I consider to be a blessing the psychological zoom-out that my health situation has afforded me. I do have a new perspective on things.

I was still struggling with a mindset of trying to "achieve" things when I wrote the post about chemo and mental health, and I've come quite a long way in the six weeks since then. Enough so, that when a friend talked about the frustration of "time spent with no clear return" when playing video games during her own health treatment, I both recognised the instinct to think that way, but also mentally underlined the word "return" with a big red question mark.

What is a valid return and what is not? What is meaningful and what is not? It's now been eight months since I left a full time workplace, and the mental liberation which that voluntary redundancy gave me has contributed to my existential focus at the moment. What actually matters? Why am I actually on this earth? What do I want to do with the time I have left here, however much or little of it there might be?

Anyway, to not get too far off the point, I strongly believe that playing silly video games during cancer treatment is in no way pointless. So I'll have a go at rationalising this over 2300 words about logic tools; cultural analysis; and psychology!

First off, I think that we can use one of the work tools I learned about in my former role to help clarify the rationalisation behind the 'valid' 'return' (even if I still want to interrogate both those words). Namely, we could approach it with the 'five whys' tool for uncovering the root of problems. However, because this isn't specifically a problem, more an attempt to uncover a rationalisation or challenge an assumption, I think it works better if you ask "Why does this matter?" instead of plain Why.

• Why am I still playing this video game when I feel guilty about using my time this way? → Because it is an effective distraction that lets me switch off my brain.

• Why does switching off my brain matter? → Because I'm in danger of being overwhelmed by rumination and dark thoughts.

• Why does getting out of dark thoughts matter? → Because being stuck in dark thoughts makes it harder to function day to day, and cope with things such as my physical health situation.

• Why does daily functioning and coping matter? → Because coping is essential to help me get through treatment. Mental health is strongly connected to physical health.

• Why does that matter? → Optimising how well I get through treatment is putting myself in the best possible situation to survive this, so I get to do the other things I want to do while I am on this earth.

So far, so good. It's totally 'valid' and makes logical sense to distract ourselves, even by something we may think is light or unserious.

So let's go on to challenge that last bit. Are video games a 'valid' way to spend time in and of themselves?

It's been a relatively recent phenomenon in the UK that video games have been taken seriously as a cultural art form. A bit of casual reading around the topic brought up an interesting academic exploration, via Pierre Bourdieu's concept of cultural intermediaries (the influential people and organisations that shape society's notion of taste). The article explains how video games are not yet taken seriously enough, but there's no doubt their legitimacy has come on in leaps and bounds in the last two decades. For instance, I found that the British Academy Games Awards were launched in 2004, which seems to represent a notable rubber stamp by the British cultural establishment that "outstanding creative achievement" can be legitimately recognised in that medium. This rather good Wikipedia article is an interesting read.

Some games have gained the reputation of being 'high culture', such as Disco Elysium or Journey. Personally I've always thought that even the 'low culture' games are a valid participatory form of art, culture and narrative. To just pluck at random 'low culture' games I've played recently, I really appreciated the story told via diary entries of the husband and wife in the puzzle/escape room game The Room 4: Old Sins, which is (to me anyway) genuinely moving and coherent as a story and cultural artefact. I found that the dark, morbid and heartbreaking family tree in Rusty Lake: Roots stayed with me for weeks just as if I'd read a particularly good novel. (If you want to play either of those puzzle games, I recommend starting at the beginning of the series in both cases!)

In a different genre, I've been enjoying playing Civilization VI for years. This is partly because I usually play it with my son, and the laughter and social element is priceless (particularly recently, for me) as we compare strategies and try to help each other in trade, warfare or dealing with restless populations. It doesn't tell an emotional story like the other games I mentioned, but it's an opportunity to exist in an engrossing strategic environment that, despite its flaws, does teach a lot about other nations and cultures. For instance, my son has learned a lot about international music by listening to the soundtrack, which a tremendous amount of work went into. It beautifully incorporates traditional folk tunes and anthems across the different epochs of the global civilisations featured in the game.

Because I'm interested in it, I'll briefly take a detour into the music side of the genre by way of illustration of how culture shifts, via the influence of 'cultural intermediaries'. One of the composers of the Civilization music I mentioned, Christopher Tin, was the first video game composer to win a Grammy in 2010. In 2012, Classic FM, the UK commercial classical radio station with a reputation for being more popular and lowbrow than its BBC equivalent, Radio 3, moved to legitimise video game music by controversially incorporating it into its annual Hall of Fame. The year after, following a campaign, the soundtrack to Final Fantasy 'beat Beethoven' in the ranking, as the headlines read. In 2017 Classic FM deliberately introduced video game music into its regular programming via the show High Score, and BBC Radio 3 followed suit in 2019 (more here, though it looks like this show may not exist any more). Then in 2022 we had the first ever BBC Prom dedicated entirely to video game music.

Dissenting 'cultural intermediaries' make the cultural value of video games into an ongoing debate. For instance, the famous film critic Roger Ebert said "Video games by their nature require player choices, which is the opposite of the strategy of serious film and literature, which requires authorial control... for most gamers, video games represent a loss of those precious hours we have available to make ourselves more cultured, civilized and empathetic". Ouch! Straight to the existential! And earlier I was musing: What actually matters? Why am I actually on this earth? What do I want to do with the time I have left here, however much or little of it there might be?

Many of my answers to those things include interacting with human culture, observing how we think as a species, appreciating the artefacts that we have made to express ourselves and reach each other. I used to be (still am?) an academic in the humanities, and as I mentioned, I've always been unimpressed by gatekeeping of cultural value and meaning between 'high' and 'low' art. Like any good poststructural reader-response critical theorist... (I was trained as an art historian at the progressive and interdisciplinary Centre CATH at Leeds to undermine traditional constructions of the cultural canon)... I feel I am participatory even when I'm looking at a painting. Viewers construct narratives for ourselves in any act of consuming culture. So a video game (an explicitly participatory human artefact) feels to me just as 'valid' in an academic sense, as reading some sort of officially worthy work of literature or film which Ebert would seek to validate via authorial "control".

However, I’m aware that so far I’ve accidentally validated my own snobbery by explaining how Rusty Lake: Roots has emotionally profound narrative like a novel, and Civilization VI’s music teaches us about global cultures. I’ve instinctively explained how the lowbrow is actually as worthwhile as the highbrow to legitimise it, and maybe undermined my point.

I didn’t mean to do so. For instance, The Sims presents us neither with an emotionally mature narrative nor a profound engagement with global human cultures. Instead it presents us with nothing but a tool that invites a wild exploration of whatever can be imagined, from the mundane to the ridiculous. It’s a creative engine that encourages consequence-free behaviour across and beyond the whole gamut of what we do as a species, from work to sex to crime to murder.

Some people carefully build homes, skills and relationships in The Sims, and create multiple generations of varieties of characters to test out infinite paths not travelled. Some live out morbidly funny cruel experiments or safely test out risky or wild behaviour. Unlike all the games that qualify as art because they’ve built a world and story for us to interactively consume, The Sims is an archetypal example of a game that doesn’t present you with an interactive story or set out to teach you anything, but instead gives you complete nihilistic omnipotence to create and destroy at a whim. So I think it’s a unique artefact of what humans do and are. Its value lies in the fact that it's one of the only ways we can play with the structure of human life and then transgress that structure safely.

Minecraft is somewhat similar, and from my and my children's experience over many years, I think it's particularly rich in how it provides a blank canvas for collaborative projects. I think working on Minecraft tasks together taught us a lot about each other as people, and how our strengths and personalities work most optimally, together and individually.

(Anecdotally, my daughter learnt a great life lesson from the Sims. When she was about 10 or 11, she made very accurate versions of our actual family, then made me and my husband (her step-dad) get married. Then, she got busy with other characters and projects and forgot to encourage us to interact with each other, talk to each other and be affectionate… She thought once we were married the relationship would just be fine without extra work. …Of course, the Sims versions of us started arguing and the marriage fell apart. It is funny with hindsight of course, but she was so upset at the time, that she learnt the lesson that relationships take work very thoroughly indeed! So maybe this sort of social role play is another genuinely useful aspect to the game.)

There's a final aspect of video games that I think is vitally important beyond the functional self care and cultural legitimacy aspects. Video games, and The Sims is a great example of it, tend to have a particular quality that easily induces a flow state, turning off rumination and enabling us to be peacefully and pleasantly absorbed. It’s of course valuable when we’re producing something objectively useful or beautiful, but it’s also valuable for its own sake, to nourish a sense of happiness and fulfilment. I think it is an experience of absorption and contentment that represents a little taste of the ‘self actualisation’ that lies at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Even the silliest of silly games can give us that to some extent, or for brief periods - even if we’re just clicking on sweets or ‘merging’ stuff on our phones, and I think we deserve to gift ourselves that.

When the rumination topic is particularly close to the surface and difficult to avoid, like something health related, the flow state can be elusive. Then getting through the days can be hard work. Something interactive and task-based can raise us away from that type of rumination and into a flow particularly easily, likely because it involves a form of ‘work’. Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, who coined the term 'flow state', wrote that it is connected to immersion and mastery, and “usually occur[s] when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.”

Csíkszentmihályi did say ‘worthwhile’, which gets us right back to the topic at hand. For instance, I’m not going to go into the debate about the value or harm of violent or sexist games - it’s highly complex and huge. I feel like people are going to learn to draw their own lines around what is healthy and useful for them (and parents can help teenagers navigate identifying healthy and useful behaviour for themselves, via conversations and/or boundaries). Also, there are negative aspects to any extreme. The flow state itself can become problematic if seeking it (via whatever means) becomes an addiction that gets in the way of things further down Maslow's hierarchy, like eating, sleeping, and connecting with loved ones. And we might merge things on our phones so much or play so many hours of Civ that we’re overlooking richer and happier alternate sources of leisure time flow. Like painting, Star Trek, chess, cooking, birdwatching or Agatha Christie novels…! There are endless joyful sources of flow to discover.

I'm coming to recognise the flow state as one of the most precious gifts we can give to our brains. By diving into a game, we can nourish our brains and protect ourselves from damaging darkness, and also often we’re investigating artefacts of human culture that help us explore who we are. I think we can welcome that ‘return’ on our time spent, joyfully and gratefully.

I'm not going to blog incessantly about my health. Partly because that would be much too depressing, but also because I want to make the most of my time and what it means, and not get too stuck in the meta and mechanical day to day. At the same time, I don't dare look forward or make plans too much right now, until I get a proper picture of how well or otherwise I'm responding to the treatment, but I'm preparing the ground mentally. So instead of looking forward, let's look back in time to November 2024.

I'd just left my previous job at a fully remote, American/global company, where I'd been for 5 years. It had been a wonderful way to feel like a global citizen, getting to know colleagues all over the world and travelling internationally. But despite performing well, working extremely hard and being highly thought of, my role had been moved around and undermined so much that I'd lost a clear sense of purpose, and I was feeling unconnected, burnt out and adrift.

I'd also been sitting in a cupboard (a fitted wardrobe converted into an office) for five years, not doing enough exercise and existing mostly as a digital avatar of myself. I kept describing the feeling to colleagues as existential crisis, because I knew something was wrong, and I needed to fix it. Fate intervened when the company offered us voluntary redundancy, which I accepted with few regrets.

My uncle, who'd worked for a local council for many years and had experienced similar burnouty feelings, had become a 'postie' (yes, it's the official term in our gender-inclusive era!) for the Royal Mail about six months previously. His description of it lit some kind of feebly glowing sense of enthusiasm and rightness in me. So I started work as a temporary parcel delivery driver for the Christmas period.

The Royal Mail recruit temporary parcel deliverers all over the country every winter, and they're sorely needed. Being physically able to do the job, and having a clean driving record, was all that was needed to get hired. I turned up at the Northallerton delivery office and I was sent off on my own with a van and parcels on my second day.

I consider Northallerton to be my home town. Even though we never actually lived in the town, we always lived 10-15 mins away. My grandparents lived there and we used the library and market every week. So I liked knowing the street pattern a little, and having the other posties be pleased with me learning things quickly made me feel like a real person rather than an impostor.

