The wind is blowing a gale and it’s bitter cold. The kind of wind that ices through the layers of jackets and thermals and touches the skin, turning it to goose- pimple blue. Yet the sun is shining weakly as we walk along the St Andrews Jubilee golf course. 
Occasionally the weather quietens, allowing us to stop and enjoy the magnificent views of sky and cloud and the old course. It’s Christmas Eve and Roscoe is in full- flow, charm-chat mode with his Aunties, who enjoy his exuberance, allowing Craig and I to walk and talk without having to entertain. On the 9th we cross a style, clamber over the sand dunes and start walking back towards St Andrews town with the East Sands beach to ourselves. It is a perfect start to our Christmas break.
We are staying with the Aunties in Cuper, Fife on the East Coast of Scotland. Only one of us is originally from the East Coast and we get to talking about the different belief systems and language between the East and West and the North and South. Scotland has long been a land riven by its differences rather than its similarities. In fact history shows Scots folks unite when they have a common enemy, so it’s jolly handy to live next door to the English.
When the Scots last ruled themselves, there were clan wars and bloodshed and alliances were made, and broken as the wind blew. Our natural tendencies are towards socialism which is why so many of the national trade union leaders are from Scotland. It’s a matter of belief that we should have free car parking at hospitals, free public transport for OAPs and free higher education for Scots based children but all of this costs money. I’m struggling to see how we can balance the books if independence from Great Britain was ever on offer again. And without the Auld enemy to unite us, would we not end up turning on each other once more?
An example of the differences between the East and West Coasters comes from my Nana Godfrey. She was the eldest of 14 children and only had a rudimentary education before she joined service as a cook. She was a make-do and mend sort of girl, every item could be found to have a reusable purpose and her only luxuries in life were her weekly copy of the Peoples friend and copious amounts of hot tea. 
Nana had lots of friends through the Brethren church and they visited each other often. Never would she go anywhere without a packet of biscuits or some homemade cake or jam in her hand. It was considered impolite to not have something to offer to supplement the hosts hospitality.
By contrast, the East Coasters start from a belief system that you’re welcome to visit but you’ll already have had your sustenance. It would rarely occur to offer a bite to eat, no matter the time of day. And if you come bearing biscuits or wine, they will be smilingly accepted and put in the cupboard for your hosts to enjoy later!!
Of course these are generalisations. Just as any student of national culture will tell you, these traits are a guide. Not all Italians are competitive, highly self driven and success orientated. 
Just as not all Germans are highly individualistic with a preference for direct, honest communication and not everyone in France agrees that their superiors or elders know more, can bend rules or are better than they are.
National differences create challenge, spark debate and keep us alive to our unique place in the world. They foster small groups and tribal or clan affiliations. National similarities give us identity and a broader sense of belonging and pride.
As Trump charges towards the White house with his rhetoric of what it is to be American, let’s all be aware of our national stereotypical shorthand.
And back hame, we haud our tea and far mair this Christmastime, and it was grand.
Thankfully I’m sitting under a open-sided white marquee and the breeze from Lake Victoria is most welcome. We are located on the edge of the “sports field” in front of the manufacturing plant as I’m attending the Uganda Breweries Christmas party. Guests are made up of management and their families, and all staff, first wives and first wives children. Uganda is still fairly polygamous and to make sure we don’t end up with half of Kampala here, HR have been quite strict in managing numbers. Even so, the sea of children outnumber the adults at least 5 to 1.
African children can – emerging from the earth in a smiling burst of humanity. The swell of children are beginning to shout and taunt Father Christmas, they are keen to know what he is planning next. In a fit of madness, or fear, he decides to start throwing the gifts from the mound of sacks piled high on the back of his flat-bed truck. Of course the larger, stronger children can catch and whoop, the smaller ones start to cry. The South African MD who has stood in silent shock, galvanises and begins to try to make his way to help Santa, but he cannot get through the sea of children. Now off script and besieged by a flood of children, the flatbed truck comes to a shuddering halt and in three seconds flat Father Christmas disappears under a tidal mass. It is chaos. Then, almost as soon as it starts, it is over. Father Christmas is lying on the ground, naked apart from his underpants. Red velour suit, gone. Welly boots, gone. Stuffed tummy and cotton beard, gone. Rubber gloves, gone. Presents, all gone.
The car is filthy. The grime from the rear windscreen wiper builds up either side of the blade creating my rear window on a murky world.
On the plus side, it’s very prettily decked in Christmas lights, all twinkling in the dark, cool, night air and it has some of the very best public conveniences of any retail park I’ve ever visited. And I’ve been to a few retail parks in my time!
Quality Cuts, the Belgian butcher serving fresh meat and cheese, European style. Food quality is good in Kampala but in my early days there, choice was limited. And food from the UK was rare. I once called Craig in the office to excitedly tell him I had bought a Frey Bentos pie for tea. This ‘delicacy’ being a rare find. Needless to say, this was a one time purchase.
