2022
This piece gathers posts from 2022. It was the year health, work, and money stopped being abstract problems. The year began with village life, writing plans and another attempt to build a simple rhythm. By spring, an HGV medical exposed the truth. By winter, I was driving grain lorries across the south-east of England.
A simple year, in theory
At the start of 2022, we were still deep in the Covid years.
The cost of living was rising. Normality felt distant. The news was miserable, as usual. But life still kept moving. The planet kept spinning. Winter would give way to spring. The days would stretch again.
For my family and me, 2022 was supposed to be about enjoying village life in Adisham.
We wanted a simple year.
Walks across the North Downs.
Trips to local beaches.
Time in the Kent countryside.
Skateparks for Karta.
Brands Hatch for me.
Maybe even a trip north to Scotland, if we could make it work.
Nothing extravagant.
Just life.
I wanted to write more regularly, too. Not as part of some grand strategy. Mostly to document the days, the places, the things we did, and the thoughts that kept circling in my head.
Writing had become a way of leaving a trail for Karta. One day, long after I am gone, he might be able to read these words and understand more of who I was.
A flawed man.
A grateful man.
A man still trying to work out how to live properly.
My day job was still just a way to pay for that life. A means to an end. I did not want work to define me, but I did need it to support the quieter existence I wanted for us.
That was the theory.
Then 2022 began doing what years tend to do.
It got complicated.
Mother trucker
In January, I began the process of becoming an HGV driver.
I had signed up through the UK Government fast-track training scheme, and the route looked simple enough on paper.
Medical first.
Provisional licence.
Theory test.
Driver training.
Practical test.
Qualified HGV driver by summer, if all went well.
That was the plan.
It felt like a serious move. Not another vague idea. Not another writing project. Not another website. Not another half-formed attempt to turn creativity into income.
This was practical.
A licence.
A trade.
A wage.
A way forward.
I was nervous, but hopeful.
For once, the path had steps.
A worrying trio
Then the year wobbled.
Karta caught Covid. Early signs suggested it was mild, but it was still unsettling. Rhona and I tested daily and hoped it would not spread through the house.
At the same time, my mother-in-law, Anne, had a stroke.
There was also a wedding to help arrange.
I took a few weeks away from work to support Rhona and ease the pressure at home. Just being there helped. Sometimes, presence is the only useful thing you can offer.
Money was tight. Again.
The company I worked for penalised me after I followed their rules and stayed away from work when I was ill. For one reason or another, my pay had not been right since November.
That does something to you.
It gets into your shoulders.
In my case, quite literally.
I was waking most mornings with deep pain in my right shoulder. I did not know what was causing it, but I knew I could not keep eating painkillers at the rate I was.
Being away from work felt like a relief.
That told me something.
The night shifts.
The time away from Rhona and Karta.
The money worries.
The physical strain.
It was all beginning to stack up.
I knew I could not keep going like that for much longer.
Too much pressure
The HGV medical should have been routine.
It was not.
I ticked every box except one.
My blood pressure was dangerously high.
A visit to the doctor confirmed severe hypertension. I was put on medication straight away and told that it had to be dealt with.
There was no mystery about the cause.
Too much weight.
Not enough exercise.
Long night shifts.
The wrong food.
Too much stress.
I had written about health and weight for years. I had made plans, failed, restarted, failed again, and carried on talking about the need to change.
This was different.
This was not about looking better.
This was about staying alive.
The HGV licence suddenly became more than a career move. It became part of a larger reckoning. If I wanted to drive professionally, I had to pass the medical. If I wanted to pass the medical, I had to face what my body was telling me.
No more drifting.
No more pretending.
No more waiting for the perfect moment to begin.
Trinity
A few weeks later, the doctor gave me the full picture.
Type 2 diabetes.
High cholesterol.
Very high blood pressure.
The trinity.
Three things that could shorten my life if I ignored them.
My first thought was simple.
Fuck.
I was fifty-three years old, overweight, and now officially carrying three serious health problems.
The doctor was calm. There were ways to intervene. Medication could reduce the risks. Tablets were offered for blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes.
I collected them.
But I also wanted to see what I could change through food, movement and routine.
I spoke to the diabetic nurse and began focusing on low-carbohydrate eating, intermittent fasting and exercise. I stopped eating sugar. I stopped eating wheat and grains. I reduced the foods that had been doing me no favours.
The effect was quick.
My weight started moving down.
The bloating reduced.
My skin improved.
My mind felt clearer.
I still needed to pass the repeat HGV medical.
That gave the whole thing urgency.
I also knew I had to stop working nights as soon as possible. The doctor had said age, weight, night work and lack of exercise were all part of the picture.
So the goal became simple.
Improve the numbers.
Pass the medical.
Get the licence.
Find work that fitted life better.
The minimisation
By late April, things had started to move in the right direction.
I had lost nearly two and a half stone.
I was fasting for around eighteen hours a day and avoiding food after six in the evening. I was eating low-carb and moving towards ketogenic meals. No sugar. No starchy vegetables. Nothing made with grains.
I still had dairy.
I had become a black coffee drinker.
Blood pressure readings were beginning to improve, helped by long walks, better food and a calmer routine. I had also passed the medical, which meant the provisional entitlement could be added to my licence.
That felt huge.
I bought a blood glucose monitor and began checking my numbers a few times a week. They looked better than I had expected.
The fear was still there, but so was evidence.
The changes were working.
I increased meditation too, partly to manage the anxiety that had arrived with the diagnosis. Nothing about this felt casual. I had been frightened into action, but perhaps that was what I needed.
