178. Covid-19 becomes more real

If it were possible for this pandemic to become more real, then now it is. I’ve tracked its progress with vague interest, railing against the government and NHS England for not recognising the value of the Covid-19 symptom tracker and all its data. I’ve sent an email link to most of my address book yet, when I speak to people, they seem unaware of it. In other words, they haven’t signed up for it. Oh dear. Does that include you?

I wrote a letter to the i (not published of course), at the end of which I suggested it was something for them to look into. That was Tuesday. On Saturday, they wrote an article about it. Yesterday and today, more articles. Yesterday’s was about how probable it was that as many as 350,000 people are still exhibiting symptoms of the virus.

Today it’s 328,700 so it’s still dropping from the peak of over 2 million on 1 April! Though the figures seem high, as a proportion of a population facing a pandemic we don’t understand, it’s actually reassuring and seeing the % of population affected in Leeds drop from close to 3% to 0.9% is even more reassuring. Better than seeing the daily hospital cases and mortality statistics which are frightening but pretty meaningless without a context such as age, underlying condition etc.

Today’s article was about the genetic link that makes some more vulnerable than others, based on ethnicity data, and the significance of underlying health conditions (which we already knew - hence the shielding policy).

This has now drawn a lot of the major health charities to endorse it. The number of people reporting to the database has exceeded 2.5 million which is a very good sample for data analysis but they need more, healthy or not, and particularly those over 70. Leeds seems to have more people signed up (over 14,000) than other places I’ve checked, maybe because the council included it in one of its news roundups and urged everyone to join. Doesn’t look as though many did, considering the population of Leeds though. It’s such a small contribution to make.

But as usual, I digress. Why has coronavirus become more real? First was the realisation yesterday evening of what I already suspected - that vulnerable people are not going to be part of the gentle wave of freedom granted to the population as lockdown is lifted. I watched a medical professional and a politician, in two different interviews, pause, then evade the question whether vulnerable people will be free to leave their homes with talk about remote possibilities like a vaccine... so it’s house arrest for the rest of the YEAR???

Second was the news that a former colleague of mine has died from covid-19. She can’t have been much older than Dennis and me but I always thought of her as older because her husband taught Dennis accountancy at university and lecturers were always ‘old.’ She arrived at Parklands as a temporary replacement for a PE teacher who had a nervous breakdown. This was at the time that grammar schools like Parklands had become comprehensives and opened their doors to the best and worst of the girls in the locality and it wasn’t unusual for teachers to be off with stress as they weren’t experienced and equipped with the skills to teach such girls, who could be ‘challenging.’ Joan was in her element. She was a breath of fresh air and very popular with the girls. She stayed on when the vacancy became permanent. Eventually she felt too old for PE teaching, despite being a very active member of her local tennis club in all the years I knew her. She’d owned a grand holiday caravan in France and went there as often as she could with her family and so she retrained as a French teacher and swapped roles.

She was funny without knowing it and often thought we were crazy when we laughed at things she said. She would rant about her nightmare mother-in-law. She brought her two sons into school when childcare wasn’t available and it never registered that the Head’s eventual ban on children in the staffroom was down to her two brats. That caused a bit of a ruckus as teachers had got used to emergency childcare in our staffroom! I think there was a certain naivety about her - she’d come from working-class Northumberland and married into affluent middle-class Yorkshire and adopted an implicit snobbery we picked up on but she was oblivious to. Once she said “We have a tramp in Wakefield” when we were discussing the problem of homelessness in Leeds. After that, one of us would make a reference to the Wakefield Tramp and she never got the ‘joke.’ Unkind? I don't think so. More gentle and affectionate teasing, if teasing can ever be benign. I’m not sure on that one. Whatever the case, Joan took it in good part and sometimes gave back as good as she got. So I’m raising a glass to Joan.I know she had underlying health conditions, but this is not the way to go, lost in the anonymity of hospitals under lockdown and funerals no one can attend. I’m sorry for this, Joan. Bless you, wherever you are now.

177. Our Changing World #5

Apologies if you’ve been waiting for more pearls to fall from my fingertips. I think it’s proof we’re living in strange times when I not only forget I’ve a blog to maintain (or close) but I also find myself with little to say. Anyway, I’ve been given a prod so...

I guess for many people the strains of lockdown are emerging. I can’t for the life of me remember how long it’s been but I know it’s not even the halfway mark for The Shielded Ones. Twelve weeks minimum sentence. Of course, it’s a lot harder for most folk who are separated from their loved ones, have their routines completely upended and find themselves limited to one or a few people for constant company. At least you can go for a walk tho!!

