Category: Uncategorized
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63: SINÉAD
Hello! This latest post on my blog ‘Stop Telling Me I’m Brave’ is called ‘Sinéad’ (as you’ll see right above) and as you might expect it mentions Sinéad O’Connor. As with all the other posts in this blog, I’m posting this one a year and a bit after it was actually written. So the O’Connor…
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62: MERINO COIL
Lizzie and I are running down and up Bunton Hill in the dark – without Cedric in tow this time. He couldn’t be bothered to come. I’m wearing my full jogging kit – including new Asics trainers – bought at a discount from Sports Direct a month before. Lizzie’s wearing her trainers and the emulsion-spattered…
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61: MULTIPLE ENDINGS
I thought that was the end of this journal, but then life went on… and things kept on occurring which I felt like I wanted to include (I mean, it’s not like our lives suddenly came out from the shadow of Lizzie’s cancer, the moment she was told she was currently cancer-free by her oncologist.…
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60: FINGERS CROSSED… EVERYTHING WILL BE FINE
Having had a delicious lunch of salami-and-cheese-stuffed pancakes – courtesy of Lizzie, of course – we’re doing our daily walk across the fields with Cedric the dog. All around us are sapling trees – in their plastic sheathes – planted by the Heart of England trust. A lot of them are leaning over precariously. Maybe…
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59: BIRTHDAY
It’s Lizzie’s birthday. Lizzie’s birthdays are always high-pressure events. As are Mother’s Days and Valentine’s Days, when it comes to Lizzie. She expects good presents. Very good presents. The problem is… she never likes the presents I buy for her. They’re always unmitigated disasters. Usually hardback books she’ll never, ever read… and if she was…
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58: THE FUN STUFF LEFT IN
It’s late evening and Lizzie and I are walking down the hill with Cedric. Cedric is always slightly spooked on evening-time walks. He sniffs everything around him way less on these excursions… and trots ahead purposefully, keen to return to our bright kitchen as quickly as possible. ‘I’ve been doing some research,’ Lizzie says, as…
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57: POSTOPERATIVE CHANGES
Days go past… and Lizzie still hasn’t received the results of her CAT scan. One evening she comes up to me, looking pale. She’s had a missed call. Her oncologist rang, minutes before – while Lizzie and her phone were in separate rooms. The oncologist didn’t leave a message, as often seems to be the…
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56: CORNWALL
It’s Friday before half-term… and we’re meant to be heading off at 5.30pm this afternoon, to drive down to Trevone Bay in Cornwall. This will be our first trip away, as a family, since Lizzie was diagnosed with cancer. Leaving late afternoon today is the plan anyway. But everywhere, Warwickshire included, is as windy as…
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55: DON’T SPEAK!
It’s the end of the evening and I walk into the bedroom as Lizzie’s in the process of putting on her baggy old pyjamas. I make a Sid James-style suggestive noise. ‘Don’t look at my fatness!’ says Lizzie, as she tugs her top on. ‘You’re not looking fat!’ I say, then add brightly, ‘you’ve lost…
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54: CAT Scan
It’s 5.45am and I’m rushing to get ready for work – which is down in London today (doing my crappy film production job). As I crash about the house, desperately trying not to wake everyone up, I notice the following bag in the hall by the front door. It’s litter for our new kitten –…
P. D. Clifton 