P. D. Clifton

There would have been a time, before we moved to the countryside, when I would have been bothered at the idea of mice – or rats – invading our bathroom (OK, the idea of rats I am still bothered by. Let’s just hope it isn’t rats…). But, when you move to the country, I think…

It’s eleven o’clock at night. Lizzie is asleep in our bedroom and I’m doing a wee in our adjoining bathroom (I’d say ‘en suite’ except the bathroom also has a door onto the main upstairs hallway – like some kind of weird, half-arsed ‘Jack and Jill’ set-up). As I wee, I suddenly hear something… a…

It’s winter. It’s cold, in our old house in the country. Getting out of bed every morning is like leaping into the English Channel. In the summer, Lizzie would happily paint in our garage – pictures of flowers, set against the peeling, multi-paned window in the back wall. Now she’s painting in the conservatory, home…

The events described below actually occurred in November 2021… which means, according to the thinking behind this blog, I should have posted this in November 2022, one year later. I completely failed to do this at the time however (I told you this wasn’t going to be an exact science), so here’s the post one…

It’s breakfast, a day or two later. We haven’t discussed our plan to change the course of modern pharmaceutical retail again. To be honest, thinking about it further, it seems ambitious… based on a single unreliable thermometer, as it is. I’ll probably just end up taking the thermometer back to the shop. Lizzie is looking…

It’s the late afternoon and I walk into the bedroom. Lizzie’s lying on the bed (as she does a lot more now than she used to). She gives me one of her intense I’m going to tell you something important now and you’d better listen ‘cause there’ll be a test afterwards looks. She holds up…

A few days ago, I noticed a lump down there. Just below my waist. Actually, it’s not so much a lump. It’s more… a bulge. On the right-hand side of my lower abdomen, right under where my belt goes. A bulge which isn’t normally there. No matter what the circumstances. I’m immediately thrown into a…

Lizzie’s lying in bed watching box sets. She’s being doing a lot of this since she got diagnosed. ‘I want to lie in bed and watch box sets!’ I announce. ‘You have to get cancer,’ says Lizzie. ‘OK!’ I reply. ‘If that’s what it takes!’ ‘You’re already sicker than I am,’ sighs Lizzie. Maybe she’s…

I walk into the bedroom. Lizzie’s sitting on the bed, bald as the day she was born. There’s a box on the floor… a small cardboard box, with a tasteful design on it. On the box, in fancy writing, are the words ‘Smart Lace’. ‘Smart Lace?’ I say. ‘Sounds like some kinky kind of underwear!’…

Even though Lizzie has now thankfully recovered from Covid, her sister H. – one of the two sisters who took her to Daylesford Covid (I mean Organic) Market in the Cotswolds – is feeling contrite. To attempt to make amends for the Daylesford disaster (despite the fact it really wasn’t H.’s fault that Lizzie caught…