Google & the curse of curiosity

I woke up early this morning (Monday) worrying.  And after a while it occurred to me that if I had not googled my condition I would still be feeling fairly gung-ho about things, I would regard what they had seen as an anomaly but would be sure that everything would be all right.  I would worry that they wanted to see me so soon, and the possibility of cancer would have crossed my mind, but because I googled it now I am mentally writing farewell letters, sorting out my will and choosing music for my funeral... (well, I've been doing that for years).  And yet, I know that in the unlikely (?) event that it is VC - the most likely outcome is total recovery - the likelihood of my having the "other sort" is very unlikely - and I feel well (because I haven't started treatment yet?).

So what I hope is that - when they re-examine me they find the abrasion has faded to nothing, everything looks healthy again, and they decide it was something anomalous.  I want to tell people - but so far I've only told Mark, Finn and Marion.  I think if I tell everyone it may be something dramatic I will feel foolish if it turns out to be something innocent.

I can see that part of this issue for me is about getting attention - and if I have a serious disease, I am entitled to attention - in a way that I don't feel entitled most of the time.  But this is a topic for another place.

Other possibilities....

A little light research (clue: look up the treatments and that can lead you to the disease).   I discovered that there is a condition called vaginal epithelial neoplasia... in other words new growth on the epithelial tissue (which is not the same as skin - but the sort of material that covers internal organs, glands etc. ).  Again, I'm not quite sure whether this is the same as vaginal abrasion - or whether it should spontaneously throw out cups of blood occasionally.  However, the interesting thing about it is that (as I had suspected) in 80% of cases it is caused by human papilloma virus.

Many years ago the sexual partner who bashed about a lot had a case of genital warts - as a result of which I was forced to have annual cervical smears for many years, until it was deemed that I was safe - some years after we had ceased to be married.  Oh dear. I do hope this isn't a long delayed reaction, but yesterday I was thinking about all the possible things that could have caused it and I'm afraid J's genital warts did come to mind. I'm sure it can't be - it's way too long ago - 25 years probably since we last had sex - well - 23 years at the absolute minimum (I can't remember, but I think we did have some post-marital sex at some point).  Surely that can't be it.

Not fibroids - something worse?

WARNING: this entry describes female anatomy - men of a sensitive disposition may prefer not to read on. 

I had a scan today - there is not  a sign of fibroids... my womb is totally healthy... hurray.  But what is causing the bleeding?  After an uncomfortable encounter with a speculum (to think those women's health feminists used to use them for self-examination apparently quite cheerfully) the gynaecologist declared that I had abrasion at the top of my vagina.  "There is bruising there".  Once upon a time I had a long-standing sexual partner who seemed to think that size WAS everything - and used, unwittingly, to subject my interior to a considerable amount of bashing about.  I was young, I protested a bit, but not enough, because I didn't want to hurt his feelings.  I tried to encourage him to do things properly...rather unsuccessfully on the whole -  but that was twenty odd years ago now, so I don't think that was where the bruising came from.  Mr O - who seems older and more grizzled than when I met him last (as I would too, were it not for my hair appointment yesterday) said he would give me another seeing to with the speculum with a fortnight, but this time he would use a microscope to examine the cells in this abraded area.  He said this sort of thing usually happened to women who used vaginal pessaries (not guilty) or after an hysterectomy (ditto).  He expected he might do a biopsy with a local anaesthetic next time.   Did he have any idea?  "It's definitely not fibroids."  "It hasn't bled for several days" I said  "It's bleeding now"  he replied - true, he'd shown me a rusty red swab prior to shoving into its plastic test tube and sending to the Path Lab.

In the car on the way home I was upset.  I allowed a tear or two to escape from my stern countenance. They hadn't said cancer, but that was clearly on their agenda.  I had a quick prayer, told God I was willing to die, if time was up - said it really didn't matter about the books.  Said at least I'd had a few years since the last horror.  I realised that all my stuff about coming from a non-cancer family was just bravado, why should I be safe, just because there was no genetic tendency? - lots of cancer (most?) is environmental.    Then I told myself to stop being melodramatic - they hadn't said anything about cancer - this was all my imagination, I was channelling La Dame aux Camellias - hoping I would be able to retire to a chaise lounge while all my former lovers arrived to have poignant conversations with me (ou sont les neiges d'antan....)

