A Navjote in New Zealand

Brilliant! a Navjote in New Zealand.

My Indian girlfriend emailed me that her grandson had had his Navjote in New Zealand where his parents live because his father couldn't get long enough time off work to travel to India. So IGF and her husband have gone to New Zealand until next July. IGF's son posted the photos of the Navjote on Facebook.

The photos I like best are where there are lots and lots of children and my IGF looks like a matriarch there, happy and proud. I looked at how she'd arranged her sari because I'd just been explaining saris at Toastmasters, so I wanted to know how she was wearing it.

Enjoy New Zealand - how nice to be able to stay for several months, and watch and be involved in her grandsons' every day life so that she gets to know them and they know her.

Wearing a sari

Last week, my always exquisitely dressed girl friend, AEDGF, said that she was going to a party, that she wanted to wear some Indian dancing clothes and produced a sari. I don't think sarees are very easy to dance in, particularly when it's a western woman dancing, and then I discovered that she didn't know how to put one on. So I showed her, and then got her to practise. It wasn't an easy sari because it was nylon and kept slipping.

In 1976 my Indian girl friend (IGF) first showed my Australia nursing girl friend and me how to pleat the folds. Most English women don't know how to do that. I have the photos of us in the saree shop surrounded by the most beautiful colours, hues, sheens. I bought two sarees, a turquoise one and a pink one with oil painted decorations, and there's a photo of me wearing the pink one.

AEDGF rang me over the weekend because we were going to meet at Toastmasters on Monday evening. Toastmasters is a speech making club, where we practise making speeches, and it is very interesting because you hear 4 or 5 short speeches, around 7 minutes, in an evening, and they could be on all sorts of different topics. Yesterday, one chap wanted to practise vocal variety, and told us a tantalising tale of Jack Landon's, then my coaching girl friend wanted to practise a presentation she was going to give to some sports coaches, and someone else spoke about her holiday in Cuba, showing us a photo of her being kissed by a dolphin.

AEDGF hasn't got a long slip to wear under her sari and wanted me to bring her one that she could borrow. And then I had the idea that I could do a demonstration speech on 'How to put on a sari'. I dressed for the part in my turquoise sari, struggling into the choli, eventually managing to breathe because it's a bit tight. I put on rather a lot of makeup, packed the pink sari, its slip and choli and went to Toastmasters. You must imagine the looks when I arrived because although it is Christmas and we'd said that we'd dress up, the 'dressing up' was a bit quiet. AEDGF had a Christmasy hat on her head, and a gold shiny polo necked jumper, and chief toastmaster had a tie with Father Christmas faces on it, but I was the most dressed. A couple of the women said I looked stunning, so that was a good start for my speech.

I started by saying 'Namaste', and what I was going to do, which slightly worried the men because they thought they were going to be subject to a bit of a strip tease, but then I pulled out the pink saree, spread it over the floor so that they could see how long it was, and while I was doing that, AEDGF was pulling the pink underskirt on over her trousers. I didn't give her the choli. Then I put the pink sari on her, made her turn round to show everyone, showed people how the pallu at the back of my sari was a different pattern and how far it hung, and that I could pull it over my shoulders or head. I put it over AEDGF's head, told everyone how a sari made you look and feel beautiful, and finished with another 'Namaste'.

I hope my IGF'd have been proud that I remembered her lessons from so long ago. I got husband to take some photos of me in the turquoise sari, and perhaps I'll put them on Facebook, or even here. I realise there are different ways of wearing a sari, and I could look some up on youtube, but I'll stick to the way IGF showed me. Thank you. It's good to have her as a friend.

Your favourite colours

Someone recently asked me what my favourite colours are. But it depends where you are and what you're doing, if you're wearing the colours, or sitting in a room of colours for example.

Wearing colours - I wear blues, all shades of blues, and other colours only if they are blue tones. I wear turquoise, navy blue, royal blue, sky blue, lilac blue, lilac and purple. But is grape a blue grape or a red grape? I'll wear reds with a touch of blue, so crimson red works but not scarlet red. Some pinks work, but not peach or apricot because they've got too much yellow in them, and I'll never, ever wear orange.

Rooms of colour - I love the colour yellow. I may not wear it but I'd decorate every room in my house in yellow because it's so cheerful and bright. When I was a little girl, I knew blue was for Mary, and brown was for Saint Joseph, or that blue was for boys and pink was for girls. But I had a yellow mug and said that I liked yellow because it was the colour of the sun.

I like deep browns, but now I understand that brown is a colour of the seventies so I'm not allowed to have it. Well, I wouldn't wear it (not to mention that one of my school uniforms was a light brown), but I could have a yellow room, with a few dark brown oak pieces of furniture, couldn't I?

What are your favourite colours, and why?

Breast cancer women 'stop drugs'

** Breast cancer women 'stop drugs' **

"About a third of breast cancer patients stop taking medication because side-effects are more severe than they expect, researchers suggest"

says the BBC here.

