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I headed for dad's earlier today but he was up before me. He called - lucid - my mobile as I was only a couple of hundred metres away. Again his voice was calm; wavering, but calm. He told me he was not well, which is on the one hand a statement of the blindingly obvious and on the other hand code for really very fucking unwell.

His perception of things seems to be a bit off. From what he said I was expecting shit all up the walls, but it was not that bad. The bucket in the corner had - has, I've not moved it because I want the nursde to see it - a bag over it and apparently the contents are, well, not pretty. He may have started passing blood, and that is a straight-to-hospital-do-not-pass-go trigger. The shit I had to clean from his feet and lower leg looked like good old fashioned shit to me.

He also described his nuts as "like a couple of fucking betroot" but as far as I could tell they looked like a couple of nuts, slightly redder than his otherwise ghostly white skin. He thinks - and who am I to question him - that the cancer is getting to him.

And it is with that in mind that he had me check the pocket of a suit he has hanging on the bedroom door. In it I found his airforce cuff-links and mum's wedding ring. Deep breath. He had me get his wallet, from where he got two cashcards and he wants me to check the balances for him. Already a sobbing mess I asked him where I could find his parachute log books from his time in the RAF, the only things I know he wanted me to have.

But now things seem easier. I'm sort of numb. He is sleeping through the onrush of the morphine and I'm sitting down here waiting for the nurse to arrive.