When I got home at 11.00 I realised the reason my legs were shaking was probably low blood sugar, so I treated myself to a beetroot and herring wrap - since I need to stay healthy I suppose (or should I just give in now and take up a gin,pork scratchings and cake diet?).   Then I went to Google "vaginal abrasion" - and discovered it can probably be treated with cider vinegar and/or yoghurt (wrong website) - I hunted for a long time to find anything about it that was not about abrasion caused by rough sex.  I found it eventually, by searching for "cervical abrasion" - and bingo - a lovely BMA website - full of technical language which mercifully a classical education allows one to understand (I knew it would come in useful one day).  And that was where I discovered vaginal carcinoma.  

Cancer of the fanny - it's not exactly dinner party conversation is it?  This will be the kind of disease, if I prove to have it, which will be a bit hard to talk about without frightening the horses.  And you don't hear much about it because it's the most uncommon of the gynaecological cancers (so at least it's exclusive - in a way).  There are two kinds, a pretty unpleasant kind that kills people quickly, usually young girls, peak age 17-21.  So I probably don't have that sort, and the other kind - squamous cell carcinoma - better known in its manifestation as a common skin cancer - the slow-growing kind that you can have for years which metastatizes in the lungs or liver.  Well, I think we know what happens to people with liver cancer - but let's just wait.  

There is another slight possibility - skin thinning as a result of the menopause and lack of oestrogen.   But given that I was awarded the Queens Award for Industry for Services to Oestrogen production only 2 years ago that doesn't sound very probable..  despite being the proud possessor of a Mirena coil which is manfully pumping progestogen into me.

Fortunately although rare, the common form of VC (yes, I may be getting the VC for courage in the face of quotidian dreariness) is very treatable - but in any case I don't know it's that - it's just that I can't find any other condition where this abrasion occurs.  The good news is that if it is VC then there is actually a cream - can you believe it? - that works in the majority of cases.  Failing that internal and external radiotherapy (side effects - "burning sensations" - don't they just mean burning?).  At the last resort there is our old chum the radical hysterectomy (abeste profanes!) - but at the moment I'm telling myself "it will all be over by Christmas!".   I guess if they get going swiftly and I do need radiotherapy it could be complete by Christmas... 

Anyway, that's just the worst case scenario - perhaps this abrasion was the result of the hysteroscopy in December 2011? I was thinking of taking to my bed for the next few weeks after reading all this, but then I decided it would be a shame to spoil my energetic mood, so I ate some chocolate and carried on!

Brain de-tox from Betty Herbert

 This is a nice idea - having an autumn brain de-tox, Betty (whom I met last year, but don't know very well, despite having read the first chapter of a book about her sex life) has suggested doing several things on a daily basis, and another few things on a monthly basis.

On a daily basis she suggests : Read something*/meditate or write morning pages*/look at the sky*/get out of breath

Over the month: see a film you've always wanted to see*/spend an evening listening to music you really like*/visit an exhibition or an historical site*/take a long walk/do a crazy spontaneous thing*

This all sounds good - especially since I do most of these already (the ones I've asterisked) and actually, I do do spontaneous stuff - e.g. inviting people to dinner on a whim, signing up for a bagpipe workshop, etc - perhaps not often enough, but not so seldom.  So really, we are just looking at my regular life plus some exercise.

In a way I'm a bit disappointed, since I had hoped there would be a lot of cutting down on screen time involved, but there isn't.  The scheme is to start from Monday until 20th October and to see if one feels better.  I would like to up my reading - and writing, films are taken care of by LoveFilm - we are always going to exhibitions and historical sites... long walks, not so hot.  But perhaps we could do one over the weekend, weather permitting.  Across Stodmarsh from Grove Ferry to the Red Lion perhaps.

Not the last post...

Nah, not yet.   I was thinking of all the things I could blog about - but I have failed to remember any of them.  I am tired and lacking in passion - this does not make for a good blog.

Here are some of the topics I might have blogged about in the last few days:

The Pope's latest pronouncements "God Bless our Pope, the Great! The Good!"
The Nairobi massacre and its aftermath
Ed Milliband's speech
The terrible effect of writing on one's friends and family
Tom Taylor and his descendants
Life: is there any point?- with reference to an FB page...
Twitter - how to use it properly?  Is tweeting pert comments to agents really the way to get on in literature!
Taking a child to university
A Portuguese restaurant
Lovely weather
etc.

I am prepared to blog on demand - if you particularly wish to see my opinions and experiences on any of these topics let me know!