I'm not surprised. Last time I saw a specialist doctor, he listened only to the first side effect that I mentioned, then he launched off into a spiel about the side-effects only being in the first three months, while I went through another side effect that minute. I watched him and thought perhaps after three months you just get so used to the side effects that you think them normal. But after reading this BBC article, I realise that you just don't bother telling the doctors because they aren't going to listen anyhow. If the doctors aren't going to listen, then you have to do your own thing to deal with the side-effects, and if that means stopping taking the drugs, then so be it.

I had an interesting email from Cancer Research UK about the causes of cancer that you can control, with a wonderful graphic that I recommend downloading and printing. In breast cancer, the fifth most important cause is inactivity, not something you might have accused me of. However, since I last saw that doctor, a new side effect has attacked me - creaky achy joints. I need supple joints so I can kick at tae kwon do, so a side effect that prevents me being active in order to prevent cancer is a very unhelpful side effect, to the point of being contradictory, and therefore the cause of the side effect should be avoided. The cause is the drugs so stop taking the drugs.

I'm a jam sandwich

Step daughter #3 gave me a hug, and her partner joined in. I felt like I was the jam in the sandwich and just as sweet.

Bowling together

Bowling together [1], not alone, demonstrates friendship, networks, and links.

My girlfriends, together with their partners or child in some cases, along with some very close members of my family went ten-pin bowling for my birthday. Some friends came from very close, being neighbours, and others from miles away, people I knew when our children were small, friends from the Open University, and friends from tae kwon do.

Unfortunately friends from belly dancing and toastmasters couldn't make it or we could have had some performances and speeches.

Husband made a wonderful cake - the best tasting he's made yet, and he bakes good cakes. He iced it with numbers

00111100

People gave me wine, flowers, smellies, chocolates and books, so I'm having a week of luxuriating in the bathroom. There's sparkling Saumur left to share if you have the time to come and visit me.

I don't know who gave me a dozen pink scented roses - they're beautiful. Thank you, friend.

---

[1] Putnam, R. D. (2000) Bowling Alone : The Collapse and Revival of American Community, Simon & Schuster, New York ; London.

Sixty reasons to cheer

Sixty soon and sixty friends and sixty things to do - what a long list compared to that of a six-year old - did I have a birthday party when I was six? I might have had. I know I didn't have a party when I was seven, because instead my baby brother was born, and they told us (my bigger little brother and me) in the playground at school that we had a new brother, and we went home and saw him in bed with our mother.

Following the example of a colleague who was fifty recently, here are my sixty reasons to cheer in my sixtieth birthday.

Successes!

Today has been a good day

1. Step daughter #2 had a mortgage offer
2. Son earned his Masters degree with distinction

Cancer statistics

Did I have cancer? Am I a survivor because that routine mammogram in February found the tiniest lump, diagnosed it as cancer and I had local treatment (operation & radiotherapy), followed by systemic treatment (these nasty anti-hormone tablets). I reasoned that it was such a small lump that it wouldn't have been feel-able for at least a year, and then some. So with treatment at that stage I'd certainly have lived longer than five years from last February. Now I've had the diagnosis and the treatment, of course I'm told I'm likely to survive five years and the survival statistics would look good, but I would have survived those five years anyhow!

Now there's a debate about routine mammograms resulting in over-diagnosis, consequent over-treatment and survivor stories that encourage greater take-up of mammograms. Here's the original research from America, in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Note that the authors, Welch & Frankel conclude:
"Most women with screen-detected breast cancer have not had their life saved by screening. They are instead either diagnosed early (with no effect on their mortality) or overdiagnosed."

Perhaps I don't need to keep taking these horrid tablets. I shall certainly argue this point with the oncologist at the next meeting in January. Perhaps it would be reasonable to stay on them only until the next mammogram in March shows that there are no more lumps. Last time I saw an oncologist, he said that if new lumps appear, it tends to be within the year or eighteen months after initial diagnosis. So perhaps I can come off the tablets after a clear year to eighteen months, instead of staying on them for five years.

BIG birthday

I have a big birthday coming up and I would like to celebrate it. I'd like to celebrate:

1. with sixty girlfriends,
   
2. take them to a spa for a day,
   
3. with a nice lunch and
   
4. lots of bubbly.
   

Realising that around a dozen girlfriends had commented supportively on my Facebook page when I talked about my radiotherapy, I wondered if I had sixty girlfriends, so I counted them up and reached over seventy. Seventy girlfriends collected over the years from school, college, work, hobbies, and neighbours, and my lovely female relatives.

But, first I couldn't find a suitable spa for us all, although daughter and I did go and test run a couple. ;) And secondly, some of my friends live too far away, maybe only in another county, but some live in the States, or Australia or Spain or New Zealand or somewhere in Asia.

So I'm planning a smaller get together of my local girlfriends with a few important men friends as well for luck.

I've asked Husband to bake me a big fruit cake, and last night the kitchen smelled of spices and fruit, so that's promising. I've found a venue, and started to invite a few people.

Now, I need to organise the nibbles and fizz. How shall I decorate the room? Any suggestions?

