The Grand, is obsessed with cars. He lamented the lack of cars in this house. He’s not bothered about reverting to the use of my bus pass, but rather the lack of toy cars to be lined up on the kitchen floor for me to break my ankle on. In this desert of motoring delights, he was extremely impressed to watch a large black car pull up outside his house to whisk me, and my suitcase, away to my next fun packed appointment. I know this because he immediately reported the event to his Father, my Son, on his return home from work, a journey made on a bus. He would have been beside himself if he had ..read more

Over the last year I’ve been plagued by my nemesis Anne Taylor. She pops up everywhere but has now met her match in the shape of that well known medical professional “Unauthorised”, who has dropped me a note to tell me it’s all looking good. This is one sorry chapter I’m glad to see the back of, along with Anne Taylor, impenetrable letters and being spoken to as your actual bonified half-wit. There may be those who take issue on that final point and consider the a bona fide half-wit approach to be entirely reasonable. Needless to say, it’s a sentiment I don’t share. To celebrate the closing ..read more

“How did you dye your hair that colour when it’s so short?” “This is my natural colour,” I said. “Nahhh. No one has hair that colour.” “I do,” I said. “What colour was it before you had chemo?” she wanted to know. “This colour. This is my natural colour.” “Well it looks dyed,” she said before heading off to take her pick of people to chat to who really did have dyed hair and had the good grace to be honest about it. Our convenor called us to order and we started the introductions. I always feel it’s a mistake not to offer people some kind of guidance about what we might need to know abo ..read more

Postscript. These blogs emerged from endless hours of storytelling with my friend Siobhain Santry, who's illustrated so many of the early blogs and the last one. It's been a joint endeavour and I credit her with helping to create so much of the humour and the spirit around what I've wanted to say. There's light and there's shade, in just about every situation we find ourselves in in life. Which has turnout out to be a helpful way of approaching things. Particularly living through the curveball that was breast cancer. Even in the darkest of times, I've managed to see the funny side of how s ..read more

Food is the new obsession in my life. I’m always cooking it. I don’t always eat it. Sometimes I give it away. Sometimes, I am ashamed to say, it goes to waste. Waste is a sin in my world of zero food waste tolerance. I pride myself that nothing goes to waste. It is with some pleasure then, that I am able to bring together twin interests of hot and spicy food and the desire to cook everything in my fridge, before it goes so far past it’s sell by date that it has managed to walk itself to the compost. There is nothing you can’t do with a blender, an onion, some garlic and ginger and any one of ..read more

Now that I am feeling less nauseous, I’m trying to get through the jobs that I’ve been putting off for months. These range from emptying the waste paper baskets and relieving them of old banana skins, to making sure I’m up to date with my pension contributions. Neither of these activities have much to offer when it comes to any form of gratification, be it long term or instant, so I thought I’d start with a spot of furniture rearrangement. I moved my desk to the other side of the room where it would sit much better and would not overwhelm the viewer with its arrangement of dead computers that ..read more

My friend Sceptic Tank thinks that a house should be minimal. I think that a house is not a home without stuff. The stuff I like is not the stuff she likes. My old creaking furniture is one thing but why would anyone who can’t see much want to fill up their house with china? It’s a good question and weirdly, I know the answer. My house is full of the china of my long dead realities. This is the reason I am so attached to it. Every morning I pour milk into small jug that my Mother bought in a Cornish craft shop during a summer in which we rattled round south west England in a camper van singin ..read more

I’ve been called some choice things in my time. I don’t suppose I will ever be privy to the full range. The Son, who was a Red Dwarf fan, hit upon the idea that henceforth his Mother, should be known as R’mere. In his mind, this was the perfect response to his love of the lead character Rimmer, known for his intergalactic adventures, and the French for Mother. He was rolling down the side of a snow-covered French slope at the time. I like to think it was an idea born of affection but suspect it was more affectation. It stuck. I once received a letter addressed to Mrs Attila. I may be fierce ..read more

Vans are a contentious issue. My friend Malc had a van for nineteen years that he loved, until it got squashed between a Chelsea tractor and a small lorry while he was in it. My friend P loves her van, and so do I. It’s got it’s own shower and heating and it’s not bad for a slumber party on the beach. That said, when we slumbered on the beach, someone set fire to the caravan next to us and I ended up standing about in my pants and a T-shirt that was never meant to be seen in public, while the fire brigade put out the fire and the police took statements. P offered everyone cups of tea, and we w ..read more

You might imagine that the demise of taste buds would rule out a craving for food. On the contrary, not even nausea can do that, and Lord knows I feel nauseous quite a lot of the time these days. However, nausea is no match for steroids. They have the ability to create feelings of hunger that are unrivalled. I have been, quite literally, shaking with hunger. Round one of chemo, of this new and not so welcome experience resulted in industrial quantities of macaroni cheese being consumed. I would like to say that I never inhaled but it would be an un-truth. I inhaled macaroni cheese until smoke ..read more