An unbirthday

Today Luke isn't 30; just like he wasn't 10, 18 or or 29. He is in fact 6 and a half. He doesn't even get to be 7 and a half as they didn't have a leap year in 2000. Luke (third son) is our prodigal son and we have often put his lostness down to his lack of real years. We have banned him from our house; cursed his very existence and carried him around with us everywhere. Today is another fatted calf occasion, we don't need much excuse! Over the last 18 months - since he met and married Aleks and got himself a whole new family taking his responsibilities wonderfully, amusingly, seriously - he has warranted many a feast and celebration and thankfully joined in all of ours; accepted back now into the family fold. He is now the favourite uncle of Harry when two years ago he didn't see him; Harry has renamed him Uncle Pickle and Luke says it's the greatest honour he could have ever had.

Of course old Sod's law is about and no sooner do we get those demons out of the way then my very own version turns up. But for now I have fashioned a 30 shaped cake and we have balloons and bunting. He will rustle up the most wonderful Malaysian beef, Aleks will do her Japanese soup and there will be my trifle too.

Tomorrow it's back to the ward and the pink needles and I have started wearing the scarves because there is definitely less not more hair on my head now. But I know the family are one, and that my son has reached 6 and a half and that is the best medicine I could possibly have.

With friends like this...

On the way to the Biobank experience yesterday (no I am really not that fat you got your sums wrong!) we decided to go to see the Bridget Riley exhibition which is on in town at the Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery and to feel like real pensioners able to do exactly what we feel like doing each and every day. The Gallery has taken over a couple of old Victorian buildings that I remember going to with my Mom to pay bills (can you imagine those days, no cheque books, debit cards or anything and banks were just places that kept your money and didn't go around paying revolting people, revolting amounts of money to be more revolting still and all in the interests of destroying the economy).

The exhibition was small but beautifully formed, I loved her sketches and stuff but immediately got a raging headache as her visual tricks played out on my eyes. We were given an even bigger headache by a particularly nasty woman who was guarding a group of grey arties (nothing like ourselves of course, I am a trendy coconut after all). They were apparently the "Friends" of the gallery but this was the sort of friendship you have to pay for as we discovered as this woman shooed us away from the picture the "Friends" were being talked to about. We went back later to see her shushing two other non-Friends who had the temerity to be whispering about another couple of pictures nearby.

We left but I was very close to putting on my manager's voice and asking her to come outside for a moment while I put her right about rate payers' money and public galleries; and no thank you I would not be joining her gang.

We scuttled over the road to the proper gallery. I used to come here almost every Saturday with either my Dad (he trained around the corner at the Municipal Art School) or more frequently with my friend Lorraine Wilson. Lorraine like me had artistic pretensions, she saw hers through later and went onto Art College but in those days what we were really after were chaps. It had to be a particular sort of chap, older of course, intellectual and maybe a tad Bohemian so the Art Gallery was the obvious place; we tried the same at Dudley Zoo, I'm not quite sure what we were after there. We were all of 13 or 14 so don't let them tell you that the young girls today etc etc. We probably giggled too much or something because despite our obvious charms we never succeeded in picking up a single hairy prospect.

We did make lots of friends however and yesterday it was like going back for a reunion. It's literally years since I have walked around the pictures and sculptures and I wanted to hug each and everyone of them. There was the early Degas of the old lady; my old favourites the Epstein Lucifer, the Modigliani and the one with Jesus in the temple. Loads of Pre-Raphaelites of course but mixed in with Braques and Bellinis I immediately recognised and warmly gazed at just like old mates.

So another metaphor my patient followers, as we have found since September, real friends are always waiting for you, they will always charm and inspire you and you don't have to pay them a penny.

The singing coconut

Today is going to be a funny one. A few weeks ago we signed up for something called the Biobank research project. Apparently it's some big national project into how healthy we are and perhaps why we are not. It's looking at thousands of people and you have to go for a two hour session. My friend Elisabeth, her of the recorder advice, went last week and they had her on the torture bike and everything. I am in a quandary about whether I should claim disability and escape such horrors or bite the bullet as I will have to go through it all with Dr Rolle in Dresden again in a few months time if the chemo and the recorder do their stuff and I am back to my fighting fit status. Being all modern they have sent me a reminder by email and by text, if I twittered I am sure they would have done so too; it's nice to feel wanted.

