Rose-tinted friendship

Last weekend one of my best friends, Christine, from Switzerland came for a 24 hour flying visit. We met in Paddington Station and wandered the freezing streets of London, chatting  and laughing.  

It was one of those rare, perfect days when everything you wish for happens.

" What shall we have for lunch?" I asked. " Chips would be good," she said, " Fried halloumi would be nice," I said.  And there it was, in front of us, a diner selling chips and fried halloumi and a burger or two if you fancied it. 

" What else would you like to do?" I asked.

Christine looked thoughtful. 

" Well," she said, " I'd really like to get my hair cut."

I looked doubtful.

" You can try," I said, " but it might be hard. A Saturday afternoon in the centre of London without an appointment."

She shrugged and bundled her beautiful curls behind her head. 

" We'll see," she said.

So we walked towards Soho and there it was, a sign outside a hairdressing salon.

25% off walk-in appointments today..

" Could I get my hair cut?" asked Christine.

"Of course," smiled the girl behind the counter, offering us coffee and biscuits

" would now be ok?"

Perhaps it was  the evening cocktails  in Skylon that gave the day an extra rose tint. 

But I don't think so. 

 I think it was being with my friend. We don't get to see each other often anymore. 

 When we lived in Switzerland she was working 18 hours a day running her own bar and I was spending lonely days pushing a mostly crying, newborn Mia around the  unfamiliar, cobbled streets of Winterthur, our new home. Our lives couldn't have been more different, Christine and mine.  The only thing we shared was exhaustion. But true friendship is not based on what you have in common, only on how you make each other feel. Like a  favourite coat, it wraps you in a  feeling  of safety and warmth  and happiness. And even if you can't wear it all the time, you know it is always there, hanging in your cupboard for when you need it.

Looking for comfort and a friendly face, all those years ago, I walked into Dimensione, Christine's cafe/bar in Winterthur. She looked up and smiled:  a warm, welcoming smile. Since then we have shared tears and laughter and many cocktails.  

But our friendship has never stopped being rose-tinted.

The dreaded C word

Cancer. 
It's the word you dread hearing from your doctor.
It lies in silent wait , like a coiled snake, fangs at the ready.
 And deep down inside, you know that if it doesn't bite you, it will sink its fangs into someone you love or care about.
 And that's what has  happened to one of my friends. 
The doctors hope it just a shallow bite.  
Very early stages that have hopefully been cut out and will never return... but you can't be sure. 
And that's the thing, suddenly you can't be sure of anything anymore. 
My friend is being amazing.
 Calm, dignified and so brave it makes my heart ache. 
She will not let this beat her.  
And we, who care about her so much, flock to her, seeking courage from her determination. 
" It's strange," she says, " how you can get used to waiting." 
Waiting for appointments, waiting for scans, waiting for results, waiting. 
And everything that used to seem important, isn't anymore.  
All those things that needed such immediate attention, no longer need it so immediately.  Those things on your mental " to do,' from the moment you wake up, never get crossed off. 
Because for now, at least, life is about waiting.
And the strange thing about waiting to find out if your friend's life is to become limited, is that each day you wait seems limitless. 
And all you want to do is fill it with shared moments.  
And strangely, we are all suddenly able to step out of our manic lives and make time.
 We sit in my friend's living room, groups of us, hands clasped around cups of steaming tea or coffee and we chat.
 Chat about the shortfalls of men,  about the constant exhaustion of motherhood, about the never-endingness of housework.
We laugh at ourselves, complain about our politicians, gossip about our friends and we all of us remember, that this is what life is about.
My friend is neither melodramatic nor resigned. 
 Like everything that has happened in her life so far, she will tackle it calmly and head-on and she will not let it beat her.
So the strange truth about my friend being told she has cancer, is that the diagnosis has somehow brought us all back to life. 
It has reminded us that nothing is more important than love and friendship, that time is something precious that should not be wasted on things we don't want to do, when there are so many things that we haven't yet done.
Not all C words are bad.
When my thoughts wander to my friend today ( as I know they will ) it is not cancer that I will think of but cake, conversation, coffee and most of all courage.

Let's ban Valentines Day

So here it is again.  
The 14th February.  
Valentine's Day.  
The day when people who are feeling  sad and lonely are made to feel even sadder and more lonely. 
The day when the postman walking straight past your door can break your heart.
The day when thousands of long stalked roses are cut and left to wilt in vases. 
The day when anyone who is allergic to flowers is exhausted by sneezing.
The day when over-the-top schmolz earns card shops a fortune.
The day when it's impossible to book a table if you are not booking a romantic table for two.
The day when red and pink are everywhere you look, even when blue is your favourite colour.
The day when the pressure of romantic expectation often ends in tears and broken hearts.
The day when how you feel about each other is no longer as important as how much money you have spent on a card or present.
Valentines Day.
Lets ban it.
Because loving yourself is as important as loving someone else.
And if your truly  do love someone, you shouldn't need a special day to tell them.

The wonder of running and operating-table racism

" So," said my brother-in-law, Ben, when we were in Bristol last weekend,         " whatever happened with your running?  I read on your blog that it was one of your New Year's Resolutions to start running but you have been strangely silent on the subject since then!"

And although he didn't say it, i could feel the question he really wanted to ask: 

" did you wimp out?"

