Further Adventures of a Shaw Spinster

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

2011-01-13T13:12:00.001-08:00

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

2010-11-21T12:35:00.000-08:00

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

2010-10-05T12:31:00.000-07:00

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

2009-12-20T23:36:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-30T13:52:00.000-08:00

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

2009-10-04T14:18:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-26T09:57:00.000-07:00

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. Penfold (Duke of Edinburgh award leader) and Ginger Beard (Munro-bagger) have offered to accompany "Team Ben" up the mountain. This is 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. Penfold and Ginger Beard, no.

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".

Has my car been dogging?

2009-08-26T09:07:00.000-07:00

Background information: On holiday in Wales last year I tried to drive down a too-narrow lane and scraped the side of my car on a wall. Then, last winter, one of the Scowcroft Mafia (neighbourhood ASBO youths) punched the front bonnet because I had politely pointed out to him that the whole street was covered with snow so he didn't need to be scraping it off my car. More recently, on holiday in Cornwall, maddened by PMT, torrential rain and Martha demanding a top of the range MP3 player, I reversed the car at some speed into a stone gatepost, causing a bashed-in back bumper. It now looks more suitable for the Dodgems than the work car of a professional woman in her mid-to-late thirties and so I decided to have it fixed.

Not knowing of any suitable garages I decided to take the advice of Penfold who told me there was a very highly regarded garage near Manchester. I took the car there for a quote and it was like the Bronx. Boarded-up council houses, metal shutters, half demolished buildings .... I felt as if I had wandered into a Ken Loach film. But, trusting the recommendation of Penfold's friend Rachel, I booked the car in for "bodywork repairs" this week. When I dropped it off it was with a feeling of trepidation. I hoped they would not leave it on the street, for in all likelihood it would be burnt out in Harpurhey by teatime. I was also suspicious because the man had told me it would take 3 days to do the repairs, yet when I dropped it off at 9 am Monday he said he would phone me "Thursday or Friday". I am not a mathematical genius but that sounded to me more like 4 or 5 days, not 3. I suspected that they were going to fix it up and then use it as a passion wagon for a few nights. It has a spacious boot. (Not that I myself have ever experienced even ONE MOMENT of passion in that car, by the way.)

Then at 2 pm today, when I was having a little sleep because it's the holidays and I had a late night last night, a callow youth from "Phoenix MOT" rang me up and said the man who was going to do the paintwork had "took sick this morning" and therefore my car could not be fixed until after the Bank Holiday. As I need my car for work every day until the end of October I had to hotfoot it to the Bronx (illegally taking my Dad away from his very important job at the council so essential services had to be put "on hold") and retrieve my car. Which had no petrol in it. Which is very suspicious, because when I left it there was a quarter of a tank left. If you want to know what I think, I think my car has been DOGGING. We had to drive all the way back to Shaw with the petrol light on, praying to get there on what little the doggers/joyriders had left in the tank.

Furthermore, they had not done even one little tiny bit of work on it in the 3 DAYS they have had it in their possession, and so I have been walking around in the rain for 3 days for no result. Phoenix MOT? Can think of more suitable names. "Dead Sparrow MOT" possibly.

Have now taken the car to a proper garage in Milnrow where they are going to charge me less and lend me a courtesy car for free.

It is a good thing I am unfeasibly happy and feel 17 again today, or the whole matter could have put me in a bad mood.

Plan to marry mechanic, or bodywork specialist (I do mean cars.)

The mean streets of Melton Mowbray

2009-08-19T10:30:00.000-07:00

I spent last weekend in Nottinghamshire, or Leicestershire, or possibly both. I am not sure of the exact location, as I never listened properly in Geography lessons and therefore cannot read a map. In addition, I do not possess any form of sat nav. I would marry any manner of felon if his wedding gift to me was a TomTom, but even then I fear I would be unable to programme it. In short, I am ill equipped for the new millennium, as I need to be shown how to do the simplest technological task.

I was with my daughter and also the Nymphomaniacs, a group of women who, like me, were all diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008. Actually we are not called the Nymphomaniacs, although my Dad thinks we are (bless him) - we are the Lymphomaniacs. We were doing a charity event to raise money for a Maggie's cancer support centre in Nottingham.

On Saturday night we stayed at Scalford Hall, a pleasant hotel in scenic grounds. As we went up to our room Martha whispered to me that it was "very posh". I agreed with her that it was, indeed, posh. Upon entering the room Martha ran to the ensuite bathroom to check the free toiletries. "Molton Brown!" she hissed. "Nick them." She then sought out the tea and coffee making facilities, which were in a drawer. "Biscuits!" she told me, then asked anxiously, "If we don't eat them are we allowed to take them home?" I said yes and she said, "It's you who's taught me to rob." I ignored this unjust portrayal of me as a maternal Fagin figure, mainly from relief that she had not said it in the hotel lobby. I can now reveal that we have in our possession a 2-pack of "Bronte" choc chip biscuits, included in the room price I might add.