The temping job is less physically taxing than the full walking postie job. Being focused on parcels did mean I got in and out of the van hundreds of times a day compared to the posties working on foot with trolleys, and I had more heavy things to manhandle. But it involved less actual pavement pounding. I averaged between 15 and 25000 steps per day, whereas most posties go easily well beyond 30000. It was comfortable though, and I felt good on it.

One of the regulars said to me that it rains much less than you'd think. That's true. I'm sure the UK seems grey and damp to many international visitors but North Yorkshire in winter can be glorious in the fresh air and sharp white sunshine, and doing physical work keeps you warm. I enjoyed sending selfies to friends abroad who were tickled that I'd become Postman Pat.

Selfies in the northern winter sunshine

Something I loved was exploring the town from the point of view of its domestic life. Delivering post means that you interact with people at home, while they're washing up, working, still in their pyjamas or cooking; you go through gates, up paths, round to back gardens, investigate people's sheds (to leave a parcel in their safe place!), meet their babies, dogs and cats. For a virtual avatar in need of human connection, these were tender things.

Posties were almost universally in their second or third career. I met photographers, teachers and more. And the gender aspect was interesting. There were several women posties (postwomen?) at the delivery office but it was clear I was still an unexpected sight for many customers. At one house I rang the bell and saw someone flustered fighting with a towel through the kitchen window. "Oh thank god you're a woman!" she exclaimed: "I was struggling to get covered up!" A little old lady was most concerned when I delivered a parcel on a dark night around 6pm. "Oh they do keep you out late, love!" And another was terribly upset that I'd carried something heavy up their drive. "If I'd known you were a woman I'd have got my husband to come and help you!"

It being Christmas, there was lots of joy. People being thrilled things had arrived happened all day long, and the constant flow of providing people with happiness does wonders for morale. Delivering fresh flowers is particularly nice. "Ooh wow! How lovely! Who can these be from!"

And you get familiar with all the different buildings that people call home, from flats to many different types, styles and ages of house, across all different social levels from deprivation to luxury (though mostly, Northallerton is on the comfortable end by UK standards). I loved learning different buildings and starting to identify 30s door frames, Victorian terraces, Georgian facades and art deco windows.

I also liked doing collections, which meant being handed a large ancient iron key to be used in a venerable red postbox and feeling very important.

There's a complete autonomy to this work, which was lovely, as long as you deliver a certain number of parcels per day - so you do have to keep moving, but to your own schedule. You pop in to the office to scan out your next load, fill the van, go and deliver them, and go back and see if there's time in your shift to take another load.

Although the veteran posties mostly don't appreciate it, I liked the digital handheld scanner, the PDA (Personal Digital Assistant). It guides you for everything from packing the van in the most efficient way to a GPS-guided optimised route, all of which makes you fast and autonomous from day one, even if you don't know the street plan. Though, you get faster the more you familiarise yourself with handy places to park, avoiding nuisance one way systems and identifying where the PDA is being illogical and costing you time. This is the reason the veterans don't appreciate the PDA. I'm sure with experience your brain would scan the addresses and create an efficient mental route like London cabbies do.

I found there was more than enough to occupy my brain and I enjoyed the solitude of the work, and the space it gave for ruminating on interesting diversions like nature, people and architecture, and for greeting cats all day long.

This is Buster (I heard his owner call him). I had the feeling he had positive associations with Royal Mail vans, as he tried to get in mine with me.

Often I'd spot cats observing me from windows.

I'm obviously romanticising and overthinking to some extent a role that I didn't do for very long, and which can be exhausting and thankless. But I did have fun. I felt like part of the fabric of society, a cog in the machine of how things work. Emotionally I felt a sense of homecoming, that I was treading the streets of my town and being a person in the real, physical world, in some sense that I'd allowed to get away from me while working in IT.

I worked for the Royal Mail for about 6 weeks, and stopped in early December. Even though it was such a short time, it cemented a few really important things for me.

One is that for work, I know I shouldn't become a virtual avatar person again. I want to work in the real world in some way. I think the more I connect with real things, the healthier I am. I'm wondering about how I could work in some area connected with heritage, nature or culture, or teaching or training, but in a way that's related to real things or that helps people in real world ways. Or even just provide a basic service that people need, and that connects us to one another in this weird network of society we've made for ourselves. I know this won't make me the same money that I was making when I was all strategic and global in my previous role. But it seems necessary.

Then, the other main takeaway is that my emphasis, in terms of travel and life experiences, has returned to a local focus. In the past few years via my former work, I've been privileged to visit New York, Washington DC, Denver; Montreal; Rotterdam and Amsterdam; Antwerp and Brussels; Reykjavík; Munich; Dublin. Some of these places were visited for meetups or conferences, and others were private travel I managed to squeeze in on my company-paid flights on the way to or from them.

In a personal capacity, I've also been on unforgettable and wonderful trips to Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland and France in the last three years. I couldn't have afforded that much travel without being in that work role.

Now, our financial means are catastrophically dwindled, but it's ok. The travel I've done honestly feels like enough. There's a bit of an affectionate running joke in our family because my bucket list is really just doing more of things I already like. I don't feel the need to go to more far-flung places, and my travel hopes are honestly mostly just to visit places I've already been to and liked. I have been hoping to maybe visit Iceland again in 2026 to see the total eclipse, but that may be a pipe dream (we'll see depending on finances and health). Anyway, I've actually already seen a total eclipse, so this is mainly for my children. And I'd go back to Norway if we can some day, and various bits of northern mainland Europe still appeal.

Otherwise, I am very happy indeed to stay in the UK and make sure I appreciate it fully - I want to see more of Scotland particularly. I chose the name "Northern Words" for a reason - northernness is part of who I am, and I want to embrace that now.

Context for this post is here and here. This is the second post in my mini series about chemo!

The most emphatic advice I received from a very kind acquaintance who has recently gone through this process, was to keep a positive mindset. She had seen people in her chemotherapy cohort start to lose their way with the physical treatment if they lacked a specific state of mind. I think she is right that deliberately and consciously keeping an upbeat sense around your progress, even when that involves some doublethink, is absolutely crucial to getting through it. I do find that the biggest threat to getting through this is mental health.

As a friend recently said, wondering why this has happened, or indulging thoughts of injustice, isn’t helpful or cathartic. I’ve found there to be little other option but to reduce existence to one day at a time and keep going.

I struggled with dark thoughts, particularly early on, when the mortal fear felt more real and I didn't know the cancer's stage (as I discussed more here). I continue to find fear the worst thing to manage, as if I let it take hold, the dread causes physical symptoms like shivering and lack of sleep that then impact my actual health. Some of the fear has been related to the physical experiences and some is more emotional. It's more the constant focus on the minutiae of the physical body and its risks.

I had a few mild vein damage 'burns' from the first sessions of chemo, which caused me a lot of fear from reading people's appalling experiences of what's technically called extravasation (when drugs escape the vein) on cancer forums. It took me a while to realise that while still potentially dangerous, my drugs weren't the type to cause the catastrophic injuries I had been reading about, and that what I'd read wasn't relevant. This experience led me to leave all the cancer forums I'd been following.

I highly recommend minimising forum reading. A kind Macmillan person on the phone early on, had previously told me that reading forums can lead you to unknowingly absorb and take on the burden of other people's emotions. I think this was very wise advice. Any time I start reading them now, it drags me down to a dark place. I also find I don't really want to talk to people about cancer or think about cancer too much, and this is has also made these posts difficult to write.

It also means there’s yet another reason to avoid talking to the other chemotherapy people when I’m in for my sessions (apart from my usual disinclination for small talk, that is). Lots of them do want to make conversation about cancer, and I just don’t, but I know they may need to talk to someone, so I have to find ways to not be rude and hope they can meet their own need, while also not having the conversation, so as to meet my need. In practice, my husband always comes with me to chemo and we watch TV show episodes together on the ipad while I’m having the IV infusion, a routine which is an absolute blessing because it means I can think about anything but cancer while in the most cancer-y place.

(This doesn’t mean I never want to talk about cancer, by the way. If anyone reading this would like tips or advice, this will be fun for me to reply to! In fact I had to delete a whole load of tips and advice from this post that I’d be more than happy to send anybody. 😄)

I'd say the biggest mental challenge is the fear of infection. Chemo damages your immune system's ability to deal with infection and injury. Any small injury or illness can become a more serious problem. Nothing is anodyne any more. There are dangers everywhere in my home and around me, and everything takes longer to heal. This sense that my own body is rife with risk at every turn, is very psychologically wearisome.

I need to avoid crowded places. Although the oncologist carefully emphasised that I didn't need to stop all normal activities, the advice is quite clear. I decided to pretty much go on covid-mode, wear masks when around people who are not my immediate family, and avoid all supermarkets, restaurants and cafés, and all train or bus travel. I decided not to eat food from cafés since the food might have been sitting out, or been prepared in a non-hygienic way. The one exception I've made so far was a school concert where my daughter was performing. I wore a high performing face mask, and the school placed us in some quiet seating away from other families.

This is ok, and it will pass - I know there are people who have to live with lowered immunity for much longer than the months I do. It's still dreary. I miss the life I took for granted where I could just go places and do things, and not have to monitor tiny injuries or keep such a strict hygiene regime.

I think cuddling my daughter and husband counts as a minimum for my mental health functioning. How I understand it, is that it's ok for them to be around people all day, as they have normal immune systems, so they're not going to catch things as easily as I would, so they won’t pass them on to me either, so I can cuddle them. But, if either of them is showing signs of illness, they'll isolate from me. So far this has only happened once when it seemed like my daughter might have a cold. My parents have worn masks around me if they've been around their other grandchildren, just in case they're harbouring something. I haven’t really seen anyone else and that’s the boundary I’m comfortable with. I made an exception to see my son who came home from university for a week, again making sure he didn’t have any cold or fluey symptoms, and I consciously decided to enjoy being normal-ish with him.

This week, as I mentioned in my other post, I have a delay to my next chemo due to low platelets. This is frustrating, because getting to number 5 out of six feels like a good milestone, and it's annoying to have it pushed back. I always find I go through several days of low mood and dread anticipating each infusion, which means I now have to go through that again this coming week.

I have found it hard to balance the imperative of getting through life one day at a time with my normal project- and purpose-driven preference. I can't plan anything - even several months ahead and I don't know when I can be anything approaching normal again (I don't know what I'll be able to do when, around surgery in July and further treatment beyond that). People do tell me chemo is the worst part, so if that's true, I can look forward to at least something else, if not anything resembling normal.

I have deliberately had to allow myself to learn to just exist and to reevaluate what I mean by achievement. Some days, getting outside for a short walk is enough achievement. I try to do one yoga or pilates session per day (I probably average 3-4 per week) and do one walk around outside per day. I need to take care to keep myself warm enough. I've been lucky enough to be sleeping quite well. Monitoring this stuff and checking my Fitbit stats feels projecty enough to keep me distracted.

Some days it is getting to the next chapter of my book or ipad game that feels like a projecty achievement. I have inevitably done some Victoria-like typical things (I completed an autism course that might help me get future jobs, and I’ve planned to do various other bits of work or learning) but setting myself too many of those targets or trying to think about or plan what work or projects I could do in a future phase, I have found make things seem oddly frightening and hopeless. It’s almost like zooming out any further than the immediate seems illegitimate or too entitled.

It’s a complex web of stuff around permission and being ‘allowed’ and what I ‘should’ do that a therapist probably needs to help me with. So instead of writing a novel or composing music like I felt I 'should' (for some sense of self-image), I've allowed myself to find happy feelings through playing The Room game series on ipad or getting really into watching Severance, for example. (The ipad being an amazingly kind gift organised by a friend who presciently knew what I would need). I've been reading books and listening to audiobooks again thanks to North Yorkshire libraries, and a former colleague from there has been helping me get access to their book collection scheme.

I can’t treat it as a “break”, because there’s no sense in which it can be one, but it feels more legitimate to my psyche to do things like games and TV if I acknowledge that finding positive, distracting leisure for myself is itself work. I am conscious of warding off the darkness the whole time. Most of the distractions are to kill time to get to the next day, and the next, until something I can call life returns.

I do want to emphasise that I'm not on my own, and that my people are wonderful. My husband and daughter and I have family film nights and other little rituals, and we always eat together. And crucially, we do manage to laugh and feel happy, all the time, and we all get on very well together with very little friction or problems. I’m very fortunate indeed.