Young nuns

The BBC recently had a production on young women contemplating becoming nuns. I knew it was on having seen a review of it in The Tablet, but I hadn't realised until son pointed it out that one of the young women was someone I have known. Though I haven't seen her for more than ten years, I've talked on the phone with her mother nownthen, and son has been in touch with her more recently and has time and respect for her.

It's good to know how the youngsters have grown up.

Bureaucratic messes

I sent off my tax return a month ago, to town A, as tax man asked. Now, a month later, I get a letter from tax man at town B, saying he wants my return! So I've sent him a copy of the return I sent the first tax man, together with a covering letter. Friend who's an expert on tax says that all HMRC post now goes to a central system that allocates it round the country to offices that have capacity. So the fact that I sent something to town A doesn't mean it actually went there - it may well have gone to town Z! It should however have reached them and been recorded so the implication is that they have managed to lose it. Typical!

Daughter's university accommodation wants to be paid on a card, and with direct debit but the account needs two signatures so it doesn't have a card, and the accommodation organisation has mislaid or lost the direct debit we set up in April. They've agreed, reluctantly to accept a cheque. So I've written a cheque, and a covering letter.

Messes come in threes. I've managed those two but I can't manage the pension letters I get from Barclays. I can't make head nor tail of their jargon, their numbers, their variation on dates, annuities, instructions and policies. I wish I'd never bought the bloomin' policy because the effort is just not worth it.

Versailles kir

Nice trip to Versailles with nearest and dearest to finish off my PhD with a celebratory glass of kir at the Open University degree ceremony.

That's my third trip to France this year.

Herbie's blog

Husband's new grandson arrived at the end of July. He was a couple of weeks late, but making up for it with his own blog at http://herbieharford.blogspot.com/.

Hotel service

As part of the Ramblers tour, we stayed four nights at the hotel in Foix, which was in the centre of an interesting old town.

On the Tuesday, we moved to the Hotel Bristol in Carcassonne. The room was airy, with a nice view over the canal, but therefore noisy at night, or quieter but hot if you closed the windows. I needed a pillow but to my surprise the pillows in the wardrobe had no pillowcases on. I had to wait until Wednesday, when the chamber maid put a pillow case on and in the afternoon I came back to a nicely made and comfortable bed.

On Thursday, I touched up my nails with new light blue nail varnish, then dashed out leaving the nail varnish in the bathroom (I think). Yet, in the evening I could not find the varnish again. Weird. I moved the furniture around, which revealed how dusty the carpet was. I left it like that. On Friday morning, the room was thoroughly vacuumed and the dusty carpet looked really clean but I never found the nail varnish.

Tired on holiday

I thought on this, the last day, I would walk a bit, but I've woken too lethargic to be bothered to eat breakfast. Today's walk, despite starting gently, finishes with a long walk and no-get out clause.

Nevertheless, this week I've walked round Foix, and the village of Montsegur, visited Mirepoix and Carcassonne and its old city - I went up there on the navette train, and I've met some interesting people amongst the other ramblers.

I spent a happy couple of hours yesterday on the Canal du Midi, on a boat trip from Carcassone up to the lock, l'Ecluse de Ladouce. At the end of the nineteenth century, the tow paths, used by tow horses were eroding, so they planted plane trees to protect the bank because these trees have a strong root system. However, the problem now is a fungus that is attacking the trees, which may need to be replaced.

Walks in the foothills of the Pyrenees

Our holiday was here in Cathar land. The Cathars were a heretical sect that flourished in these foothills in the 12th and 13th centuries. The sect built some of these romantically sited castles, some ruins of which still exist on rocky desolate mountain tops.

Husband walked and explored them. He took these pictures.

Lastours - group of 4 'castles' in the Montagne Noir north of Carcassone

On the path to Montsegur - well into the walk but there's a big climb yet

Peyrepertuse Lower - looking down on the lower part of the castle perched on a ridge of rock

Queribus from Peyrepertuse - then on to the next castle to look back




Queribus from Cucugnan - having walked down from the castle to the nearest village

Roquefixade from village - we're going up there!

Montsegur

I visited Montsegur with the group. They went walking; I went on the bus down to the village, chatted over coffee in French with the driver, visited the museum and all but fell asleep in the sunshire. The others came down from the castle covered in mud, smelly and dirty and they loved it.

From Foix to Carcassonne

We been on a week long Ramblers tour in the foothills of the Pyrenees, landed at Toulouse on Friday, the last day of my radiotherapy. I had the last treatment at 8.30 in Oxford, and we caught the plane from Heathrow at 2.30.

We spent four nights at Foix, and four at Carcassonne, stopping en route at the picturesque village of Mirepoix, where I had my usual espresso and glass of water.

French colonies de vacances threatened

Today's French paper says that fewer children are going to colonies de vacances - a holidaying tradition of the French for decades, perhaps for nearly a century. These camps, lasting three to four weeks , are organised and run on a day-to-day basis by moniteurs and monitrices, themselves young people on the cusp of adulthood, people who love children, love enlivening their holidays with games, crafts and songs and are willing to spend 24 hours a day, seven days a week with them for all the holiday, eating with them, sleeping in their dormitories. The only break the moniteurs get is a half day off once a week.

