A nausea morning. The air cold still but the sky is this very sharp blue, the power of the sunrays approaching like a giant octopus (hah!). The early hours of Fridays are always delicate, thanks to the effects of the weekly injection of my immune suppressor drug on Thursday evening. Talking about octopus, I know.  Actually, I had some very decent octopus curry in paradise, but let's not think about food right now.

Instead I am plodding my way through a manuscript from a wealthy, retired academic who secretly wants to write a novel while reviewing recent approaches in the therapy of alcoholic liver disease. It doesn't work, obviously. Right now, the pages are a colourful mess of my comments and suggestions and I know I will have to stop being so diplomatic and cut it all down to size soon enough.

I woke up tasting blood from my bleeding gums this morning and while I was tumbling down into the black hole of panic (tooth ache, the world is coming to an end) I  listened to R breathing peacefully in his sleep. That was actually quite beautiful. Sometimes, only sometimes I ask myself what it must have been like for my mother and all her demons and pains and fears, living alone in the big house while we were all as far away as possible. And of course I ask myself how I would have coped in her situation and then I quickly stop and I avoid looking into the mirror for a while because she stares out at me through my eyes and that I cannot bear.