Last Blog

For the last few weeks I have been pestered by an advert for trading options that only appears when I use my blog.  It is very offputting.  It is for a company called Top Option and I am assuming it is appearing with Google's permission since it only appears here.  I don't know whether it appears to readers - but it is quite annoying as it often doesn't cancel when you click it.

I did not come to this site intending to blog about this - but now, boringly, I am.  I think if Google cannot fix it, I will decamp to wordpress - and this may also result in a new more professional method of blogging - less personal - more social/political.

Awkward synchronicity

I wonder what it is that makes the people we are close to behave badly almost instinctively just when we are trying to do our best for them.   I am probably guilty of this too - but at the moment I am experiencing a very annoying phenomenon that is repeated every year at Christmas, and indeed at other times of stress and entertaining.  This is when the person who is the chief beneficiary of the event, manages to fall ill, decide they can't function, leaving the chief workhorse to get progressively more exhausted.  I am currently becoming knackered in the process of preparing the vast Tom Taylor descendants' party on Saturday.  This involves considerable cleaning and cooking, but most horrifyingly, the cleaning.  And tidying up the garden.

For some reason I was so tired today that I dozed off on a sofa in a school corridor while Finn was having his music lesson.  When I got home I continued working for another hour or so, and at 6 o'clock told M that there was a great deal of stuffed pasta and could he prepare it.  I did not say "I'm not having supper" - but nevertheless, the 3 of them scoffed it all, even though Finn asked "is Mum not eating?".   Mark said I "hadn't said I wanted supper."   For the last 20 plus years supper has occurred at regular intervals, 99% of the time cooked by me, the other 1% being takeaways, spag carbonara or the boys cooking, usually when I was ill or knackered.  This week, knowing that I have to cook a vast feast on Saturday, I have slowed down the efforts a little.  But usually we all eat supper together unless someone specifies otherwise.   If is sad that after 20 years I can still be left breathless by his utter thoughtlessness and selfishness.  He doesn't mean it, he just doesn't think.

Sometimes in novels or on telly one comes across husbands who say things like "are you tired darling, do you want me to cook supper?" But presumably these are just fictional characters - no wait, I was married to someone once who cooked supper on his own initiative - regularly.  Obviously there's more to marriage than - but this isn't about supper, it's about consideration, inclusion even.  I don't actually believe M is aspergic, he's too emotionally sensitive in lots of ways.  I am not feeling as sensitive and touchy as I was 3 or 4 years ago.  Maybe I'm just hungry!  but it's upsetting, and once again I feel that all the efforts of the last 20 years are - well not wasted exactly, but I suppose I just can't imagine making supper and eating it with the boys.  But perhaps I should do that.  I don't know, he's apologetic - but I'm hurt.  I shouldn't be hurt, I should rise above it, I should think of all the positives.

Passive agression?
But the fact is, these things ALWAYS happen around about the times when I am making super-human efforts to create something good for the family - in this case the wider family. So they always have a sort of passive-aggressive side to them, as if he is saying "you think you can make me work on this family project, I don't want to - I'm going to be ill, and if I can't get away with that, I shall be unhelpful and obstructive."  I have asked him if he knows he does this, but he denies it.  But every year, as the Christmas events - his birthday (which I feel like cancelling this year), the DAY and my family's day all evoke these sort of responses from him.   Which is why for many years I've fantasised about going abroad - Rome and Egypt always seem appealing - but Provence would do.  Which is why...

Resentment
Yes, obviously, I do feel resentful.  I am trying hard to write, but am not getting a chance.  I am happy to do things for the greater good - it's part of my bleeding raison d'etre - but why can't these feel like a collective effort.  I don't want to direct all the activities, I don't want to be the organiser - Oh God, why did I marry someone with the organisational powers and strategic thinking of a - oh, I don't know - supply your own creature - even a duck billed platypus has probably got greater abilities in this area than M. I bloody well hope my reward will be in heaven - but occasionally I can't help wishing for an earthly reward too.

Almodovar - Los Amantes Pasajeros

Just went to see this at the local cinema club - don't know how long it's been out, but it was great fun.  I am not sure there's much else to say about it.  Obviously if you were horrified by homosexuality you wouldn't find it fun... just horribly vulgar, but my only question about it is:  Is it acceptable to continue to portray the cabin staff of an aircraft as hysterical queeny stereotypes... I mean, this was the kind of thing one heard about in say the early 80's - but now?  Or is it OK in Spain?  Or is it because Almodovar is gay that he can say what he likes (well, we all can of course - but most of us would be torn apart by the wild dogs of PC rectitude if we did).   Or is it - Heaven forefend - that gay cabin crew really do behave like this and the whole thing has been made with documentary veracity.