It's hard work, and you have to enjoy it. If you're English, you get a unique opportunity to live and speak the young French culture. I know. I did it in the 1970s. Watch "Nos jours heureuse" for a reflection of the episodes of frustration, worry, joy and love that being a monitor on a colo can bring you. Excerpts of it are on YouTube and it was a hit movie in France in 2006.

But now fewer French children go to colo as more parents take them on more exciting trips.

An even bigger threat is European employment law that requires minimum wage (SMIC) and longer breaks.

It's arguable that the provision of board and lodging makes up some of the wage, but even so, it is appallingly low for the 24/7 job that monos do.

Worse than the wage, to my mind and memory is the time off - hardly time to go anywhere (if you had the transport, money or remaining energy) or to sleep (if it were quiet enough). But the French 35 hour work week might put paid finally to this unique tradition.

Radiotherapy

Seven treatments down, thirteen to go.

They told me the side effects would mean that I'd be tired and lethargic, but the tiredness is only because I'm driving so much. I'm out of bed half an hour earlier to get to work twenty miles away an hour earlier, eat my lunch at my desk, and then drive 44 miles to the hospital for the treatment, which is nearly always late. The lethargy is because you sit around lethargically waiting, fifteen, thirty, forty-five minutes until your machine is ready for you. It takes five minutes or more for the radiographers to position you exactly right, with the tattoos and their latest felt tip pens marks lined up with the green laser lines, and then two minutes for the treatment. Then I drive 20 miles home again, in the rush hour.

These radiographers work long and intensely without a break, from eight o'clock in the morning until 6.30 in the evening, hoping to reduce the waiting lists. In the mid-afternoon, there are more people to chat. The men agonise over how long they have to wait and just how full their bladders have to be before they have the therapy - they've got prostate cancer - and they have to have a full bladder and an empty bowel so that the full bladder pushes the bowel out of way of the radiation that would otherwise give nasty side effects.

Waiting, we read, chat, do suduku puzzles. I take a research paper to peruse. I'm making a lot of progress on my reading, and I drive home calmly, usually later than I'd hoped but in time for evening activities like tae kwo do.

Race for life

Daughter ran in the Race for Life - well she walked it actually, but still completed her five kilometres in less than an hour despite predicting she was going to take two hours. Well done her, and well done that she raised nearly all the money that she targeted.

Tattoos

I now sport three tattoos.

What?! Me have tattoos?

It's not a well-known side effect of treatment for cancer that you can get tattooed, but if the treatment is radiotherapy, then they have to measure you very carefully to be sure to aim the radiotherapy in the right place, and you have repeated doses of radiation day after day after day. So when they measure you, when they know just where to aim, they tattoo you so that they can use the tattoo marks to place you and to aim the radiation just right every day.

Another advantage of tattooing is that if years later you need to explain where you had the radiotherapy, the record is there on you in the tattoos, warning medical people that you've already had radiation to that spot.

I wonder what they do when they get patients in who are already so well tattooed that there's no room for a radiotherapy tattoo.

The tattoos are tiny - the size of a full stop on this page - my husband kindly tells me that one of mine looks like a blackhead. Thank you husband.

A good friend

What's a good friend? What can you talk to a friend about? It used to be that you couldn't at polite dinner parties discuss

• sex
• religion
• politics

But I think I've discussed all these with my best friends. I had some fantastic friends in the town where I lived for twenty years, and they helped me crystallise ideas on many aspects of life. One friend - a mother of four children - had her youngest son at the same time as I had my first born. She was so helpful and sensible on bringing up children, just being there doing it in front of me, advising if I asked.

Another friend wanted to talk about religion and gave me the opportunity to attend an Alpha course at our local Anglican church, something I'd have liked to have done through the Catholic church, but there wasn't the opportunity. I see Alpha courses are discussed on Mumsnet here.

And only good friends can talk to you when you've got cancer. Servan-Schreiber writes that the evidence is that women with good friends (girl friends, not husband) survive breast cancer better. And I know from the reaction of my women friends that they're supporting me. Aren't I lucky with my friends?

Party preparation

The house smells of jam tarts. Girlish laughter sounds from various rooms as daughter and her friend prepare notices, food and dresses for tomorrow's fancy dress party. This is a belated 21st party now that daughter has returned from France, and it's on the theme of

Alice in Wonderland.

I've been volunteered into sewing an Alice style white pinny with a lace and a big bow, and somewhat to my surprise, I find my sewing skills are up to it, despite having no pattern. I've cut the material to size, gathered the waist, tacked hems, and sash, and am about to hand sew the last seams.

Daughter and friend have produced some wonderful cut-out and carefully lettered signs, such as

"Down the rabbit hole"
and
"Caterpillar's lair"

The atmosphere is fun and anticipatory, and the raspberry jam tart smell whets the appetite for the fun tomorrow.

