How to tell an eco-activist from an undercover police officer.

1. Earrings - no eco-activist wears earrings and if they do they are dodgy anyway so don't take the risk.
2. Skin products - Clinique means a definite undercover police officer...or a porn star. Any spot care or facial products would be shunned by a genuine eco-activist. Most eco-activists smell a bit and believe that their pheramones are most alluring to women. They are wrong.
3. I would just like to state here that given the choice between an eco-activist and an undercover police officer I would make the ideological choice. However having recently met an eco-activist who smelled like a hybrid between a really bad fart and something that had died, I reserve the right to exercise my discretion.
4. Really, it would just be easier if you send me £150 per man and I just meet him once to vet him for you.
5. Friendship bracelets. No man should wear a friendship bracelet unless it has been made for him that day by a small child.
6. If he drinks Earl Grey tea that is a definite sign of an undercover police officer or a feathery stroker.
7. Most eco activists do not stick strictly to a vegan code. For example if you cook pesto with pasta they will eat it. Beware the man who seems to be trying too hard.
8. If any man has a book called 'How Immigration Damages Britain' on his rustic farmhouse table fuck him off. Don't even concern yourself as to his eco or police credentials.
9. An undercover police officer will be not be concerned with the amount of plastic carrier bags you use to bring home the shopping. Indeed he will probably shop at Tesco so just take a peek in his fridge.
10. A woman with unusual shoes is probably not an undercover police officer. She just dresses eccentrically.

Dear Mickey

Dear Mickey,

I know it is boring in hospital. I would be tearing my hair out and demanding books, expensive makeup, recreational drugs, stationery etc.

However, I would like to reassure you that it is also boring "on the outside." For example, I have got really excited about the Irish economic crash, but it has become apparent that one of the leaders has a very obvious tupee, and the Premier has dyed black hair. He is quite attractive, but he should have a less solid colour. Roddy sodding Doyle still hasn't brought out the third book of his trilogy in paperback, so at this rate it will be ages before I find out what happened to him and Miss O'Shea, Saiorse and the boy. I have gone off magazines, for years now. I don't like TV. Radio 4 is OK but it has annoying programmes, like Just a Minute and The Archers. And Gardener's Question Time.

Exciting things on a Shaw Sunday have included driving past Warburton's bakery and scenting baking currant bread. Going to visit you. Helping Diane (slightly) with her assignments. Also finishing the Express crossword, which means we might win £1000. (I bought the Star for you, so the Express was only 45p.) Going to TK Maxx for half an hour. So, if you had been out of your room, this would have been a dull day. Although I might have taken you to Asda for a full English (me) and a Vegetarian Breakfast (me.)

I am still watching this Irish Premier. He is getting no better looking. Perhaps, due to Tamoxifen, I am losing my libido. I need to take up Running. But the last time I Ran was cross country (hah!) in about 1986, and as I remember I always walked, chatting, and pretended to run breathlessly for about 10 steps at the end - so maybe not.

Goodnight Mickey, I will write more soon xx

Shaw Spinster Surrenders

I have decided, at last, to surrender to Spinsterhood. The many people who have told me I am "too picky" are right. I have thought carefully about my many essential criteria in a man and realised that said criteria exclude most of the adult male population.

For example, Tories, BNP supporters and Lib Dems are out of the question. This leaves only Greens and Labour voters. Within Labour voters there are sub-criteria. If a man admires the war criminal Tony Blair in any way then we have nothing in common. Likewise if he voted for the Blair-clone David Milliband. (Begone, old grey one!) I might make an exception if he voted for David but then immediately conceded defeat at the moment of Ed's victory. However, if I had to endure a rant about how Ed Milliband has made the Labour Party unelectable for the next ten years, or how he has betrayed his brother in a coup of Biblical proportions, I would be making for the door. Anyone who criticised "Red Ed" for his support of "the unions" would be out of the running. I like trade unions. I approve of them.

Any racism at all is intolerable. This includes having a book called "How Immigration Damages Britain" in your possession. It includes telling me I live in a "rough area" and, upon further questioning, saying, "I'm not racist but there are a few Pakistani children who play at the end of your street and they do bring the house prices down." (This last from a newly qualified social worker.)

Telegraph Times, Daily Mail, Daily Express readers, no pasaran. To be in with a chance a man must read the Independent. Consideration may also be given to Guardian readers, but's let's not forget the Editor supported the invasion of Iraq.

Militant atheists get on my nerves. Fine, don't believe in God, it's a valid viewpoint but why drive it into the ground? Quoting that dull Richard Dawkins every five minutes.

Similarly, a man using hundreds of long words in everyday conversation does nothing for me. "The qualitative Freudian post-Modernist Marxist paradigm" gives me the urge to giggle, as do those arty films like "The Piano Teacher" which I once watched on a date. As my companion earnestly analysed the main character's motives for stabbing herself through the chest, I had to pinch myself to keep from inappropriately laughing.

