Cancer 120

I have complained about various illnesses and troubles recently. I might as well continue with the theme. I have toothache. At the best of times, toothache is a pain, a severe pain. When added to my list of failing biological systems it is more than a pain. I dread going to the dentist. I am of the era when there was no local anaesthetic for fillings, and so my fear of dentists is very strong. It doesn’t matter that now they are nicer, kinder, and most importantly use anaesthesia – childhood memories dominate.

Still, we are on holiday so I can’t let a little matter like being unable to eat ice cream or drink cold drinks dominate. We are far north in Scotland, in a Manse in a small village by Loch Ewe. For those who are interested, Loch Ewe was one of the bases from which the Arctic Convoys sailed in WWII. While the ships are long gone, there is still concrete evidence of the wartime role the loch played, so we – sorry I – have been exploring various gun platforms, radar sites, heavy and light AA sites, and so on. The loch is still home to a NATO refueling base, though you wouldn’t know it with the apparent lack of security. Don’t tell anyone, we don’t want the wrong people to know about it.

There is also an Arctic Convoy museum. It is fairly new and needs some organisation, but it is full of model ships and aeroplanes, many of which I constructed in my childhood, eg the planes Catalina, Lancaster, Spitfire, Mosquito and Hurricane, and the ships Tirpitz, Hood and Sheffield. It made me want to start purchasing from Airfix again. I wonder if I could make them without getting glue all over the place? I doubt it. I never could. There were lots of stories from men who sailed in the convoys. A rotten job. People whinge now about being upset by ‘hate’ speech (which usually has nothing to do with hate) or whether someone uses the right pronouns (quick guide: if it has a penis or ever had a penis it is he, if it has a vagina or ever had a vagina it is a she). I think our forefathers would be tut-tutting and shaking their heads in dismay.

We have a week here and then a slow three-day journey home. It was about 550 miles from home to here and nowadays that is a long journey. I was very tired on arrival. It is not like the good old days such as driving to Crimea (3,000 miles) in one week or getting from Sarajevo to Thiepval (on the Somme) in 24 hours (1500 miles). And yes, I did all the driving then and I do all the driving now. I don’t think I will be getting to Spain again or do the half-planned trip to Sicily. What? Get a plane? You must be joking. What with my stoma, my hernia, my dodgy heart and my cancer I don’t think any reasonable airline would let me board, even if I wanted to. One of the great advantages of my condition is that I never have to face airports again.

I have just started reading Don Delillo’s Underworld. I enjoyed White Noise. The first chapter is all about US rounders. I didn’t understand a word of it. Has anyone read it? If so, does he stop going on about rounders? I hope so because I like his writing. It is another very long book because as I have said before, I can’t die in the middle of a long book. The trouble is, I am only reading long books….

After this holiday, and then a few days in the South West seeing the kiddies, I will be back to treatment in early June, which means I get fiddled with in the last week of May. I wonder when I can have another treatment break?