Some days are better than others. What am I saying? Some days are simply beautiful. I know what I am talking about, I am married to a gardener.

However, today is not one of them, despite the elegant long shadows on the lawn, the clear October air with flickering clouds of tiny swarming insects, ripe figs and a hedge full of blackberries.

While the gardener is clearing and digging, I update my list of medications and symptoms as required. I make a list of the latest publications on autoimmune inner ear diseases and multiorgan involvement of c-ANCA antibodies hoping that I will find the courage and self confidence to hand these to the expert I am due to meet tomorrow.

Last night while I was waiting for the dramamine to kick in and relieve me from drowning at high sea, with R sitting beside me working on the coming week's teaching plan, I closed my eyes and climbed Mount Eagle on the western shore of the Dingle peninsula in Co. Kerry, Ireland on that balmy summer's day thirty years ago. The evening air was simply gorgeous and my arms and neck were still hot from the afternoon spent on a sunny beach. 

We had decided to come here on the spur of the moment, still in our summer clothes with a woolly sweater for later tied around our hips and hastily put on walking boots. My pink sleeveless sundress slightly billowing in the breeze I tried to keep up with R who was striding up ahead of me, steady as ever. And as always, he had found the best path up the rocky slopes just by looking towards the sun. Up on the top, sitting in the breeze, we looked out over the silent Atlantic and all was well with the world and our lives and our totally uncertain future.

Without that man gently coaxing me to climb so many seemingly impossible paths I would have missed the most splendid views.