But what about those who’ve lost their work? I worry about how they are managing. I know how slow the DWP is at the best of times but they have been inundated with requests for support and I don’t imagine they’ll be any quicker or any more humane in their distribution of the actual money that’s needed. When you see schools delivering food parcels alongside the free school meals, you get a sense that things are really harsh.

Bramhope World has changed.

Supporting our local florist - Lily’s.
My source of unusual roses.
These are Suez, more grey than this

I have seen a wonderful side of people, particularly through the crisis FaceBook page set up which matches volunteers to need and sends out requests for sewers and fabric for medical gowns, keeps our tiny local businesses with their heads above water and keeps us all updated via our friendly local councillor. But I also see another side. It started with the comment that people who lived in Bramhope “wouldn't think that way” when I suggested a careless word could lead to unpleasant consequences if we were told how many cases of the illness there were in Bramhope.
 But now it gets better:

1. The Britannia Hotel, which flourished on overnight stays for holidaymakers using the airport, has opened its doors to a group of people who were housed in hotels in Harrogate that are now needed for NHS staff for the Nightingale Hospital that’s sprung up.

From that little bit of information, I’m surmising they may be in residential care for alcohol treatment.  These people are not under lock and key so first we had an alert sent round (forwarded to me - I don’t belong to these networks) that a person in dark clothing, clutching a bottle at 11am, obviously drunk, was walking along Leeds Road. No suggestion he was doing anything wrong apart from making it hard for residents to maintain social distancing but implicit in this was something I didn’t like.

All hell hits Bramhope

Now there are photographs of litter on our Bramhope In Bloom grass verges and pointed comments about social gatherings near the shops where social distancing isn’t being observed, as well as observations about how the rules must apply to everyone and there’s a need for enforcement blah blah... and implicit in all of this is, I think, a belief that there is no place for ’such people’ in Bramhope. As if the place isn’t riddled with heavy drinkers and hidden domestic violence like any other community. Bramhope is exempt. But it gets better...

2. The Mercure Hotel up the road has been taken over by an organisation that runs centres for new immigrants, those waiting for their cases to be heard.

Normally they would be based in Wakefield city centre where all their needs could be met (but again, rooms are required for NHS staff who can’t go home for fear of risking spreading infection). I can’t think of anywhere less practical than the Mercure, standing as it does halfway between Bramhope and Adel, with only a huge, wooded park and farmland around it. It’s a couple of miles either way before you even see another house! Those poor people. But now, Bramhope not only has drunks, we have asylum seekers. So far, the worst that has happened is some litter and some noise. Bramhope beware. The citizens are arming themselves with fierce glares, pointed comments about social distancing and calls to the police (we have one PCSO and one crime prevention officer shared with Adel and Cookridge).

Do I sound jaded? The weather has been glorious. I’ve done a lot of reading. We have a spanking new lawnmower Dennis can’t put together...life goes on.

And if you haven’t signed up, please do. This is providing essential data on the progression of the coronavirus that can inform policy decisions: https://covid.joinzoe.com/ I’ve only recently realised Zoe isn’t the researcher, it’s a large data-gathering organisation that’s paired up with King’s College, Guys Hospital, Wellcome etc. I should find out what ZOE stands for. Maybe something to do with epidemiology?

176. My changing world #4

I’ve realised I’m ducking the real purpose of this blog: how I get on with cancer, or rather cancer treatment. So here’s me coming clean, top to bottom. I dug out the original information sheets I was given in November 2018 and looked at their long lists of possible side effects, most of which I didn’t get. But I did get side effects not listed. The Macmillan leaflets indicate that side effects may last as much as two years (plenty of time to go then) but may not go at all. Great.