But I left empty-handed, as I got to the cereal aisle and became so bewildered by the amount of choice, that I stood silently stupefied in front of the garishly coloured, neatly stacked boxes. The entire aisle was cereal – both sides – stacked high. It was just too much contrast from where I had come from.
This necessitates several visits to the Alps so as to improve my fitness and ski-touring and ice axe techniques. I am also keen to understand and train for the threats and signs of avalanche. So we are on the Haute route ski tour, a high Alpine 120km traverse with 6,000m of ascent and descent linking two historic Alpine centres, Chamonix and Zermatt. It’s a structured route travelling Alpine hut to hut with little time for ‘ dilly-dallying’. It’s a hot day and so I take off my fleece before putting my outer gortex layer back on. I’m carrying my rucksack with a week’s worth of provisions, largely a few pairs of clean knickers, a couple of T Shirts, my sleeping bag and mat and a bare minimum of toiletries. I also have another pair of lightweight skis and my crampons and ice axe strapped to my pack.
Tired, I am slowly zig-zagging my way across a mountain face, when I feel a cold wind. The storm comes out of nowhere and very quickly I am confused and disoriented. My companion is a fair distance ahead and as the storm rages, I get angry and common sense flies away. I take my skis off, to walk my way out of the mess, and find myself up to my waist in snow. Defeated, I howl in despair and somehow the wind carries my call. He stops, looks back and retraces his steps. 30 minutes later, exhausted, I have my skis and skins back on. But my legs are no longer playing, they are shaking and struggling with the weight of my pack and with the biting wind and whipping snow. Slowly, laboriously, we make our way to an outcrop of rocks to hide from the wind and regroup.
Thankfully when the storm came down and we did not appear, they came out to search. After some discussion, he lifts my pack and heads off into the storm. This time I find my voice and demand to know where he’s gone but there is no answer. I am being pushed to my feet and ordered to get moving. It’s a tone of voice that does not allow argument and I shuffle a few steps forward and using all my strength turn once more into the wind to zigzag upwards. Then the mountain man is back. There is more discussion and we move on, heads bent.
He guides my every step up to the door of the hut and has obviously warned the team of what to expect. They are on me like locusts, pulling off my wet gear, drying my hair before putting a tinfoil type hat on me. I stand for a moment, like a compliant rag doll, before falling to the floor in an undignified heap. They carry me upstairs to a huge log fire where I am put in a wooden chair almost on the hearth itself. I have a man either side of me rubbing my fingers, another two men have a foot each and they are vigorously working my toes. Someone is behind me making my ear lobes sing. They swap around taking turns as, rhythmically, they bring the blood back to my veins. It happens slowly and then, with a whoosh of almighty pain, it is there, throbbing with every heart beat. I am given hot, sweet tea and they feed me sausages before cleaning my teeth and helping me to bed. I don’t sleep – my fingers are swollen larger than the sausages I have eaten and they hurt so much that I put them in my mouth to stifle my cries. My companion snores in the bunk bed next to mine. The next day there is the roar of the helicopter blades and we find ourselves and our gear being airlifted down the mountain.
Up to this point, I have been fairly quiet about my cancer. I haven’t been deliberately hiding it, I know I need to take the time to get physically better, learn from and work through the changes that it brings and to embrace my new sense of self and identity. I also know that I need to find a new job in the New Year and that finding a new role is likely to be more problematic with a recent cancer diagnosis and recovery story tagging along behind me.
In one morning, I blow the control and management of my personal experiences right out the water. I run starkers, out of the closet with a primal Tah Dah!!
But as I have also agreed to do a l
Surely after the mouth cancer and the removal of half my thyroid, I am done for the year. Surely it is my turn to be well after all the healthy living, breathing techniques, positive mind work, the alternative therapies, vitamins and new knowledge. I convince myself it is nothing, they are being extra careful with me because of my recent cancer adventure.
This is not a cancer to be taken lightly. Its effects are more visible and potentially more debilitating than many others. Removing oral cancer, if it’s caught in time, can leave long-lasting affects on the speech and swallow function, on the function of the jaw and voice box, on neck and shoulder movement and additionally – in my case at least – a significant psychological impact created by extensive scarring to the mouth, neck, arm and stomach and having to learn to speak differently. 
In many cases, mouth cancer survivors have to cope with developing a new self-identity.
We need to take responsibility for our own mouths. Pay attention to ulcers which have not healed within three weeks, red and white patches in the mouth or any unusual lumps or swellings in the mouth, head and neck area. Anything unusual in your mouth, anything that changes and stays changed for more than 3 weeks – go and see your dentist. Specifically tell them you want to discount mouth cancer. Put that thought in their head before they examine you so it’s in their conscious brain.
It doesn’t look serious does it? But it was already a stage 2/3 cancer (I didn’t know this at the time) as it had spread into a lymph node.