My daughter and I have a sort of pact to get through the next six weeks together in one piece. She's sitting exams on about the same schedule as I'll be finishing chemo. So we can both look forward to that phase being over, around the same time. And my son will come home from university at the end of May so there will be plenty of people around to keep me from any dangers of solitude.

It seems that it’s a team effort to get me through this, so any time I see the darkness creeping up, I can remember my family is with me and my friends care about me, and it’s one step at a time, onwards.

For background, here was the post where I talked more broadly about my breast cancer diagnosis. And there’s a follow up to this one here.

A few people have asked me what the chemo is like, and this question has been much harder to answer than I thought. It's because I have been experiencing it so internally since it started, and also trying not to think about it too much and push forward instead. Thinking about the experience deeply enough to describe it is also a bit triggery and negative, and I feel as if I shouldn't dwell on this and instead should keep moving. As if stopping and looking at it properly will make it real. I do ultimately think it's worth getting down in words, though, and might help me to clear it out of the holding pattern it occupies around my brain.

I think it's worth keeping the medical stuff here in its own post, so that people who would rather not read it don't have to dwell on it. So, please feel free to move on rather than become negatively immersed in medical detail. Also, it might be quite boring! Then, I’ve put some mental effects in a separate post.

I find it very difficult to read about other people's medical stuff now, even to the extent where I found my recent Duolingo topic on medical treatment triggery, and I can imagine that others may feel the same way.

The first version of this post was much more negative and complainy than I'd intended. I think I try so hard to be positive that I don't always allow myself to complain, as it can drag you down. But I suppose I'll publish it as it came, more or less, as it might be useful for anyone coming across this post approaching the same treatment plan.

Though, of course everyone's experience is different, so nothing here should be taken to be 'how things are'. Particularly because I may have had a relatively easy time of it (so far).

I’m going to avoid being hyper-specific here in public, but am very happy to tell anybody who messages me directly about the actual details of what medications I’m on, the type and spread of the cancer, etc. Basically it’s an invasive and nasty type which is not good, but it’s a type which is well understood by oncologists and has several well-evidenced treatment options, which is good. The treatment will take up the whole of 2025 for me and beyond, as I'll then be on certain medications for many years to try to prevent recurrence.

My chemo is the first treatment, designed to reduce the cancer's size and reach before surgery. I think the Americans call the drug combination TCPH. It is delivered in 6 cycles, every 3 weeks. I started these in late January and it’s scheduled to finish in late May. Every type of breast cancer and every person’s context has a different combination of drugs associated with it. I also have to take strong steroids for three days around each infusion, and 4 or 5 other types of medication to deal with side effects.

So that's where I am right now, expecting to have chemo 5 out of 6 next week. Then come the relative unknowns:

I'll have surgery of some kind in June/July. I don't yet know what type of surgery (lumpectomy or mastectomy, and I don’t know how many lymph nodes removed but certainly some), and although I have some preferences, I’m not going to pre-empt the conversation with the surgeon in a few weeks' time. I also don’t want to think about it too much while I focus on getting through chemo. I will likely then need radiotherapy depending on the type and extent of the surgery.

Then, there will be more drugs after surgery (some of the same ones, some different) and I'll start long term hormone/ endocrine treatment and as I understand it, this will kick off chemical menopause (I think). A whole other set of challenges for future!Victoria to deal with.

I've had physical side effects, though overall, I've been physically feeling better than I'd feared. Someone suggested to me that chemo is a bit like a bad hangover. And, they advised me to expect the worst, then when it's not too bad, that's a win. All good advice and the hangover analogy is a good one.

I've avoided, so far, most of the more challenging side effects like skin blistering or neuropathy, or more serious illness that can result from the treatment, like anaemia or blood clots. I have to hope this continues to be the case. The immune system is compromised the whole time, and I've so far once been hospitalised overnight for an unspecified infection (sorted easily with antibiotics). I don't know what caused that. The nurses said it could have been absolutely anything and I shouldn't beat myself up (since I'd started talking about whether I could have cleaned more, or done anything differently).

I'm on a 3 week cycle, and mostly feel quite well in weeks 2 and 3 after each session, though as I get to the last few sessions, I find I am slower to recover (which is expected). I have to take strong steroids for three days around each infusion, to protect from the effects of the drugs. The steroid causes me to feel wired and hyper, exacerbates my digestive stuff and hinders sleep. That's only for a few days, at least.

After that wears off I feel heavy and dull, particularly in the first week, as if I'm made of metal like Wolverine. Getting up the stairs feels like dragging an unwieldy robot body made of lead. I drag myself around the house and land on the settee like a ton of bricks when I sit down.

In the first week after the session, it's particularly hard to eat, as I just feel all closed and blocked up somehow, and everything tastes like metal and smells odd, including water (drinking through a straw helps). There’s a wrongness about everything that is disconcerting. It’s a bit like being in a bubble while everyone else carries on with their normal lives.

Food-wise, I just sit down at mealtimes with my family and do my best. My appetite gradually improves during the phases between chemo sessions, and I can eat pretty much normally in weeks 2 and 3, though I’m slower than everyone else and rarely feel actually hungry.

I've been tracking my nutrition via an app to be sure I get a sensible amount of calories and protein in particular, to try not to lose weight, and putting some brain power towards eating varieties of fruit and vegetables, getting specific nutrients and having iron-rich things with vitamin c, and away from coffee and tea, and so on and so on. At least filling in the app all day long gives me a mini project. I have a number of tips but my main one is Skyr, which is particularly helpful as a protein boost, and because it's appealingly cool and digestible and doesn't get the taste of metal. (It's also appealingly Nordic.)

I have a constant runny nose resulting in sore nostrils, and nosebleeds for a week or so, when platelets drop mid-cycle.

This stuff teaches you to appreciate the simple things. I've really been enjoying that point post-chemo where I feel like… I could enjoy eating some crisps! It has been taking about a week each time to get to ‘crisps day’.

Although by week 3 I've been pretty much normal and able to enjoy food almost normally, there's always a wrongness about my stomach and I always feel refluxy. Digestion is never completely normal, needing thought, tracking and management involving occasional diarrhoea medication and rehydration sachets, and I have to be reliably near a toilet (preferably my own!).

The skin can get dry and sensitive, so I tackled this proactively by getting eczema—friendly products organised before I started. I audited all my skincare stuff, bought some new things and just put everything I can’t use at the back of the cupboard until normality returns (?). I can use some of my usual things like nicinamide drops and vitamin serum, so I can feel like treating myself and so it doesn’t all feel medical.

Each morning I use cuticle oil on my toenails and fingernails to try to prevent them falling off (something that can happen!) and moisturising cream on hands and feet, as some people have skin problems on their extremities which I'm trying to prevent. If I have any tiny injuries I have to take care of them properly to make sure they heal and don’t infect. Things like paper cuts and ingrown toenails heal more slowly and can be dangerous.

Of course, I've lost my hair, though slower than most people do, as far as I can tell. We buzzed it to about an inch in length when it started to get uncomfortable to wash (the roots become very sensitive to the hair being moved around, when it starts to fall out). My scalp now looks quite bare but I have an inch-long sprinkling of fuzz, which doesn't seem to be growing, and I haven't shaved it off, for the sake of warmth overnight. In the daytime I am almost always wearing one of these very nice wraps that I bought on Etsy. I’m not too bothered by the hair situation to be honest, though I know some people find it very upsetting. I got used to the face in the mirror not looking like myself.

After the first two sessions of chemo, I had some minor chemical burns on my hands from the chemotherapy drugs leaking outside the veins. I'm told these may remain visible permanently and look like bruises, though they’ve faded a lot already. We have so far sorted my vein issue in subsequent infusions by slowing down the speed of the IV.

I have blood tests each time before chemo to check if I’ve recovered well enough for the next dose. So far I’ve had chemo delayed twice, once due to too-high liver enzymes - the numbers recovered after a week's delay. Now, just this week I have a delay to chemo number 5 due to low platelets. This seems to be par for the course and common, and there's nothing really I can do about any of these things while my body does its stuff. I just have to keep going, eat well and stay gently active and trust that my bone marrow will grow the cells I need in time to get them destroyed again, then we do it all again.

From the larger to the smaller tasks, it is all time consuming, and existence shrinks down to the minutiae of bodily maintenance. I have to spend each day putting a lot of thought into my basic human functioning, feeding myself, moving, caring for body parts including the brain, and monitoring myself for signs of infection - do I have a fever or do I just need to put on a jumper? Am I having any weird symptoms that I need to tell the nurses about? Is this red patch/bruise/taste/pain normal? I long for the days when I used to just go around doing things without having to examine everything so closely. It’s sort of like walking around examining the ground for hazards before every single step. It's wearisome and limiting.

If I have chemo 5 this week as planned, then I embark upon the 3 week cycle again. At least I know what to expect. Then another mid May, then whatever awaits me next will be something different.

I think the soundtrack to this phase can be First Aid Kit: “keep on keeping on”.

On 10th December 2024 everything stopped - I was diagnosed with breast cancer aged 44.

Here we are, and at the time of writing, I'm 2/3 of the way through chemo (to shrink the cancer before surgery) and getting appointments in place for the next phase. I've moved the medical stuff and my experience of treatment to other posts, so this one focuses on mortality and emerging into writing again.

I hibernated during January to April and haven't been much in contact with people, as I figured out what chemo was going to be like and how to keep myself going, both physical and mental health wise. I've felt a strong need to be inward and exist only in small ways. It's only recently I've felt able to think about writing, only recently I told more people and even updated LinkedIn! and only today I got my website organised (moved providers, merged old blogs to here) and actually typed anything. It's only in the last few weeks that, along with the spring flowers in this part of the world, and as I near the end of the first treatment phase, that I have slowly begun to feel I can start to emerge, and do more things than survive.

Cruelly, I had just taken voluntary redundancy in early October 2024, from a 5-year work role. I had just started upon a slow and painful process of figuring out (again) who I wanted to be professionally and what I was going to do with my life. Only to be diagnosed just two months later, and find out that I wasn't to be allowed to do that quite yet.

I have instead been forced into a period of reckoning that has added mortality and the meaning of life to the task of figuring out my professional contribution to the world. And to supporting my family, which had already been weighing heavily. The job stuff became secondary all of a sudden. I'm exempted from job seeking for (probably) a year, and thankfully supported by the UK's welfare system, since I was not in work at the time of diagnosis. I know those professional parts of my life are still needing to be dealt with around the corner, meaning my life has fundamentally paused in all ways for a full reevaluation. And the financial hit is meaningful. We're planning to sell the house and downsize once I'm healthy enough.

A friend asked me recently how I have dealt with the mortal threat. It was a good question. I think I've come on a journey with it. It reinforced, quite dramatically, something I wrote in my farewell message to my previous job:

I want to devote myself to my own life’s work – not someone else’s.

One of the main reasons I took voluntary redundancy from that job was that we were given an explicit choice to either "believe in" and adhere fully to the personal life's work and vision of the founder/CEO, or leave. I did not want someone else's mission and vision to take up any more of my precious time, and decided the financial cost of leaving was worth the gamble, for the meaning-of-life win I hoped to gain.

Apparently, life hadn't finished turning me on a sixpence, so now I have the meaning-of-life reckoning to do in spades. After I got over the first few tearful weeks of wondering if the cancer had spread too far to be treated, I found out it was likely to be able to be cured, so I could have a reasonable hope of living more than a few years. That phase of waiting for those early scan results was awful, but it did give me a helpful clarity about my death.

Previously I'd assumed I'd be cremated and scattered somewhere. As an atheist, I hadn't thought much beyond that. The imminent mortal threat, however, produced a surprisingly clear and instant refocus: that I'd like to be buried in a biodegradable coffin in a natural woodland (probably somewhere like this or this) and gradually re-merge with the land and contribute to growing trees, returning to the cycle of life.

I did a yoga video on Youtube with Adriene early in my chemo where she gave the mantra "I am connected to all things with love and kindness". Tears sprang up, and I realised that would do me for an afterlife, and this phrase (or just its first clause) was even something I could imagine putting on my memorial on 'my' tree in the burial woodland. Having those things become clear for me was helpful, as it sort of provided me with a very solid sense of spirituality that I hadn't pondered for a long time. It also enabled me to draw a relatively comfortable line under the mortality stuff and get on with attempting to live.