Then you get men who try to make you read intellectual novels. I'm 38. If I wanted to read "Love in the Time of Cholera" I'd have bought it from Amazon by now. Furthermore, I don't wish to spend my spare time reading excruciatingly detailed accounts of the atrocities committed by the Israelis on the Palestinians. I already know about it. I don't need the nitty gritty. I know about climate change. I go on the marches. I don't want a lecture or an article cut from The Times about how it's all the fault of the Chinese.

Golf is another thing. I would have to be on hallucinogenic drugs to watch the Ryder Cup. Or any golf, really. Certainly to play it. I am rubbish at all sports, so why try an expensive one where you have to keep a bag of clubs in the hallway? It's bad enough tripping over the walking poles.

As for climbing, why is it that climbers always want you to dangle from a rope in companionship with them? I don't like heights. I'm about to have a bath by candlelight for the fourth night in a row because I can't be bothered to change the bathroom lightbulb. I don't even like stepladders. The highest thing I want to climb is into bed. With someone larger than me. Because I do not want to sleep with anyone thinner than me.

When I consider the time I have wasted ignoring the blatant warning signs displayed by men I have dated, I am loath to spend more time on the matter. I have a gym membership and a book to write. I can live surrounded by books of my own choice, not bother tidying up as no attractive male visitor is due to call; and no washing up is created when I don't have to faff about making meals with three or more pans, chopping boards, etc. My daughter seems to be thriving on a diet of satsumas, bread and houmous, with an occasional Nigella moment when we have a glut of vegetables from my father's allotment. The pans may stay unwashed for a few days, but what disapproving male eye is here to pass judgement? None.

Also, I am haunted by the cruel remark made by Posh Richard, with whom I endured a short-lived romance. In revenge for me telling him I would never exchange sex texts with anyone, unless for £3.50 a text, he taunted me with the following:

"You are so left-wing you will be single forever, unless George Galloway will sleep with you."

The only reasonable answer to this was the one I gave him, which was that I had already slept with George Galloway, but this was untrue.

It now seems that there really is only George Galloway - or possibly Neil Kinnock, say if Glenys was to run off with some junior MEP or other. Neither of these prospects appeal. I've already been on a date with our local Labour Party oraniser, and he was shorter than me, with grey plastic mock-croc shoes and all the charisma, passion etc. of a dead haddock.

I am under no illusions. I know that I am pushing 39 and cannot realistically afford to be picky. However, my wise daughter (aged 11) has counselled me, "Don't accept second best, even in a time of austerity" and so I remain alone, growing ever more eccentric and shouting at George Osborne when he is on TV, for all the world as if he can hear me.

How I lost my hair and that was the least of my worries

I write this with my dashing young hairdresser Alex in mind, because he has told me he reads this blog, although Ben (Little Red Hen) has Told Over Him and says that Alex only pretends to read my blog when in fact he has never laid eyes upon it. Shaw being so small, word gets around. However, I forgive Alex most things (will come to reasons why later.)

Once upon a time I had thick glossy dark hair. It was so dark that when we had to do a survey in Junior 1 about which people in the class had what hair colour, it was the majority opinion that me and David Jones had BLACK HAIR. Which has damaged me to this day and I would like to take this opportunity to announce that my hair has never been black, just DARK BROWN.

It was an affliction to me still, because in the 1980s "Sun In" was widely seen as the way forward. You sprayed this on your hair and lovely blonde highlights appeared in your already blonde hair. I knew fine well that if I sprayed this on my hair it would have no effect whatsoever so I just watched in bitter envy as my friends Sara, Andrea, Paula, Vicky and Bernice merrily Sun-Inned their golden locks. Even my cousin Andrea, a redhead, could give herself attractive strawberry blonde highlights using this magic product, and Diane had dark hair like me but hers was always well cut so there I was, a complete hair pariah.

Me and my sister used to have our hair cut at home by a mobile hairdresser, an ill-tempered woman whose name escapes me. We never, ever liked our hairstyles and when we reached the age of about 16 we began to rebel in extreme ways. Determined to be a blonde at last, I generously applied some bleach that was meant only for streaks all over my head, causing my scalp to burn agonisingly. I left it on for as long as I could endure, but upon rinsing I was revealed to have dark orange hair that had assumed the texture of a Brillo pad. I then set about applying Directions dyes.

