Author Archives: Toby White

About Toby White

I'm a doer!

Keep on trucking – end of year wrap!

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Fruit trees in garden

Newly planted fruit trees in our garden!

I must first apologise for not writing more on my personal blog. I have various separate sites for more specific topics, so tend to split the writing accordingly.  I also write a lot more in a private diary, as there is a lot I don’t necessarily want to share publicly.

It’s a very cold morning today and I am finishing up with my e-filing.

I’ve been avoiding it for a little while, but the end of this year (2025) has been 5 years since my cancer diagnosis. I guess I am one of those luckier individuals and sometimes that’s hard to grasp. For the whole of 2020 and the duration of my surgery and treatment, I really wasn’t focused on much else other than getting through a long and brutal chemo reigime. I think it’s fair to say that’s what it was… This followed by a very stressful and bad return to work which resulted me leaving my previous job for a new one, and ultimely lead to the previous periods being a bit of a blur. I can only thank my beautiful wife and loving family for being there and supporting me, even though they may not have always understood what was going on in my head.

I suffered a lot of survivor guilt and PTSD from my experiences and this only really improved after getting some proper counselling. I would recommend this to anyone who’s gone through or experienced any trauma of any kind. Us men do tend to bottle things up. It’s not worth it. I felt really lonely for a long time as after so much hospital time and the Covid situation, I spent more time with nurses and doctors and HCAs and then that was all gone. I can understand how people get institutionalised as I fear that’s what I got. I wouldn’t wish what I went through on my worst enemy – that’s the honest truth – but I lost over nearly 10+ months of close socialisation. Probably more socialisation that I’d had in years. It’s difficult doing the adulting thing. I would love to be back at 18 and having nothing much to worry about and being out and drinking with my friends. Then that all falls apart.

Folowing this all, I did reach out to a good friend I’d not seen in many years and have had the pleasure of meeting up several times since. Good friends are hard to find, so reconnecting with old ones if possible is very worthwhile.

In 2025, I made some headways with getting back on track. I spent a LOT of time working on our garden. I learnt to fix a lawnmower, something I never had to do, but had to out of necessity. I did a charity walk up Snowdon with my Sister and raised a lot of money for BCRT, a great cause. I also did an interview with David Dolling’s Project 71 video series. You can check that here: https://youtu.be/TCrSFigbnMs?si=a8i90npYbxx4MTlG

We met up with friends throughout the summer, and made the most of the great and prolonged warm weather.

I did some more YouTube videos and updates for my garage Home Mechanic pages and worked on my freelance work Frantik. I also made an effort to work on writing more posts on all my blogs, and stop being complacent.

I’m also hoping to complete my Intermediate Amateur Radio course in 2026. It’s a real challenge with a lot more focus on electronics. Challenging myself and doing things I haven’t attempted yet are a real focus for me.

In early December, it brought great pleasure to me to plant some new fruit trees in our garden. In a few years these will bring us some great produce. (See picture).

I’ve written a lot now, so enough rambling. Time to keep on trucking!

Happy New Year!

That’s a wrap! 🙂

 

A Little Life – a short summary for a long novel

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Cover of the novel A Little Life

Cover of the novel A Little Life

I’ve just finished reading this wonderfull, albeit at times very depressing, novel. I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into, as my wife handed me another book to read back in September. She hadn’t read it either, so I was going in totally blind.

I didn’t do any research into what the book was about either, and I won’t be going into too much detail here either, other to say that it really was something quite different. It’s probably the only book that has made me cry, that I can think of. It also made me laugh and smile at others. It really was a rollercoaster ride of emotions!

It was also quite long at over 700 pages of reasonably small print. I have read some long books before (Le Mis) but not a modern time novel.

A short plot summary from Wikipedia with no plot spoilers:

Set primarily in New York City, the story chronicles the lives of four friends as they grapple with substance abuse, sexual assault and depression.

Having researched a little more following finishing this, I learnt that it’s sold over a million copies (that’s a lot of books). It was then written as a stage play a number of times. The 2003

This is one of the only books I thought deserved a longer post, as it truely enamoured me. I can certainly see it being analysed in English Lit classes worldwide, if not being done so already. It’s a bit of a slow burn to start out with but it really draws you in and once you’re a 1/4 of the way in you really need to keep on going. The writing style and brilliance required to build up such detail about so many characters is impressive. Like any good film, you may have to read it more than once to pick up all the detail. but I might advise that you give it a while inbetween reads…

Noteably this was my 10th book read this year, and with being quite busy with house/car(s)/family/jobs and life, I was quite pleased with. I had set a 10 book challenge on Goodreads after reducing that number from the following two years, so was pleased I had made that 🙂

 

I found my pen!

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I wanted to write a light hearted post before I got onto some more serious pieces again.

Jinhao fountain pen

Jinhao X450 fountain pen

We’ve now been in our new house for nearly 2 years. For many many months after moving, the only thing I couldn’t find was my chinese Mont Blanc pen. Following my cancer journey I had started writing a paper diary again – good for self-therapy – as well as just keeping track of everything. It’s quite therapeutic going analog and writing things down on paper, especially as I spend so much time on a computer (including now). Anyway, to the point… I quite liked this pen, and it one of the only things that we couldn’t find having moved house. I had looked everywhere for it, and we were convinced that nothing had been left behind.  I had done a couple of sweeps and checked every room before we set off to ensure nothing was left. Being a pen, and the fact the diary was probably one of the last things to get chucked in a box, the same had probably occured.

We had still got quite a few boxes at my parents, and I had made a good point of clearing all cardboard boxes and moving things into clear storage containers. I had checked coat pockets and in cupboards the length and breadth of the house and checked the workshop too… just in case it had escaped there. It had quite literally frustrated me for months! My wife had even bought me a replacement… which is nice but wasn’t quite the same… because I missed that pen!

A little while ago, I was preparing to go out somewhere nice and had opened a shoebox with a smarter pair of shoes – up until now it’s mostly been mucky trainers and/or boots – and there it was, in the box, my old pen! I was elated. I screamed out in joy 😀  There it was. my old friend. And then somehow I was content.

A little bit of context. My manager in a previous job liked fountain pens, and when I wanted to start writing a diary again I remembered him and how he had recommended this Jinhao fountain pen years ago, it being considerably cheaper (£10 vs 000s), and to give it a go.