So, there are a few things I hope for. I hope I live long enough to get my children further into adulthood, to give them an easier transition into the rest of their lives without me. It's not that I consider myself indispensable to them, but we're all quite intimately entwined with each other, they are still young, and I want to be around a bit longer for them. I got them successfully to the ages of 15 and 19, but I hope for more for their sake, and for my sake that I get to see more of them, because they are great.

I also hope I live long enough to get enough meaningful time with my husband, that is not characterised by survival mode. We have been together for almost exactly ten years now, seemingly always lurching from one challenge to another. We have spent far too much of these ten years waiting for the time after the challenge, only for another one to pop up. I want us to get to experience at least some of the privacy and coupledom phase of relationships, that life has so far cheated us out of. He's great, and we deserve it.

Finally, of course, I hope I get enough time to do something that can be called "my life's work" that is just for my own sake. And ideally, leave something in this world apart from my PhD and my children, that others can benefit from. It might be a novel or two, or some music. I'd also like to find a way to scrape a living that doesn't make me feel like I'm selling my soul for someone else's project.

The first step of this has been to try to start writing again. I stopped writing for many years. I moved my website away from WordPress as part of leaving my old workplace as thoroughly as I could, and to signal my misalignment with that project. So, it's currently hosted on Ghost.

I moved my old blog posts here as well, so anybody reading back can now see where I stopped in 2015 (and, a lot of my naïveté and youth is on show in those old posts!). I mostly stopped blogging because I was involved in family court proceedings where some bits of my writing were used, and it totally dried up my desire to blog publicly. I tried to restart blogging in 2020, without success, mainly because I was too deeply invested in my job in the years 2020-25. Hopefully this is another 'new' 'new start for me and writing, which I've always considered a fundamental part of who I am.

On 8th November 2024 I went on another little nature jaunt to reconnect with my sense of physical place after leaving my fully remote job. This time, I set off on foot from my house around a meander in the river Tees. I even have some fancy tracking via AllTrails.

It was a 5km/3m wander by the river, then inland across farmland. The early November colours by the river were muted (I've seen, and photographed, much more vibrant autumns around here!) but it was ok. This region is northern and grey, and the greyness and softness has its beauty.

I was again privileged to have this walk almost entirely to myself and I've started to conclude that Britain is only overcrowded if you happen to follow the crowds.

The best part by far was the little village of Egglescliffe, which I've lived near to for 8 years without really appreciating. It's been settled since at least the twelfth century, and the pretty village green has been populated for several hundred years. It's really a gem. Here's the green, and a resident cat:

I sat on a bench on the green and enjoyed being in England and appreciating Englishness. I'm so grateful that I got the opportunity to travel so much while I worked for Automattic for those 5 years, but I'm also so grateful I landed back on earth and rediscovered how beautiful my home is.

After almost five years working for American software company Automattic out of my bedroom office, I took a voluntary redundancy offer at the start of October 2024. It was a messy end to a rollercoaster time, but the decision was easy. The company was embarking upon a lengthy legal conflict, and I didn't want to become part of someone else's fight that has nothing to do with me.

Looking back on my older posts here, like this one, I'd been questioning for a while what I should do with myself work wise. At least now one decision has been made.

Leaving was a very odd experience, rather like waking from a dream or emerging back into reality. I'd found the experience of working online quite immersive - experiencing the busy Slack chat 'rooms' like offices. I was part of a global, synchronous community, and logging on felt like donning a virtual identity and checking out of the physical world.

Coming out of that environment seemed to require some recovery. So I set out on various projects to recapture my sense of place, my physical fitness and, honestly, my connection with reality.

A few weeks after leaving the company I walked part of the England Coast Path (now renamed after King Charles III), a long distance National Trail.

I took the train to Marske, and set off to the coast from the station, before turning south east down the beach path towards Saltburn.

Because it's part of an official national path, the way across the dunes and cliffs is well marked and well trodden. It was a blustery but dry October day and I was alone almost the whole 3 mile walk. It was pleasantly breezy and fresh.

Most of the path is perched on the clifftop, though it meanders inland through farmland as well. A popular option is to walk one way along the cliffs and then return along the beach. I just did it in one direction, then caught the train back home from Saltburn.

As you get closer to Saltburn from the Marske direction, the majestic Huntcliff (inhabited since at least Roman times) hoves into view.

Then, the climb down to Saltburn . I did this walk at high tide, but at low tide there are vast expanses of sandy beach at the base of these cliffs.

Saltburn was grey and solitary on this October day, but it wasn't depressing or bleak. It felt fresh and atmospheric in its northern mist and blunted autumnal hues.

This walk was a symbolic step to remind me where I'm from, and blow away the dust that had settled on me. It was the start of a sort of reevaluation that's still going on.

I am postdating this, and it's more past-tensey than it would have been, as I'm writing it in December 2024. I have a few other drafts to produce from this interim period before I plan to become a synchronous blogger again.

I have written an acapella arrangement for three voices (SAT, or really AAT/B), a nostalgic song about Scotland based around the melody from the first movement of Mendelssohn's Scottish Symphony.

I persuaded my 18 year old son (tenor/baritone) and 14 year old daughter (alto) to sing it with me.

Below is the finished article as good as we could get it in a couple of hours. I'm very proud of them/us! If you scroll down a bit, you can follow the score instead and spot our mistakes in the pdf below.

Audio:

If you have a handy vocal trio available to you and want to have a try, you can access the score here on Noteflight.

PROCESS

I used Noteflight to compose this arrangement. It's the first time I've used it (I've previously used MuseScore). I also have a little USB midi keyboard for note input. I got the hang of Noteflight quite well. I worked in two large chunks rather than following the 12 week programme, because I probably just work better in chunks of hyperfocus.

I'd aimed to keep to the same key as the original symphony (A minor) but I accidentally wrote the introduction in E minor instinctively, so the rest had to be in E minor. :shrug: The section from "Oh where shall I go" to "silvery skies" is my own tune.

It turns out to be relatively tricky to sing, and I think the tenor line isn't pitched very well, probably with too large a range. I think some of the octaves are wrong. My son can manage it (perhaps in varying octaves) but we're also not 100% sure he's a tenor. So, proper musicians may need to adapt a bit. The two higher voices are really just both altos, and while the top line has a few more Ds and is mostly a bit higher, the middle line actually has the highest note (an E).

The first verse of the lyrics I wrote with the help of my daughter. Our brainstorm doc was entitled "Scotland, IDK" due to a Gen Z helping me. For the other verses, I asked GPT to produce three more in a similar vein, then rewrote the appalling mush that resulted into slightly less appalling mush.

The theme is from the beginning of Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 3, "Scottish". I'd recently been playing this piece on the viola at my community orchestra in Billingham, UK (unexpectedly, the viola is the only stringed instrument to carry the theme, along with the oboes, clarinets and horns, which was a treat for us).

It was composed in the first half of the 19th century after Mendelssohn (a German composer) had visited the ruins of Holyrood Chapel in Edinburgh:

Everything is ruined, decayed, and the clear heavens pour in. I think I have found there the beginning of my "Scottish" Symphony.

Here's the Mendelssohn.

This post was first published here.

The last post I wrote here was called 'hiatus'... and that was a long time ago. I think the twenty months without the promised return to blogging can themselves testify to just how intense this period has been.

I wrote that blog while in France waiting for the children who were with their dad for a visit. I was about to start my new job, which I considered a dream role and hopefully my home for the long term, employment wise. And yes a year and a half later, it's certainly been an amazing experience.

My work has been absorbing and exciting. In April, I took a secondment as a full time 'onboarder', training and supporting new hires and developing the training programme. Then, in August 2021, I became a team lead, and I'm now also responsible for leading internal training for my division as well as becoming co-lead of the neurodiversity resource group at the company.

Will it be my home for the rest of my working life? I'm not sure, but it is providing an enormously fascinating ongoing discovery process about not only what I want to do with my career but also the type of person I want to be. So, watch this space for the conclusion of that thought process which may still be months or years down the line.

My main thoughts at the moment are centred around: what am I passionate about? What do I care most about accomplishing in this world? Who am I best positioned to help and what is the most use I can be? What type of role is the best fit for me, my skills and my strengths? What will make me happy and fulfilled as well as allowing me to support my family? I'm still working on the answers to these questions.

I promised in that post that I'd blog about my list of 'things Victoria likes to do', to try to emerge and become a person again, a person with interests and a life; and that I'd make myself one day per week of alone time. I'd arrange vocal music and write about my interests.

Why haven't I been writing? Well, I have, a bit. Here and there, at work, I've written a longform piece or reflection. I think probably, the main thing has been that I felt in August 2020 that we were over the pandemic and I could clearly see a fresh start ahead. The fact that the pandemic didn't end, further lockdowns happened and life did not resume, meant that we've still just been 'functioning' rather than living, and that feeling of hiatus that was so strong in the early months of 2020, when everything was on 'pause', never really lifted.

But mostly, the job itself has been intense and difficult to rest from.

While I did make Friday/Saturday my weekend (I work a Sunday to Thursday week), the extended pandemic and further lockdowns during this period meant that I've had oddly few Fridays to myself. I've never started the solo adventuring I was planning - where I'd take the train to the coast on my own, go for walks, visit places and people. The promised work travel (a perk of my new job) hasn't yet resumed. The children only just saw their father in person again a few weeks ago. Our trip to Norway in the summer of 2021was cancelled, though the four of us had a wonderful last minute driving tour through Scotland.

I have taken up hobbies, though. I've still been learning Norwegian (starting weekly, then, when our trip to Norway was postponed again, fortnightly 'live' lessons with a native speaker, and daily Duolingo). And, since restrictions started to lift this last few months, I've been playing the viola every Monday at a community orchestra, and volunteering with my children's school (just this week, I played violin with the pit orchestra at the school show "Wizard of Oz".) I've been continuing to enjoy the smaller things like playing video games with my children every Saturday morning, and walking into town with my husband for a coffee. My favourite thing is the company of these three weird and wonderful people that I'm closest to.

Oh yes, and I got married in December 2020. Although we had a very restricted wedding compared with what we'd planned (mid lockdown, we were only allowed the bare minimum of legal ceremony) it was the right thing to do.

I've had increasing problems with my back, despite regular physiotherapy. Decades of being effectively sedentary and neglecting a slight spine curvature I've known about for twenty years and done nothing about, added to suddenly working 40+ hours per week at a screen, means that now I have poor core strength combined with dodgy discs, and I'm now able to do very little without injuring myself, and this will not improve unless I get serious about exercise. While I've joined two gyms in the last year, a routine has not yet stuck.

So here goes, another reset. 2021 is nearing its end and I've been laboriously struggling all year towards some sort of conclusion and clarity about what's next for me and what I am going to do with my forties. I'm absolutely sure that if I can fit reflective writing into my routine, that will help strengthen and clarify my mind and thoughts just as regular movement and exercise will help strengthen and mobilise my body. Still some way to go on both counts, but setting intentions is the first step.

We had a lockdown wedding in December 2020, at Judges Hotel, Kirklevington. Due to covid restrictions we were only allowed 15 guests and no reception, so we improvised a toast in a lay-by near the hotel.

Below are some collected posts taken from our original wedding website.

Taksameteret går

Our wedding song

We chose this song by A-ha's Morten Harket to walk down the aisle to: to represent the choice of real love when you’re an adult; the awareness of time passing; the urgency of making sure you experience this life and everything that’s precious in it.

Taksameteret går
Ikke tro at det står
Ikke vei dine valg
På drømmenes vekt
Ikke vent med å elske
Til alt er perfekt.

Ditt liv er i gang
Taksameteret går
Unverset har ventet
Millioner av år
Og nå er det skjedd:
Hjertet ditt slår.

Måneder blir år
Vinter blir vår
Taksameteret går.

Du tror du kan vente
Du trenger litt tid
Men taksameteret går
Det er alt jeg kan si
Ditt liv er i gang
Det er tidsnok forbi.

The taxi meter is running
Don’t think it will wait
Don’t weigh your choices
On the weight of dreams
Don’t wait to love
Til everything is perfect.

Your life carries on
The taxi meter is running
The universe has been waiting
Millions of years
And now it’s happened:
Your heart beats.

Months become years
Winter becomes spring
The taxi meter is running.

