… night that was. I can’t remember now how many times I had to leave the comfort and safety of my stinking pit to go off down the corridor, but it was certainly more than three or four. It’s that kind of thing that’s making me feel so fed up right now, as well as the perpetual coughing and the streaming cold.

Mind you, I did find the time to go on a nocturnal ramble. Firstly, I remember seeing a young black girl walking along the street and we ended up having quite a chat about something although I can’t remember what it was now. From here I went off to my hotel room, which actually had two beds, and the second bed was now occupied by some guy from Eastern Europe. The rooms were small and poorly-furnished but the sheets and the quilt were white. There was one shelf, which was over my bed, to put suitcases and this other guy was going through some weird acrobatics in order to put his suitcase up there – standing on the windowsill, on the foot of the bed, anything except putting his foot on the bedding. I then had to go off to the bathroom but there was quite a queue and I was in something of a rush, so I was very glad when it came to my turn. When the person before me came out, I made some kind of light-hearted comment about having to wait, and of course it was totally misunderstood, as you might expect. As for the bathroom itself, the only word that comes to my mind was “disgusting”. It really was quite poor and I was dismayed by that.

It’s not the only thing that I’m dismayed about right now either. I had a lengthy chat with Hermione this morning. The good news is that there’s no problem with the lymph nodes in my stomach, according to the scan, but there is still plenty of infection in my lungs. And not only that, the treatment that I was told initially would be over by mid-September is the chemotherapy treatment that is too violent for me and which they stopped. This new treatment has quite a different time-scale and they can’t say for how long it will go on.

Not only that, I’m going to have to be followed up by the hospital for the rest of my life. I did ask what she meant by this – did she mean once every six months (which I could cope with without too many problems) or did she mean once per week, which would be devastating for me – but she couldn’t give me an answer to that until she sees how the treatment progresses.

But anyway, it looks as if my idyllic life in my rural retreat is rapidly coming to an end and you have absolutely no idea just how gutted I am about that. I can see my regular voyages to Canada coming to an end too and that will be just about the end.

The hospital seems to be taking it quite seriously too because after lunch I had a visit from the hospital psychiatrist. She wanted to have a good chat to me about my future and unfortunately I wasn’t able to say very much. Without knowing what the hospital has in store for me for the future, I can’t make any plans at all, as I explained to her. We ended up having a desultory kind of chat about not very much, which was finished when she said “well, see you next week”. That sounded rather ominous to me – I’m hoping to be out of here in a day or two.

But it’s not all doom and gloom, no matter what it might sound like. I managed to eat a good lunch and they were so impressed by that that they have taken me off the intravenous drip. Now, I’m not connected to anything at all which is good news for me.

Furthermore, Alison came to see me for a chat. She brought me a couple of packets of vegan crisps and a bag-full of clothes. She had taken the time to do my dirty washing for me, something that I found really nice of her and which I appreciated a great deal. I may not have many friends, but of the ones that I have are the best in the world.

So that’s enough of this rubbish. I’m going to knock off and spend the rest of the evening worrying about my future – if I have one, that is. I really am dismayed by the news today.

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