For the uninitiated, Directions dyes come in bright colours such as Shocking Pink and Pillarbox Red, as well as purples, blues, violets and greens. You used to get them from Afflecks Palace on a Saturday afternoon and then get them everywhere. By teatime indelible dye would be staining the bath, the sink, the bathroom floor, any shower curtains which might happen to be in the vicinity, assorted towels, your neck, your face and anywhere else it chanced to run onto. Having attempted to limit the damage to the bathroom (futile) you would set about your neck and forehead with a facecloth (worse than useless,) Japanese Washing Grains which in those days they used to sell in the Body Shop; and finally, in desperation, with a pan scourer, which you would rub furiously over the stains for half an hour at a time, but to little avail.

Finally by 7 pm, you would have to settle for a purple - stained forehead which had every appearance of a nasty form of dermatitis. Thus "sorted" you could iron your hair and go to the Banshee for the night. I once slept on the floor at a house party with a man's arm beneath my head. For the next two days his arm bore the shade of my hair colour, Passionate Purple or Violent Violet I think it was.

By the time I went to university I had grown weary of the Directions routine, needed to save my facial skin in case of romance and anyway, my hair was ruined, or as Jim Killock said, "it felt kind of crunchy."

I therefore let my hair grow long like a hippy and put red henna on it now and again. This was another almighty faff. You had to mix the henna powder (another thing the Body Shop used to sell before they went really rubbish and stopped stocking Japanese Washing Grains and 99p shampoos) with hot water and let it cool. Then you put this warm green sludge, to all intents and purposes looking like a cowpat, on your head and wrapped it in a towel, then sat for hours waiting, putting your life on hold until you could rinse it off. Once, in my student house, we did this and when we went to rinse it (a process which takes two people and at least half an hour) the water had gone off. So we had to be smuggled in a car to the nearest Halls of Residence, where we sneaked into the bathrooms to use (steal) their copious amounts of hot water.

But at least henna made your hair shiny, and so there I was with my dark hippy hair, having the ends trimmed about once a year, until the lovely Martha was born when I was 26, and she kept yanking it so I had it cut into a sensible middle aged bob, and then grew it long again when she had grown out of the pulling-hair stage. So I had long dark hair which, when I discovered ghd straighteners, could be made to look very lovely indeed, although I did not appreciate it at the time.

This happy state of affairs continued for nine years, until I had it cut into a sort of layered bob because I was breaking up with Viagra Boy. This was not a good cut but once I grew it out a bit, Alex took over the cutting and I took the ghds to it, all was well.

Then came the dread news of breast cancer and the spectre of chemotherapy. When I told people I was going to have chemotherapy their main reaction was "will you lose your hair?" I said yes, and they said "oh but never mind, it might just thin a bit." When I told them that with FEC chemotherapy (the type I had) you ALWAYS lose ALL your head and body hair, they shook their heads sadly and told me to "be more positive." Some even suggested I did not have the chemotherapy at all so as to avoid the hair loss, but as my oncologist had told me it would add an extra 5-10% to my 5-year survival chances, going bald was the least of my worries.

I was offered the "cold cap" which involves having a freezing cold thing put on your head before, during and after the drugs being administered. I declined this for four reasons. One, it would mean I had to travel to the Christie hospital miles and miles away each time I had the drugs, as they do not "do" the cold cap at my local hospital. Two, there was a chance that the chemotherapy would not be as effective as it was not getting to your scalp. Three, it only works for 50% of people and even the 50% have thinning hair. Four, I had endured an awful experience at Guide camp, when I disobeyed orders not to wash my hair, had to rinse it in freezing cold water, and it was like needles of ice going into my head. I thought the cold cap might well be like this and decided I would rather go bald.

I was given a wig prescription ("one wig"), to be obtained free from a shop in Manchester, where I journeyed one grim, rainy Saturday with my sister and Martha. In a small cubicle I was given wigs to try on by a kindly lady who assured me that she was a Qualified Hairdresser. As I still had all my hair I had to wear a "wig stocking" on my head to flatten it down, which made me look like a burglar.

In the next cubicle there was a young woman, younger than me, who was with her boyfriend/husband. She wanted to get a long silky wig (such as I fully intended to have myself) but he told her it would not be very practical for the gym. Martha, my sister and me turned to each other in horror and mouthed, "the GYM?" As if anyone undergoing chemotherapy was going to give two tosses about going to the bloody gym! My sister wanted to whip aside the curtain and tell her, "Fuck him off. Fuck him off now," but restrained herself.

It was a gloomy occasion. I tried several wigs on and it was not fun. Not fun at all. Which is ironic because when you tell people you are going to lose all your hair they say "Think of the FUN you can have with different wigs!" I decided on a long auburn one, to be ordered by the shop and collected the following week.

When I had had the first dose of chemotherapy, I went to Manchester to collect the wig, feeling very ill and hating everyone who blew cigarette smoke vaguely in the direction of my face, as this made me almost throw up all over them.

I then went to have my hair cut by Alex. He was very young and very kind. He bought me a doughnut from Greggs and took two and a half hours to cut my hair into a pixie shape which made me look about ten years younger. I was cheered by this, as at least when my hair grew back I would not look late-middle-aged.