You think you can wait
You need some time
But the taxi meter is running
That’s all I can say
Your life carries on
It’s over in time

Victoria's speech

12th December 2020, Kirklevington

There aren’t very many of us here, and originally, I wasn’t going to do a speech at all. But I have things I’d like to say to the children who are here. So please bear with me, and it won’t be too long.

I turned 40 this year, which presumably seems totally ancient to those of you who are under 20, but because I’m so ancient there are things I’ve learned that I wanted to share with you. 

Lucy recently asked me what it’s like to be in love, so what I said to her then I’ll say again now. For me, I think the key thing is the feeling you have when you look at the person, you think they’re the best and loveliest thing that could exist. That the world is a better place because they are in it. And that no matter how difficult things are, that person in your life glows like a shining light that brightens and sharpens everything around you. 

It’s true that it’s taken me until I turned 40 to get it right. And sometimes you might have to wait a long time before finding the right person. And you may not get it right first time. But there’s really no such thing as getting it wrong. You learn from every choice in life, and sometimes even relationships that don’t work in the end, have wonderful consequences such as the two amazing people I’ve somehow produced who are here today.

So how do I think you should choose the right person?

1. Choose someone who makes you laugh. If you can laugh every day with someone, that is a source of utter lifelong joy. Laughter is seriously underrated. It’s my number one relationship advice.

2. Choose someone who is enthusiastic about you, and who you are enthusiastic about. Not just someone who seems to like you or fancy you. Someone who is thrilled to be with you, excited about you, who is totally chuffed to be by your side. Someone who you want to champion and fight for, and someone who you know is a fantastic and interesting and worthwhile person and that everyone else should realise it. Because every one of you are wonderful, interesting, worthwhile and fantastic human beings. So I’d suggest choosing someone who understands and sees who you really are, and thinks that who you are is just totally great. Rachel and I as your mums already know this, so you just need to find a person who also knows this.

3. Choose someone you like. This may seem a totally ridiculous one. But it’s tremendously important. When you know you really, really like the true person that they are, when it comes to getting married and making a lifetime commitment to them in front of your family, you’ll also know, for sure, without a shadow of a doubt about whether you’re doing the right thing, or whether it’s the right time, or will you regret it, etc etc…. When it’s the right person, you won’t need to worry about any of those things, as it will be totally obvious that when you are both 80, you will be telling them about the book you just read or planning your next trip or even discussing what film to watch or what flavour of tea to buy, and you will be chuffed to be doing so with them, because you just like them. 

Obviously in conclusion, the abbreviated version, Matthew is just great, and it’s my utter joy to be able to say so in front of my favourite people. 

This is absolutely lovely, and almost perfect, and despite the obvious that we can’t have a party with music and dancing like we’d hoped, is that my unofficial sister Erinn can’t be here, who’s the only other person apart from Matthew who I’ve “chosen” as a family member. I didn’t choose the rest of you… lol

So it’s not quite right to do it without her, but we will be putting it right in 2022 when we will have a proper celebration. 

Thank you to everyone, so I’d like to propose two toasts. 

To bear a ring is to be alone. This task was appointed to Daniel. And if he hadn’t found a way, no-one would have. 

I don’t have a literal star to give him, but I think the kind of star Tolkien was talking about here as a gift to the ring bearer isn’t something literal, but it’s about something that we find within us.  “the light of Eärendil’s star, set amid the waters of the fountain. It will shine still brighter when night is about you. May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out.” To Daniel!

When we have our 2022 party, we’ll clearly have to have more of the excellent leaf scattering we’ve had today, as my official niece April will definitely be joining in and so will Erinn’s daughter and my unofficial niece Ophelia. So when you take a sip in a second, do take a mini sip for my littlest nieces April and Ophelia.

I knew that Lucy’s name meant light, and when I looked it up I learnt that Caroline’s name means ‘free’. I think there are true aspects of your personalities in those meanings. You’re both excellent human beings that make the world a better place. Thank you both very much for helping today and I’m really glad you were able to do it together. So the final toast here is to… Lucy and Caroline!

Norman's speech

12th December 2020, Kirklevington

Before you worry about how long I’m going to speak, in the rain, can I tell you that I’ve timed myself and it lasts less than three minutes.

Any wedding is about the happiness of 2 people, but when Victoria and Matthew got together the lives of 4 people were transformed and it says great things about this marriage that Victoria and Matthew have been so determined to go ahead with their wedding after 2 cancellations and all the restrictions – and also that Rachel, Ben, Caroline and April and Christine, Brian, Helen and Kevin have travelled so far and gone to so much trouble to be here this afternoon – thank you to all of you.

It’s not my job to thank the flower girls, but as they are my lovely granddaughters, I’m going to do so anyway – well done girls. You were great. I was also thinking how absolutely lovely it is that 10 years ago all but a month, Daniel was a page boy at Rachel’s wedding and that today Caroline has been able to play her part in Victoria’s.

I have Caroline’s playlist on my phone and most of you know about Daniel’s interest in Nordic folklore but I’m not sure that either will agree with the particular part of Swedish culture that I’m going to say is relevant this afternoon – and it’s not IKEA or Volvo. What I was thinking is that when Victoria and Matthew met at North Yorkshire Library service, they both knew that they had met their Waterloo. You know where I’m going with this …

Matthew thought Mamma Mia and Victoria sent an S O S when they each realised that ‘I have a dream’. No doubt they said to each other ‘Take a Chance on Me’ and started calling each other ‘Honey, Honey’. (This is ending soon, I promise). I’m not sure who said ‘Voulez Vous’ – I won’t go there – but they soon realised The Name of the Game. Matthew no doubt thinks of Victoria as his Dancing Queen and I know that Victoria sees Matthew as her Super Trouper.

So, this afternoon they’ve said ‘I do, I do, I do, I do, I do’ and I say, Thank you for the Music, and I won’t keep you any longer in the cold so can I propose a toast to Matthew and Victoria – Live Long and Prosper.

Ben's speech

12th December 2020, Kirklevington

It’s so nice to be here with you all, in such utterly normal circumstances. In this lay-by. I’d like to start by congratulating Norman on his speech.

I’ve done my research, and apparently one of the fundamental elements of a best man’s speech is to read messages from and make reference to any guests who couldn’t be with us today. However, I’m not sure we’ve got time for all of that…

So, I’d like to move on to congratulating the happy couple on their marriage. It must have felt on numerous occasions this year that fate was against you, but you’ve done it! And be it an elaborate ceremony for 100s of guests, or an efficient, slimmed-down, mid-pandemic affair, the most important thing is that you are now married and ready to spend the rest of your lives together.

I’ve known Matthew a long time – admittedly not as long as some of you! And I have seen Victoria bring the best out of him, and seen how happy she has made him.

After all, a few years ago this was a man seemingly destined to live his life as some sort of weird hermit, offloading all of his physical possession and existing on just a juice-based diet. This is a man I’ve seen pass out apologetically on a bus after a marathon. A man who never had any milk in the house, or if he did, it was ‘weird’ milk.

But now, of course, so many things have changed. Albeit not the milk. Matthew and Victoria have each other, and with Daniel and Lucy they form a loving family. And Matthew, as your friend, that is all I’ve ever wanted to see for you.

Tradition decrees that a best man’s speech should contain a poem or a quotation. So, I’ve decided to take a few words from the much revered work ‘Terminator 2: Judgement Day’ where John Connor declares:

“There is no fate but what we make for ourselves”

So please join me in wishing Victoria and Matthew the very best of fates, and the very best of futures. To Victoria and Matthew.

I'll wait for you

We posted this video on the day we should have got married, in May 2020, but we were in lockdown instead.

Here’s my attempt to provide a singable English translation of the song “Je t’aimais, je t’aime et je t’aimerai” from Francis Cabrel’s 1994 album, “Samedi soir sur la terre”. Post originally published in 2020.

“Je t’aimais, je t’aime et je t’aimerais” is a love song from a parent to a small child, evoking the beauty of a child in the natural world, where even light itself, the only entity apart from the parent that can ‘see’ their private world, can not approach the child’s beauty. It’s also a profound commitment to love the child forever, to fill their life with love, and a declaration that the poet will dedicate their life to this purpose.

The literal translation of the title, is, of course, “I loved you; I love you; and I will love you”. This works in French, and is remarkable in its linguistic elegance and rhythm, but English doesn’t do it justice. So here I’ve taken a free interpretation, to make a version that, I hope, communicates the original emotion and atmosphere of the song and its main themes, while rhyming and being singable alongside the original music.

There are a few key elements that I’ve lost in this non-literal translation. One is the repeated phrase “nu sur les galets”, literally “naked on the pebbles/shingle”. While an arrestingly tender image, and familiar to any parent who has watched a toddler on a beach on a summer evening, I feel with regret that English can’t do justice to this idea in a literal sense within the confines of this poetic form.

The other one I’ve lost to my regret is “mes doigts pris sur tes poignets”, literally ‘my fingers caught upon your wrists’. In the context, it refers to the special way they hold hands which is a private love sign or marker. I have something similar with my own daughter and it is a powerful image from the song. At the moment, I can’t insert this notion within the restrictions of the verse, without detracting from the poetry.

In the original, there’s one rhyme almost entirely throughout (galets, trajet, pourrait). Here I have kept as closely as I can to one rhyming word per stanza (sand, hands, wasteland; onto, knew, grew). I’ve included a stanza by stanza colour scheme so that you can see the parts that correspond to the original French.

In summary, I’m aware of and regret these limitations, and this is a first pass at this song so it may be possible to do better another time.

What I’m happy about, though, is that this version is playable and singable, and it’s still, I feel, haunting and profound in the same vein as the original.

Je t’aimais, je t’aime, et je t’aimerai

Mon enfant nue sur les galets,
Le vent dans tes cheveux défaits,
Comme un printemps sur mon trajet,
Un diamant tombé d’un coffret.

Seule la lumière pourrait
Défaire nos repères secrets
Où, mes doigts pris sur tes poignets,
Je t’aimais, je t’aime et je t’aimerai.

Quoi que tu fasses
L’amour est partout où tu regardes,
Dans les moindres recoins de l’espace,
Dans le moindre rêve où tu t’attardes,
L’amour comme s’il en pleuvait,
Nu sur les galets.

Le ciel prétend qu’il te connaît,
Il est si beau, c’est sûrement vrai,
Lui qui ne s’approche jamais,
Je l’ai vu pris dans tes filets.

Le monde a tellement de regrets,
Tellement de choses qu’on promet,
Une seule pour laquelle je suis fait :
Je t’aimais, je t’aime et je t’aimerai.

Et quoi que tu fasses
L’amour est partout où tu regardes,
Dans les moindres recoins de l’espace,
Dans le moindre rêve où tu t’attardes,
L’amour comme s’il en pleuvait,
Nu sur les galets.

On s’envolera du même quai,
Les yeux dans les mêmes reflets.
Pour cette vie et celle d’après
Tu seras mon unique projet.

Je m’en irai poser tes portraits
A tous les plafonds de tous les palais,
Sur tous les murs que je trouverai
Et, juste en dessous, j’écrirai
Que seule la lumière pourrait…

Et, mes doigts pris sur tes poignets,
Je t’aimais, je t’aime et je t’aimerai.

Then, Now and Always

A singable English translation of “Je t’aimais, je t’aime et je t’aimerai” by Francis Cabrel

You’re running free along the sand
Your hair blown wild in windy strands
My child holds springtime in their hands
Sowing life in a wasteland

Only light could reach into
The worlds that only we knew
We made our stories as you grew
Then, now and always, I love you.

Wherever you go
Love will be with you as you grow
Woven through everything that you know
Every dream today and tomorrow
Love in the palm of your hand
Running free along the sand.

The sunshine may try to know you.
A morning star, you shine light too.
The stars, so far, can’t approach you
Their light drawn to earth to show you.

So many lives that we’re bound to.
Promises made that don’t come true
There is one truth that I will hold to
Then, now and always, I love you.

Wherever you go
Love will be with you as you grow
Woven through everything that you know
Every dream today and tomorrow
Love in the palm of your hand
Running free along the sand.

Together we’ll conquer the skies
I see reflected in your eyes
Something I’ll always recognise.
My life’s work to prioritise.

I’ll put up pictures of you
On every palace that I pass through
On every wall that I ever knew
I’ll write so all will know it’s true
That the stars can’t approach you.