Given Almodovar's "form" the characters are unsurprising - and the revelations about Spanish business, sexual attitudes etc. are nice and satirical...I did laugh quite a lot, but I could see a lot of the jokes coming.   I was interested that the loudest (most shocked) laughter came during the more explicit jokes - it is that kind of laughter that comes when people don't quite believe that they've heard/seen something so explicit.   One used to hear it at Julian Clary gigs in the 80s.  I found myself laughing less at these bits - not because I am a prude, but because these tended to be the less subtle/amusing jokes.  But I enjoyed it, and enjoyed the discovery that the little bit of Spanish I learned by going to Madrid 3.5 years ago was still helpful.

We wanted to get Finn to come and see the film with us; given his horror at homosexuality it's just as well he didn't.

I'm not talking

I think I must still be recovering from the intense, full on social interaction of the Summer Squall and its aftermath.  I just want to be left alone.  I am feeling I ought to be doing something - but I think I'm in a composting phase... perhaps like last year I'll suddenly have a run at some work and make great inroads into a re-write of Conscience - but just now I can barely think.  Being illish doesn't help, but I really do just want to be alone. And have some time off from domestic duties!

I am reading - that's my new thing, and not going on FB very often - 24 hour gaps between visits.

Bleeding fibroids...

There is something about the name "fibroid" that seems terribly middle-aged and somehow recalls the "Surgical supplies" shops that used to exist, with their discreetly displayed trusses and Dr. Scholl's sandals...or small ads in the back pages of women's magazines, or patent medicines with names like "Iron Geloids".

But there is nothing twee or delicate about the little buggers - they have a whole life and blood supply of their own - and when they decide make a move, you can just about give up thinking about moving very far yourself.  In 2007 a fibroid - which wedded itself to my slightly laissez-faire attitude to my health - made a very good effort at killing me by draining my blood supply and turning itself into a conduit for the blood to leave my body.  After a faint, and a deathly pallor that made Mark famously remark "it looked as though a team of vampires had been at work on her" - I was rescued by the NHS - and given a blood transfusion, and lots of intravenous fluid and then I lost even more blood and fainted again, and that was when I nearly died... however, I mercifully didn't (obviously) and had yet more blood transfusions and an operation and then I came out of hospital and felt weak and feeble for weeks (due to anaemia, etc.).  I was really ill in fact, but as my mother was languishing in the post-stroke world of misery no one in my family really registered the fact, and I got back into the groove and life went on.   Until 2011 - when it started up again.  This time I got treated with a D&C and an IUD (progestogen) and was told that should fix it.  I thought it had.  I still have occasional "periods" - and then I woke up with a heavier than normal one on Sunday, which I largely ignored, but on Monday it began to go bonkers again... heavy blood loss, clots, the works.  I took to my bed, lying on a pile of dark coloured towels - after a few hours things slowed down, and I got a decent night's sleep.   I had another dose of flooding this morning - and then everything calmed down again.

I cancelled all my appointments (an agreeable lunch, a WW meeting, shopping and the Ramsgate Arts Summer Squall post mortem) and went to the doctor.  A fantastic new doctor - a woman, really pleasant and warm - she's "filling in" - do hope to see her again.  I told her my saga, she seemed to agree, but made the usual comments about the menopause - it's an important diagnostic factor in this business.  If I've had the menopause then the bleeding could be cancer - if I haven't, then it's probably fibroids.   Fibroids officially give up the ghost when one reaches the menopause.  So I said "but if I am having tiny periods...." and she said "The IUD can mask the effects - so we can't tell if those are real or not."   So that's interesting.  As usual, anything they give you to deal with problems inhibits your own ability to discern what's really going on.  However, my feeling is that I still haven't made it to the menopause - and the bleeding is rogue fibroids, that have bust out in despite of the IUD.

A male reader may still be wondering why all this fuss about the tiny innocuous fibroid... that is because a man cannot imagine how unpleasant it might be if - without any weapons being involved - your body spontanously began to eject blood in large quantities - say a teacup full at a time - and you rapidly found yourself covered with large quantities of sticky stuff on your clothes and skin, which cannot be easily removed.  Additionally imagine large clots of blood dropping out of the bottoms of your trousers - well, you can't can you?  Then imagine this happened while you were walking down the street, sitting on a white sofa at a friend's house, in the pub with friends, at the theatre, shopping etc.  You would be almost relieved if it happened in the privacy of your car even though you would still have to clean it up - which isn't unpleasant, just tedious.   So - you see, while there is some chance of this happening, I am not planning to go out.  I am hoping that next time it happens there will be a bit of a warning, and it won't begin without warning.   Fortunately - I suppose - there is a warning - a nice dull ache in one's groin - similar to some sorts of period pain, or some sharper cramping pains, or some low back pain - or even some throbbing spasms - so that's good.

