Well, well, well. Who’d have thought it? I wouldn’t, not never, the I who held each member of my family every time they faced something very scary, from first day of school, to delivering a first baby, through accident emergencies, breakdowns, woundings, emotional traumas and a close-knit dying. But I am here now, a rickle of things, as they were back then. Although I am not abandoned at all but beautifully supported by all whom I lifted up and encouraged down the years, I feel very alone. Distant support is not the same as holding hands with a real warm human being, one who cares, and a lot, one who will notice a daily change and respond, who will initiate and lead at times of complete flop, one who will just sit beside me, breathing, and I can hear that breathing as a reassurance. I don’t have that, nor could I in this time of my life, of their lives. I know the logic of it all, by rote, but it doesn’t address the emotional aspect. Maybe that sounds ungrateful, but, I assure you, I am very, very grateful for the support they bring. The shoring up of the walls against the storms, however, is my job, and I am so very tired and afraid.

I bought quorn mince. It’s ok. Rising, as usual, around 1 am, with, I confess, a big blue sigh, I made tea, lit my twinkly winkly lights and had a think. I had to rise, because the anxieties flood my mind on waking. There is no logic to any of the awful images, no history, no reality, but that doesn’t stem the flood of them. They are random, weird, unreal and poisonous. And, so, I rise, telling myself they are nothing to do with me, not mine, not helpful, not, not, a lot of nots going on as I pull on my warm dressing gown (ghastly thing, but cosy) and descend the winding staircase, rounding down into a pitch that might be the bowels of a mine. Well, it is mine, after all. There is one star and I look long at it, lovingly. I tell myself I am not mad, not that myself believes it, and that all will be well. A whole generation could birth, develop and die in the long hours before any light pushes up the dark, hefting it on shoulders strong and decisive. Off you go, Night. My turn now, and she, down there, can you see her in that ghastly, but cosy dressing gown, is in need of me.

At 0500 I prepare said mince. Loads of onion, garlic, tomatoes and quorn. I bring it to the boil, then simmer. For a very long time, until the colour turns towards purple, as if a whole bottle of port is in there sharing the simmering event, which it isn’t. I wonder if my neighbours can smell this at a time which will make no sense to them. I whizz up my Pond Juice, a concoction of spinach, celery, carrot, ginger and apple, divide it into Today and place Tomorrow in the fridge. It is still pitch out there and clouds have swallowed the star. I won’t let the fears in.

But, and let me admit it, they are constantly there. The internal fight is exhausting but I refuse to back down, to let them plant any flag on my ground. I am so very tired but, like a Jack-in-the-box, I keep bouncing up, even though my legs hurt, my costume hurts, my brain is mince (or quorn) and every choice faces a wall of Don’t Bother. I WILL bother. It wonders me. Is this what it was like, is like, for anyone facing any sort of war ‘against’ a force that threatens to overturn all that was normal, all that was, heretofore, taken for granted? I suspect so.

I leave the island on Wednesday 25th, for surgery on the 30th. I can feel the cancer now, as I never had before, as if it is rising up to meet my fingers. It isn’t a lump, more a small mass. Actually, that is an oxymoron, because it is either a mass (definition – a very big thing) or it isn’t. Let us go with mound. I like mounds. All across this beautiful West Coast land there are mounds, and a mound is about all I can manage these days #short term.

I might have a spot of bother with my right arm for a bit after surgery, but, as soon as I can, trust me, I will be diddling and a-fiddling about with words and dingles and thinks and rickles, and music and chuckles and and nonsense. However, I am not gone yet.