There is one truth that I will hold to
Then, now and always, I love you.

So the changes hoped for in my first post on this new blog came to pass... I'm starting a new job on 17th August as a Happiness Engineer (technical support) at Automattic, the parent company of digital tools including WordPress.com and WooCommerce.

I'm hoping that this will be my last job change... I fully intend to retire at Automattic - it's a dream role. [2025 Spoiler... this did not happen.]

We're taking some time this month before I start the job, to attempt to learn how to have holidays and time 'away from keyboard' or AFK as they say at Automattic, which has been more difficult than expected, due to the pressures of trying to close down my business. Wranglings about that have taken up most of the first week of my two weeks out. But I'm there now and trying to remember who I am and what I do when I'm not working. (I've even been trying to work on my new job before its start date, much to the amused admonishment of my new boss.)

So, instead, I have another week to police those instincts and recover some of what I am when I'm not working. I've pretty much been working non stop 7 days per week for eighteen months running my company, even when technically 'on holiday'. And our holidays for the last few years haven't necessarily been the breaks they should have been - definitely not emotional breaks when they're spent simultaneously dealing with trying to build a way for the children to healthily and happily spend time with their dad. But with tensions having eased, and the children emerging into teenagerhood and towards adulthood and autonomy, I'm cautiously optimistic that the difficult times are in the past in that regard.

I have a few projects that I've neglected for years. One is to start a blog about the French singer-songwriter Francis Cabrel which I'm going to finally do this week... or today! [2025 note: view posts here!]

Another is to compose three part vocal arrangements. I'll look at setting aside time for that when I get back, as I need my midi keyboard. I might potentially record them on Youtube. [2025 note: view posts here!]

Another is to go swimming. Not so easy with coronavirus around, so that might have to wait a bit. I have a few plans.

The main challenge will be to set healthy routines for our new life once we're back and get started on the new normality. We've started by making a list of 'things Victoria likes to do'. I'll blog about that list when I get back from being away. It was surprisingly difficult to come up with, as it feels like I have forgotten what it's like to be myself or who I am. So there are a certain number of baby steps to return to a healthy and happy day to day.

In my new job schedule I'm going to make myself one day per week when I'm not at work, and when I can be on my own. It feels audacious and tremendous, and free.

Photo in header (c) me - the son et lumière at the château de Blois, Loire Valley, France, 2020.

Things are changing in 2020.

At this very moment, I'm trying to change my work and career, and the results of that are a few weeks away yet. But whatever happens, I'm on a new path from here.

I stopped writing and blogging publicly online a few years ago due to a complicated and stressful personal situation, which has now passed. And while I thought I'd continue to write even privately, it was somehow sucked out of me. Not writing is bad for me, and I've known it for a long time.

I've prioritised other things, worked too much, slept too little, moved too little.

The children will both be in secondary school in September of this year, and it's going to be a shift change for all of us. It represents a shift away from that small-child motherhood which is so absorbing, towards, I feel, an accompaniment of growing people which involves helping them to gain independence.

My partner and I have been together for five years and we want to use 2020 to set our intentions for the rest of our lives, with our family and friends alongside us, by getting married. It was going to be this spring, and now it's been postponed until November, but it'll happen somehow in 2020 even if it's not quite how we planned.

Work-wise, I have an opportunity over the next few weeks to see if I can make the transformation real that I've been half-dreaming, half-planning for for more than a year now. And if that doesn't pan out, although it'll be with great disappointment, I'll move forwards through 2020 and beyond, and it is not going to be the same as the last decade.  I have enough experience now of both life and work to know what my day, week, month and year needs to look like long term (and I can accept that it's taken me until age 40 to achieve this self-knowledge!)

I've been an adult for more than 20 years and it's clearer with every year that passes that all of life is about learning to live, right up to the very end. I think we can try to use, writing, literature, art and music to try to help each other to live better by sharing what we have learned. This is a philosophy I can accept and embark upon the next 40 years having internalised.

So 2020, appropriately, is the year of seeing clearly.

Mike was a colleague I used to know a little when I worked at the library service in North Yorkshire, and I wrote this after his very untimely death.

If people truly can outlive their physical lives through their writing then thank goodness for Mike's writing. It's really the only way I knew him, having only met him a handful of times but having talked extensively over Facebook chat.

It was Mike's funeral today and although I considered going, I felt it wasn't my place. I met him in person fewer times than I could count on one hand. But a mutual friend told me he was a fan of mine, which means a lot, and it was mutual.

Obviously a brief knowledge through writing is a knowledge of a person that can be only in fragments. But they were fragments of enough quality to make it obvious that he was a worthwhile, intelligent, funny and interesting person, that I found to be a person of meaning in a world of meaninglessness, and what more irony therefore than the fact that he himself struggled to find meaning. It does seem that is the way. Here are some of the fragments of the things he wrote so that I can find them again.

From private messages:

"The only cure for [a writing style that is stuck in a rut], if you think it needs a cure, is lots of wide reading - from trashy magazines to Tolstoy."

I'll take this forward and do it. But I'm not sure I have the clarity of thought to ever become as clever and insightful a writer as Mike was.

"I think you have to be generous with yourself and not judgemental. I find it's easy for me to be very hard on myself and counter-productive because I end up feeling its all a bit pointless. I tend to lose myself in the past - looking at old newspapers, old TV clips on You Tube from my childhood. It's a kind of comfort blanket from the cold out there."

Someone else has also recently been teaching me to be compassionate towards myself, and I won't forget that Mike told me this a long time ago nor that he recommended finding the right comfort blanket.

Finally from his recent blog that I don't want to forget:

"Death itself is quite the best thing I've ever known for focusing the mind on life, particularly the specifics of being alive. The colours of autumn are that bit more vivid, the cold more bitter, the sun slightly more intense. There is so much I want to do, to write, to experience, to see - I hardly know where to start."

I don't like it, I don't like any of it, I don't like to think of this person who despite everything, wanted to live, and who is not doing so. I don't accept it. I don't like it. I want to keep the autumn colours vivid and the sun intense and not waste being here. I want to be here.

I occasionally sent Mike choral music fragments as I knew he used to sing, and as choral music soothes me profoundly I hoped it might help. So here is some absolute, pure beauty out of the darkness; Palestrina on a theme (totally meaningful to me as a complete atheist) of humanity crying out from the darkness in the name of hope and joy and redemption. There is beauty in us, and we can hold to that even when we know in the midst of life's cruelty that there's nothing else, and that's why we must look for those moments of human beauty.

First question. Why would a person desire to kill a beautiful, majestic creature like this. Why would they spend £32,000 in order to be able to kill it. Why would skinning it and taking its head be important. How can we even begin to understand such behaviour from our own species. As so often in life, I want to try to turn David Attenborough (valuing all life and its behaviours) on the peculiar species to which I so often feel I only tenuously belong.

Some more precursor questions. Is it possible to morally judge one's own species objectively? It is even moral to assign an ethical hierarchy to human beings, from the standpoint of being one? What qualifies me to rank my fellow humans according to their values? Yet how else am I supposed to consider a person who thinks it is fun to kill a beautiful and rare creature except in terms of an ethical hierarchy which entails instinctive, yet surely primitive, ideas of good and evil? Where can I gain an objective vantage point in this squealing, infantile society where surely, surely this is a black and white ethical question (it is WRONG!) yet my own species is torn down the middle, ourselves animals for whom the question of to kill or not to kill is messy and full of the personal, the petty, and the political.

Instinctively I turn to rational empathy. I need to understand this. So, in the mind of this hunter, what justifies the death of the lion?

I'm not positioning myself as some kind of lone guardian of morality in the human race. This article points out that the majority of people can't understand the trophy hunting mentality. But I want to look at how the pro-hunting lobby justifies itself.

“It is a way of honoring that animal for all time.” Source.

Are we talking about religion? I need to look up whether there is a correlation between religious belief, and big game hunting. Does Christian faith entail the desire to kill one's fellow creatures? It wouldn't be the first such religious paradox. Perhaps for the religious, life can be truly valued once it is gone. Our life here is fundamentally meaningless; what has meaning is the Kingdom of Heaven in the afterlife. Therefore, killing an animal and venerating its corpse represents a greater meaning than allowing it to roam free, an empty and meaninglessly futile existence, on the African plain. Christians live in order to reap the reward at the end; not for the sake of living. So, life only holds meaning for the atheist. Extrapolation? In what way is this extrapolation? Show me how this is not true. Christians are living this life in order to earn their awaited glory after death. So causing an animal's death, here, is a way to access glory for the animal.

"Hunt operators are conservationists first, and hunters second." Source.

Shades of the recent fox hunting debates in England. Are big game hunters really helping local communities, providing employment and tourism income? The same article suggests that this is a fallacy, giving Kenya as an example, where the safari/tourism economy is thriving despite the total ban on trophy hunting.

I've saved until last the piece that requires the most thought. It's called "Why do people enjoy hunting so much?" and it's from GoodGameHunting.com. The whole thing deserves a read, but here are some key quotes.

"Being a hunter means that you have to adjust to the outdoors and what it has to offer. Just realizing that you are a small part of that vast drama that is Mother Nature fills your heart with joy and awe." Hunters see themselves as part of the food chain, perhaps. Of all justifications, maybe this is the most convincing. We are animals alongside other animals and that is our destiny whether we like it or not. This article also suggests the justification that on some level, big game hunters feel that humankind's mastery of the natural world is threatened by large and powerful creatures, so eliminating them is instinctive. These are the only justifications I feel I can understand, since they conceive of humans as creatures alongside the lion: but they do not allow the possibility for humans to use our intellect to rise above these concerns and to use our nuance of rationale and emotion to become better.

"When we travel, it is a new experience and we discover new wonders and views." Killing for sport is a way to broaden our experiences and create memories. Human experiences, but at the expense of other creatures' actual existence? I can't find any equilibrium here.

"Without this harvesting control, game animals can overpopulate, destroy their natural habitat or adversely impact other species in the environment." The word 'harvest' deeply disturbs me. The whole rationale about population control sounds so contrived I can't respect it.

And finally, "Life is about being happy, making others happy and enjoying the fruits of our labor.... We do what we do for the basic love of life and nature."

This is the one that stops me in my tracks. It calls upon the meaning of life to justify expending that of other creatures. Life is about enjoying killing. We kill animals because killing them is to experience them. Killing is to experience living.

And here I am, expending a lot of energy to try to understand someone else's point of view. Empathy and the moral hierarchy of animals and humans has been very clearly and concisely considered by others before me, of course, for many decades and with great philosophical integrity, and it rings with rational truth.

But I want to feed a more raw emotion into this deceptively simple rationale of empathy and life. If the hunter that killed this lion had even the slightest notion of empathy in this sense, he would have been able to picture, as I can, the life of this creature; his instinctive, base duty to his pride, his fellow creatures it was his role to protect; his simple routine of mornings and sunsets; the thrill of his hunts and the indolent hot pleasure of his daytime sleep; the warm breeze in his mane and the sharp taste of blood of his prey. I can picture the essence of physical life of a being not like me.

But let's go one step further and consider the fact that this is a famous lion, called Cecil. This one life matters to the world. There is worldwide outrage. But as Daria Zeoli points out, only caring about stunning African big game is speciesism. Worse still, only caring about a lion called Cecil is anthropomorphic speciesism. 'He' has a name, a family, an identity, a history set in relation with humans (several articles have pointed out how 'he' seemed to like interacting with humans). So we can not only care about him more than we care about a nameless chicken that was slaughtered yesterday down the road to end up on a shelf in the Co-op, but also more than about the 600 lions that are hunted to death each year, because he has a name and human-like identity. Maybe I have an emotional reaction to imagining Cecil's life because I have a hopelessly childlike empathy for anthropomorphised animals having read too much Redwall. It's not enough. It's the same ethical problem built into our nature that makes us care more about one or a few deaths in our own town or country than about many deaths a long way away in a distant country. But again, it behoves us to better ourselves, whatever the instinctive reaction of our primitive emotions may be, to actively decide to be better and to think harder and care more truthfully and behave more responsibly.