Amsterdam

We've been to Amsterdam for an academic conference held at the Vu University in the suburbs of the city. It's a city of wide flat streets and cycles, the main streets separated into several lanes for each category of user, s tarting from the outside,

• a path for pedestrians on each side, then
  
• a cycle track with cyclists (nearly) always on the right hand side of the road, so single direction, then
  
• a lane for vehicles, and
  
• in the centre perhaps two more lanes for trams.

Yet despite so much apparent traffic, few cyclists wear helmets, even when transporting one or two children in seats in front and behind them. Perhaps this is because each type of traffic is physically separated, and cyclists feel safer than amongst the aggressive, arrogant pompous road-owning drivers of the UK. But on the other hand, husband didn't know which way to look where when he cycled through Amsterdam.

On the trams, friendly Dutch people made eye contact, sometimes chatting briefly and smiling when I attempted to read Dutch, "Houd uw karte hier" meaning "hold your travel ticket here" so it can be checked as you get on and off the tram.
Dutch food had not held much to invite me, but I discovered two delicacies:

• karne milch
• haring

Karne milch is akin to a drinking yogurt, slightly source, very liquid and thirst quenching. I think it's a drink made with the rennet that we used to have in England until the 1970s when it disappeared with the marketing invasion of yogurt from Europe. We called it buttermilk.

Haring is herring and new herring arrives in Holland in early June. It's a soft fish to be eaten raw with plenty of finely chopped onion, the idea being that you pick it up by the tail and lower it into your upturned mouth. It is so revered and delicious that our conference host treated us to new herring one evening. Yum.

Erasmus students

Interest, experience and money - what appeals?

Daughter has been an Erasmus student at Bordeaux for the last year, blogged here. How exciting to live abroad for a year, to learn the culture and language, and still to be making progress in your chosen university subject.

And financially, the year abroad becomes appealing because you do not pay any tuition fees to the university you are visiting.

On top of that, UK Erasmus students receive a top-up grant.

So daughter is literally quids in.

Arcachon - dune of Pilat

This is the breath taking view from the top of the highest sand dune in Europe. Decades ago, I came here at midday and climbed to the top of the dune. I can still remember the heat and exhaustion of such a silly escapade. This time, I came at five in the afternoon, with a hat, and found that now there are steps to take you up to the top, so it's much easier.

However, once you start to walk across the sand, it's easier if you take off your sandals else you sink into fine dry sand, which fills up the soles of your footwear and drags your feet.

Earlier in the heat of the day, we spent time on the beach at Arachon, sun bathing and bathing, collecting shells and suntan, with a pleasant lunch in the sun at a local cafe and finished with too too filling gaufres (waffles). Only as the shadows grew longer did we climb the dune.

Beautiful Bordeaux

Bordeaux is a lovely European city to live in, a city we visited about 18 months ago, and have just revisited because daughter has been living and studying there as an Erasmus student. She has a flat near the market and every day can go, look at and buy this beautiful French fish, saucisse, oysters, fruit.

Close by the market is the best bakery, one that is open 24 hours a day.

We stayed in a lovely bed and breakfast, called Maison d'Amarante, where our hostess was so kind that she even invited our daughter for breakfast too. Bordeaux is not just a beautiful town, but its people, the Bordelais are so friendly too. Visit it if you can.

Les aires de France

We've been to Bordeaux, travelling by car from St Malo, a long drive but with frequent stops at aires.

Les aires are the motorway breaks on French autoroutes. They tend to occur every 10 to 20 kilometres, more frequently than British motorway stops, but also much much smaller. Some aires provide only toilets, benches and a few tables in the shade, but are frequent enough and pleasant enough to encourage you to stop.

Some aires have fuel, toilets, a small shop that sells coffee and sandwiches, and a terrasse with shade and a few chairs and tables, set in the shade, perhaps with a glass roof in case it rains. The flowers and shrubs are frequented by birds, and small animals living on the crumbs that people drop. We sat at a table in the shade, listening to the sparrows, watching them chase each other through the trees or attempting to hover around car fronts wanting to pick the dead insects off.

PhD viva done

Now what shall I do?

Six years ago as I applied for a PhD scholarship, the last of the children were on the point of leaving home, one going to university, another starting sixth form. I'd completed that job and had to relinquish it.

On Tuesday 17th May, I successfully defended my thesis against my examiners' questions to be awarded the PhD with minor corrections.

Today I have to do

• no PhD work
• no tutorial preparation or assignment marking
• no research for my new job
• no children to mind

In the next few months I shall tidy up a few ends, enjoy my temporary job and sort out further cancer treatment. I have to relinquish the research that has become my baby, and find a new project.

Royal wedding

The church bells are ringing, the blackbirds are singing and people are hanging out the bunting. It's a great day for a lovely wedding.

microlight

Went microlighting - never done it before - at a local airfield here. It's not like gliding because the controls feel different, but it is like gliding in an open top glider like the Baby Grunau I used to have. You can feel the wind on your face and whether you're flying straight or there's a slip wind. You also have to wrap up in a way you don't need to in an enclosed glider, so they lent me this amazingly cosy flying suit, all lined and zippable. You sit behind the pilot (in a glider you sit in front) and you talk via headphones under your helmet, so it's more technologically enabled than is gliding.
It's nice weather now to fly like this, though I don't reckon I'd want to go very high or fly in winter weather.