Every hair follicle on my head began to tingle in the ten days following this haircut. I gave a few experimental tugs. The hair came out in tufts, painlessly. It was not even slightly fun. I was going bald.

The next Saturday morning I knew what must be done, because I did not want to wake up one morning, totally bald with a pillow covered in hair. On a more practical note, I was becoming weary of sweeping up hairs from the floor. I drove to Argos and bought a set of cheap clippers. As I drove up to my sister's house, tears pricked my eyes. She offered me a can of Guinness. It was 11.30 in the morning. I accepted. She then set to with the clippers. When I emerged with a number one cut half an hour later, it did not look too bad. I looked a bit like Demi Moore, as I had lost so much weight with the cancer and the worrying.

A few days later, enraged by the terrible itching all over my scalp, I took a Wilkinson Sword razor to my head. I was bald. Not thinning, not Demi Moore, not Sinead O'Connor, bald. With a pink, shiny head that headscarves slipped off. Thank goodness for the wig, I thought. And for the other wigs that I bought from the Internet (my favourite being "Polly" by Hothair.)

I bought some Buffs (tubular patterned cloths worn by climbers) and some beanie hats, because I quickly realised that answering the door bald is a social faux pas equalled only by, say, walking around Shaw market wearing nothing but red Ann Summers underwear. People would recoil in horror as though my whole person was naked, not just my head.

I hated wigs. They were itchy and I was always wanting to tug them off and scratch my head, usually in some inappropriate place like the library. I developed a resentment. I wanted to wear a T-shirt that said, "yes I'm bald, get over it." I wanted to say "Fuck you" to every pitying look but instead I decided I may as well get some mileage out of it (so to speak) and would whip my wig off when driving, because the man in the next car who was about to overtake on the inside lane wouldn't want to cut up a bald woman, now would he? This worked.

Then all my hair fell out. Eyelashes, eyebrows, leg hair, armpit hair, need I go on? By this stage, however, I was so violently ill with every dose of chemotherapy that I didn't care how bald I was, or where, because I was so scared and sick. The day I spent six hours in Oldham A and E with various nurses and doctors trying to find a vein in my hand, arm, foot, anywhere to get some IV fluid and anti-emetic drugs into my bloodstream, I was wearing an orange and brown patterned Buff. I was never able to wear it again after that night (when I discharged myself from the medical assessment ward, as I felt it safer to be in my own bed at home, there being no acutely ill psychiatric patients or alcoholics in my house.)

I should, at this point, say that FEC chemotherapy has the unfortunate side effect of making you fatter. It is the result of taking steroids; staying in bed for weeks unable to move; eating anything you can keep down; and it alters your metabolism in some mysterious and cruel way. So I was now bald, with no eyebrows or eyelashes, and bursting out of my size 12s.

All around me, people were urging me to "think positive," "stay positive" and "be more positive." It was known, they told me, that "positive people" had "the best chance of recovery. Well, in that case I should have been dead a week after diagnosis. The fact is, there is nothing whatsoever "positive" about throwing your stomach lining up, not being able to drink any kind of fluids, water tasting like tuna brine, hating to look in the mirror, and taking your temperature constantly because if it goes over 37.5 C you must go immediately to hospital (and at Oldham A and E when I went, they could not even find the document that tells you how to treat patients who have life-threatening neutropenic sepsis as a result of chemotherapy. How reassuring.)

There was nothing positive about developing phlebitis in my left arm where the nurse had punctured a vein injecting the chemotherapy drugs on my first visit, allowing th drugs to spread into the tissue around my wrist. There was nothing positive about waiting 7 hours for an out of hours doctor to come out to give me some antibiotics, as I was in severe agony. Although I did find myself saying the Hail Mary over and over, and I'm not even a Catholic, so I suppose the Pope can chalk up another one for the "no atheists in foxholes" theory.

The veins in my arm went rock hard, like wire, and I couldn't straighten it. The pain was intense and after 3 "cycles" of chemotherapy, with 3 left to go, the chemotherapy nurse said it looked as though my arm was permanently damaged and that there was no way she could risk injecting any more vesiccant drugs into it, even if she could find a vein.

I therefore had the choice of having a Hickman line inserted for the drugs to be put through, or stopping chemotherapy. The Hickman line is a tube, one end of which is inserted into a large vein atop your heart, and then the tube is "tunnelled" under your chest skin to emerge above your right breast. To say I was terrified of this procedure is like saying Osama Bin Laden has Muslim leanings. I spent a week reading about it, Googling "Hickman line problems," "Hickman line infections," "Hickman line deaths" and watching a video of the "insertion procedure" on the Internet. I insisted on sedation; in fact the nurse at Christies (who was an angel) who was putting the line in said to the sedation nurse that she wanted me "fully knocked out" and even as I was away with the fairies I was still asking if I could have more sedation. ("No you can't!" said the sedation nurse, sounding shocked. "You've already had a really high dose.")