So far, so good. But picturing the life, love and desire of a fellow human being whose idea of pleasure is to saw off a great golden head from its body, for a 'trophy'; to take pleasure in the striking down of rare and stunning animals, in order to live more richly through the experience of causing their deaths; this I can not empathise with. I will never understand it. Even if it may be paradoxical to claim the inability to empathise with a person who has no empathy, I can't get away from the fact that from an emotional point of view, however I try to consider it, I can not posit this person's frame of mind. Yet this is a person from my own species, with a name, family, job, everything I should be able to understand. An intelligent person, a dentist, from a Western context I should be able to completely understand and picture. I'm left shaking my head and floundering to explain it. That man's absence of consideration for the lion as a being has to be psychopathic, because a psychopath can not understand that his or her fellow beings have feelings of their own. It is cruel. It is insane. It is perverted. I can't belong to his species. Who knows what my species is; but it is not the same as his. Here I draw my line.

Attempting to better myself as a human being I am inevitably going to leave behind those who actively do not try, or those who actively claim that their way of being human is to embrace primitive ethics, to kill in order to be truly human; whereas I wish to not kill in order to be truly human, because being truly human means to better myself.

Some of the most annoyingly cliched advice that people prone to depressive thinking receive is to "think positively"; "just be positive"; "look on the bright side". As if optimism could be artifically made; as if you could somehow fake or whitewash your experiences and feelings; as if pretending would make things better.

On the other hand, sometimes things are fine, in fact things are good. Then, someone observing herself could identify that what is actually going on is not depression or pessimism, but negative thinking; and that the negative thinking is irrational, or harmful; that it's an internal anomaly that needs fixing.

The other evening I had a revelation that this had been happening to me when I caught myself having a ridiculous thought. It was a little like when you catch yourself falling asleep and realise that dream images have started to float into view. It was the thought that a certain friend would be much happier without me in their life.

Catching myself thinking this was a well-timed wake-up call. Not only is it objectively insane and untrue, but I recognised it as a stablemate of something which happily hasn't troubled me often: suicidal ideation. There aren't many steps between thinking a friend would be happier without you, to thinking that the whole world would be better without you in it; and combined with an occasional passing spectre of not wanting to exist, or the longing for the void, that could be a very dangerous combination.

Sitting down with myself and tracing this single thought back like Chinese Whispers, I uncovered a whole story of more and more irrational fears and thoughts that had been developing all day and the day before, until finally, I decided that this train of thought had been triggered by a chance remark by another friend. She'd asked an innocent question about the friendship in question. My answer hadn't been what she'd expected, and although until then I hadn't been troubled, I started to be. What if she was right? What if I should do what is expected instead of what I was doing? What if the expected thing is the "right" thing and my way to run the friendship isn't? Could I correct this and what would happen if I tried? And if I couldn't, what was the corollary of that for the friendship in question?

Friendships don't come naturally to me. For proper friendships, I am always starting from scratch and reinventing the wheel. As a result, I always overthink. My attempts to carry out friendships in 'normal', chronological ways are always going to be consciously planned and theorised. Is this best? Or this? And my own theory about how to run it develops little by little as I feel my way. Whatever rules other people naturally follow have never seemed to stick. I make my own rules, and I understand that they're not often successful. My true friends know this and even value it, and they know that they are important to me; and as the friendship gets closer, or when it's permanently solid, the less I have to plan and construct, and the happier we all are. Or sometimes, a friendship miraculously and mysteriously occurs without me knowing how - but I'll then try to tweak and plan the maintenance of it. I've worked hard to know this about myself and have mostly reached a place of peace with it.

But here I'd really gone all out on the negative theorising and ultra-theorising until, I realised, I could barely function, and it was from what I'd have to make myself admit to identifying as fairly profound anxiety.

I started googling "how to get out of a spiral of negative thoughts", and was pleasantly surprised that I didn't have to teach myself the entire theory of cognitive behavioural therapy (although I'd have tackled that with equanimity of course, as it's the comfort zone! Bring on the research!) because all the advice was along the same lines. You just stop doing it.

A year or so ago I might have reacted with a sarcastic huff and closed all the tabs with comically inadequate frustration-relieving jabs at the mousepad. But I'm in a new era of self-help and mental and physical health now; and I'm ultra motivated to stop doing this. So I gave the whole bunch of American-sounding suspiciously woo-like psychology websites the benefit of the doubt. From this to this to this to this, the story is the same - the key is to catch yourself doing it, acknowledge the irrationality, let the thoughts go, and consciously redirect new thoughts towards positivity and truth.

Although my rational and sceptical brain was bridling at some of the language (as I've a tendency to feel immensely patronised by self-help writing), the sheer statistical significance of the fact that all the articles (wherever positioned on the woo spectrum) give the same advice, plus the familiarity of that advice to everything I casually know about CBT combined with the growing warm feeling of inherent common sense the more I read, made me realise that I've actually got to take this seriously.

Driving the school run this morning, listening to ...maybe Haydn? Something purifyingly classical... produced another unexpected revelation related to the word "should". What a terrifying, trapping, poisonous word. What "should" I do? How and who "should" I be? How "should" this friendship operate and how "should" I behave in it?

The revelation came out of instinctive rebellion. I realised, pardon my French (quand-même!), but the word "should" can bugger off. I do what I need or feel. I will be who I am and how I can. The friendship is going to operate and evolve how it operates and evolves, and I am going to behave according to my own nature and according to that of the friend.

What a feeling of relief and unburdening that was. So two jigsaw pieces had fallen together with only one left to fall into place later today, before a perfectly formed blog post was to be born.

(A 3 part jigsaw may not sound difficult to you, but if you wish to follow the metaphor, imagine that you have to find the 3 parts in an enormous vat of jigsaw pieces that all look similar. Oh, and people are shouting that you should pick this piece, or this. And in your life so far you've probably tried most of them or ended up breaking them or your jigsaw that you thought was finished turned out to be wrong and urgh, end the jigsaw metaphor.)

I am mid way through the Couch to 5K running plan, which is a fitness schedule based on running for longer and longer time intervals. I'm on the start of Week 5 which involved, today, three 5-minute runs with 3-minute walking breaks inbetween. But Week 5 represents the biggest change in the plan so far, as day 2 includes some 8 minute duration running, then day 3 includes a 20 minute run with no walking break at all.

I wanted to plan a tweet. So I started by typing: "Inexorably heading towards #C25K Wk 5 20 min non stop run." Then I had a google to see what the advice is for people getting ready to tackle it. The result was a pitiful deluge of forum posts with people who didn't think they could make it; had got stuck on it for six weeks; thought it was insane and what could be the justification; didn't believe they could do it and were contemplating giving up; tried but had repeatedly failed.

So I read the answers, by more experienced runners, to these forum posts. And they were all the same. You've trained for this. If you've done the rest, you are perfectly capable of running this. You're not alone. It's a psychological barrier. You're stuck thinking: I can't do this! I'm not a runner! But if you've been doing this for five weeks, then, actually, you are a runner. And it's negative thinking, and that's all. You can do this run. You just have to know that you can do it in your mind.

So I can write the self-help stuff for myself now. "You've been working so desperately hard at this sort of stuff for a long time. You're stuck thinking: This can't be for me! But you can do this. In your own way. It can only get better. It's just negative thinking that can damage it. You know, inside, that you can do it. It is for you and you are ready. And you're not alone."

So the word inexorably is going. (Though it's pretty). And there's only one appropriate ending to this post.

I can do this. I am a runner.

I wanted to share a song that I've been preoccupied by a little. It's a song by the French singer-songwriter Francis Cabrel and, when put prosaically, couldn't be more French. An adult looks back at a formative sexual experience of his adolescence, when he - basically - looked up the dress of a girl who had climbed up a tree ahead of him. Put like that, it sounds prurient and a bit pervy. So far, so middle aged French singer-songwriter.

But it's sheer poetry, which I've attempted to translate below, although translating poetry is always going to be a rewriting of sorts. I find it a goosepimple-inducing meditation on life's most precious and beautiful moments, youth, the meaning of life, what one person can give another, the game of love and desire, and how both physical and visual sensuality is built incontrovertibly into the human experience.

T'avais mis ta robe légère
Moi, l'échelle contre un cerisier
T'as voulu monter la première
Et après

Y a tant de façons, de manières
De dire les choses sans parler
Et comme tu savais bien le faire
Tu l'as fait

Un sourire, une main tendue
Et par le jeu des transparences
Ces fruits dans les plis du tissu
Qui balancent

Il ne s'agissait pas de monter bien haut
Mais les pieds sur les premiers barreaux
J'ai senti glisser le manteau
De l'enfance

On n'a rien gravé dans le marbre
Mais j'avoue souvent y penser
Chaque fois que j'entends qu'un arbre
Est tombé

Un arbre, c'est vite fendu
Le bois, quelqu'un a dû le vendre
S'il savait le mal que j'ai eu
A descendre

D'ailleurs en suis-je descendu
De tous ces jeux de transparence,
Ces fruits dans les plis des tissus
Qui balancent ?

J'ai trouvé d'autres choses à faire
Et d'autres sourires à croiser
Mais une aussi belle lumière
Jamais

A la vitesse où le temps passe
Le miracle est que rien n'efface l'essentiel
Tout s'envole en ombre légère
Tout sauf ce goût de fièvre et de miel

Tout s'est envolé dans l'espace
Le sourire, la robe, l'arbre et l'échelle
A la vitesse où le temps passe
Rien, rien n'efface l'essentiel

J'ai trouvé d'autres choses à faire
Et d'autres sourires à croiser
Mais une si belle lumière
Jamais

Et voilà que, du sol où nous sommes,
Nous passons nos vies de mortels
A chercher ces portes qui donnent
Vers le ciel

You'd put on a light dress
I'd put a ladder against the cherry tree
You wanted to climb up first
And afterwards...

There are many ways
To say things without speaking
And, since you knew exactly how,
You did it.

A smile, an outstretched hand
And through the play of sheer fabric
Fruit swaying in the folds of material

I didn't climb very high
But when I stepped onto the first rung
I felt the cloak of childhood
Slipping away.

We didn't set anything in stone
But I admit, I often think about it
Every time I hear that a tree
Has fallen.

A tree is easily chopped down
Someone must have sold the wood.
If only they knew
How hard it was for me to climb down.

Did I ever really climb down?
From that play of sheer fabric
Those fruits that swayed in the folds of material.

I found other things to do
I met other smiles.
But never again
Such a beautiful light.

At the speed that time passes,
The miracle is, that nothing wipes away
That which is eternal.
Everything flies away in soft shadows
Everything except that taste of fever, and honey.

Everything has flown away into space
The smile, the dress, the tree and the ladder.
At the speed that time passes,
Nothing wipes away
That which is essential.

And, from the ground where we stand
We spend our mortal lives
Looking for doors
That open onto heaven.

The poem, distanced, courses through the blood
My struggling language clamouring for air.
These empty windows mock the stammering
Of hitching speech, and words broken and bare.

I'm wincing at the glowing laptop screen
The wasted words that crowding weight my brow
Flood, blackly voiding sense. The threatened dream
Aside, it's the abyss of sleep feared now.

The crave, the waste, the sharpest desperate twist
Of ephemeral need, directionless.
No help, no balm, no answer, nothing missed,
No communication. Just restlessness.

Without unburdenment poems are lost.
They fight me, mocking attempts to conform
To fingers that would type them into shapes
And bind their entropy in rhythmed form.

Relentless, painful voice of poetry
Release the words in order. Let me be.
Please help me pull the corners and unwind
The angry knots of language, bound and twined.

Poems can unleash the mental storm
Without a concrete sense, the words can form.
This blithe poetic form will have to do
To paint it, twisted, meaningless, untrue.

New rhythms force their way, forcing a voice,
But leaving senseless phrases, voiding choice.
With instinct only left, the words remain
With rhythmed poetry, the soul's refrain.

Read more about the challenge and about my reasons for taking it on.

Below is my food diary that I updated all week - comments and thoughts are at the end.

Day 1 - exactly £1

As much as anything keeping a diary will help me police myself and check that I'm not accidentally going over target day to day. I should add that I started on Tuesday 29th April 2014, because, due to poor planning, I had too many fresh things in the fridge that were going off and it would be ridiculous to start a poverty challenge by blatant food wastage.