So here it is.

Time to own up:

I am a complete running convert. After all these years I now understand why Ninesh, a long-time dedicated runner, does it.  So 2 or 3 mornings a week, as the sun rises, you can see me running, or rather clomping, through the centre of Chichester in my immorally expensive and still quite clean, running shoes. And I think, to begin with, it was the shoes that did it!  

" If you really are going to run without damaging anything," said Ninesh, " you have to get proper shoes."

So on the 2nd of January he took me to a tiny shop, hidden on a Portsmouth street corner. Inside, it was packed with dauntingly sporty looking people standing in line . People who looked like they were born running.

" How long have you been running?" asked the assistant when I finally reached the front of the queue. He beckoned to a seat in front of him.  

" I haven't started yet," I whispered, glancing furtively around me.

For a while he didn't say anything, just stared, critically at my feet. 

" it's alright," he said at last, " We have shoes for everyone here, even.....beginners.  Just take your shoes and socks off, roll up your jeans and walk to the door over there."

I have walked barefoot through much of my life but when a stranger tells you to do it in front of lots of other strangers, walking normally, barefoot on a cold, unfamiliar floor suddenly becomes almost impossible. I felt eyes boring into my heels and toes as I walked barefoot to the door and back again before returning to my seat in front of the assistant.
He sighed slowly.

"Can I just ask," he said, " have you ever had to wear orthoptics?'

" No," I said, " should I have?"

He looked at me sadly.

" Well," he said, " we have shoes with different levels of support here.  1 is the least amount of support and 5 is the most.  But I'm not sure that 5 is going to be enough for you!"

In the end I bought a pair of level 5's and we all hoped for the best. And so far so good. My feet have never felt so supported! It's the rest of my body that has been left to its own devices.. But I had no idea running shoes cost so much.  They are now the most expensive thing I own. Which is why, on that damp  evening when Ninesh suggested we go for our first run, I couldn't say no.  Not when I had just spent so much money on a pair of shoes!

And here they are.My pride and joy.  Less  " diamonds in the sole of your shoes," than " hole in the bottom of your wallet!" 

My sister-in-law Anusha, like Ninesh, has the smooth, dark skin and meltingly dark eyes of many Sri-Lankans.  She is an acclaimed and successful kidney-transplant  surgeon who recently became a consultant. She often receives thanks from her patients for her kind and caring bedside manner and her ability to explain a complicated procedure in a way that everyone can understand. Yet recently a patient made it very clear that he did not wish for someone of her colour to operate on him.

" Well," replied Anusha calmly, " If I don't operate, you don't get a kidney. 
Over to you!"

I hope he made the right decision.

Travels in our campervan and that Monday morning feeling

It's strange how quickly Monday comes around.  It often feels as though you have only just stopped looking forward to Friday when it is time to get up for work on Monday morning! Sometimes it feels like the more you pack into a weekend the shorter it is.  Mia and I have just spent the weekend in Bristol with  my sister-in-law and her young family.  Filled with eating an amazing buffet  at ZaZa's Bazaar ( apparently the largest restaurant in England and definitely the most delicious and family-friendly one ) and very muddy walks through woods and up rivers, the weekend flew by.  And now, here I sit and it is Monday already. I've already crossed the starting line of the day and the finish line seems like a long way off. And a little part of me is wondering why we do it.  Why we go to work, filling our days with other people's stress and deadlines when life is so short and there are so many things that we forget to treasure in the freneticism of each day.

7 years ago Ninesh and I gave up our jobs, bought a battered old campervan, took the children out of school, rented out of the house and spent 6 months travelling around Europe. It was the best and bravest thing we have ever done.  We saw amazing sights: chased dolphins, climbed to the top of a volcano, rescued a hedgehog from the bottom of a cattle grid, sat on the Rialto in Venice, watched wild Flamenco dancing in Spain, let the Atlantic waves wash over us in Portugal, saw bright pink flamingos bathing in volcanic pools in Sardinia and tasted bread made from chestnuts in Corsica. We climbed the Eiffel Tower, looked at the Leaning Tower of Pisa and paced the pavements of Las Ramblas. Joss learnt to swim, Mia fell in love with tortoises.  The kids played " tourtist information," at every campsite. Each day was an adventure, a blank page waiting to be turned.  But the most amazing thing was spending 6 months being a family. We had no deadlines, no appointments to make or meetings to plan for. Nobody judged us on what we had  achieved or inspected the impact of our actions. We were free just to be. Two adults, two young children and a world reaching to the horizon, waiting to be explored. 

Coming back was hard.  Reality really did bite although the kids were very excited to see our house. 
" Look Mia," shouted Joss, " our stairs!" 
" Look Joss," shouted Mia " our plates. They're just the same!"
And it made our hearts sink, Ninesh and mine, because they were right everything was just the same.  We tried to cling on to the sense of awe and wonder of our travels.  We tried to hold onto to the sense of timelessness and  the belief that each day belonged to you. We tried to remember how it felt to be just us,  travelling like a tiny family island through the world.  But life always intrudes in the end.  Ninesh and I found new jobs, Mia and Joss went back to school and started growing up without us.  
But we didn't sell our van.  
We still have it parked outside our house. 
 Waiting. 
Reminding us of a time when each day was a big adventure and that Monday morning feeling was a distant memory.