Read no further if you don’t need to see a long moan right now. (CBB: could be better)

So here’s Jan:

My hair has grown back white, but not the silver it was. Now it’s more yellowy. It also sticks out at strange angles and is a bit thinner BUT it’s thick enough - all it needs is a good cut and Liz will be sorting that out before they finish saying “Lockdown is lifted.”        OK

I rarely have a headache. These used to be quite regular.           GOOD

My skin is back to normal. More warty things perhaps. Maybe it’s the contrast between now and then because my skin was almost flawless during chemo (hardly surprising considering the layers of skin that disappeared. I remember a mole coming off during chemo...).        OK

My face has changed. My right eyebrow has dropped lower, as has my right eyelid. My right cheek is very slightly droopy, as is the edge of my mouth and my jowl. I didn’t have a jowl before. I do not wish to have one now but, if I have to have jowls, I’d like them to match. It’s like one side of my face has drooped by 3 or 4 mm.              NOT GOOD

Inside my head is not so promising. I have..............................LONG........................SEARCHING FOR THE DATA.....................pauses when I’m having conversations and I fail to make the connections I want to make. If I start at A and want to talk my way to B, the route has to be direct, no diversions, and even then there’s no guarantee I’ll reach B. Give me a diversion, even one of those vacuums/long pauses, and I’m lost! I call it marshmallow brain.  I have insomnia but I trained myself decades ago not to be fazed by it so it’s only a problem for Dennis,     ENTERTAINING

I remembered this from my teaching days. It just about sums up how I feel :)

I have balance problems. I still veer off in the wrong direction if I am not giving something my full attention (bit like conversation really). My right leg will cross over my left and I will stumble. I have a tendency to walk into doors and walls and I have this slight fear that I may fall down the gaping mawl that is our flight of stairs in the dark. Unfortunately, coming out of the bathroom is a bit perilous and I have to use my hands for safety. I had considered a stair gate but it would have to be a pretty high one or I’d just fold over that and fall.           BAD

My mouth is still not mine. Sometimes, but not so frequently now, it definitely is someone else’s. I still get a vague numbness in the roof of my moth, my gums and my tongue, or patches of each. This is a few times a week and generally doesn’t bother me. However, my top lip swells inside and droops almost daily, usually towards late afternoon, but sometimes I wake with it. It changes my whole appearance. It also changes things inside my mouth Ugh. My taste buds feel tiny and taste is unpredictable. Hmmm.            BAD

My mouth is frequently dry and saliva in short supply. Although it’s often still foamy, it’s not so bad as it was so water helps. However, my throat is drier. If I talk for any length of time, I begin to lose my voice, get very gruff and need water. Swallowing can be a problem. I still have problems swallowing fluids (that started just before surgery and is definitely psychosomatic) but swallowing solids is hit and miss and I often find some food lodges somewhere in my throat. I’m becoming quite adept at judging how much cough is required and what fluid will help. I can’t eat a chocolate digestive now without a drink!          BAD

I have gained two and a half stone. That would be disastrous for some women. I love it. There’s just two things I don't like. I’m carrying a lot of weight in my boob. This is CRUEL. To bless me with a womanly boob when I’ve only got one is so unfair when I spent a fair bit of my life wishing I had a bit more.’ I also don’t fit the new bras I bought so that could be a lot of money wasted AND I’ve outstripped my prosthesis. I shall need a new one when the world gets back to normal. The other thing I’m not 100% happy with is my legs. I still have very bony shins and knobbly knees but I have like a puff of extra flesh above my ankles and my calves have filled out. Happy with the calves - I just don’t recognise my legs when I stretch them out and I’ve lost my lovely narrow bony feet which I admired.       OK

My appetite remains the same. Not a healthy appetite but I’m a good grazer now. GOOD

My scar remains tight no matter how much cream I slap on and how much stretching exercise I do. By the end of the day, despite doing all the lymph brushing and all the massaging and stretching several times in the day, I still feel like I’m holding a bath sponge under my arm. When I look, it’s all normal. Perhaps a little puffiness but nothing untoward. So the nerves must be completely f***ed for my brain to be misreading the signals like this.      CBB

My breast muscle is ‘interesting.’ I have medication for neuropathic pain (the brain interprets the pain as worse than it may be because of nerve damage) and that has kept breast (noob) pain under control. The pain comes from radiotherapy, another treatment where the side effects can go on for years. However, I had a mini-Eureka moment the other day when my chest hurt like hell. I’d been sitting out in the sun with only SPF50 and a layer of cotton between me and the sun and it’s set the cooking process off again. Well, that’s how I see it. Right now it’s painful and needs regular massaging, not easy when it’s already painful.       CBB

My lower intestines remain very sluggish and still feel numb. That is great because I no longer suffer from my pre-chemo years of IBS. It is bad because I am constantly constipated and constantly taken by surprise by a bowel movement. It happens because I have a pee and presumably relax my muscles. Surprise. But I do worry a little bit that if it doesn’t come back, how much control will I have when I’m elderly? It started with that numbness during EC treatment. Two years...     CBB