We went to ask at Reception if there was anywhere local we could eat. The woman told us not to go into town, "not on a Saturday night" she said, shuddering at the thought - and gave us directions to a nearby village where there was a pub. "Don't go ito town though, not on a Saturday night", she repeated.

When we reached the village pub it was 9 pm and they had stopped serving meals. We were in a dilemma. On the one hand we had been warned against "town" but on the other, we were all starving hungry. I decided to look at the map and work out which "town" we might be dealing with. Was it Nottingham? Leicester? Coventry? Would it be guns, dogs and drugs on every corner? I knew it couldn't be Moss Side or the Bronx - my geography isn't that bad - but it sounded very dodgy.

On further investigation "town" turned out to be Melton Mowbray. We decided to risk it. After all, Maggie lives near Peckham so she is very "street" and I live in Oldham, which only that week had shocked the nation when it was exposed on Panorama as a mecca for binge drinkers, a modern day Gin Lane.

In fact my ex, the posh one who told me the receipt for 450 Viagra I found on his bedroom floor was "a free sample", didn't want me to tell his well-heeled family that I came from Oldham. "Say Shaw" he used to urge, as though Shaw was well-known for its Twinings-drinking gentility.

With some trepidation we parked our cars in Melton Mowbray's main street and went in search of an Indian restaurant. I have to report that there were no drunks lying in the gutter, we witnessed no stabbings, there appeared to be tumbleweed blowing down the street, and when we eventually located the Spice Club restaurant, we were offered no drugs, just quietly served a very good meal. (Have noticed a strange phenomenon with Indian eateries. The further North you go, the hotter the curry. So a Leicester Madras is not as hot as an Oldham Madras which is not as hot as a Bradford Madras. I do hope Bradford is North of Oldham now I have typed this. But cannot be bothered to get Road Atlas from car to check.)

On the way back to the cars, young women were posing for photos on the bonnet of a police car. I passed a bouncer who was drinking a cup of tea, or it might even have been cocoa. I am not making this up. Our vehicles were undamaged. We had trodden the mean streets of Melton Mowbray ON A SATURDAY NIGHT and survived.

The next morning Maggie told me she had recently visited a friend in the country who had warned her not to visit Peasgood St John "because it's full of crack". I have no idea where Peasgood St John is but am fairly sure it isn't a crack den. I may visit there undercover, in one of my wigs and someone else's coat, and investigate.

Health regime update

2009-07-13T13:44:00.001-07:00

Just pointing out that my sister has failed to put in an appearance at the gym tonight, whereas I spent 50 minutes on the treadmill.

My case rests.

When we were 6 minutes late for the dentist

2009-07-13T12:52:00.000-07:00

This morning my ex husband Matthew texted me at 7.15 am to say "don't forget Martha's dental appointment at 8 am" to which I replied "Thank Christ you reminded me" and speeded up my activities, however still managing to commit the heinous sin of being LATE to arrive at the dentist's, getting there at the shameful hour of 8.06 am.

"I'm sorry, we're a little bit late, my daughter has an appointment at 8" I said, smiling pleasantly at the receptionist, who looked me up and down as if I was dressed like a common prostitute. "I don't know if the dentist will see her, I'll have to ask him" she said. Then she rang upstairs and said "your late appointment is here, can you still see her?". After this she turned to me, as if conferring a great favour, and said disdainfully," He will see her but you will have to wait."

We sat down to wait. The 8.10 appointment went upstairs and came back down. The 8.20 appointment ditto, followed by the 8.30 appointment. At 8.35 I politely asked how long we would have to wait.

"Don't know" came the reply.

It's just that I'm going to be late for work and I'll have to ring them and tell them what time I'll be in, I said.

"Don't know."

Well, said I, will it be ten minutes, twenty minutes?

"Don't know. You'll just have to wait"

Can you just give me some idea, I asked, still polite.

"No idea. You'll have to wait".

I then phoned work and told them I was going to be late because I had been 6 minutes late for the dentist but that I could not say how late, as the dental receptionists had no idea.

There were notices everywhere.

Rudeness to the reception staff will not be permitted.

Verbal abuse of our staff will not be tolerated.

Payment must be made in full before treatment.

Patients must abide by the rules.

If any of these regulations are broken THE ZERO TOLERANCE POLICY WILL BE PUT INTO EFFECT.

Good comrades will go toothless for the Cause.

Patients who are late for appointments will be publicly flogged.

(I only made the last two up.)