Glass orange juice - 13p
2x breakfast biscuits - 8p
200ml milk - 9p

Hard boiled egg 15p
1 tsp mayonnaise less than 1p

Slice of garlic bread - 15p
Jacket potato - 10p
Portion of veg chilli - 30p

Depends on where and in what format you buy your jacket potato so I am taking Tom Hiddleston's word for the cost of it (see video here). I ate a piece of the garlic bread I prepared for the children, so have to forego a banana today. I calculated the price of the chilli by adding all the ingredients together and dividing by 5. I feel fine and am actually very full from the potato and chilli, as the portion is really generous. I'll just drink some water this evening.

Day 2 - £1.11

Scrambled egg - 15p
1 slice toast - 3p
Orange juice - 13p

Cup a soup - 5p
Banana - 20p
2 cups of coffee with milk - 20p
2 biscuits - 1p

Portion of chilli - 30p
100g rice - 4p

Gone over today due to cups of coffee with milk. I am basing this on 6p for teaspoonful of instant coffee and 4p for about 50ml of milk, which I should double check. So I must keep an eye on that tomorrow. I was absolutely starving by about five o'clock so happily, the rice and chilli was a decent portion. I think I was so hungry because lunch contained no protein, as I was fine from breakfast till lunch and was also fine yesterday, so I will rectify that tomorrow as well, and hopefully pay for some of today's coffee by going without orange juice.
Biscuits are Sainsburys Basics Rich Tea which are 15p a packet.

Day 3 - exactly £1

50g muesli - 6p
200ml milk -9p
Orange juice - 13p

Portion of chilli - 30p

Slice toast -3p
100g rice - 4p
1 egg - 15p
ketchup
1 banana - 20p

Today was hard going. I've been preoccupied with thoughts of food most of the day. The slice of toast on the right, eaten when I got home around quarter to six, was the most delicious slice of toast I've ever seen, and the portion of rice (on its own with slices of mid-hard boiled egg and a little ketchup) seemed gloriously generous. I haven't yet eaten the banana (saving it for later tonight) but I feel quite satisfied now. Plan for tomorrow is more protein early in the day.

Day 4 - £1.02

Scrambled egg - 15p
1 slice toast - 3p
2 biscuits - 1p
1 cup black coffee - 6p

Cup a soup - 5p
Banana - 20p
1 cup of white coffee - 10p
2 biscuits - 1p

1 cup black coffee - 6p

Portion of chilli - 30p
100g rice - 4p
2 biscuits - 1p

Today was fine, actually, hunger wise, mainly because the Basics rich tea biscuits from Sainsbury's kept hunger at bay at tricky times like 4pm. I had normal hunger levels and energy levels. However, I went over due to the biscuits and coffee so tomorrow, the final day, I need to make up that lost 13p and achieve an 87p day.

The only thing I have to say about today is that after choir this evening, I went out for a drink with friends. I had a gin and tonic costing £3.50 and also bought one for a friend. It would be too long an introspective waffle to explain the reasons why I would decide to do this rather than telling them about the challenge and abstaining, but the short version is that it's a rare thing for me to go out socially on my own with other adults, and from the point of view of my own life it was a valuable choice to make. It was selfish, but for many reasons, I decided it would be foolish to be dogmatic in this case. Just as on Monday I couldn't justify starting the challenge while I had food in the fridge that was going to spoil. That said, I am determined to never again nonchalantly spend that amount without remembering this and weighing my priorities.

The other negative point is that today I threw away a whole pint of milk that had gone off in the office fridge. The only reason it went off was that I wasn't drinking it at work, and due to my poor planning, I had allocated myself too much milk (and nobody else in the office drinks skimmed). Even as I was pouring it out I felt that it was almost criminally against the spirit of the challenge and I'm still not sure how I should have remedied this.

Day 5

Scrambled egg - 15p
2 slices toast - 6p
1 cup black coffee - 6p

Portion of chilli - 30p
1/6 piece of pizza - 32p
Half a banana - 10p

I'm stopping recording here, because I've failed. Day 5 already adds up to 99p when I was supposed to keep to 87, and the reason is that I refuse to waste food. My children had pizza for lunch and banana for pudding, and my daughter didn't want to finish either, so handed them to me.

I suppose I discovered one of my own internal limits, as I strongly dislike wasting food in any circumstances, and I will not throw away perfectly good food when there are people starving. I bought the pizza from the reduced shelf for £1.89 which means that eating a sixth of it costs 32p. If I had managed to do the challenge mid week when I don't eat with the children as often, this would not have occurred, but doing it on a Saturday was always going to be more difficult.

Do I dare conclude that keeping myself healthy leaves me more resources to help charities in the future? :(

Also, upon re-reading the challenge following this incident I have not followed the rules anyway. The 15p packet of rich tea biscuits was at work, and according to the rules I should have budgeted for the whole packet just as I should have included the whole loaf of bread and the whole bag of rice and all 6 onions. I have to admit to finding these rules silly, as there's no way I could have eaten a loaf of bread or a kilo of rice this week without either making myself ill, or genuinely depriving my body of nutrients. As I arranged it, I ate healthily with a good balance of fruit/veg, protein and carbohydrates (although too many carbs caused by the rice) and the chilli was particularly nutritious.

And in all this I've disregarded the night out last night, with the justifications I made and what they entail. Even counting that transgression, however, the single thing that has bothered me the most this week is the decision to throw away a pint of milk in order to 'succeed'.

I'm not criticising the structure of the challenge as I think it is an excellent idea and I have found it very valuable in resetting my compass for various ethical and lifestyle issues. I'll consider doing it again next year as I will be able to tell how much I've changed my habits, or not. However, I can not adhere to arbitrary rules if they entail crossing lines I simply don't consider as reasonable, and wasting food in this context is my red line. I have found my values honed, sharpened and brought into focus by considering, indeed, these very issues of where I decided to transgress.

I would like to thank with all my heart the people who donated to Unicef on my behalf - you know who you are! - and encourage anybody else who finds this floating around in their mind for a while after reading to come back and donate. Well done to everyone who did the #BelowTheLine challenge this week.

Click to donate to Live Below the Line.

Click to read my diary and conclusions after Live Below The Line.

I'm regularly troubled by my own privilege compared to people living on dramatically less. Although I am a single parent with a low income, because I live in the UK and have additional support from the state I can live a comfortable life and feed my children. Although I have to budget carefully, our basic needs as a family are met, we can treat ourselves occasionally, and money is not constantly on my mind. We're managing.

I originally signed up for Live Below The Line, a challenge to eat for only £1 a day for 5 days, imagining that I would use it to fundraise, and although I have had only a small response so far, I haven't been as all out on marketing as I could be, and I'm still hoping that donations will happen, perhaps after the fact rather than in the form of sponsorship. Please click here to donate to the Live Below The Line appeal - money will go to Unicef.

The real reason I'm determined to do this, however, is as a reminder to myself not to take things for granted. It's very easy to spend a pound on a coffee here, and a pound on a glass of wine there, so I imagined that living on one pound a day for all food consumed should be a useful wake-up call. My children are not participating in the challenge - they'll be eating normally all week. Although in the future I hope they will be aware of poverty issues, they're too young for me to want to risk making an impact nutritionally (although in fact, I'm sure they'd be fine).

I went to Morrisons to do the shop for the challenge. Never did I expect how hard the lesson would be to learn.

First attempt:

6 eggs - 93p
1l orange juice - 65p
1 loaf bread - 50p
Bag onions - 45p
Broccoli - 49p
1kg rice - 40p
2 tins of chopped tomatoes - 62p
1 tin red kidney beans - 23p
Box of cup soup - 23p
Bag of bananas - £1
Tin of baked beans - 33p
2 pint milk - 89p

That comes to £6.72, so I'm already way over. Time to reconsider. I didn't want to do without the orange juice and bananas as they'd be my only sweet flavoured thing of the week. The eggs and beans would be my only protein, and the broccoli my only green veg. I wanted the cup soup as they're good for an illusion of fullness to pad out a meal, and they're 4 in a box. The milk was the extravagance, for tea and coffee and for cereal on a morning (an extra cost not factored in yet).

Some of these items could be split - I would only use 2 out of the 6 onions in the bag to make the sort of veg/bean chilli I'm planning, so 2 onions - 15p brings me down to £6.42. The loaf of bread contains 22 slices so if I only use one a day, that would cost 12p for the week, bringing me down to £6.04. I'd only use half the bag of rice, so that's £5.84.

Let's say I only use 3 eggs in the week. £5.37 left. Lose the tin of baked beans. £5.04. I also have forgotten that I need to calculate breakfast cereal that I already own into this - 6p for 50g muesli, 8p for two breakfast biscuits, 34p spread across the week so £5.38. 1 tsp of instant coffee is probably about 6p and one tea bag about 2p, so even at only one coffee a day, that still gets me up to about £5.68. I haven't included a few pence for chilli powder for the veg chilli.

Okay. Where will I compromise. I will take coffee black, saving 1 pint of milk (I drink it milky). Back to £5.23. Let's say I only use 2-3 slices of bread in the week. Down to £5.17. Each glass of 200ml orange juice costs 13p, so if I go without one day and have half a glass on another day, I will fall under £5.

What is humbling is the knowledge that 1.2 billion people live in extreme poverty all over the world. The £1 is adjusted for UK purchasing power and inflation, and it's worth remembering that in developing countries that £1 would include health, transport, clothing, education, all the other costs of life. £1 a day on food is already cheating, catastrophically.

Intellectually I knew what was coming and that I'd have to calculate carefully. What I hadn't predicted was how much it focuses the mind on priorities. If I skip bread that day, I can have orange juice. If I eat too much for breakfast, I won't be able to afford lunch. If I go without a banana maybe I can afford an extra egg. If I have a second helping today, I might not be able to eat tomorrow. It leads to a sort of hyper-awareness of consumption and self-policing. Usually, I just make myself a coffee or eat a banana without really worrying about how much it costs.

And if I really had such a tight budget how would I buy in bulk? The bag of muesli cost £1.18 - it will last for weeks, but I would have to go dramatically without other things that week, or perhaps I would save for a month or two in advance to be able to afford it.

It also brings focus down to pennies. A regular lunch I have is a bag of salad and half a tub of houmous with some black olives. That meal alone costs about £2. Walking through the shop, the proportion of items which were closed off to me came into sharp relief. The budget range was the only possible option, and some of the products I would normally consider buying were horrifying. A small punnet of blueberries is £2.50; a ham and cheese pizza £2.50. A bottle of Ribena almost £3, as is a tub of Nesquik hot chocolate. Looking through my purchase history I discover the hair mousse I'm currently using is £6 a bottle. It makes coffee shop prices seem shocking - between 2 and 3 pounds depending on size and style.

If the children are being fussy at mealtimes I sometimes rebuke them with the comment that there are starving children in the world who have nothing to eat, and they should be ashamed of themselves being fussy about particles of spinach when they are incredibly lucky to have full tasty meals put in front of them three times a day, every day. To their credit, they usually do respond to this with a suitably chastened look, and at least try to eat some more.

It's all very well touting this philosophy, but I should be practising what I preach. I give smalll amounts to charity every month and I hope I will be a more responsible consumer now that this challenge has been such a striking attitude-awakener. Giving away large proportions of our possessions, like Scott Neeson who recently popped up on my Facebook feed, or founder of Giving What We Can, Toby Ord, may not be a realistic option for everyone, but a little sprinkling of that attitude might go a long way.

I clearly remember, when I was much worse off than I am now, watching a friend hear a song he liked in a pub, identify it with an app, and instantly pay 70p to download it on his phone. It was the speed of the transaction that left me feeling strangely disgusted at the ease with which he casually threw money away when I wasn't even sure whether I could justify paying for the coffee I was drinking. Now, I also spend money on fun. At the weekend I spent £17.95 on a PC copy of Minecraft for my son - if I go without my own treats for a few weeks to make up that money, does it make it okay? At what point along the ethical timeline should I donate that money to starving children? If I have that money available, and don't need it for my own food and shelter, then how dare I?

I'm not sure if I have made much progress in the difficulties regarding my own privilege. The awareness is certainly there, and it's sobering, so perhaps that counts as a start.

Click to donate to the Live Below the Line appeal.

I'd never even heard of the campaign until I followed Hiddleston Daily on Tumblr so many thanks to them and to actor Tom Hiddleston for using his fame to set a great example.

Click to read my diary and conclusions after Live Below The Line.