Craic On

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 some events unfolded and get cross at what deserved to have a bit of fury thrown at it. People are really extraordinary. In my stories, I've touched on the very best and the very worst of us. There are so many stories that I could've told. I've cried and I've laughed with the people I love, and sometimes at myself. There's nothing like laughter, but this doesn't neutralise the challenge of living with sight loss.

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 of this saga, in favour of all round joy in life, The Dynamo and I took a road trip. She has fantasised about riding across France on a motorbike. The obvious flaw in this plan being that there would be nowhere to put the inevitable piles of junk, we would not be able to help ourselves from purchasing, in every local flea market we passed. The obvious upside of this plan being there would be nowhere to put the junk we mi

“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 about them, but this being a “moving on from the you know what” session, everyone felt able to reveal all kinds of information about themselves. Lots of people opened their remarks by explaining who they were married to and what a really terrific husband they had been, except that they could not help but think they might be getting a bit bored of it all by now.  I don’t want to sound unkind about this but I fear they could

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 singing endless renditions of “There’s a Hole in my Bucket.” I remember the moment, and every morning, when I take the jug out of the cupboard, a warm feeling washes over me. If a single jug can do this, imagine what an tea service has to offer. I know the answer to this too, having spent many wasted hours arranging Granny’s tea service on a shelf that is just the right height in just the right spot for all to admire but me.

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 seen what had happened next. After a fun filled afternoon, another large black car turned up to drive me to within a matter of feet of my sofa, a spot I was already dreaming of. “Ma’m,” said my driver. “Ma’m, this is your time. You just relax now and enjoy the journey.” I lay back and shut my eyes. “Do you need a phone charger Ma’m?” “No thanks. I’m all sorted,” I said. “Do you need water Ma’m” “I’ve got some, but

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 are so long in the tooth they are no longer supported. Then I moved it back again and called James, who is the IT support man. I called James, not because I wanted him to rationalise the computers, but to restore the wi-fi to a working system. Since I moved the desk across the room and moved it back again, the wi-fi didn’t work. Then I had a hoover round and put all the bits that had dropped of the desk during the move

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, but surely I’m not that fierce. It turned out to be a best effort at Mrs A Tylor by someone who couldn’t spell. That one stuck too, for the duration of my job. With form in answering to so many different names, you’d think it would not bother me, not to be called by name, but it does. Since my adventures in the Big C began, I have learned to respond to “lovey” and “my darling” and “dear” and “my lovely”. While I think

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 were rewarded with some probing questions about how long we had been homeless for. The proliferation of vans that seem to have appeared of late, are not the type that you could holiday in, but they are the type of van that could be implicated in someone getting squashed. Unlike Malc, there would be no need to sit in it and wait for impact. It would be more of a question of trying to navigate your way round it and hope th

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 a number of spice combinations to turn the laziest of vegetables into the most delicious of meals. There is a recipe for everything online, if only you look hard enough, and in an effort to express my huge thanks and great regard for members of the A Team, who are my counsellors, my personal shoppers, my nurses and the very best of friends, I have been keen to share my rotten vegetables with them in various hot and spic

A tasty meal is like the hunt for Red October. I just have to keep going with the drive to hit that sweet, or in my case, that hot spot. Not everyone shares my ambition but I keep going, undeterred by the disappointment of having no taste buds and little saliva left. “That is the hottest chilli you will ever have. You just need to shave a tiny bit off and that will do you,” said the log man as he handed over Jamaican Bonnet. I couldn’t help but wonder if his booming voice was born of too many chillies. He is the loudest person I know. “Wonderful,” I said, gripping the bag. “Good girl,” he said and headed off towards his wheelbarrow. One good turn deserves another, so before I went to chemo, I knocked up a cheeky little soup, made out of leftovers, with just a tad of chilli, a pinch of salt, a sprinkle of cayenne pepper, a hint of ginger and a mini amount of garlic. I thought I was rather modest in my ambitions, but not only did I outstrip my own expectations, I stripped out the lining of my lucky recipient’