And so on. Martha said "Mum have you read all the notices?" I said it's taken me a while love but yes I have. Then she wanted to play games on my mobile but I wouldn't let her. I suggested she read an article from the Reader's Digest instead. "A long one" I added for the benefit of the receptionists, who were whispering to each other.

Martha asked how long we would be. I said I didn't know but if we were still there at lunchtime she could go over to Greggs, and if we were still there at teatime she might have to pop over to Boots and get me some anti-ageing cream.

Finally we were summoned upstairs to the dentist, who was unusually perky, like someone on happy pills (or maybe just someone on a dentist's salary.) He said Martha had a stain on one of her back teeth.

Then he said "did you bring her last time?", I said no, her Dad did. He leant forward conspiratorially and said "are you separated?", somehow managing to say the word separated as if it was a sexually transmitted infection. I said yes, not bothering to explain that we had been divorced for years, as I did not feel this to be any business of the dentist.

"I find this a lot with separated parents" he said. I was puzzled. Did he mean habitual lateness, or staining of one back tooth? I asked what he meant. "Oh, different routines, different diet, different toothbrushes for different houses" he said. "How many nights a week does she spend at her Dad's?" I said two nights (not seeing the relevance) and the dentist smirked. I defended Matthew's parenting heroically and said that he did not have sweets in the house.

"Ah but he would say that wouldn't he?" replied the dentist. I ignored this slur and took my leave, being extra polite and pleasant as I made an appointment for 6 months' time, lest I trigger the ZERO TOLERANCE POLICY.

So, if my manager ever reads this blog, that is why I was late for work today.

Matthew says he is thinking of reporting the dentist. I, however, am keeping on good terms with that dentist because:

a) There are no NHS dentists locally except him

b) It was only a week ago that I threatened to report the alcoholic doctor to the GMC - all Shaw dwellers will know which doctor I mean.

c) If I am extra nice to the dentist he might give me some of the drugs that make him so happy, and will be gentle with me when I am in the chair.

Strict health regime begins today

2009-07-12T03:44:00.000-07:00

I have now been tempted out into the pubs and taverns of the locality on a Saturday night 3 times in 4 weeks. Although this has led to many interesting conversations and such, my body is now feeling the effects of a few too many glasses of red wine/halves of Strongbow and so I am about to start a severe health regime, led by my merciless personal trainer (my sister.)

I am not a frequenter of Shaw's pubs. I did used to spend the occasional evening in my local, the Queen Anne, but one night about three years ago I walked home with Ow Darren, the next door neighbour, and he asked if he could take me to bed. "No thankyou" I politely replied but he took offence and from that day to this Ow Darren has not spoken a word to me and I decided to give the Queen Anne a miss. Since then I have been "out round Shaw" approximately once every six months.

Ow Darren has now moved out and his nephew, Acne Boy, has moved in with Ow Darren's dad, Ow Fred. I am not usually given to nicknaming teenagers with unkind references to their skin conditions but Acne Boy has been severely cheeky over the last few weeks and had taken to sitting in the ginnel strumming his guitar and entertaining the neighbourhood teenage girls, all of whom would sit in the ginnel meaning I'd have to step over 5 pairs of legs to put my washing out. I have now forbidden the use of the ginnel as a youth club. They tried to rebel but when they experienced me with PMT they thought better of it and now just hang about the street giving me withering looks. However having worked at Counthill I am hardened to such things.

But I digress. Back to Health. As we all know, too much alcohol is not good for a person and particularly when it makes you go to Crazy Fast Food and buy chips on the way home. I am therefore forswearing alcoholic drink and stepping up the gym regime.

Already I go to JJB gym twice a week and swim 40 lengths, watched by some of the most sinister perverts in Oldham who seem to go there only to sit in the jacuzzi and lech. Occasionally one of them gets out of the jacuzzi, jumps manfully into the pool and swims a length. He then stands at the other end of the pool leching for a good five or ten minutes before swimming back to the jacuzzi. This is the type of man who will put in his Internet dating ad that he "enjoys going to the gym" which makes him sound all athletic, but in truth he should write "enjoys going to the gym to perv at women in Speedo swimming costumes."

My sister is making me go swimming later. I have a small hangover but she has no sympathy with this. My sister has been on about 360 health kicks, that's about one every 3 weeks since she was 17.

Once I won a mini-break for two in the Isle of Man by entering a competition in the Oldham Advertiser. My sister came with me because my then husband was scared of flying. My sister said we had to take two swimming costumes because this holiday was going to be "Inch Loss Island". We would, she said, be swimming each day, going for long healthful walks, and not eating anything. I said "what, nothing at all? She said "NOTHING. NOT A THING".

