That’s another year gone and, against the odds, I’m still here

A fruity voice on the train’s announcement system said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, make sure you have all your belongings, family members and what have you with you when alighting from the train. We are now arriving in the naughty little station of Newton Abbot.’ This carriage was empty. The Teign estuary sparkled in the Sunday morning sunshine. The line from Totnes in Devon to Paddington is a lovely journey at any time of the year across the farms and pastures green of Devon, Somerset, Wiltshire and Berkshire. Always I have good intentions to read, but usually I rest my chin on the heel of my palm and look out of the window for the entire journey, giving leisurely thought to non-urgent matters, or fantasising, or simply letting the passing English countryside speak to its most fervent admirer. Having said my sad goodbyes in the station car park, while my grandson spray-spewed all over the back seat of my son’s car, I was in that meditative frame of mind now.

As we neared Exeter, a perfect rainbow arising from the medieval cathedral’s lead roof parenthesised the city. So that’s another year gone by, I thought, and I’m still alive and kicking. I haven’t written about my cancer here — thank the Lord! I hear you say. I’ve written about my cancer business instead in a weekly column for a Sunday newspaper magazine. Me and my cancer, week in week out. Strewth. But a few weeks ago the editor wrote me a brief email saying that they have had all they can stand of it. The magazine was having a ‘refresh’ in the new year and my column ‘hadn’t made’ the back page, she said. (She introduced herself as my editor for the past few months, though I’d never even heard of her.)