Every year, I arrange a visit to my dad, who lives in Tamworth. just North of Birmingham, as an opportunity to see him and to exchange Christmas presents. Taking into account my chemo cycle, this was the day Sue and I had arranged for that visit.

We arranged to pick up my daughter, Jenny and her two boys on the way, so we had to leave pretty early.

As usual, we stopped just North of Oxford for breakfast. The Little Chef chain of restaurants as lost its way a little, but still does an excellent breakfast. We also had a voucher to get two breakfasts for the price of one.

I drove from Oxford to Birmingham (about 55 miles), the first time I have driven more than a couple of miles since before the summer.

We picked up Jenny and the boys at around 11am and arrived with my dad as planned at almost exactly midday.

My sister, Lynette, had a heavy cold, so decided not to join us, because of the risk of passing it on to me, so we were not quite as crowded in my dad's small flat as I feared. The young boys were very well behaved. Descending on my dad in numbers at relatively short notice, we took a bag of Marks and Spencer filled rolls and party food for lunch.

Considering his age, my did is still very fit and relatively mobile. My brother in law, Jim, is suffering from Leukaemia and although he is on a drug regime that is keeping it under control, he is very tired and there does not seem to be any immediate prospect of a cure. That makes me count my plessings.

The visit went very quickly; we had to be away just after 2pm to pick up granddaughter Jessica from school.

We left for home just before 5pm and once again I did half of the driving.

I was very tired in the middle of the day. That was probably because the steroids that I am on caused by blood sugar to rise to a very high level. Apart from that, I had a very good day, with virtually no discomfort from my hip.