Shoulders are still mobile but a bit stiff, one from the fall the other week, one from the scarring and axillary clearance. But I don’t have a frozen shoulder, which is great. I’m just a bit stiff.    OK

Hands. These are my disaster zone. I don’t have anything medically wrong which is great. However, every joint, every muscle, every sinew causes pain. Movement is essential, constant movement to prevent things seizing up. But hands don’t work like that. You need to be still to hold something. You need to keep fingers out of the way when typing. I can see some of my fingers beginning to twist and trigger finger is very disconcerting. So I massage my hands all day when I’m doing nothing, feeling like Uriah Heep, flex my wrists, look like I’m playing shadow puppets and I’m happiest knitting, or crocheting at a push, because that creates constant movement and, certainly with knitting, involves almost all fingers. Any finger not actively engaged will lock and require massage to get it back into action.       BAD

My hips are fine so far. I’ve only noticed a couple of times when I’ve felt a strain into my hip joints but nothing bad. I still limp though because I have the knees of a mistreated pit-pony. Not only do they look like them, they are painful. I can get a pain in the kneecap! Then the joints underneath hurt and all the muscles from the knees up and down my legs for about 6 inches, I guess. Behind my knees is perhaps most painful. I can no longer sit any which way. Knees bent, knees stretched, they still hurt, Best of all is when I forget to check before I move, they occasionally give way.  BAD

My ankles are great! Every other bone and sinew (and there are a lot in the foot) gives cause for discomfort or pain. Pain in certain toes feels like the bones have split into long shards and are digging through the skin. Unsurprisingly, I walk tentatively as this pain is unpredictable. I can have a day without it, then I limp next day. However the one constant pain is my heels. I know it’s plantar fasciitis. I had it diagnosed years ago and was taught strategies to alleviate it. They would be so helpful now but for the neuropathic pain. It makes the remedy for PF unusable.      BAD

To top it all (tip it all?) the peripheral neuropathy remains. To be fair, it is improving but my fingertips and toe tips remain either numb, tingly or actually painful. I’ve also noticed a correlation between worse PN and my swollen mouth/upper lip.        BAD

I think that’s it and, for the second time, if you got to the end of this, you are a true friend!!

Nope, you don’t get away so easily (mind you, right now it will be faster than I can manage with my Rumplestiltskin gait and the footsteps of a penguin reared in Hobbitland). CRAMP. How could I forget cramp. Anywhere. Down my thigh, up my calf, across my stomach... Anytime.

BUT never forget the ultimate goal - I’m still here :)

175. Our changing world #3

I am determined that tonight I will go to the end of my short drive and find out what on earth is going on in Bramhope as regards Clap for Carers. Even Leeds city council is promoting it. Dennis says there’s nothing going on - he’s gone out and checked. Lisa Next Door says everyone is clapping wildly and you can hear the cheers from the other end of the village. Someone is distorting the truth! It does make you wonder at what point they will stop. Who will say enough is enough? I always clap indoors but I’m curious. Tonight I shall investigate, In fact, in 8 minutes’ time. In case there’s nothing, I’ll use Charlie Mackesy’s latest contribution as my  tribute:

I’ve been long-listed again for the Monthly Microfiction Competition. Mind you, there are 40 on that list but there were about 140 entries so that’s not bad. I’m rather pleased they ‘got’ it - last time I went off piste, I didn’t get anywhere and I thought it was very good lol.

I’ve searched the house high and low for the book for next book group. I enjoyed it so much, I ordered the two subsequent novels. But could I find it?? I really have searched everywhere, including a charity bag full of books which we failed to put out for collection the week before lockdown. So I got it on the kindle for nothing, my monthly Prime privilege, and I started it today and recognise nothing. Maybe I haven’t read it after all. Am I going doolally? Strong possibility.

Ok, nothing in High Ridge Way. A couple of solitary fireworks way distant. A couple of cars hooting their horns on the main road, presumably at the residents out in the street? I can see nothing from up here but then, who could see past this lovely container??

Lisa’s container that seems to be becoming a fixture. Our view down the road.

Our view in the other direction. Beyond the white screen is the infamous mountain of soil that blocks the view of the green fields still not excavated.

The view from the garden, over the six-foot screen. In the far distance, a mystery digger working on a site that’s been closed. Do I turn whistleblower?

