Its 8-15 and I am about to head off up the Silverburn with Skipper. Yesterday I reported to Doctor Smith at the hospital for a check up. Good news as I am in such good condition he does not want to see me again now until my final chemo session. All appears to be going well. We are not yet out of cancer’s black hole. However, the hole is not so black at present, there is a light and I am heading towards it.

I guess everyone at some point in their lives has been in a pit of despair and felt that everything is hopeless and you are doomed. I bet the Liverpool footballers and their supporters felt doomed when they were 3-0 down at halftime in the European cup final. If someone had appeared in their dressing room and told them not to worry, they would end up winning the cup they would have been laughed at. Liverpool came out for the second half and went on to win the cup. Triumph lurks in the pit of disaster.

Back in 1982 I was making my way home, well not home exactly, back to my digs in North Wales. I had been to the pub having arrived in the town of Abergele for a six month stint just a few days ago. I was on a furniture restoration course. I have to say most of the chairs and tables I restored left the place in a worse state than they had come in. Anyway one of the first things I did after arriving was to venture down to the local pub to get to know the locals. I had located the local pub without a problem. However, heading home at 11pm with a few beers in me was a different kettle of fish. It was mid January and freezing cold. Somewhere a long the line I took a wrong turning and ended up wandering round a disused fairground. I ended up spending the entire night wandering round the fairground stumbling into objects and unable to find my way out of the place. It was too cold to sit down so I had to keep moving, but the risk of keeping on the move meant that I simply stumbled in to more objects. There was certainly moments during the night where I felt total despair. I was in a strange place, in unfamiliar surroundings. The only people I knew were the half dozen chaps I had spent the evening with in the pub. After stumbling around the fairground for hours I eventually stumbled across the gateway. What a moment of bliss to feel a pavement under my feet again and traffic whizzing by. I still did not know my way back to my residence, but at least I was now back on a road again. By now the birds were well in to the dawn chorus and the good folk of North Wales were making their way to work. As I stumbled along the road a lorry load of morning joy came to a screeching halt. The lorry was a bin lorry and was driven by one of the chaps I had been drinking with in the pub the previous evening. I gratefully accepted his offer of a lift and put my experience of a night out on the tiles never to be repeated. Still, how sweet is the morning air and, how wonderful is the day after spending a truly horrendous night in a fairground.

Back in 1963 I was a 10 year kid away from home at the blind school in Liverpool. I recall one evening Captain Jack Ronan from the IOM Steam Packet came out to visit me at school. He took me back to his ship the Monas Isle berthed at the landing stage at the Pier head. After spending a couple of hours onboard with the rest of the crew and with my pockets filled with sweets from the buffet bar, he returned me to the convent. As we walked up the long gravely driveway, Captain Jack noticed a tear or two in my eyes and just before we passed through the large heavy doors of the main hallway where I would be handed back over to the care of the nuns, he placed his hand on my shoulder and said. “Fear not lad, this will all pass, one day you will simply look back at these times and, it will be just a distant memory”.

Well now of course I do just that. I believe that one day too, I will simply look back on this cancer as nothing more than a distant memory. Remember, wherever you are, whoever you are, all things pass. Despair is never permanent.

Until next time then. Tom