This is what actually happened. My sister said she was scared of flying so we would have to take a bottle of wine to calm her nerves before the flight. I therefore had to hide a two-thirds full bottle of red wine in my bag, but then my sister decided she didn't need any wine after all. So I had to carry it around Douglas (capital of Inch Loss Island) looking like an alcoholic, until we could get into our hotel later that day.

Later that evening my sister said we would have to drink the wine otherwise it would go off. Then we went to some kind of strange nightclub, where we stayed so long and drank so much that all the restaurants were shut so we sat on the sea front eating fish and chips.

The next day we had very, very bad hangovers to which my sister said the only cure was a full English breakfast. Then we went on a bus tour of the island - no healthful walks as we were too ill. We then had to go to ye olde teashoppe for coffee and cakes because this is also a hangover cure, as is icecream.

That night we went to "La Brasserie" for our evening meal, which was very embarrassing as my sister rang them to book and said "Is that La Brassiere?". When we got in late that night, my sister produced a giant bar of chocolate which on further questioning she admitted to having secretly bought in M and S earlier when I was looking at clothes.

The next day we went up Snaefell on a little train. My sister said she was scared of going up mountains on trains so she would need a double Bacardi and Coke to prepare her for the experience. Then when we got to the top she needed a Kit Kat to calm her nerves.

That was the last health regime I went on with my sister. Let's hope this new one is more successful.

It would also be fair to say that I am going to Lesbos next week and it would be impolite not to sample the local wine, but I will have Martha with me and she is such a Puritan that it will only be allowed in moderation.

Holding out for a hero

2009-07-03T14:43:00.000-07:00

I have lived to regret my haste in turning Penfold down. It happened last night when I, in premenstrual clumsiness, spilled fizzy water on my laptop keys. With an AAAAGGGHHH and many an anguished swearword I swiftly rubbed teatowels and kitchen roll across the keyboard thus rubbing all the keys many times. With the worst of the water absorbed by the paper towels I then noted that the screen had rotated 90 degrees and was sideways on.

How then I rued the day I had spurned the advances of Penfold! For, had I been up for his Friday night dalliances, I could have got him round here immediately and he would have fixed my screen in an instant. Instead I gave him short shrift and drove him further into the arms of Irene.

With great presence of mind I then remembered I had the number of the PC World support desk, and I got through to a very patient man with a chocolatey melty voice (think of a warm Galaxy bar) and a slightly Aussie accent, and he talked me through the process of re-rotating the screen. (I did not share with him about the fizzy water but claimed that my laptop had malfunctioned at random.)

Calm, collected, knowledgeable, sexy voice, patient, did the business and didn't expect any other business in return. Who says there are no heroes anymore? So, services not required, Penfold.

My Granny Maud, a wise woman, used to say "what would I want with a bloody man?".
However, this was in the days before we relied on laptops. Now I know precisely what I want with a bloody man.

My daughter Martha and her two friends, each of them ten years old, are watching a music dvd on the sofa. I have told them I want them to go to bed by 11.10 pm.
The look I got from my daughter clearly said "Why don't you just designate this house a convent and have done with it?"
Come to think of it, that is a very good idea.

Things I have learned

2009-06-29T14:22:00.000-07:00

Many people say that cancer is a "gift" and that it gives you special insights and is a "learning experience", so I though I would share with you some things I have learned in the last year.

1. Be grateful for your eyebrows and eyelashes.
2. Life is too short for ALDI "Harvest Morn" Alpen substitute.
3. Having 6 months off work does not magically make you write a book.
4. If you give my cat Tiger, Felix or Sheba she will still whinge unbearably for Whiskas.
5. Short hair really is easier to manage.
6. If you stop drinking coffee you feel much calmer.
7. When your hair grows back people keep wanting to stroke it to feel what it's like.

I will add to this list when I receive more unique wisdom.

Spirit of the Blitz and such

2009-06-29T13:53:00.000-07:00

This is a difficult one because

a) people do not know what to say and

b) it is so much better to say the wrong thing than simply "disappear" from the life of your cancerous friend which is pathetic and cowardly -

but .... someone told me last night that I am " a fighter".

Well, yes admittedly I have always been feisty and opinionated, many times to my detriment I might add.

He then added " a spirit of determination can make all the difference to cancer prognosis".

I have to say that this is

a) unproven by any reliable research and

b) bloody insulting to the positive, brave, everything-to-live-for women who have died of this disease.

My friend Diane, whose packed funeral I attended last Friday, was brave and stoical and she endured 7 years of treatment for breast cancer. No one can ever say that she was not determined or didn't try hard enough to "fight it" but the truth is, mental attitude is irrelevant.

A third to a half of the population of England and Wales died of bubonic plague in the mid-fourteenth century. Did the survivors have an uncommonly brave and positive mental attitude, or was it just chance?

