Hello to anyone out there still bothering to log on - have been paralysed by inability to blog for fear of alienating my tiny readership with my woes. So won't concentrate on them then. Still wading through treacle and being generally ineffectual non-coping mother.
We went - big drum roll - to the Isle of Wight after an absence of more than eighteen months. It was HUGE for all of us but mostly for Rose for whom it is the definition of normal family holiday fun - unable to remember a time before crabbing on the Duver and collecting shells for her tiny bedroom there she was beside herself with excitement. Anti-climax would surely follow such a longed-for trip. But the island delivered as it always has for us - back in time to the 1950s and for us to a time when the biggest worry we had was which beach, which pub, which walk? Bittersweet - my cycle of grief is nowhere near complete and the pain of not watching her cycle up and down the lane and the carefree memories from a time when I didn't know what a hickman line is was every bit as painful as I had anticipated but she scootered and she played and she crabbed and sunbathed and the boys took her out in a doughnut in the sea and all was as damned close to perfect as we could have ever, ever hoped for. The sun shone all week - except tragically on the day of Felix's cricket match which was the central reason for going! - and having been in a hospital all last summer and about as pale as it is possible to be Rose and I burned really badly! We went to all the old haunts and a couple of new ones and every night we tucked her up in her little girl's bed in her tiny island house and she was happy, happy, happy. A big box ticked, normal holiday action resumed, god in heaven, all right with Rose's world.
BCRT Awareness Week is almost upon us so standby your diaries - if you haven't already been invited to a cake bake, cake sale, coffee morning then you are probably about to be... And there is another brave pioneer out there who needs some support too. Last year we made contact with Kay Hylton an adult survivor of osteosarcoma (god how I love those words) who was going to run the London Marathon this year in aid of Rose and the BCRT. Kay very selfishly had a massive fall and broke her coccyx which put paid to that and probably a lot of her other plans too - like walking - but up to the plate is stepping her fabulous son Ben. A third year medic he is competing in July in Ironman Switzerland for Rose. He will be swimming 4km, cycling 180km and running a full blown 42km marathon. I think if I had lots of chocolate biscuits and several cups of tea along the way I could probably manage the swim so I am pretty awe-inspired by this superhuman feat of fitness and equally awe-inspired that he has chosen Rose for his fundraising mascot. You can read all about his challenge on his justgiving page at www.justgiving.com/benhylton1 where you can also conveniently leave your credit card details... I know, I know some fundraisers just won't go away will they. Sorry.
Tomorrow and Friday back to Stanmore and the Marsden for our 48 hours of gut-wrenching, nerve-jangling hell. So no stoicism anticipated then.