Well forgive me for going into detail - TMI no doubt - but I just want to dismiss the cute, diminutive image of the fibroid as something some women get and have to just bear with, stiff upper lip etc.  Because women don't talk about bloody fibroids, no one realises how incapacitating they can be....but now perhaps a few more people do. 

Three days holiday

We went to my father's last week - and I am going to give a brief itinerary - more for the purpose of record, rather than to fascinate the readership.

We drove there on Thursday - we started late and predictably everyone was starving by 3.00 when we came to a motorway service station - so we stopped and had "lunch" - from a weird new phenomenon, a noodle stall - rather like the somewhat ersatz ones run by angry Essexmen at country fairs and other public entertainments - this one was run by a fairly pleasant African woman.  Why I would expect it to be run by people from a noodle-making race is odd, but I suppose it is because I still vaguely hope for some sort of authenticity.   The noodles were average, my sushi was less good than Waitrose sushi (tragically this is my chief point of comparison) and we were not overwhelmed by joy.

The traffic was heavy and we turned off the M25 and drove through the great stockbroker belt around Sunningdale and Ascot remarking on its beauty.  We drove through a considerable amount of woodland, and past some horsey establishments.  It was sunny and everything looked remarkably green and lush for late August.

When we arrived at my father's I suggested we went out to eat at the nice bar above the river in Maidenhead.  The pleasure of the place is in its situation, although the food isn't bad either.  There is a terrace above the river, and a very rivery smell.  We sat outside and drank modest amounts of SA rose (because I was driving) and ate various sharing platter things - then burgers, mussels and salads.  My salad - "crayfish" was a bit insipid - tasteless fish, thin sauce - but not utterly unpleasant.  The boys enjoyed their burgers and Pa enjoyed his mussels - so it was a nice evening experience.

DAY 1  OXFORD

It was a quick drive to Oxford - and I decided that for a change we would do the Park and Drive thing - so we went into town on the bus - Finn was free, it was £6.90 return for the rest of us - so pretty good value, compared with parking charges.  I went to see S&L while the boys went to the Pitt-Rivers museum, which they really enjoyed.. S was looking really well and I heard that he is on a different treatment which seems to suit him well, and he is talking about things in the future so that's encouraging.  We talked a great deal about books and writing and some family topics, and it was all thoroughly enjoyable.  It was lovely to see them both and their youngest daughter - who has some rather extreme views on womenswear... actually they are views I have occasionally espoused myself - but hearing them from someone else I realised I didn't agree with them.  Taken to their logical extremes they would result in us all wearing burquas.

I left S&L's house and took a taxi to the Pitt-Rivers... the taxi driver said very dubiously that there was no where to eat around there,  He hung around, perhaps expecting I would jump in and return to the centre.  However, once I had the map I saw we were about 4 minutes walk from a place with shops etc. and we found a nice cafe where M and I again ate salads and the boys had something else, we also ate sticky buns of a very high quality... delicious coconut and chocolate flapjacks, really lovely.  It was a short walk to the Ashmolean which we all enjoyed greatly.  They have very little original Greek sculpture, mostly Roman copies and plaster casts, but still good to see.  M was pleased at some giant candelabra from Hadrian's villa which had elephants supporting one of the levels.  We looked a lot of Egyptian stuff and I was forced into a discussion about phalluses (the God Min!!) in antiquity... the boys had much useful info about scarification in tribal cultures and what it's function was, so we were able to have some discussion about that.

I got into a bit of a panic because we had to find cash - but once we'd got some we relaxed and walked about, went to the covered market - very different now - and then to a lovely art bookshop in Broad Street, where I bought a number of birthday items for future use.  Then we went and had a drink and went home.  Back at the old homestead my father was planning a curry takeaway - and my sister C joined us.  It was a fantastically good curry - hope my father doesn't do his usual trick with the rice!  We had a vaguely disturbing chat about inheritance - and then went to bed very early.