We have all known lifelong whingeing miserable hypochondriacs who lived into their 90s, and spirited "determined" women who have died in the prime of their lives of breast cancer, sometimes leaving young children.

OK so I'm not drinking wine through a straw continually and I am doing weight bearing exercise and drinking lots of water (not from plastic bottles because that's bad for you) and I ate 17 brazil nuts and 3 dried figs in the car between jobs today and I have at least 5 portions of fruit and vegetables a day oh yes, but for all I know it's pissing in the wind.

The "woman of courage" rose in my garden has two full blooms today. I'm thinking of all the truly courageous women who have died despite their will to live, and don't let anyone tell me it was because they weren't determined enough.

bombs away on harpurhey

2009-06-29T13:04:00.000-07:00

Tonight the sun is shining, the grass in the hedges is waist-high, the common weeds in the hedgerow are beautiful and the spinster has a severe pang of nostalgia for that 20 years ago being-17-ness.

I used to sing "Black and Blue" by Johnny Dangerously in Jock's Bar in Bangor Students' Union on folk night (Wednesdays) and I loved all his songs but you can't buy them on Amazon! Why? Why? He is in I am Kloot now but it's just not the same. Rerelease the album Johnny!

In much the same way I am yearning to hear once again "Fanciable Headcase" and "Bombs Away On Harpurhey" by King of the Slums. I have looked them up on Amazon and it says ALL their lyrics are explicit.

Why can I not remember this from my youth? Was I extraordinarily dense, or just inured to expicit-ness? Or has the nanny state gone so far that almost anything is deemed explicit nowadays?

When I was 17 I worked in Greggs the Bakers in Shaw as a Saturday girl. I was slightly in love with Christopher McFaul, the Saturday boy. We used to cut up custard pies as "samples for the customers" and eat them ourselves. Everything was half-price for employees. So if you, for example, went to see the House of Love at Manchester Poly on a Friday night and illegally drank 3 pints of snakebite and black and smoked roll-ups and woke up the next morning with a hangover and had to be in work by 8 am, you could comfort yourself with a cheese and onion pasty (16p) and a cheese salad sandwich with mayonnaise (48p) and a cream doughnut (26p.)

I wanted to work at Martins the newsagents next door, but me and my friend Sara went for the same job and she was quicker at the Maths test so she got the job. I was disappointed at the time but at least with Greggs I got Christopher McFaul and those (oh lost, luscious) custard pies gleaming on the counter.

One Saturday off in 4 you got a day off and this was always spent in Afflecks palace, where they still play "Gypsy" by Suzanne Vega and sell real 1960s clothes, but I don't fit into the clothes anymore and I miss the Joy Division and Smiths posters as you go up the stairs.

Excitingly, I have bought an MP3 player for use in the gym. My first download is going to be "Fanciable Headcase", once I've worked out how to do the downloading that is.

Cancer Vixen

2009-06-25T23:59:00.000-07:00

Just over a year ago I was going about my business, worrying about trivial matters, wearing size ten trousers and getting depressed with no good reason, when suddenly, "out of a clear blue sky" as they say, I had an invasive tumour in my right breast. Since then I have had two operations, 6 doses of the most horrible poison that is chemotherapy, a month of radiotherapy, and now have at least 4 years 8 months of hormone tablets to look forward to.

Women with breast cancer have to be "positive". As soon as you are diagnosed with the disease you are constantly told this by everyone in sight. Men with prostate or testicular cancer, people with lymphatic cancer - all are quite reasonably allowed to be depressed, angry, maudlin and tearful. But breast cancer - you must be positive! Wear pink! (Even the gowns in Oldham breast clinic are fuschia pink, which I find wrong in the extreme.) Have fun with wigs! Think of the money you'll save on haircuts! Have fun with headscarves! Just look at Trisha Goddard! Any of us could be run over by a bus tomorrow! You must not be a Cancer Victim but a Cancer Vixen.

It would all be so much more convincing if, when you walked into the Victoria Breast Unit in Oldham, there was not a spray of fake flowers on the table in front of Reception, a spray of flowers closely resembling a funeral wreath.

My "breast care nurse" asked me what I was so scared of. I said "Dying". She laughed and said "of course you're not going to die!" How interesting. I am the first person on the planet who can expect immortality. Quick quick, call the Archbishop of Canterbury and tell him.

My lovely friends bought me a rose called "Woman of Courage". I suppose there is no rose that has been named "Woman of Outstanding Cowardice and Terror", but it would have been more appropriate.

I was very, very scared, particularly of chemotherapy. When I went for my first chemotherapy the nurse accidentally punctured a vein and injected the very toxic chemotherapy drug into the tissue of my wrist. My wrist swelled up like a balloon. The nurse ran from the room crying. I assertively demanded a tranquilliser. My oncologist, who looks about 14 and has shiny shoes and no sense of urgency, prescribed me 5 mg of Diazepam (Valium) for the following chemotherapy session. 5 mg! That would not keep a fly calm!

