BASKETTCASE

Time is whizzing by.  My chemo starts on Wednesday, and I am certainly not looking forward to it, only to getting it started and eventually finished.  I confess to not having much faith in it.  I completed the first session with flying colours, and still had a recurrence and a fresh obstruction.  I was very disillusioned by the oncologist's attitude, which seemed to me very different from the first time around.  He said the three-weekly infusion was the worst part for side-effects, and only produced a small proportion of the benefit.  Then he said it was up to me whether I had it this time!  Do they put this onus on everyone, or only those with medical background who are supposed to be able to be dispassionate and scientific?  I have been meaning to ring and ask the Speciality nurse if there is someone else I can discuss it with, but I have been so busy enjoying my few weeks of freedom from treatment that I haven't go round to it.

Last week I attended a Creative Writing course at Letton Hall, a Christian conference centre, run by a husband and wife team of Christian authors.  It was a last minute booking when I realised that due to the postponement of my chemo on the grounds of urinary infection I was well and free.   I was also fed up with housework and harvesting and weeding and washing, so three days in the company of enthusiastic and creative people was a real treat.  It was a residential course, but being just up the road I attended as a day visitor, doing mornings and lunch only.  At the end of the first morning we were invited to choose a subject from a series of index cards on the table and write about it as an exercise.  I couldn't resist the invitation to write a fairy tale to include a princess, a dragon, an enchantment of some sort and a tomato.  It was really the tomato that took my eye, partly because of the huge crop we have in the greenhouse, and partly because our little James calls them 'benatoes'.  My story about Princess Benato and the tomato spell was written in an hour or two before tea at home, causing a bit of a grump because I didn't set the table, but then proving an instant hit with the family over the meal-table.  To my surprise it produced the same reaction from the group the next day, and the course leader has offered to try it on his publisher when I have had a chance to tweak it a bit.

I don't usually write, or read to the children, stuff about witches, spells, magic etc.   I confessed this to the group, and given that they were all Christian aspiring witers was impressed by their lack of inhibition in this field.  The consensus seemed to be that in the imaginative thought-world of the child a dragon or a spell or two are a traditional way of testing out reality, and very useful in beginning to get to grips with the opposing worlds of good and evil and the impact of the supernatural.  It was also felt that my story was strewn with morals and had a good spirit.  Well, there you are, we shall see.