Rotten Romans

We took two grandchildren (and son) to see the stage performance of The Rotten Romans today at the local theatre. I have to recommend the 3-D visual effects in the second act. They lend you these plastic lenses that polarise the visual effects and then they start the second act with doves flying through the air, and apparently right up into the circle where we were sitting, which was very effective. But more effective was the later hurdling of posts and arrows and other lethal armaments - the children in the row in front of me jumped so much they nearly sat back a row and onto our knees.

New job

I have a job, a new job, a job that starts on Thursday, a job I can do, a job that uses my research skills, my experience of teaching in Higher Education, and my computing skills. How's that!

It's a job that requires me to focus on communications and usability of a web-site, and to bring in more participants, specifically doctoral students as a pilot study round a particular part of the site. It's a part-time temporary job, partly because they're working on renewing the funding, partly because we don't yet know each other, partly because I'm still preparing for my viva, and don't know when that will be, and partly because I want some spare time in case I need extra treatment.

So how's that! I'm cancer-rid, and stitch free since yesterday and I have a job. Go me!

Yeuchy

I feel yeuchy, but I guess all is well.

Team of medics

I saw fourteen medical professionals yesterday:

1. staff nurse, Stef, who took blood pressure, pulse, temperature
   
2. a reassuring junior surgeon who likes her job because she sees people get better and that's what she went into medicine for. She drew in black felt tip pen on my breast, marking it with a big black arrow and the acronyms WLE and SLN for wide local excision and sentinel lymph node biopsy
   
3. a senior surgeon, but not my own, who told me they'd get me on the conveyor belt
4. a breast care nurse who told me that surgery was the first step to recovery and my cancer is oestrogen positive and that means I'll probably get hormone therapy tablets rather than chemo.
   
5. an anaesthetist who wanted to know about my dentures and crowns
6. three people in x-ray to do ultra-sound, insert a wire into the cancer, then x-ray it
   
7. two people in nuclear medicine, one to inject a radio isotope and one to photograph it reaching the first (sentinel) node of the lymph glands
   
8. another nurse to fetch us from one place in the hospital to another
   
9. another anaesthetist or nurse when I walked down to the operating theatre
10. my own surgeon - we made eye contact, not conversation
    
11. three anaesthetists as I went to sleep
12. two different anaesthetists when I woke up, one shouting "It's negative"
    
13. a different staff nurse on the new shift
14. a different breast care nurse who left me with a leaflet on arm exercises

I suppose that they all work together as one team.

Surgery

Tomorrow I go for day surgery, the start of the treatment for cancer. The surgery scares me less than anticipating chemotherapy making me unable to do things, like not being able to prepare for my viva, not being able to get the new job I want now I've finished my thesis. I want to travel abroad, but chemo makes insurance difficult I read. I have read loads of leaflets on breast cancer and its treatment and the side effects of the treatment, and it sounds a horror story that I don't want to know.

• Lymphodema in the affected arm because they take out your lymph nodes and your arms swells,
• Travel insurance companies turning you down because you're on chemo and might pick up any infection.

Pretty miserable really.

Competitions

Funny that competition thing.

On Thursday I found myself in the company of seventy high-flying women, courtesy of an invitation from Mrs Moneypenny to a shooting day. The beginners were grouped together - I'm a beginner - to learn to shoot clay pigeons, and while one of us shot, the other four chatted, or 'networked'. These were lovely women who knew how to talk, who wanted to know about each other, how we knew Mrs Moneypenny and if we'd shot before. It was quite a contrast to my experience on Monday at a London School of Economics workshop on Information Systems and the Financial Crisis, where people just did not mingle and talk. Yet most of these women were in finance or investment banking. We cheered each other when we managed to hit our target, and perhaps we gradually improved.

After coffee we were rearranged into teams to shoot a flush as a competition for the highest scoring team, and to my delight I began to hit the clays, including hitting two at once! Wey-hey! Go me! I think I was just as competitive as all the other women, even though I don't have a high-flying job.

Competitions and competing

I am not competitive.

Around 18 months ago, anticipating my viva when I'll have to talk coherently about my research, I joined our local Toastmasters, a speech making club. I enjoy it because I meet pleasant people, listen to speeches about topics I know nothing about and learn from, and I only have a few minutes walk on a Monday night to get there. It's not competitive; it is supportive. We're all there to learn to speak better in public. The format of the evening is usually:

• introductions to club, visitors and procedures
• table topics
• prepared speeches
• break
• evaluation of table topics and speeches
• wind up

Occasionally club members compete with other clubs, but I don't do that. I don't want to compete, and that was what yesterday's table topics session was about - competing.

Table topics is where a member stands up, introduces a topic and then calls on other members to speak ad hoc for up to two minutes on a question of the table topics master's choice. Yesterday's questions were:

1. "Why do we compete?"
2. "It's the taking part that counts"
3. "You have taken part in"
4. "How competitive are you you?"
5. "What does taking part in competitions do for us?"