Actually over the last few days, I have felt better than I have felt for ages, I don't look better as my hair is definitely on the way out. I am so glad I went for the coconut look last week at the hairdressers as it is now more successful than ever and I will soon be the less than proud owner of the full blown version . But as I plan next weeks chemo stay - it's on Monday to Wednesday as long as they have a bed - I can run up stairs repeatedly, as I do repeatedly as I keep forgetting things, without collapsing into a heap. Last night I bellowed out at least two whole rounds of Nymphs and Shepherds, try it if you need to improve lung function, in front of, and indeed with, friends Chris and Denise from over the road. My only worry is that this will be their abiding memory of me: a tuneless but enthusiastic coconut warbling " in this grove, in this grove lets sport and play, lets sport and play" etc etc.

I suppose it could be worse.

A tale of two lunches

On Tuesday we went to out local co-op supermarket and had the £2.99 pensioners' special, double egg and chips; the eggs were cooked freshly and perfectly and there was that wonderful moment when you pierce the yolk with your chip and then do it again and again and again.

I think if I could choose my last meal it would be egg and chips; that or the meal we had yesterday for our anniversary. It cost getting on for 40 times as much (one of the advantages of having my particularly dreadful form of cancer is that you can treat every occasion as if it will be your last and spend, spend, spend) but lasted probably 10 times longer and well it too was perfection; so much so that I said to Stewart that it was the exactly the right meal meal for an anniversary as each course was almost as good as sex. I will leave you with that thought and simply copy and paste the menu, with the sommelier's choice of wines, so that you can feel the flavours and taste the passion, or you could just pop and have some egg and chips, it's just as orgasmic and a lot cheaper!

Tasting menu

Portland crab meat, Severn & Wye smoked salmon,

avocado mousse, red pepper jelly, tacos

Sauvignon Blanc, Shaw and Smith, Australia 2008

~

Seared hand dived Ross Shire scallops, Avruga caviar,

tender stem broccoli, orzo pasta, seaweed butter sauce

Champagne Ruinart (1729) Reims, France
~

Home-salted cod fillet, caramelised cauliflower risotto,

coriander, cauliflower & apple salad, curry oil

Alsace Gentil, Hugel, France 2007

~

Seared duck liver, date purée, aromatic couscous

Cordun Cut, Reisling, Clare Valley, Australia 2008

~

Duo of Aberdeenshire beef: braised cheek & fillet,

parsley roots, truffle & parsley salad, red wine sauce

Le Cigare Volant, Santa Cruz, Bonny Doon Vineyard, USA 2004

~

Camembert aged in Calvados, almond, apple, & lambs lettuce salad

Poire Granite, Normandy, France

~

Carrot & walnut cake, white chocolate creamy,

salted caramel ice-cream

Tokaji Aszu, Hungary 2004

Coffee with multi-coloured macaroons and scrummy chocs were served in the lounge and we both dropped off while we waited for our taxi - I told you it was just like sex.

The answer to life the universe and everything

Just changed my profile and moved a year on to mark our anniversary and am hoping I will be doing it as a matter of course for many years in the future. Forty two years eh, so why did I marry so young and how have we made it last so long? In answer to the first question well why not? I really didn't see it as some sort of surrender of my youth and freedom; but a real leap forwards into the only thing I knew I wanted to do at that time. Also there was absolutely no chance of just moving in together in working class Birmingham in 1968, or of going on the pill until you could show them your wedding banns. So much for the swinging sixties; we had spent three years having a fantastic time avoiding anything that might get me pregnant - lessons that have served us in good stead ever since - but it was getting a bit wearing. We didn't have to save as the whole wedding only cost about £50, so why wait?

I can't say I have ever regretted that I was married when I was at university and in those heady days when life did start to swing in the 70s; I was and probably still am hopeless at saying no so I would have been in all sorts of trouble I am sure; and after all I had all that my peers were running around feeling angst about.

Next question how have we made it last? Well God knows and I have no helpful tips for others. I will list all the ways we are different and all the ways we are not and you can draw your own conclusions.


Differences:

* I see the glass brimming from the top; he sees it with a few dregs in the bottom

* He worries about everything and I worry about very little

* I think money is to spend NOW and he likes to save for the future - for the rainy day of course

* He reads around the subject, reads books about physics and stuff and I skim the surface of millions of novels

* He was mostly bad cop and I was mostly good cop when bringing up the kids; boy did they notice when we reversed roles!

