I don’t know if it’s the time of year or the medication but I find myself in a maudlin mood, often standing still at the window,  mug of tea in hand going cold, watching the endless piles of sodden leaves whirling about on the lawn.  I realise it is the first year I haven’t worn a poppy or gone to a service to plant crosses for my grandfather and brother.  Isn’t it time to stop killing each other to resolve our differences?  Just a thought for Remembrance Day.

There are many downsides to the pain control – it makes your mouth and your eyes bone dry.  It makes you constantly tired, not just physically but weary in spirit.  Every action requires enormous effort and I know each one is eating into my daily ability to do anything, making me irrationally angry with time wasters and stairs and unnecessarily heavy doors.

My operation is on Thursday and given how long I’ve lived with unbearable pain I find myself absurdly nervous about replacing it with New Pain, one I don’t know how to pander to,  one I haven’t made deals with, one that may not leave me alone for minutes on end.  Stockholm syndrome. I will miss you Old Pain.  We’ve learned to rub along.

I’ve started packing my hospital case starting, (come on, it’s me) with the champagne and glasses.   No drinking out of tooth mugs on my watch.   An extension cord and adaptor.  Perfume.  Chocolates.  Clearly I have no intention of going with the suggested list of ‘comfortable slippers’ and a ‘warm dressing gown’.  As if!

The house is covered with Post It notes about heating, the dishwasher, the keys and the cat.  I’ve written and stamped the Christmas cards.  Ocado has a list of vegan food to be delivered at intervals.  I’m still undecided about whether I should go the extra mile and leave out my will, and the plot number in the Sussex graveyard.  Hardly a sign of confidence in the surgeon.

Now it’s just the waiting to get through.  I feel like Blackadder in the trenches, fiddling with bits of kit and snapping at Baldrick, eager to get it over with, reluctant to get going.  But no-one else in the regiment will be coming with me this time.  It’s a solo sortie into No Man’s Land.  Not, on reflection, the best of odds for coming back.

Bayonets ready?   There’s the whistle.  Let’s go.