A Life After Pink
What are we up to now?
Why I Won’t Miss Saigon
We had been in Saigon approximately two hours. 120 minutes, from plane to dusty pavement. That’s how long it took for me to get mugged. It was over in seconds. One minute we were walking hand in hand, past rainbow coloured plastic stools, weary street sellers and...

Hair Today…Gone With Chemo
It will grow back. It's just hair. It means it's working. You might not lose it all. When you find out you’re probably, almost definitely, going to lose your hair from chemotherapy, these are the things you’re likely to hear. And they’re all true. Yes, it probably...

The San Sebastián Tapas Challenge
What is your earliest memory? Mine is a Pie and Mash shop. A proper old fashioned East End one, with tiled walls, communal tables, wooden benches and big plastic bottles of vinegar, with or without chilli. Steam rising from vats of lumpy mash and the smell of slightly...

Snowdon, Sandwiches and a Soggy Sock
‘We can’t go on’ I shout. I am two thirds of the way up Mount Snowdon in Wales, the wind buffeting my oversize pac-a-parka, whipping the hood toggles against the side of my damp face. ‘We have to go back, he said make sensible decisions remember?’ The he I am...

One Lump Or Two?
When I was told I had breast cancer, there was no time for a pity party. It was all go, go, go from the outset. There wasn’t even that 'movie moment'. You know the one. When they're ushered into the room, silent but for a ticking clock. Someone clears their throat,...

The Day I Quit the Camino Santiago (almost)
I am done with the Camino. It is day 6 and we have now realised we have another 5km to walk, and I don’t want to. More than that, I refuse to. I’ll sit here all night if I have to, that’s how angry I am. You see, we have already walked 30km, and the last 10km...
I feel a tit…
It started innocently enough. In a shower, at the end of a long night flight back from Cape Town. I wasn't even looking for anything. I'd seen the adverts, read the stories, even had an Aunt who'd been diagnosed with Breast Cancer ten years ago. But I have to be...