You cannot have a bath with the Hickman line in, but have to shower every day with Hibiscrub, a bright red antibacterial "wash" which looks like epirubicin - the "E" in FEC, which is the one that ruins your veins. Is it any wonder I now have an addiction to Lush bath melts, and take so much joy in the simple act of having a bath? The tube had to be taped to my chest at night, or tucked under a bra. It had a green "bung" on the end and was yet another visible reminder that I was being systematically poisoned but should be more positive and more grateful, all these new drugs, five year survival rate in the 80 per cents, blah blah. (46, 000 women a year diagnosed with breast cancer in the UK, 16, 000 a year die, it is the main cause of death in women aged 35-45. Keep smiling!)

A district nurse came out every week to flush the Hickman line with Heparin and check that it wasn't blocked. The district nurses were lovely, (see, I can be as positive as the next woman) but one of the nurses, a man, was a "feeder" - one of those men who have a fetish for fattening women up - and insisted on ordering me cans of high-calorie milkshakes and fruit drinks. As if I would ever willingly drink anything containing 2400 calories! I kept them in the cupboard, but after a while he started checking the cupboard, got suspicious and said "they don't seem to be going down" so I had to start hiding some in a different cupboard for when he came round.

It was a desperately frightening, lonely, long dark night of the soul, in the depths of winter, and with a hollow Christmas to endure rather than enjoy. I was grateful for my friends in the Facebook support group. None of us told each other to be positive. We talked about crying all the way to each chemotherapy session, the despair when the nurses couldn't find a vein, the cheapness of the biscuits in the chemotherapy "suite," the state of our poor arms. One of them said she felt as if we were helping to drag each other through a dark tunnel to the light at the other end. We shared the proverbial gallows humour and we share it still.

My well-adjusted daughter was with me 5 nights a week - I am grateful to my ex-husband for not even suggesting she would be "better off with him". She told me, "We had a good life before this and we'll have a good life when this is over." My ever-practical sister told me that I had only lost my hair temporarily, whereas "some people are just really ugly and they aren't going to get any better looking ever, and they have to live with it, but your hair will grow back" which I had to admit was true.

I also had wonderful friends - Jayne and Maria, who came to do housework for me; Vicky, who brought me food and made me eat it; Diane, whose cousin was dying of leukaemia at the time I was having chemotherapy; another Diane, who herself was in the terminal stages of breast cancer but phoned me because she wanted to give me support; Ceri, who brought me a hot water bottle when I was shivering with cold; Andrea D, who gave me massages; Jay, who made sure that my nails were done every two weeks even at a time of crisis. Sara, who came over from Spain, took me wig shopping and cleaned the kitchen a dozen times. My sister and Andrea T, who came to chemotherapy with me and watched the evil poison being injected into my arm, and did the washing up. Debra and Martin,who brought their beautiful granddaughter round and let me feel comfortable about not wearing a wig in front of them. Chris, Bev and the wonderful team at Oldham Cancer Support Centre, where I had Reiki, relaxation therapy, cups of tea and TLC.

I learned that the positive-attitude merchants tended to stay away, and I did not miss them, sitting there as if it was my funeral already but admonishing me for not being cheerful enough. But when I felt after every cycle of chemotherapy that I could not go on, there they were, telling me how selfish I was and that I had a nine year old daughter to think about. What a good thing they pointed that out, I thought bitterly. If it hadn't been for them I wouldn't have given a thought to how my early death from breast cancer would affect my daughter, or whether I had the gene which would make her inherit it, or how I could make sure she inherited my house, or who would be there for her when she is 15 or 17 or 21 or 37 and needs her Mum.

At the end of January, I had the last dose of the evil fecking FEC . The nausea stayed with me for weeks afterwards, and ever time I went to Christies for radiotherapy and smelled the alcohol hand rub at the door I was almost sick. I took Martha to see "He's Just Not That Into You" at the cinema, and was just thinking how good it was that we were getting back to normal when I got a whiff of KFC and had to lean out of the car to throw up.

I had the Hickman line taken out. No sedation this time, I was brave. I did cry, but that was because I had just read in the Tamoxifen leaflet that the main side effects of this tablet, which I would now need to take daily for five years, were NAUSEA and WEIGHT GAIN.

Whether my hair grew back was the least of my worries. I was fat, fatigued and thought about dying all the time. In fact I spent 90% of my waking moments looking up "secondary breast cancer" on the Internet. But grow back it did, slowly, and in April I went back to work, refusing to wear a wig, as I had by this time become militant about refusing to disguise the fact I'd had cancer, or to discuss it in hushed tones as if it was syphilis.