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 came out of my ears. The scales were brutal in their assessment of my brief addiction and I learnt my lesson. Round two led me to roast a chicken in preparation for the affects of steroids. Protein would surely dampen my enthusiasm for carbs as I lay, quivering with nausea and shaking with hunger, in my sick bed. It did not, and I found myself standing at the fridge eating hot lime pickle out of the jar. When I first

“Oh Granny, What are you wearing?” said a horrified looking Grand as I showed off my beach attire. I said nothing when he elected to come to my Birthday lunch in a multicoloured tutu, rugby shirt and jeans. He might not approve of my sense of style but I admire his nerve in mixing his. He’s a boy who knows his own mind and what he likes, well, he likes. We took a photo of ourselves before we sat down to eat. He had his arm around me in a loving embrace. In the picture, I looked adoringly at him. He had a bit of a smirk on his cherubic face. I’ve subsequently discovered that his little hand was not squeezing me in an act of unbridled affection, but he was busy pebble dashing my party clothes in giant cuscus and a really good set of oily smears that even the dry cleaner sucked in her breath at. When the post party pictures circulated, I only had eyes for the Grand. He was on form and looking pretty pleased with himself. As I sat in bed drinking my fourth litre of water of the day and feeling post chemo sorry

I’ve been doing a bit of media lately. I’ve got the face for radio and I’m comfortable with it. What I can’t stand is listening to myself. I don’t mind the sound of my own voice when I hear it inside my head and I’m spouting about something I’ve got the wind in my sails about. Hearing it back as others hear it, is a different matter altogether. I might not be that easy on the ear, but it’s what I have to say that matters. Lately I’ve been in the business of making other people famous and not for all the right reasons. It’s not wind that is in my sails, although wind is yet another unwelcome side effect of the you know what. What’s bothering me is that the NHS might be one of the easiest health systems in the world to access, but once you are in it, it can feel impenetrable. Let us nip smartly over the plea for cash to support my local hospice that screams from the walls of the oncology waiting room. Let us circumnavigate the confusion between condescension and compassion. We will give a wide birth to invi

At the first sign of a swollen arm you should definitely head for help if you have had your lymph nodes removed. I did this just before chemo number one. I phoned the breast nurse. On balance, she thought it best to avoid the hospital while I was on chemo. I said I’d like to come to see her immediately after chemo happened and that’s what I did. I dragged my dizzy, wobbly, walk like a drunk and feel like a drunk post chemo body round to her, to get my arm inspected. “lymphedema” she said. Then she checked with a moisture gadget. If I didn’t know better I might have thought she had a second profession as a Quantity Surveyor and was about to knock me down on price because I’m old and damp. “Not that bad. You caught it early,” she offered in reassurance. I was not reassured. I fear lymphedema. I fear it because I don’t want a waterlogged arm and now I’ve got one. We went through the exercises, and I asked for a physio referral. She told me it wouldn’t be possible because it had to be bad to get a physio appoi

The blonde bob has long since departed. Jackie, “hairdresser to the stars and your humble servant”, cut it short in an Audrey Hepburn homage. She is deluded. My friend Ranni, bought me three meters of navy blue lining cotton which I wound into a turban and practiced wearing about the house. There is a You Tube video for everything and when it comes to head coverings, I’ve done my fair share. I’ve covered a lot of ground from ultra conservative religious practices to cultural heritage and a modern twist on just about everything in between. I might be more Enna Sharples, in the resulting headgear, than “Queen” but I feel alright with that. I had a funeral to go to, so I practiced wearing my turban around the house. I jumped about a bit, shook my head a bit, read, cooked and even managed a walk in it. It stayed on and not a safety pin in sight. Then I sent a photo of myself in my turban, to those who know more about these things than me, and got the thumbs up. Thank goodness for girlfriends. Thank goodness for