The structure of governance in our country has developed since the Magna Carta, to create balance and fair challenge and to protect our democracy and rule of law. Our (un-codified) constitution defines how we govern our democracy and sets out the way in which our country will be run. It ensures power is balanced and limited, to safeguard and protect the rights and freedoms of the citizens of our country and it does this by giving three main bodies constitutional power:
So when Teresa May told the Conservative party at their annual jamboree in September that she would trigger article 50 by March 2017 – the Judiciary have decided she was breaching the limits of her power.
Our current democratic principles mean we have given the right to make these decisions to our elected Members of Parliament.
But plainly there is one vote that will uphold their existing constitution and rule of law, even if she is feathering her own nest at the same time, and one who has clearly, unequivocally stated he will operate largely as a dictator and ignore any checks and balances on his power and decision making process. I’m not even sure I would describe Trump as benign.
No matter how you voted in the European referendum, there are broader questions to be considered. Who do you believe has the right to make decisions on your behalf? What kind of check and balance do you want on how much they can decide on? What should you be able to do and say should they make decisions you don’t agree with?
“Well, I’ve just burned my arm on the oven door”. His response? “Again? That’s just careless”. During my suppressed, and combined, snorts of hurt and irritation, it strikes me that once more I am faking it. That what I’d really like to do is run, banshee-style, round the kitchen while waving my reddening arm and screaming rude words, at decibels so loud the neighbours can hear.
Or the occasions where Craig is laughing so uninhibitedly free, I can hear it through the image. Sometimes I post photographs of friends and cocktails or shots, or friends with cocktails and shots. The point is if you were trying to figure out who I am and what I’m like by looking at my Facebook posts, you would think I was always travelling, exploring, having fun. And yes, I do experience all of this but real life is not as colourful or varied or exciting as my Facebook posts would have you believe.
I have a girlfriend who occasionally sends photos of her intensely cute newborn son. Her response to the comment of “he’s always such a smiley baby” is to remind us that she’s hardly likely to be posting photos of him screaming and looking like a demented demon child. And boy is this the truth. Although, I must confess to laughing inside when everybody would look at a newborn Roscoe and say “ooh, he’s so beautiful” – particularly as both parties knew he was a shockingly ugly baby. Fakery in these wacky hormonal situations, is probably the safest option. Thankfully by 3 months, he was a stunning, if noisy, cherub, so much so that we were once tailed in New York by a bloke who believed that Roscoe was the real-life Gerber baby.
It’s become farcical to worry about something so trivial. And besides I now know how to fake looking well. Nothing that a scarf , a spot of war paint and some flicky hair can’t sort.
On its wild, windswept and deserted golden sandy beaches often the only sound is the sea thundering in and the seagulls crying overhead.
high sea waves hitting the harbour wall was a regular occurrence as was losing fishermen to the wild seas. The favoured way of committing suicide was driving down the hill straight into the harbour or jumping off one of the many cliffs along the coastline. Living and surviving in Caithness requires a resilience of soul and spirit and a propensity to live in semi grey darkness for at least half the year.
We took a drive up to ‘Groats for the obligatory photograph under the white mileage sign, on a day where the watery sun was teasing us with promise. We fell in love with the wild peace of the place and made the decision to debunk from the tiny, functional rooms of the Norseman hotel to a two bed apartment owned by 
As during the past twelve months, with the exception of the inevitable work commitments, he has been at my side. And at the same time, he has changed his job to a much higher profile role, lost his Mother and has been caught in the middle of a protracted and messy long-term sibling disagreement. It’s no exaggeration to state his tenacity and commitment has been something of an inspiration for my recovery.
He has always told me daily that he loves me but now he says it with an intensity that I have no doubt of my responsibility for doing all I can to get better. He regularly reassures me that he still finds me attractive, particularly during those days when I find my scars to be hideous or my skin-heavy tongue to be troublesome. He encourages my forays into alternative and holistic healing, in-spite of any personal doubts. He listens hard to my misshapen sounds and tunes out to my now atrocious singing, game fully joining in when the screeching gets too loud. He laughs with me, and at me, when I’m being ridiculous. He plans surprises big and small to keep me looking forward, supports my need to write this blog, sometimes correcting my grammar but often just letting it go to free my voice. He has gone from sleeping the sleep of the dead to waking at every sound and now seems incapable of sleeping any longer than 6 hours a night. He juggles his work commitments to accompany me to every hospital appointment and consultant review and apart from my banning him from coming to the intensive care ward, has been by my side every hospital day while pasting on his brave face for Roscoe every evening. I don’t know how he managed to get through the day of my 12 hour surgery and emerge still sane. I do know from the increasing amount of grey hairs on his head and, worry lines on his face, that my diagnosis and on-going recovery has been incredibly tough on him.
I would restrict the alcohol levels and insist on far less meat and far more vegetables, not just as a side dish but as a main meal. I would encourage him to have more “me” time, re-join the golf club for example, and to spend more time with his mates, away from home stresses. I would shout louder for him, for help, support and care. I would have him go to facials and back massages so he would relax and enjoy more pampering. In short, unless he feels cared for, how can he give so much of himself without he himself becoming depleted and sick?