Paul said we compete because it's fun - but I think that's a man's approach. Sue said that the taking part counts and argued for a competitive spirit to win the team business or the whatever you're after. I kind of agree with her there, because when I play tae kwon do, if I have a soppy partner, it's no fun, and I'm not doing much. But then I drew the third question.

"Tell us about a competition that you have taken part in, or won"

Now I don't want to do tae kwo do competitions, but I'll take part. I'll have a go, like I'll have a go at table topics, but there's no way I'm going to win in tae kwon do because I'm too slow, too old and too weak and the only people I can beat up are the youngsters with a namby-pamby character. But I might make a decent attempt at a pattern, even though I dislike the sparring and apologise if I hit someone! So that's what I said at Toastmasters yesterday, and they liked my speech enough to vote me the best table topics speaker of the evening!

Am I competitive?

No hugs - I'm a big girl

Have you ever noticed that when you tell some people your personal bad news, they want to hug you? Why do they hug you? Does it make them feel better, or you? Or does it just make you cry more?

I like cuddles and hugs in the right place, at the right time.

My mother tells me I was a very cuddly baby, but when I was a toddler I started to refuse cuddles and she couldn't understand why, but I remember crying and an adult telling me,

"Big girls don't cry"

If big girls don't cry, then if I'm being cuddled, I must be crying and so I'm not a big girl, but being a big girl is something I want to be, so don't cuddle me because I'm not crying, (even if I am). So I used to struggle out of the cuddle!

I don't react like that now, but I still don't always need the cuddle that someone else needs to give away.

Stress coped with

What a stressful week that was.

On the same day that my supervisor gave me back the final comments for my thesis at one o'clock, I went to hospital for the results of the x-rays, ultra-sound and biopsy.

"Unfortunately, ..."

started the doctor as she told me that the lump is cancerous, just a tiny 7 millimetre crab-like lump, creeping round my breast, a silent uninvited invader despite my excellent diet, and exercise regime. I spent the next three days desperately writing the final parts of my thesis, getting up at four in the morning to write because I couldn't sleep for thinking of my thesis and my cancer, and

I have to rewrite that bit, but I've got cancer so now what do I do?

The thesis is in. I win.

PhD work

I've submitted my PhD thesis, here, and that's taken some stress off me. Of course, life comes up and hits you with other things, but I've written the thesis and am strong enough to cope with the rest of life, even when it's out of control.

I'm going to do lots of tae kwon do over the next three weeks and get really fit. I'm going on my first black belt patterns tae kwo do session on Sunday, and kinda looking forward to it. The hesitation is because if we spar, I don't like getting hit! I'm going to relax a bit for a few weeks even if I still also have to

• catch up assignment marking
• write a paper for a conference
• follow an electronic seminar on tutoring with elluminate
• work through a Higher Education teaching skills workshop
• and oh yes! Prepare for the viva
  

LPA & banks agin

A very nice bank assistant now rings me and tells me that it is not possible to have two cards on a single named account, so if I have a card, then aunty can't have a card. Now that I've put the phone down, I think

"but we've had two cards for a year so why not now?"

Lloyds-TSB does not seem to have co-ordinated systems.

Theatrical digs

We've got lodgers now and again. This is a new venture we've only started since the new Aylesbury Waterside Theatre opened, and the old town residents learned that casts and crews would need temporary lodgings for the few days or weeks that they were here. We have a house big enough for all our children, and are keeping it - who knows when a child is going to rebound? We r-at-tle in its empty rooms, so we do theatrical digs.

We had some cool lodgers last week - Miguel Angel and Steve Dorsett alias Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper from the Buddy Holly Story, reviewed here. I went with a friend to watch the show. The cast are musicians as well as actors. I was fascinated by the audience, mainly women in their sixties and a few men, who got up to dance in their seats, to the annoyance of my height challenged friend. Like her I couldn't see past these dancers and eventually we changed seats so we could stand to see without bothering anyone behind us. We both enjoyed ourselves - it was well worth seeing.

Banks & legal power of attorney

Remember I've got legal power of attorney to run my aunt's affairs.

Aunty's bank has stopped me using her debit card, which means I can't pay for her services by card until they send me a new one. I did not ask the bank to stop it. We even had a discussion about aunt's card and the card I use. I rang and checked with the bank and they said the card was working at the beginning of the month, but now they've stopped it. The first I knew was when people started to ring me to ask for cheques because the card wouldn't go through. So now I have to write letters to the bank to get the card sorted again. Otherwise I'll have to write at least five cheques a month, and envelopes to go with them and cover notes to identify the invoice that the cheques are paying.

It really is a pain working with these banks - they don't understand Power of Attorney

I like it in the glory hole

"I like it in the glory hole"

was the status I wrote in Facebook a few months ago. The women were playing a game that involved changing your status to something intriguing that didn't refer to the actual object. Last year's game referred to where you kept your handbag, but the statuses, like

"I like it hanging off the end of the bed"

of course had double entendres.