This was the kick up the backside I had spent years talking around.
Now I had to keep going.
Not so big mutha trucker
By summer, the health picture looked better again.
My first diabetes review produced numbers that surprised the nurse. My HbA1c had dropped sharply. My weight was down by almost twenty-seven kilos. Cholesterol was moving towards normal. Blood pressure was still higher than ideal, but I was no longer in the same danger zone.
I had used fasting, low-carb eating and exercise to pull myself back from the edge.
Most days, I ate one meal in the evening. I often fasted for around twenty-two hours. I added longer fasts into the week when it felt right. I walked. I moved. I kept things simple.
The hunger was less of a problem than expected.
The reward was more energy, better sleep, a clearer head and a sense that I might finally have found a way to improve my health without turning life into misery.
Then came the HGV theory tests.
I passed.
That opened the door to practical training.
The first time I took the wheel of an 18-ton rigid truck, I was nervous. Of course I was. But the nerves soon settled. We drove around Canterbury, Whitstable and Herne Bay, threading a large vehicle through roads that had clearly never been designed for anything of the sort.
It was difficult.
It was rewarding.
It felt real.
Class 2 training came first. Then, Class 1 articulated vehicles. Ten days of intensive training in total, followed by the test that would decide whether I could start work as a professional driver.
Health and work had become linked.
Both required attention.
Both required discipline.
Both required me to stop making excuses.
Escaping the bakery
Before the HGV route fully opened up, I took a job at the village bakery.
It did not end well.
I had been there just over a month and was still learning. One member of the team decided my performance was not good enough. That was one thing. Being criticised can be useful when it is done properly.
This was not done properly.
It became shouting. Ridicule. Someone in my face.
I asked what I could do to improve.
How could I speed up?
Where was I going wrong?
What would help?
The questions only made things worse.
There was also an issue with hours. I was expected to stay beyond my shift, sometimes by several hours, even though that was not part of my contract.
So I quit.
I wrote to explain what had happened and expected someone from the company to speak to me.
No one did.
That told me enough.
The good news was that a friend found me temporary work at a greetings card business in Canterbury. I picked and packed Christmas cards in a warehouse. It paid the bills while I finished the HGV training.
Spending time with Karta and his mates at Brands Hatch around that period helped too.
It reminded me that there was more to life than clinging to bad work because money was tight.
Money matters.
But dignity matters too.
The agri adjustment
By August, I had passed my Class 1 HGV test.
I was now a qualified lorry driver.
That changed things quickly.
My uncle, who managed the Frontier Agriculture site at Hermitage near Newbury, got in touch. He offered me seasonal work connected to the grain harvest, based around Wingham and Hermitage.
I took it.
I became a seasonal grain harvest temporary driver, running daily grain samples between Wingham and Hermitage. Monday to Friday. Same route most days. Collect samples, bring them back to the lab for testing and grading.
I had a van, a fuel card and a mobile phone.
Off I went.
After a while, the role changed, and I began working from another depot near Sevenoaks, delivering crop protection products to farms. The vehicle was still a van because some of the places I had to reach would not take a truck.
The work took me across Kent, Surrey and Sussex.
Farm tracks.
Chemical stores.
Places I did not know existed.
Beautiful countryside.
Real people doing real work.
It suited me.
The staff were excellent. They made me feel welcome and helped me learn. For once, work felt useful without crushing me.
As the seasons changed and demand dropped, I asked about staying within the Frontier world. I now have the HGV licence, and I want to use it.
A meeting followed.
Then another.
The next question was whether I would be interested in becoming a relief driver, covering sickness and holidays for the bulk grain drivers based in Wingham.
I jumped at it.
That meant learning the dark art of bulk grain transport.
Farms.
Ports.
Mills.
Breweries.
Big loads.
Big trucks.
Plenty to learn.
I was nervous.
Very nervous.
But I was also ready.
Bulk grain
By Christmas, I had made it.
I was working as an HGV driver for Frontier, delivering bulk grain shipments to mills and ports across the south-east of England.
The learning curve was almost vertical.
Every day brought something new. Farms I had never visited. Weighbridges. Grain stores. Tight yards. Loading instructions. Delivery points. Paperwork. Weather. Traffic. Pressure.
There were a few early setbacks that knocked my confidence.
But I kept going.
Breathing helped.
Square breathing became useful. Breathe in for four seconds. Hold for four. Breathe out for four. Hold for four. Repeat.
Simple.
Practical.
Something to steady the mind when the day started getting too big.
By Christmas, I was home for four days with the people I loved.
After the year we had been through, that felt like enough.
More than enough.
What 2022 changed
Looking back, 2022 was the year the talking stopped.
For years, I had circled the same problems.
Health.
Weight.
Money.
Work.
Purpose.
Family.
Writing.
Time.
In 2022, those problems stopped being theoretical.
A medical showed the state of my body.
The doctor named the risks.
The HGV process gave me a practical target.
The bakery reminded me of what I would no longer tolerate.
The seasonal driving work opened a door.
Frontier gave me a route.
The year began with a plan to enjoy village life and write more.
It was the year I lost weight, faced the trinity, passed my HGV tests, changed jobs, and started learning to drive lorries for a living.
Not a dream job in the romantic sense.
Something better, perhaps.
A real job.
A practical job.
A job that could support the life I wanted with Rhona and Karta.
That mattered.
The trinity was frightening.
But it forced action.
And action, for once, changed the shape of things.
Until next time,
adieu.