Similarities

* Religion - none

* Politics - socialist

* We like the same art, films and telly

* We love to eat together

* We love the same places

* We have the same friends

* We adore our kids and grandkids

* We are both terrified of being without the other one

So on that note off I go with slightly less hair, yes it's starting to shed, to eat my way into more memories and to start the journey into year 43.

Stars and sparkle

We were supposed to be going to Wales today as my February chemo treat and also to celebrate our anniversary. Two days in a country house hotel with good food and a spa. Very uncharacteristically I checked the weather forecast on Sunday and deep snow was predicted for the Welsh marches exactly where we were going. So we cancelled or maybe postponed is the more optimistic way to put it. That of course gave me the excuse, as we were saving so much money, to book to go to our favourite Birmingham eatery, Michelin star and all. So tomorrow tasting menu with Sommelier's choice of wine here we come and as we tuck in we will be quids in too.

This time forty two years ago I was stuffing vol-au-vents and making bunting. It was a big wedding over 120 people but done very much on the cheap; my dress was made by my nearly mother-in-law for £1.50; she and my Mom and my aunts and cousins made all the food, my brother and my mate's cousin were the band and my Dad made sure there was enough Asti Spumante and Ansells to keep us happy all night long. You could hardly notice that my Mom never spoke to my Dad, he had left five years before, or that my bridesmaid was six months pregnant.

I had read that the bride should have a long hot bath on the eve of her big day so I brought forward my weekly ablution, yes those were the days! Unfortunately someone noticed this unseasonal use of the immersion heater and turned it off so the bath was not the bath of my dreams, but tepid in the extreme; unlike my groom's ardour of course although he was on the third night of his stag week and was a bit the worse for wear too.

It was freezing cold on the day and the hairdresser got my parting crooked but the sun shone and the Asti sparkled; 42 years on we are still sparkling now and then and I get to have a bath, as hot as I like, every day.

Boxing clever

It's a red letter day today in our house, not because I still have hair and feel OK although that is a lot better than expected, but because at last the enormous cardboard box full of other cardboard boxes that has been sitting, through snow and rain, in our front garden since Christmas (yes that is two months this week) has been demolished and is in the back of our car waiting for its last ride to the tip.

You will recall that we were away for Christmas having my blobs removed in Dresden but the festivities went on, for some of the family at least, in our house. Luke and Aleks (third son and his wife of only 10 months) are madly in love with Harry and Danny, so far their only nephews on our side. At Christmas this passion expressed itself in the purchase of the most enormous dinosaur seen this side of the Cretaceous period. Joe, second son, after whom the dinosaur was quickly named, was in charge of the house over the festive period. He had attempted to put the box his namesake arrived in outside on cardboard recycling day, filled on my distant instructions with all the other boxes of all the other toys Danny and Harry received. Unfortunately the recycling operatives saw through this cunning plan and either couldn't or wouldn't take it, so there it has sat ever since. It just seemed too big a challenge for us to take on but this morning out I strode with my roll of plastic bags and it was demolished and packed away in a trice.

I hadn't met Joe properly until last week because he had just sat minding his own business in the play room at Jess's house. I sat in there playing with Harry on Pancake day and do you know Joe is utterly charming just like his human counterpart. He has also given me food for thought. You see he responds to you. If you sit in the room with him and start chatting he will turn his head to you and wink his eye. If you actually address him head on he will whirl his head around, flick his tongue and utter sounds, luckily all of the time looking like the benign cuddly end of the triceratops family, if they had one.

I know this is verging on the very weird but perhaps I should contact the manufacturers to sound them out on a new business opportunity, namely Gran/Mom in the Corner. So they make a perfect facsimile of loved, but not very well, family member, programme in a few of their favourite facial expressions and responses to various conversations and off you go. As the loss gets easier or the model dustier you could just wheel it out say on birthdays or at Christmas and finally when you couldn't stand it any longer off it could go to the tip like its box before it. In big families like ours you get multiple sales you see and it would be interesting to see if each ordered a different model, saying and doing different things.

I am not sure about proposing the same thing for husbands and wives as that is bordering on the pornographic and I don't think the manufacturers would be up to the subtleties and psycho drama required in the average relationship. But who knows what the next few years might bring in model technology and if it does happen remember I thought of it first, so there, and why did it take two months to move that ******* box and no thank you I don't want another cup of ******* tea.