174. Jan lost it (well almost)

Unlike Carol, who lacked the foresight (or the drive of an addict) to plan ahead and buy her Easter Eggs early and therefore spent Easter Sunday feeling a little deprived, I was in the most fortunate position to find myself in possession of THREE Easter Eggs, one a gift, two bought by me four weeks ago (and an extra which belongs to Dennis but I’m sure he’ll hand it over when I look desperate enough). My conscience thought how sad it was that, in the current situation, I couldn’t nip over with one to give her but my common sense questioned if even I could be that altruistic when it comes to chocolate eggs. I don't think I‘d give one of mine to a child even!

As with last year, my attention was on the Cadbury’s Giant Egg. You may remember that, last year, all I could do was look longingly at the egg. I could barely smell it, everything tasted of foaming soap so I knew it was futile trying it, and I seem to recall being a ball of misery having just crashed my car and injured my ribs. In fact, it was the Easter weekend when my GP failed to call back to I was without pain relief for 5 days! So this Easter egg time was going to be extra special.

Until I opened the egg to a hollow of purple foil and a crushed mess which sent chocolate crumbs everywhere. You can’t brush up chocolate crumbs - they just smear. But it broke my heart to suck chocolate up a Dyson, even measly crumbs. Chocolate is chocolate. Anyway, I was straight on the phone to Sainsbury’s Customer Services. Straight? I’d given up trying to contact them:

you listen to a girly voice explaining all the problems and all the alternatives I can try blah blah blah - and then she apologises, the lines are busy, please ring another time.

That’s almost 4 minutes before being told to get lost. I was very experienced as I haven’t received any communication from Sainsbury’s about being on their vulnerable persons list. If the NHS is forcing me to stay within the confines of my home, the least Sainsbury’s can do is abide by its promise and get me on its list, using the government’s data.  I’d been ringing several times a day till I gave up.

28 minutes later, after countless apologies but please hold the line (I’m guessing people didn't bother flooding their service on Easter Sunday but I was Fury embodied and I was On A Mission), I got through to a person. I was seething, fuming; then suddenly I saw how stupid it was so I started with an apology! I ended up sorting out all the problems I was storing up (paid for this, it wasn't delivered; that was leaking; that was an unacceptable alternative but the driver wouldn’t take it back) and then I explained about my poor egg. The disembodied voice, which I recognised from previous contacts, was most apologetic and gave me a refund. I should have moved onto another egg but my heart was set on this one. HOW OLD AM I?

I’m eating the little bits for now so that display of chocolate pieces remains untouched while I mine for gold beneath. I eat eggs very slowly so I think the next month’s chocolate intake is sorted. That doesn’t stop me buying it however. Lisa told me Morrisons were selling boxes of Milk Tray for half price so I ordered 2 on her shop (along with apples and bananas for balance).

On a completely different note, I have finished all 882 pages of The Mirror and the Light, drunk in every word, spotted only one unnecessary comma, learnt several new words which I have since forgotten, AND stayed awake till 4.45 AM, determined to see how she handled the ending. Yes, I knew he died. Yes, I knew he went under the axe. There was zero chance of a different ending but I couldn’t put it down. I call that a good book. Now I can get back to Anton Lessing reading it for the BBC. What a pleasure that is. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000gn66

I’m also listening to Stephen Fry reading the first Harry Potter while it’s free on Audible till the end of April. I’d forgotten how much of the book was based in Privet Drive rather than Hogwarts. Again, how old am I? To balance it, I’m going to try the Royal Shakespeare Company doing Twelfth Night. I’ve been given all sorts of links but I just can’t get into musicals. I’m waiting for some ballet though. I’m sure if I looked, I’d find some. I have enough to enjoy for now, including chocolate scraps.

173. Our changing world #2

In no particular order:

Bramhope has set up a support network in response to this crisis (where I found my prescription collector). Someone posted, asking for the stats for Bramhope. I replied that, personally, I wouldn't want that. I am fine with Leeds or even NW Leeds stats but anything more specific could lead to problems. There are so few cases, it would be easy for some idiot to make the connections, say something inappropriate and end up vilifying an individual for starting the Bramhope Epidemic. Her reply was that she didn’t think people in Bramhope would ever behave like that. Heaven spare me from such vacuous thinking. I remember my dad telling me not to have anything to do with a woman down the road because... I can’t even recall the because but I remember being wary of the house and frightened of the occupier because I was only 7! Well, now I’m reassured: Bramhope people are elevated above normal human behaviour!

