Hello to you all and thanks for tuning in once again.

I will cover off any health related aspects first and overall, the week was mostly good. The side effects do seem to have settled down a lot, with just some intermittent tiredness towards the end of the week; one of those came along quickly and caught me unawares, resulting in me having to take a nap. The lower back pain is there, but more as a result of not having physio done in a while (he’s on holiday at the moment).

Left out of the previous week’s update, I did a walk, with a time of 13:40, which was done the day before Sandra and I went away. The weather has been very hot since, so any thought of another walk was out of the question. This week, I did a cycle on Tuesday morning, before the sun reached its peak, and that was enjoyable. On Sunday evening, I did a walk, with a time of 13:41, which I am happy with at the moment.

Health wise, after 3 weeks of intensity and variable side effects, nice to have some normality for the time being.

I have a couple of nights out this week and the first was Tuesday, with some of the girls. That was a postponement from about a month back, as I had just started my radiotherapy the same week as the original diary date. A nice evening catching up, although not everyone could make this one. On Thursday, I had a meet up with Howard and Matt, which was very nice indeed. We made the most of the weather and the food was superb. Time with former work colleagues and bosses, who have become friends, is a nice way to spend an evening and I am always appreciative of the personal time they give up, to spend with me; I am hoping for many more of these. I forgot to get photos of either meet up, as we were took caught up in, catching up…..

The book front has seen a number of advances and the main one is on the Munkemer book, with the Greek chapter photo captions complete; the majority of the surviving photos are from that 1941 campaign, so it has taken a while to work through. I had a superb piece of news in the early part of the week, when one of my fellow historians sent me a preliminary document that allowed us to confirm the 107th member of the original ‘117’ men. This may not seem significant to some of you, but when working on a project such as this, iron clad confirmation is a big find and I cannot wait to research him (his full colour scanned file arrived later the same day!). I also took delivery of the rare photo album I mentioned recently, and it was nice to have it safely in my hands. I am of the opinion that it is a great album that has some nice rare photos in it. I will scan it in, but not at the moment, as Münkemer is the key focus, If I want him ready for the end of August militaria show. I also did some prep for a trip this coming week, and getting excited for that, as it involves the release of the French language version of my Fritz Witt book.

On the ‘normal’ day to day life, I decided to give my car a deep clean and wash, which was a bit hard going. I have come to the conclusion that I have no further desire to spend 2-hours of my remaining time cleaning 1 vehicle. Therefore, with Karl’s help, I have been given the details of a mobile valeter and will be calling on him imminently, to sort Sandra’s car, then both of them moving forwards. Alanna and I got together on Wednesday, to cover off some key work aspects. As it was half-term hols for the kids, they came too, so we had to intermingle our in depth discussions with keeping 2 kids occupied. I undertook some light DIY / gardening activities on Saturday and during that, Karl and Rachel popped by, and it was nice to see them / the whole family in one week, as not always possible.

Sandra had her second week of shorter hours and it was Friday for her day off. We had made a preliminary plan to travel over to the other coast of Kent and have a day of walking around and site seeing, as the weather remained superb. However, as touched on above, after we had nipped out for some early morning shopping, we returned home and within a short space of time, I felt very tired. I had to take a nap, but thankfully, we did make it out for a bit in the afternoon, just not as far as originally planned; by that same afternoon, Sandra too had become tired, so we had a more relaxed day than initially planned. The important thing for these reduced hours is that we spend time together, and that is what we done.  

In summary, less health issues, more variety and time with family, friends and Sandra; more of those please!