That’s the plan anyway.

By rough calculation, that’s taken up just under a million words.

In 500- to 600-word bites.

This is the last bite of that long, tasty, hugely satisfying meal.

About three weeks ago some very nice, compassionate people told me I had an aggressive cancer.

It is inoperable and untreatable.

I’ve thought about this column ever since. I want it and need it to be right.

Mrs Whacked is encouraging it. Ahhh, Mrs Whacked.

The truth is that most of you know her as Linda Barrow, my wife, constant companion, fellow adventurer and a much-awarded skilled writer in her own right.

On this final issue, we’re not quite on the same page.

I’m saying don’t feel sad for me, because I’m not.

Life has been – and even now still is – an absolute romp.

I have no bucket list because I think I’ve already done everything I wanted to do.

Linda and I have discussed this a lot over the years, and it is a delight to get to the end and find that is really how I feel.

It’s been so full of fun, love and unexpected turnings and twistings, passions, interests, efforts to make a difference.

All built around a lifetime of words and journalism.

I began as a 16-year-old cadet. Almost half-a-century.

It was all – every single day of it – a privilege and a challenge.

I wish I’d been the one to coin the phrase that journalism is all about comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.

Mrs Whacked – Linda – sees the logic in how I’m approaching this, but has trouble being as bloody doggedly rational about it.

She sprung me watching late night BBC news the other night and asked why I was wasting any energy on it.

“I’m hoping Theresa May, Donald Trump, Vlad, Xi and Little Rocket Man all lift the pace a bit. I want to see how it all ends.”

Except, of course, it doesn’t. Things just move and change and if you are lucky, you get to witness a few interesting chapters of the story.

Sometimes, if you’re really lucky, you get a small walk-on part.

For me this has included raising a beautiful, happy family in one of the best and safest cities on the planet, a stint as a councillor, chairing the magnificent Bendigo Heritage organisation, and having a hand in so many projects and campaigns.

I was lying in a hospital bed two weeks ago reminding one of the child-like nurses of where she worked and why.

In one way or another I took part in community pushes to get better medical imaging in Bendigo, to fix the Calder Freeway partly so patients did not have to keep going to Melbourne on what was nick-named the Chunder Highway, developing a nationally important hospital.

There I was in a beautiful room on the fifth floor, with the best medical equipment and staff imaginable, watching the sun rise over a vista which included the Town Hall, Camp Hill, the Sacred Heart Cathedral.

Bugger, I’ve run out of space again.

But I just wanted to say I thought that all went very well. Thanks.

WAYNE GREGSON