all now retired, of course. Except the trainees. And David.

Since my last entry here I have been feeling pretty awful, with a bad upper respiratory tract infection apparently stemming from the biopsy. I suspect this is the sort of thing doctors are not interested in because it isn’t life-threatening, but It makes you feel so wretched that having prostate cancer seems like a minor issue (at the time). A combination of high temperature, inflammation in your breathing tubes and coughing means you can’t get comfortable enough to sleep or even relax. It really is a nightmare, and what makes it worse is that you think it’s getting a bit better and then it gets worse again.

So I don’t know whether I’m actually over the worst or if I’m just well enough for now to write this. I feel very, very tired, but the pain in my head has eased off. I was given Ciprofloxacin (an antibiotic) in case I got an infection, but to say I was unimpressed by it is a major understatement. I only started to feel a bit better when I stopped taking it. Of course if I hadn’t taken it I might have died, but these things are relative.

We have cancelled our break in York, which was due to start tomorrow. I don’t think we’ll be charged for the hotel, and the theatre is very kindly refunding the tickets (though they have no need to), so when it is all sorted out, I think it will just cost us the £10 rail tickets cancellation fee. Very disappointing, though, especially as the weather is no nice at the moment. Makes you want to go out – and Dot has just walked to the shops – but I daren’t go far in case of the other side-effect of this whole mess: having to rush to the loo.

Seems ridiculous to have gone through all this when I was fine to start with. Now they want Dot to take cholesterol pills because she has a high count on a recent test. Both she and I are against it: she’s already taking blood pressure pills for no good reason (and is told she can’t come off them), so why add more pointless medication when she feels fine? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I wish I’d said that.