I am not in Kansas anymore. Actually, it’s fair to say that I’ve never been to Kansas, nor have I ever had much of an urge to go there. It’s isn’t covered by my railcard and getting there would definitely involve wearing compression stockings, which don’t come in 15 denier. When I say that I’m not in Kansas anymore, I mean that nothing is normal, in it’s place or playing out as I had expected life to play out during the course of this year.  Life has become reduced and intense, although cancer is not the first thing I think of when I wake up, or the last thing I think of before I go to sleep.  I’m always on the hunt for humour and what better way than to amuse myself than to turn the drama, which already runs like a second-rate soap opera, into a black comedy. It’s not that I’m summoning the spirit of James Robinson-Justice. I’ve never felt the need for another encounter. “Here’s sixpence, now bugger off,” he said to the six year me. I went home to ask my Mother what a bugger was. “James,” she said.  No, my

I’m secretly curious about what it would be like to be bald. Baldness is not necessarily the preserve of old men. I’ve been on line, investigating head coverings, for fear that my own imminent baldness should cause others to run for the hills. My sleuthing has revealed a world, of wigs and turbans and scarf tying lessons, that I’m now watching on repeat. I don’t yet care too much about losing my hair, but I imagine that there are just some settings when covering up is the right thing to do and I might care when it happens. “You want a wig?” the woman on the other end of the phone said in a tone which was rather more of a statement that a question. “ehhh,” “What’s your postcode?” “Who is this?” I asked, because no one has ever said that as a form of introduction when I answer the phone. “I’m sending you a catalogue.” “But who are you?” “You got a referral for a wig.” “But who are you?” “Well who are you?” she said. “This is Anna speaking. You called me, but I don’t know who you are.” “It’s me Marjorie, the w

I’m still living season 1 of my live streaming dark comedy “my left breast”.  It’s a cracking little mini-series that has now been running for three months and promises to keep on running for at least another eight. I really hope that there is never a season 2. In the drama so far, I have given up a big old chunk of me that I thought I could never live without. It turns out that having a lumpectomy is a bit like having a bite out of the peach, or so I was told at the big reveal, that happened accidentally while I was getting out of the shower. Having your lymph nodes out is a bit more of a challenge. Every time I pick up a knife to chop carrots, I am met by cries of “Noooo” as my nearest and dearest lunge at me for fear I should cut myself, get an infection and die, or worse, that my arm cannot take it and swells to epic proportions that will cause me to moan.  I have given up my lifelong approach to checking the state of the blade, by running my thumb along it. The Son, even took my knife and fork out of m

The Halloween wig I have bought myself at a bargain price is destined for the Grand’s dressing up box. Too scratchy! Yesterday I woke up to find that the short back and sides that I had a few weeks ago, were attached to my face and not to my head. This wasn’t a migration of rootstock during the night, but a jettisoning of my locks, to reveal a pinker scalp than I imagined. I text Jackie, “hairdresser to the stars and your humble servant.” “Don’t worry. I’m going to give you a close cut, in fact it will be so close that you are going to look like Audrey Hepburn in her younger days.” “More like Matt Lucus,” I burbled. An image of myself as a giant bonneted baby came into my mind. I had to shake myself out of it. In shaking myself out of it a bit more hair fell out. Turning myself into a second rate tribute to Audrey Hepburn in her younger days, took a good hour and then I had to get the hoover out to clean up what was now lying on the floor. On the up side, I won’t need another haircut in six weeks, or even

Setting aside the demise of the blown fuse, and the kettle, before 6am. I’ve been to have my surgically induced fluid bubbles drained. I’ve been waiting for this moment since the last time I went out of the house in a state of heightened emotion and came home minus a vat of “lovely and clear” lymphatic fluid. This morning’s trip out also served as yet another training opportunity for someone who needs to get their numbers up. I am happy to oblige. Today’s student offered up an abundance of “bless you” and brief felicitations on the quality of my output. The electrician text me to say that he was an hour away. There was time enough for a trot to that well known emporium where end of lines can be precured at bargain prices. Kettles were not amongst them. This didn’t stop me from joining the till queue with a small tin of Spanish sweet chili. When it was my turn, I put my cane down on the counter next to me and pushed the chili under the Perspex screen where it was carefully examined, it’s contents read, it’s