2.  BRISTOL

After a lot of good architecture in Oxford I wasn't sure what to expect from Bristol - but after leaving the nightmare parking/mall zone of Cabot Circus we broke away towards the old town, parts of which are like Bordeaux (unsurprisingly).  We had a second breakfast - then went over to the Cathedral - an unusual building, heavily restored, but also with a great deal of surprisingly fresh looking medieval Decorated carving - uneroded due to the quality of the stone (like the stuff in Lecce I suppose, which hardens on contact with air).  I did not take enough pictures, and there was no guide book either, so I found it hard to understand mmuch about the history of the cathedral, but it had some impressive features.  The shop was closed for a month - hence lack of guide book.  One remaining side of the cloister lead to a sadly Anglican coffee shop - they do this "simplicity" thing which somehow looks unwelcoming.  Are they suggesting the coffee shop should be a place of worship too?

We then walked down to the waterfront area, and investigated the Arnolfini - the cheap food on offer in the caff there was no to Ned's liking - although I would have liked it.  So we went to the next place we could find, a tapas bar with a haughty waitress.  We had about 5 tapas and a couple of glasses of wine and a beer.  It was a bit "mass catering" so not very interesting - then we went back to the Arnolfini and saw the Ian Hamilton Finlay exhibition.... why was he so obsessed with Saint-Just?  His work is amusing, I saw my favourite post card "A Tribute to Victor Sylvester" - as well as other agreeable images.

There is a good bookshop at the Arnolfini - yet even there amongst the small publishers and quirky novels I was apalled to see a copy of Harold Fry - a book so average that perhaps I would not have thought it possible.

I then sat by the water and made notes about TRF - something L had said about it had piqued me to feel I should expand on it... I was planning to go and get indoors, as there was a brisk wind, when Finn called to say he wanted to leave his event.  I went to get him - an interesting walk down some odd little streets on different levels.  One sight was very Bordeaux - a church tower that spanned a street with an arch beneath it.  Once I had collected Finn and heard his tale of woe, how he had renounced fingerboarding forever... we went and had yet another coffee and waited for M&N.  And so home, via the Clifton Suspension Bridge.  Because we took the wrong turning we did not arrive at the top, but, more spectacularly drove along the road beneath it - it's a bloody long way up.  It was very impressive - and we saw the Avon Gorge - the most rocky thing I've seen for years (East Kent is not rocky at all, anywhere.  The nearest rocks are Tunbridge Wells, if you're desperate).  I realised that I missed rocks, missed Ireland, missed holidays - but enough.  Gradually the Gorge turned into suburbia - but it was good while it lasted.
We returned home and had very good fish and chips.

DAY 3  SUNDAY

There was a certain amount of aggro about what we should do.  Lunch had to be Dim Sum - and Finn didn't want to walk a lot because of blisters, there was a move to go to the National Portrait Gallery (although Finn, astonishingly, wanted to go to the V&A)  so we went to Soho - spent a small fortune on parking... and strolled around various bits of the newly-enlarged NPG - which always seems to have something new and fab - currently seemed to have a bit of a Philippa Gregory theme - main characters from The White Queen were on show.  The usual BP portrait competition - the fashion for "photographic" portraits continues - occasionally with a nod to the fact that they are actually painted - like sticking in an obvious brushstroke or two.  Then we went to have dim sum at "the cheap one" - which I think is called The China Harbour... it was pretty good.  Afterwards we brought a number of buns at the bakery next door, mine was called "sausage and salad" - mysterious.  We didn't go to CCK because of funding issues, but we walked past it to discover it has been rebranded as "The Dim Sum Palace" and looked thoroughly vile - ugly posters outside, but interior still full of unsmiling, cart pushers.

Finn and I sat in Leicester Square while Ned and Mark went to have a look at Thorn House, a famous modernist building on St Martin's lane, largely designed by Edward apparently, with a little help from Sir Basil Spens.  Finn smoked, and gave a guy a light.  I am sure this makes him feel grown up - both of the boys are now fully part of the "orright mate" culture - I envy them their relative ease with it.  We then returned to the most treacherous multistorey car park I have ever been to - and managed to fight our way out of it, and home.

So that was our holiday.  It was deeply enjoyable, just to be somewhere different, but I think on the whole I enjoyed the rocks most - because they weren't demanding anything of me, responses, thought, money.  They were just rocks, Old Red Sandstone I suppose - and they'd been there for millions of years, and would remain for millions more - long after humans have destroyed the planet.  How few things there are in my life that are demanding nothing of me.  Oh well, plenty of time to relax when you're dead I suppose.