In truth, I could have done with a continuous infusion of Valium for the first 6 months after diagnosis, and a gas and air machine installed in the corner of the living room so I could have had a few gulps of it every time I thought about having cancer.

I am now back to worrying about trivial matters but now I have cancer to worry about too. Also I have very short hair and wear size twelve trousers.

I know I am lucky the cancer was found, lucky to have treatment on the NHS, lucky to have a (touch wood) good prognosis and lucky to have my eyebrows and eyelashes back. I just wish people who haven't been as lucky as me and are still walking around cancer-free would stop telling me how lucky I am. What would they tell me if I had weeks to live? "You're lucky it's not Ebola virus. That kills you really quickly, that does."

As I look out of my kitchen window on this sunny June morning, the "Woman of Courage" rose is ready to burst into bloom. I'm choosing to take this as a good sign.

I've learned so much from my mistakes ....

2009-06-24T15:13:00.000-07:00

At this point I feel it would be good to share some of my cast-iron rules of Men to Avoid.

If, dear reader, you reply "Yes, but ..." then I can only say that having printed the health warning I am not responsible for individual choices, just as people may choose to drive without seatbelts, drink more than the recommended units per week, or go poking around caves without those little helmets with lights on them.

Top 20 men to avoid:

1. BNP members or voters

2. Men who go the the gym more than twice a week (narcissists)

3. Men who wear friendship bracelets, a necklace or more than one earring. Note: it matters not if the necklace is a stone carving on a leather thong, in fact this can be the worst kind.

4. Men who call you "Babe", "Sweetie" or "Tiger" or call women "Ladies".

5. Men who say they "like a Classy Lady".

6. Men who try to make you read "The Denial of Death" - I think it is by Ernest Becker, but if you want to be sure, look it up on Amazon

7. Men who are more concerned about the Israeli-Palestinian situation than their own levels of personal debt

8. Men who, in internet dating ads, specify a clothes size they want the woman to be.

9. Men who are frightened of spiders.

10. Men who are finicky about what tea they will drink, e.g. they can only drink Twinings English Breakfast

11. Men who correct your grammar or pronunciation of words

12. Men who think it is common to eat chips in the street

13. Men who make their own wine from their allotment produce. (Wine is best made by French/Australian/Chilean people using grapes.)

14. Men who tell you their ex-wives have "taken them to the cleaners".

15. Men who use the expression "taken me to the cleaners" in any context.

16. Men who try to get you into an affair when they are attached/married; particularly, men who try to do this under the guise of getting you to help them with the Independent crossword 17. Any man who shaves his "parts" or has them waxed

18. Any man who uses Clinique skincare products or similar

19. Any man who criticises your childcare techniques, e.g. just say your 5 year old has climbed onto a a chair holding a pair of scissors, you say "give me the scissors", your 5 year old laughs merrily, gives you a challenging look and holds them aloft, you forcibly take the scissors from the 5 year old who then screams, the man says that what you have just done "goes against basic Piaget" - get rid.

20. Men who tell you to go on a diet/to the gym. Scales are for fish.

21. (added Nov 2009) Any man who tells you on the third date that he has a criminal record for domestic violence but it was self defence because his ex was always beating him up. (Then you meet his ex and she is about 4'11".)
22. Men who say LOL.

23. Men whose spelling or grammar leaves anything to be desired, e.g. perhaps they do not understand the to/too/two rule, or the their/there rule. (Yes I know I am at an advantage as I have a dyslexia diploma but if anyone wants to spend two years writing essays about spelling rules feel free to join me.)

24. Men who do not recycle.

25. Men who do not help with the washing up.

24.
This is by no means an exhaustive list. Feel free to add to it.

Give the dangerous bitch her chocolate

2009-06-22T14:26:00.000-07:00

Middle aged spinsterly behaviour strikes again. In bed by 9 pm, in long cotton nightie, when suddenly seized by the urge for chocolate.

"No no, you must not eat chocolate, you are not hungry and if you continue in this manner you will be a size 14" says the sex kitten voice in my head.

"Who could care less, I would rather go to bed with a sugar rush than be able to fit into my new matching underwear, for who is there to see it?" speaks my inner spinster.

The spinster wins. I consume half a Snickers Easter egg.

At 2 am this morning I had been awoken from a deep sleep by the bleep-bleep of my mobile phone. It was a text from my admirer, Penfold (he with the girlfriend.)

"I wish I was in your bed" said the text. It was very fortunate for him that he was nowhere near my bed, because I would have strangled him with my tights.