By the end of May I went to Greece on holiday and had to start using "hair putty." All too soon I was back at Short n Curlys getting a style. A style! Soon I was spending a small fortune there, not to mention the £90 on ghd "pencil thin" straighteners, because do you know, after you've had chemotherapy, your hair grows back curly? And everyone tells you, "your hair's grown back curly!" I know, I know, I feel like a poodle with a bad perm, don't talk to me about curly hair.

I even joined the gym and lost weight (note positive attitude again) and in September I climbed Snowdon, curly hair and all.

But on the one occasion that I let someone other than Alex cut my hair, the stylist went scissor-happy and I went home looking like Julie Andrews in The Sound Of Music. I have learned my lesson. Only Alex is up to the job. Let us hope and pray he does not emigrate.

Remembrance Day

Maud resolved never again to go out wearing clashing clothes, or without mascara, after a chance meeting with her erstwhile beau, whom in the interests of privacy we shall call .... Ken. He was waiting to collect his daughter from drama class as Maud arrived to collect her own aspiring actress offspring. Ken cut a sorry figure with a bad haircut, hash burns in his fleece and stale fag breath.

Maud tried to angle her face in such a way that she appeared to have a delicate jawline, and gazed mysteriously out of the window into the dark November evening. Ken folded his arms defensively and hummed a tune, looking discomfited. Maud thanked God for the skills of her dashing young hairdresser, Alex of Short n Curlys.

Ken's cheeks burned with humiliation and he felt a deep gnawing in the pit of his stomach as he realised afresh that he would never get to slip between Maud's perfectly ironed sheets. He murmured, "It's an upsetting time for everyone." Then he went outside to draw deeply upon one of his cheap cigarettes, hoping to look like Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain, but failing.

Maud remained dignified, reversing out of the church car park in a slow skilled manner, as though she had all the time in the world, which indeed she had; and as though she knew how to drive out of a parking space, which she did not.

Maud went home and did her ironing whilst heating up some Linda McCartney pies. She watched Channel 4 news and thought sombrely of The Fallen, wondering briefly what Ken was doing. In all likelihood he had returned home to his filthy house and was in the midst of catching botulism from his unclean 1980s style kitchen. He would be dragging deeply upon a fag, rueing the day he had gone an eff word too far with Maud.

Maud thought about an interesting programme, "All in the Mind," about antipsychotic drugs that she had listened to on her way home in the car. She reflected that if she had allowed Ken to get his feet under her table she would most likely have had her radio retuned by him to something such as Revolution Radio (Oldham's premier station) or "Smooth FM: Easy Listening for the Over-Forties." She shuddered as she recalled her last marriage, when Radio 5 Live had replaced the dulcet tones of James Naughtie and Sarah Montague. Such differences cannot easily be overcome.

Meanwhile, several streets away, hot tears ran down Ken's face as he upended a tin of Asda Smart Price beans into a saucepan which still bore the remains of some previous repast. He picked up a teatowel, stiff with dirt, and wiped his eyes, oblivious to the malodour of the grime ridden fabric.

Maud continued ironing. She had heard on Radio 4 that ironing your sheets is a definitive sign of being working class, yet she could not countenance going to sleep beneath a creased duvet cover, nor laying her elfin-styled head on crumpled pillow cases.

Many were the wise friends and relations who had warned Maud that she was too fastidious in her housework, too picky with men, was not getting any younger and would in all probability live and die a Spinster, but their words went unheeded. Yet she had tried to lower her standards by going out with an unfortunate looking ginger haired man.

Maud returned home the next night from her important job working with autistic children. She recalled wistfully how teatime conversation with Ken (on the evenings when he was not getting stoned) had consisted of him holding forth about how the wheel trims on a Vauxhall Astra were particularly difficult to get the dirt off, or him describing how he had lost yet another customer from the motor trade who had dared to point out some blemish remaining on a car that he, Ken had personally cleaned.

Yet whenever Maud had tried to talk about her day, Ken had made a sweeping motion with his hand from the front of his head to the back, to indicate that the long words she was using were "going over his head." Ken often told her that he never read books, and evidently took pride in the fact. He also disapproved of Maud's child, Martha, reading teenage novels because his own daughter, the same age, was only allowed to read Mr Men books. Martha was writing her own novel, "Shady Sistas", about a girl detective with an eccentric mother.

Ken had told Maud that when he walked around Asda, women were continually giving him the glad eye. This gave Maud an inferiority complex, because the only men who ever made passes at her were British Gas repair men, and then only by text message once they had left the house. Maud reported the high incidence of Ken's admirers to her sister, who said decisively, "they are probably giving him looks of pity, because he is No Looker." She than explained, to Maud's surprise, that on meeting Ken she had returned home to her husband and related that Maud had met a man who looked like "one of those rubber models of a little old man doing gurning" and whom, in her opinion, was "fighting above his weight" in trying to woo Maud.