The year before we'd played a similar game where you had to change your status to what what colour your bra was: black, yellow with white stripes, pink spotted. The ostensible aim was to raise awareness of breast cancer.

I've got a lump.

I had a routine screening a couple of weeks ago, but got a recall. An hour ago I was diagnosed with a lump in my right breast - too small to feel and picked up on routine check 2 weeks ago. I am now x-rayed, ultra-sounded and biopsied. Am to go back for results of biopsy next week.

So I'll write this blog, but not publish it yet.

Itch scratched

I've just completed this four day acting school, reviewed here. I learned about breathing, presentation, voice control, posture and movement in exercises I've never done before and worked more with people than I have done for years.

Singing: Thanks to Grantley Buck, we sang from 'Some Enchanted Evening' and 'A Cockeyed Optimist ' from South Pacific, we sang 'A Real Nice Clambake' from Carousel. I haven't had singing lessons since I left school, and I'll swear they didn't teach me to open my throat like a foot-long dentist's syringe was coming at it. We all loved the singing classes, coming out buzzing with energy and happiness.

Fighting: we practised punching our partners with sound effects like we'd made contact. That's call a knap and is a method of making the sound without actually touching your partner. We learned strangling, another lesson was fighting with swords. This is how to do team work.

Moving: Marcelle Davies started the first day's movement class with a clapping exercise when we passed a clap around us, between us, across a circle, and extended it to call our names - a new way of learning a classes names. Another movement exercise with Jenni had us falling to the floor to a count of ten, and rising to a count of ten, but then reducing the count to six, to four, to two, to one. You have to be fit to do this course.

We learned to dance and perfected a pavane, enjoyed dancing jazz, & the training was professional for professionals. For instance, in the jazz class, first our teacher had us stand like professionals. "Now" she announced, "you look employable." Like we amateurs, and several would-be professionals, could ever be paid to dance professionally.

And Shakespeare, which was the class where we learned the least, perhaps because at least for the first session, the director was having a bad day. We didn't learn much about Shakespeare, or his work, just watched and listened to each other perform. If we rattled off the words by heart with no meaning to them, we got little help on interpretation - but learned we should have worked harder. If we hadn't learned the lines well enough to say them without more than a couple of prompts, even if too nervous, then we were told we could sit down again. Sometimes the director asked us why we chose to present characters in a particular way, and that usually seemed to mean that we didn't understand the character - like we were acting Cassius young when he was old.

Voice: Clare Davidson had us spouting Shakespeare with our tongues out and our heads between our legs, but it is amazing what a difference the exercise can make to the timbre and clarity of your voice.

Scenes: The director, Jeanette, started us with introductions. We had to pass round a box of matches, light a match and tell the story of our life in the time it took the match to burn. We watched each other, but the drama was in the lighted match. Then we were given a synopsis of the play, and the parts we were to take. Each of the three groups presented scenes from a different play

• 'My mother never told me',
• 'Old Times' by Pinter
• 'Closer' by Patrick Marber
  

In the last hour of the last day, we played our scenes to the other groups, and to the director, Paul Caister. And I finished the course in a love scene from Patrick Marber's 'Closer'.

Graft craft

Graft - tales of an actor is a one-man show that neighbours and we went to see locally last week. It's horrendously depressing from the black stage, the black costume, the black theme, and the shouts and struts of the actor, George Dillon. The theme is the career of a dedicated actor from start to sad end. The warning is "don't join the theatre".

I spoke to George Dillon afterwards, commenting that he had warned me off going to The Poor School next week for a short acting course. He said, "Good". He goes into schools aiming to put off the young and beautiful from an acting career. I pointed out that I was not young and beautiful, and he relooked at me, then asked if I had put enough money behind me to support myself! Then sighed, as if to say "well, can't persuade that one!"

Years ago I had acting training at college, and loved the experience enough to do amateur dramatics for a few years after, until gliding and husband took over all my time. I never seriously thought of going on stage. But I'm treating myself to this acting course next week, putting PhD thesis aside (all written, almost all done) and scratching my Thespian itch for the first time in thirty years.

Life, death and start again

Last year I had four funerals to go to - two nonagenarian aunties, an uncle, and the much younger husband of a long standing friend and colleague, so it was all rather sad. I'm delighted to report that this year starts with the announcement of an expected birth. One of my much loved step children rang me yesterday to announce the expected arrival of a new grandchild in July.

Hurrah! The more the merrier. I love big families - I always wanted one. The bigger the happier becuase there's always someone you'll get on with and find support from sometime, whether as a child or as an adult.

Cost of coffee

I like espresso, just the one cup a day. Other coffee is all right, but not the same. So in the office, each morning, I get myself a cup of espresso. This week, I toodled along, handed over my pound and waited for my usual five pence back (the university must be subsidising our coffee because it isn't expensive), but they said it is now 97p and gave me back only 3p. I guess it's the new rate of VAT and 2p on 95p is only a bit more than 2.5% extra VAT. Then I realised that the black coffee, which had also been 95p is now 105p. So someone is adding more than the VAT increase.

Grump!