In a fury I turned my mobile phone off and turned over to go back to sleep. Two seconds later I remembered that my alarm clock did not work and I had been using my mobile as an alarm clock for several weeks. I turned it back on again.

I have therefore been to Argos to buy a new alarm clock, as I do not appreciate being propositioned by insomniacs in the early hours.

The whole matter has put me in such a foul mood that I have checked the calendar to see whether I have PMT, but no, that excuse (reason) to swear and eat chocolate is about 18 days away.

Always wear matching underwear in case you get run over

2009-06-20T10:45:00.000-07:00

Shaw's premier spinster went out in Royton tonight and wondered whether it would be worth wearing matching underwear or not. After all, I could have an accident crossing the street and what if I then had to be examined by an A and E doctor at Royal Oldham? And what if he was a handsome eligible bachelor with a doctor's salary?

Every man in the pub was under 22 or over 60, so it was a total waste of makeup. I met with no drunken accidents and did not have to be "checked over" by any dashing young doctors. Which is a good thing though, because Oldham hospital are extremely mean with painkillers.

I did go on a date with an A and E doctor once. It was a blind date from the Internet. He was English but had qualified as a doctor in Budapest. He first of all smoked five cigarettes in my presence, then told me he had "lied about being a non smoker", which (just call me Nancy Drew) I had already worked out. He told me about his difficult relationship with his mother.

He then told me had tried various drugs such as pethidine and Oromorph but that it was difficult to get hold of any diamorphine because "after Harold Shipman the regulations had been tightened". He therefore proposed to wait until a Friday night shift in Casualty, prescribe a hefty dose of morphine for a patient, inject the patient with half the syringe, then put the syringe in the pocket of his white coat and inject it into himself when he returned to his room.

I was very careful not to go to the loo as who knew what he might slip into my onion bhajis (we were at an Indian restaurant.)

Dr Kildare appeared to be unaware that his drug-smuggling exploits were in any way offputting, for the following week he texted me to invite me to see a film with him at the Cornerhouse. As if I was going to sit in the back row with him and a hypodermic.

If only I had made any of this up, but it is the truth.

The love of my life is on the I.T. helpdesk

2009-06-19T12:11:00.000-07:00

As previously mentioned, I am not good with technology. This means that when I need something doing on the computer, I need to get a man to help me. (I am not being sexist here. My friend Sara is a woman and a genius at I.T. but she lives in Spain.)

For example, I wanted to import a little picture onto this blog, and I don't know how to do it so I thought "I'll get someone who's good at I.T. to do it". Then I remembered that the I.T. teacher who I usually get to show me computer things is the man who has offered to come round for "no strings passion".

Which is no good at all, because when men can fix computers it does strange things to my hormones. I become as putty in their hands. If Ayatolla Khomeini showed me how to edit an Excel document he could have his wicked way with me there and then. That's how bad it is.

The only other person I know who is good at I.T. is Richard at work and he would never come round to my house and show me how to put little Penfolds on here. Richard has seemed to only help me with computer things at work since I've had chemotherapy and I thought it was because it would seem callous of him to refuse me. However I have now decided he has always been helpful, as he he shares his bread with me when I forget my lunch, and he does not tut at my incompetence, or not in my hearing anyway. It was just that before I got cancer I was too scared to tell anyone at work how very bad I am at I.T. which is a trivial matter and I fear it no longer.

Where I work, if anything goes wrong with your computer you ring a helpdesk number and a man on the end of the phone takes remote control of your computer and fixes the problem. He actually takes control of your mouse from an office somewhere in the middle of town, and this is so masterful of him that I immediately fall in love with him over the telephone. He always sounds calm and controlled. He never panics, never expresses doubt that he will be able to fix it.

I don't know if it is the same man every time. Perhaps there is a team of them. He has an Oldham Asian accent, or an Asian accent with a tinge of Oldham, and he fixed the printer today for me.

It matters not that he may well be 22 and four foot nothing with hygiene problems. He is a master of his trade and he has caught my heart.

The preferences of Vodkaboy

2009-06-19T11:33:00.000-07:00

Have you ever noticed that when men say "I'd prefer ...." it usually means something is slightly amiss? Suspicious, even?

For example, when one of my exes, Ray Von, ran (not just walked quickly) ahead of me up the stairs and swiftly concealed his mobile phone behind the cupboard - stupidly, as I was one step behind him - I said "let me have a look at that mobile phone" and he said "I'd prefer if you didn't". Now, if he had been innocent he would have said "OK then" or "why?" or "You're not checking my texts, you psycho" but no, he said "prefer" and so I instantly knew something underhand was occurring. And when I went into his Google History there was "quickflirt.com" and "Galaxy Escorts" but try as I might, I never got to read the messages on his mobile phone, because it was one of those complicated ones that you have to operate with a little tapper thing, and I have never been good with technology. Nevertheless, under further questioning he admitted that there were texts on his phone from his ex, Lynn, who he had "happened" to bump into the night before.