It was a pity, thought Maud, that her friends and relations did not point out the obvious flaws in her beaus from the off. This would save her a great deal of time and energy.

Maud heated up some nutritious carrot and parsnip soup (made by the New Covent Garden Soup company, because Maud did not have time in her busy schedule to deal with root vegetables.) She was suddenly inspired by the optimistic thought that Fate must have in store for her a different man to the Ken she had known, who repeatedly swore in church, shouted during minor disagreements "f*** off, I've shat bigger" and to all appearances had ADHD and anger management issues.

The final straw for Maud had been when she had taken him up on his repeated offer to clean her car, and he had ill-temperedly told her that he had a hangover but would give it "a quick wash and vac while you wait." When she arrived at the garage he was in a foul mood and cleaned her car in a sulky, surly manner not unlike teenage boys Maud had taught, who picked up the felt tips they had thrown at her, but with a poor attitude. Maud had never cared about the scowls of these boys as long as she dd not have to pick up the felt tips, and she was unaffected by Ken's glares and mutterings of eff words under his breath as he gave the car a cursory clean. Even when he yelled, "I've got a f***ing hangover, WHAT PART OF THAT DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND?" she remained unperturbed.

However, when a young woman walked into the garage Ken's whole demeanour changed in an instant; he broke into a beaming smile as he brought out her car, gleaming, waxed, polished and vacuumed to perfection. "A tenner," he said, "mates' rates and all that." When the woman had driven away, Ken reverted to his effing and sighing. He then suggested that Maud bought him breakfast. Maud struck at this. For £12.50 a man would come to her office, clean her car inside and out, and she would not even have to speak to him, leave alone deal with a clear case of adult ADHD and probably conduct disorder.She had no intention of paying for his breakfast.

It was ten minutes after this that Maud had said a firm and permanent farewell to Ken in Asda cafe, to his evident astonishment.

Now, in the midst of November, Maud was at peace with her spinsterhood and realised she could devote her time to her daughter, her writing and her exercise regime.

Meanwhile, half a mile a way in his house that he was perpetually too idle, stoned or both to bother vacuuming, Ken rolled another spliff and wondered if he was truly satisfied with his parting shot to Maud, which was that she could now "find herself someone to have an intelligent conversation with." The ex girlfriends he had told Maud about, who all desperately wanted him back, had mysteriously failed to reappear in his life.

And here the story of Ken and Maud concludes, for Maud was about to move into an interesting and slightly surreal world of corsetry, a sex pest lesbian, a gnome and a drink spiking scandal.

Basra, the open evenings and me

It seems only ten minutes ago that I was trying to wean my child off the breast, yet suddenly she is in year 6 and we are called upon to Choose a Secondary School by 22nd October.

We attended the open evening of the first school, a school so popular that rumours abound of money (bribes) exchanging hands to "get your child in there". Avowed atheists attend Church each and every Sunday for years on end only to accrue points for "getting their child into" this hallowed establishment.

On arrival, parking spaces were scarce as hordes of people parked in neighbouring streets, some several miles' walk away.

The Headteacher gave an inspiring speech and we were showed round by a group of young people who have the "smug look" that is so common amongst students at this school. I wonder if they have special lessons for new entrants, using mirrors and perhaps even video feedback to ensure that each and every pupil look upon the rest of Shaw with a facial expression which says, "I am better than you." All the staff have this smug look too.

We realised we did not the points for this school, being only occasional Godbotherers, so we turned to the local "bog standard comprehensive", my own alma mater, the vaudeville where I learned my pratfalls. Falling apart at every seam, the "temporary classrooms" where we learned in circa 1983 are now permanent fixtures.

It was now that the rumours began. Every parent who had lied and bribed their criminal ways to the full points for School Number One now smugly began to spread scandal about Bog Standard Comprehensive. As follows:

1. The whole of the current year 7 are scrotes and out of control (it turned out that this rumour-monger meant year 11, but being of subnormal intelligence, got them mixed up.)

2. Bullying is rife and the school refuse to anything about it.

3. The police have had to ask parents not to come into school and take the law into their own hands.

Having heard all this, I felt in need of a Valium. My imagination ran riot and I anxiously rang my ex-husband. "I think thats a bit of a exaggeration," he said. "It sounds more like Afghanistan than Blackshaw Lane."

My friend Sara asked if a bulletproof vest was on the required uniform list of our old school. We then began to imagine how times had changed in last 20 years. Guns, dogs and drugs were now a given, but in addition it seemed that the playgrounds were peppered with landmines and hand grenades flew where once we dared to make paper aeroplanes.