This is the support network I really felt should be in place when I was struggling last year. I was never without support but there were times when I needed something small doing locally - something from the pharmacy or the butcher for instance - and there was no one to ask. You can’t ask people to come a distance for a 5-minute task and my neighbour had done enough or was away on holiday. It brings a national crisis to get people to pull together and it maddens me that I can’t help except to donate to the local charity.

Yesterday I read outside in the glorious sunshine, despite the wind. The building site is now out of view but it was busy. And noisy. The compactor was on non-stop, creating an incessant rumble beneath me, JCBs travelled as much in reverse as they did going forward. Please, why can’t they just turn round like a car instead of driving backwards??  I know the answer btw but that warning beep is endless. It’s like being back in hospital with the drip constantly bleeping for attention. Anyway, a helicopter circled a couple of times and vanished (yes, we don't get that kind of thing in Bramhope either ;) ). Two hours later, a disembodied voice echoed through a megaphone across the site: “Please leave this site immediately. You are in contravention of emergency regulation whatever. If you have authorisation, please present this. If you do not, please vacate the site immediately.” Silence within 10 minutes. If I’d known that’s all that’s needed, I’d have ordered a megaphone months ago.

Today I read in the garden. It was much hotter and I need to move the lounger under the tree. It’s quite cumbersome and the lawn is very uneven with moss. That’s my excuse.  Managed halfway, then I think maybe a leg caught in a tuft and that was it. I fell. I fell flat on my bum like Lottie Barker. Thank you moss for softening my fall but I hurt my good arm, jarring it. It was a real toddler fall but I had to roll over to my knees to be able to get up. Omg, I’m becoming a risk to myself lol. Stop that woman getting on that seat to peer nosily over the screen to the building site!

I spoke to my GP again yesterday about the aches and pains. All my tests have been clear so it does seem like they may stem from the zometa infusion. So? “Have you tried paracetamol?” Hmmm. Actually I’ve never found it helped with anything - hopeless against period pains, hopeless against headaches - so what it would do with this condition, which really needs a minor miracle now? Now, I am noted for being a wuss when it comes to tablets so I have to chop 1 paracetamol into 4 pieces. Tonight I took 13 tablets lol.

173. One minute with...

Nicked from this Friday’s i. I shall pretend I’m an established author, tho often I’ve never heard of them - way too intellectual or esoteric for me. I imagine they had a word limit. I don’t - I can waffle for as long as I choose. My blog...

Where are you now and what can you see?
I am still in my pjs at 11am but it’s Sunday morning and there’s nothing to do. I’ve done my emails, breakfasted, edited Trina’s writing for a competition and read a bit of my book. Why am I excusing myself????? I am still in bed, my favourite place. There’s music from downstairs so I can gauge Dennis’s mood (we’ve have had conversations, I just mean music is always a good guide). Today he’s feeling fine. He’s playing one of his favourites, Henry Kaiser.

I can see an extraordinarily messy bedroom, with a bright yellow Woohoo card wrapped around the pot of a struggling plant on the window sill. Beyond, there is/was vivid blue sky. There are too many clouds for me to leap up, get washed and dressed and equipped for the rest of the day in the garden. I can see by the treetops that there’s a bit of a wind, rather than a breeze so, if I do get out for some vitamin D, it will be with my parka on. There’s sparse white blossom on the damson tree, crushed by bad garden planning by our predecessors, sandwiched as it is by ever-growing and despised conifers. From the other window, I see the beech tree, not yet budding but always a great source of entertainment. I can hear a lot of birds and no cars (in these days of plague, most people are doing as they’re told) but no birds are bothering with the beech right now. The birds sound very much like hungry starlings but look like some kind of finch in battle with what may be a female blackbird or a thrush. Why do birds never match what they are meant to look like? I must investigate later. Oh there are two red kites flirting in the skies.

What are you currently reading?
Yawn. Yes, I’m still reading The Mirror and the Light and relishing every word. I‘m about 2/3 through and already I can see her gently planting the seeds of Cromwell’s fate: who will betray him, what so-called evidence will be used against him. There will be no surprises for me but it’s delicious to see how skilfully she does it.