But back to "preferences". Because one year ago, when my then boyfriend heard I had been diagnosed with breast cancer, his reaction was "if you have a mastectomy, I'd prefer it if you had a reconstruction".

Not, "Oh my sweet the doctors must operate as soon as humanly possible to save your life" or "I will sell my house to pay for a top surgeon" or "Let us get married immediately and then if you die under the anaesthetic you will leave this world as Mrs Short" (for that was his name.) but "I'd prefer it if you had a reconstruction". The only surprise is that he did not specify which cup size he would "prefer".

As it turned out, my surgeon persuaded me against having a mastectomy, because as he said "you are only young and might want to go topless bathing" and the survival rates were the same if he took only the tumour out. However, having taken the tumour out he called me back 3 weeks later to say he hadn't got it all and would have to "go back in and take some more out" at which point I said "oh just chop the whole thing off, I just want it gone". It was at this point that I realised he was most likely a pervert preserving my bosoms' comely shape for his own possible future use, as he insisted he just remove slightly more tissue.

I therefore have a fine pair still, though how long this will remain the case no one can say, and I have developed no desire to sun myself topless.

Mr Short went on a drinking bender whilst I was under the knife the first time. I could tell, because when he came to see me in hospital he said he "couldn't sleep for worry and was so tired he couldn't even speak properly". He couldn't speak properly because of the sheer amount of vodka he had consumed, the fumes of which were wafting across my face as I lay in a post-operative daze.

When I arrived home from hospital 2 days later he had returned to his flat "to let me get some rest" (i.e. so he could drink more vodka) but whilst I was in hospital he had trodden dogshit into my stairs carpet, which I had to clean up before I could take to my sick bed and recuperate.

There are other clues in the language that men use which lets you know they are lying. For example, if a man refers to "someone at work" or "a person at work" you know that this someone is a woman, who they are either having an affair with or trying to have an affair with. Because you would never say, "someone at work was telling me about this new Indian restaurant". You would say "Debbie at work" or "Richard at work" or "Robert in the downstairs office". Particularly if this "person at work" is mentioned repeatedly, maintain high suspicion.

When my second husband kept mentioning "this person at work", his very next Visa bill showed a bill for £26 at an Indian restaurant. He subsequently moved in with the "person from work". Four years later he went off with another "person from work", which in my opinion served the first one right.

Sometimes I wonder why I am not a top detective.

Yes I know I'm not actually a spinster

2009-06-18T13:47:00.000-07:00

In the interests of accuracy and to appease the pedants of this world, I am not technically a spinster. I have been married and divorced twice. Firstly to an overeducated short Liverpudlian, and secondly to the father of my delightful daughter.

Since the age of 30, however, I have developed many habits typical of a Spinster, e.g. wearing white cotton nightdresses, going to bed early with a cup of tea, perusing lists of coach trips in the Oldham Chronicle, and taking tea with the vicar. Until the vicar was forced from the parish for being gay, but I will go into that later.

In addition, I have been very unlucky in love. Or I used to think I was unlucky in love, until I got cancer (discovered one year ago today.) My boyfriend of the time disappeared down a vodka bottle quicker than you can say "Vladivostock", and since then I have been subject to a number of less than tempting offers. For example, one from a man I briefly dated but had got rid of because he was so posh, who included in his proposition the words "Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

My stock value has gone down bcause I have had cancer, is the truth of the matter. Some men think that because you might die, you are suddenly desperate and will take anything on offer, no matter how short, fat, hairy, ideologically unsound, incoherent, inbred, morally questionable, or bad-tempered; even card-carrying members of the Conservative Party think they might be in with a chance.

Men you once rejected out of hand now appear, with the evident expectation that having had a life threatening illness you will immediately think "Quick, quick, I must sleep with as many unattractive men as possible before the end!"

This, however, is not the case.

So it has come to this.

2009-06-17T14:03:00.000-07:00

Shaw's premier spinster, always a magnet for alcoholics, debtors, perverts, compulsive liars and the downright strange, has now hit a new low.

This is my offer for Friday night: Half a bottle of red wine (quality not even specified, could be Blossom Hill for all I know) and "no strings" passion with a man who a) looks like Penfold, and b) has a girlfriend, who he has been seeing for over a year. I have met his girlfriend and she is a pleasant woman who would never in a million years suspect him of trying to arrange Friday night "wine and 69" (miss out the dine, I've been on a diet for 24 years) events.

And he thinks I am going to agree to this. For free. Excuse me, I seem to have forgotten to have taken my hallucinogenic drugs today.