We imagined our old Physics teacher, (Taurus, with a rubber ear - a monkey chewed off his real one in the war), crawling across the path to the Science lab in full camouflage, face smeared with camouflage mud, dodging a hail of flak from rioting pupils.

The Science curriculum has been transformed by the War on Terror. The bunsen burners are gone to make way for bomb making lessons. Where once we were asked to bring in fruit salad ingredients, now parents have to shop at B and Q to buy bags of 5 cm nails for the Design and Technology lesson, making nail bombs. Our old school is now on a par with Basra, or so it seems.

The Open Evening was the opposite of inspiring. The headteacher read a long, dull speech in a monotone, not raising his eyes from his notes, even to say "thankyou for coming."

We kept this school in mind.

The next school we visited (feeling rather jaded by now) shall henceforth be known as the Fourth Reich. I will write more of this later.

Training for Ben

I had the idea last week that I would climb Ben Nevis for charity. I will state my motives for this in an honest and open manner.

1. If I have to train for Ben Nevis my legs will surely become toned and attractive.

2. If I have to train for Ben Nevis I might lose weight.

3. Making plans is "positive" behaviour and I feel the need to prove myself as "positive" having whinged and complained all the way through surgery, chemotherapy etc.

4. Oldham Cancer Support Centre, who I want to raise funds for, were a lifeline to me during the dark days of chemotherapy and I want to give something back.

5. I want to do something in memory of my friends Paul Kelly and Diane Buckley, who both died of cancer this year and who were also helped by Oldham Cancer Support Centre.

6. I want to promote the need for emotional support for people with cancer, because in my experience (and I know I am not alone in this) there was zero support from people who should have been providing it, e.g. my Breast Care Nurse. I do not mean to suggest that I did not have support from friends and family, but it is very hard for them to try to comfort someone who is in a state of mortal terror.

7. I want to help remove the stigma associated with being anxious and depressed during cancer treatment. The continual pressure to Look On The Bright Side makes you feel you are going mad.

8. I have an inferiority complex caused by my ex, who had walked the Pennine Way 12 times, climbed God knows how many mountains, owned 17 pairs of walking boots, and would never go for a walk with me because he said I walked too slowly.

9. I will be accompanied by 3 of the funniest people I know i.e. Nicola, Andrea, and my sister; we are collectively to be known as Team Ben.

10. It will make me look like a right trooper.

Since deciding to take up this challenge (and it will be a challenge, because I have a bad knee and when I went up Snowdon the first time I nearly cried with the effort) I have been deluged with offers of advice and help from the many experienced mountaineers I seem to know. Ceri (Duke of Edinburgh award leader) and Ginger Beard (Munro-bagger) have offered to accompany "Team Ben" up the mountain. Cynically part of me suspects they will do this because they want to appear manly, take any opportunity to hold our hands to help us down steep bits, possibly share a dorm with us in Glen Nevis hostel, and tell us we are doing it all wrong. I have been wise to this trick since I went camping with Andrew King in Ashfield Valley when we were 16, and the next day he dressed up in camouflage gear and made me walk up hill and down dale so he could hold my hand when crossing streams.

I have also been offered a training weekend in Snowdonia by a friend (climber and mountain rescuer) who shall remain nameless because he is shy. This is because he wants to appear manly but he will not want to hold our hands down the steep bits (well not my hand anyway) and it was he who told me that if you take a wrong compass bearing on the top of Ben Nevis you can fall off the edge. Fall off! Into the void! Survive cancer and then fall to my doom off the top of Ben? No thankyou. I will accept compass training with gratitude.

It is at this point that I would like to state I have climbed a few hills in my time. If you go to Pentir in North Wales (kind of between Bangor and Llanberis) there is a cottage halfway up the mountain, where I used to live. To get to this cottage you had to climb up a steep road and then 3 steep fields. Unfortunately in the 3rd field there was a huge Charolais bull, notoriously bad-tempered, and I was so scared of this bull that I used to walk right up to the top of the mountain and back down the other side to my cottage, thus Bewaring of the Bull. I did this every day, carrying my shopping. I thought nothing of it.

As I used to think when my ex (17 pairs of walking boots, "the 450 Viagra were a free sample, NewbieNudes was a pop-up") boasted interminably about his mountain walking exploits, it's just putting one foot in front of the other. Last time I went up Snowdon a woman with one leg was coming down at the same time as me. One leg and a crutch! That's a challenge.

We have 9 months to train for going up Ben. Nicola has been up before. I went up Snowdon twice in a week once. Three of us have had babies. I have had FEC chemotherapy. Andrea does spinning classes. We can put one foot in front of the other.

So please don't laugh at us and please don't tell us we're going to get altitude sickness. The time to laugh is when I do the compass bearing wrong, fall off the edge and die in which case you can rename this blog "Famous Last Words".