 For decades I believed my Auntie Eileen’s claim that we were descended from the Duke of Norfolk, who brought Cromwell down to get his own niece Katherine Howard installed as wife #5; that my great-great-grandmother Georgie Howard, the Gaiety Girl, had married the youngest son of the Duke of Norfolk and he was immediately cut off from his family so they lived in genteel poverty, eventually landing in Tynemouth Road, Mitcham (the place Mum called ‘that rat hole’). The census evidence sort of belies that fantasy, though they did have servants in 1901, so I’m sceptical now, but it used to be kind of thrilling to think that we were descended from the Howards. Unfortunately, the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Howard, is never painted in a good light but he survived for a bit longer than Cromwell!
Apart from that, I’ve read Millie Johnson’s The Marvellous Mrs Mayhew; badly written, shallow chick-lit but perfect for our first foray into an alternative book group. It was gently amusing, entertaining and short. In that last respect, it compared favourably with The Mirror ;)

Who is your favourite author and why do you admire him/her?
Absolutely no idea. It depends what I’m reading at the time. I do stay loyal to modern authors and buy everything that comes out in hardback, not great when I find it impossible to give hardbacks away! For sheer enjoyment, Lee Child, Elly Griffiths, Eion Colfer, Belinda Bauer, Karin Slaughter...I also enjoy Ian McEwan, perhaps more for thinking than enjoyment. Looking further back, Dorothy L Sayers, Paul Scott. I loved Nevil Shute as a kid.  Further back, some Jane Austen, some Thomas Hardy, maybe some Charles Dickens but usually I’m a lazy reader. I don’t want stuff that makes me think too much or struggle with the fluency of the language and story (most 19C stuff just is too verbose or the women too passive for me to truly enjoy them). To go further back would be pretentious but I can now admire Chaucer’s wit after many decades - at school, I cursed him.

Describe the room where you usually write.
Write what? The short pieces of fluff I write are mostly written on my ipad on my lap, with me propped up by pillows on the bed. Like now. This is a bad habit I got into during chemo, when I just wanted to be left alone, but it’s also the result of my husband’s lifestyle which is very much in contrast to mine. He fidgets, chops and changes and is addicted to news and political channels or playing dubious stuff he’s just downloaded and my head can’t cope with it any more. No joking- if he speaks to me when the tv is on, I just can’t hear what he’s said. My head feels it’s too full. And this from someone who could happily entertain 150+ voluble 15 year olds, all set to go out on work experience, all in the hall, me in charge. If I’m trying to concentrate, like reading, I cannot do it with Dennis around. So finding my own space in the bedroom may not be the best solution but it works. The downside is, I’ve been doing this for so long now, I feel I’m intruding into his space when I go in the living room - and I know he hates it when I go in the kitchen. “I could have done that.” Aaarrgh. So... I write up here in the bedroom.

I am too embarrassed to describe it but I have vowed to sort it out One Day. I suspect I’m turning into a hoarder. It has the same cream walls we inherited, though we did roughly paint over the RED (!!!) statement wall behind the bed. The colour scheme is the same as downstairs - once I like something, I like something - so it’s kind of aqua and teal if you look past the mess.

What fictional character most resembles you?
I don’t think I’ve ever identified with characters, though I’d love to be like Holly, the fairy in Lep-ReCon (in the Artemis Fowl novels - child/young adult?). There is a distinct touch of Miss Havisham* in me but the causation is different. I’ve never found her a freak, more an extremely sad depiction of a misunderstood woman. But I’d never manipulate people like that, I hope. I think I must be unique because I’ve never spotted any resemblances anywhere.

* To my early readers, a blushing apology for chemo-brain. Faversham was the pub we went to at university!! Mind you, how much longer I can blame chemotherapy for my lapses, I don’t know. I knew it didn’t feel right lol.

Who is your hero/heroine from outside literature?
I’ve never really been the sort to idealise people. In History, I’ve always been drawn to the people behind the scenes, the Thomas Cromwells and Bismarcks who shaped their worlds with quiet certainty, ruthlessness and amazing intellect. None of this military glory or pomp and circumstance nonsense; though some was unavoidable, it was never what they chose. In the modern world, one woman has stuck in my mind. Hanan Ashrawi who was the first female spokesperson for the Palestinian people in the peace process that has now been buried by wider developments in the Middle East. She showed such honest passion and diplomacy, would negotiate but never lose ground. I’ve just googled and she is still a Palestinian legislator, aged 73. Crikey, I though her an older woman and she was only 5 years older than me!

Please work out who is who as I lack the patience to fight with layout any longer! Chronological order - TC, OB, HA.

But, cliché though it is becoming, every nurse who gave me chemo; Belinda my breast care nurse who has talked me out of every fear (that woman should be a therapist, she’s a genius); Susan, my oncology nurse who fed me confidence and who read me wisely, knowing when to push, when to stall and when to stop; every individual involved in my care last year, including the sandwich girl Dennis had a crush on, they are my heroes. I worry for them now. And one other person, one who has overcome such adversity, such trauma and fights to survive every day - you are my hero. You know who you are. And Dennis of course. But none of these are idealised.

172. Busy, busy, busy (again)

No, it’s not often I’m busy but I have to say this week has felt frantic at times. Maybe it’s just that I’m so used now to nothingness that any change in the status quo is i) exciting ii) interesting and iii) exhausting.

We have a freezer now and there is a loaf within, freezing steadily over the next 24 hours. Unfortunately it’s not exactly small. It’s the right colour for our kitchen which is darkish blue and silver, with white paint, but it sticks out and has to stand directly under the window so, to open that, I have to haul myself up on a chair. But it’s a freezer and it’s existence explains my huge Sainsbury’s order (that and the fact that I’m getting groceries for two other households as they can’t get any delivery slots. Was mine a fluke or am I on that honoured Sainsbury list yet? I’ve heard nothing and they said they’d go by the government’s list. Well, I’m on that list. I want to be on Sainsbury’s list too!)

How come I have a loaf to freeze? A book group friend texted me to tell me the Nisa shop in Cookridge is delivering - minimum order £8! I got on the phone, placed a small order from me and my neighbour (no healthy wholemeal for her, two unhealthy white sliced for me - but I did order salad too!). It took up most of the day. First the assistant forgot to take my phone number and getting back to her was hard; then I didn’t hear any more and she’d said she’d ring for my card details. I was on the phone with Judy for maybe 75 minutes so I felt guilty but I could not get through. I guessed they’d closed a bit early and was really pissed off. All I needed was a slice of white bread for my bedtime snack (the only way I can get my 5 different meds down!), maybe another in case I fancied toast for breakfast. I got a phone call about 7.30 from a bloke on a mobile - their phone wasn’t working, no card payments could go through. They’d had to close the post office too. So by 8, I had my TWO loaves of bread as well as some tasty Co-op fruit and veg. Thank you Nisa.

Book group was interesting but not fun doing it on Facebook. I think next time I’ll suggest we do a Messenger chat because there was no exchange of ideas, just writing your answers to the questions - which actually would have generated some lively discussion - are Yorkshire people friendlier than anywhere else (nope)? What did you think of Sophie... (dull, not really a character, more a voice for the writer to run her story around)? Why don’t we have so many political scandals around infidelity now...(BJ???)? I think the Skype group chat was more successful which brings me to...

Shock! Horror! I used Zoom this morning. I participated in a group chat with complete strangers AND did as I was expected to do - went off and wrote for 90 minutes. It was productive. I finished a piece I didn’t want to do really.

I think anonymity is protected here
You’d have to be a bloody good detective
And have a bloody good incentive!

I had no idea how Zoom worked and was obviously the only newcomer to Didcot Writers, who’ve run competitions I‘ve entered. I’ve won one and been runner up a couple of times AND, you may remember, I have a longer story PUBLISHED by them. But these people obviously are in regular contact. Will I do it next Thursday? Not sure. As for using Zoom, the only thing that went wrong was when I went in for the second group chat and the camera had reversed itself so they saw my slippers and my feet resting on last night’s pjs. Yes, I was dressed. I’m embarrassed to say I even put on a bit of makeup!! But it’s very well organised - though maybe that was because Alice was confident managing it.

Tonight I took part in an on-the-spot writing competition. Usually it’s just on Twitter but Retreat West extended it to Facebook so I thought I’d give it a go. They provided the prompt at 8 and all entries had to be submitted by 9.20, short enough to fit a comment box on FB or a Twitter box, which I thought was way shorter. The prompt was ‘Why would someone do that?’ It took me about 3 minutes to jump on a subject (the advantage of having been a teacher is you’ve met so many many interesting people as kids) and I put something together that I think followed the ‘flash rules’ - begin close to the epicentre - hit the ground running - something must change. I practised in the Book Group FB page, confident no-one would be using it. I got a like lol. They must have thought I was potty but I added a brief explanation and got a very useful reply: “I thought it was EastEnders.” I don’t watch that but I know from something I do watch that there’s a key character called Stacey who’s not known for her mild manners... so I did a quick name change. Thank you Susan. I’d show you what I wrote but it’s been taken down - was it that bad?? And my own copy is nowhere near the final tweaked piece of about 100 words. Sorry folks! Heave a sigh of relief.