So what have I been doing?

Strange how returning and writing this blog is much like seeing an old friend after a protracted absence.  At some point, one turns and says, 'so what exactly have you been up to all this time?' Of course, although these are the words that come out of your mouth, they are not exactly what you mean..
On the contrary, what you mean to say, would like to say is 'what on earth have you been doing which means that you haven't called me?'
As a recluse, and believe me, I am one, I am always at a loss at this point, because the fact is, I haven't called you, but it hasn't been because of a concrete reason.  I can lie and say that I was rebuilding an extension in the back yard, discovering how to build a synthetic genome, or even writing the Coalition manifesto but only because the reality is so mundane, and so socially unacceptable.
I am very happy with my own company; I don't enjoy socialising particularly.
Indeed, I am always the person who shudders before any kind of social engagement.  Strange really because I love it once I am out doing it.

And this coincides with a recent report by the BBC saying that we are all so much more lonely than our parents' generation, that the world of Facebook, Twitter, and other social media mean that we do less of what really matters to us, the act of meeting face to face, of breaking bread with one another, and sharing our lives.

I will never forget the wise friend who said that it was lonelier to be a in a loveless marriage, than it was to be alone.  Maybe that is just as true of the wired in.

Minerva

It's been a while...

Hello all.
Can you see me waving at you?
I am back; I did try and leave, did try and start up numerous blogs detailing some aspect or other of my life, but somehow I kept coming back here.  Somehow, this page is my page, my space, my scratched corner of the wide web sculpture.
It seems appropriate that just after two years after my last post, I have returned, shy, edging into the room like a gawky teenager, feeling the keys alien beneath my fingers.  Not quite hitting the keys in the same rhythm as when I left.

So much has changed in those two years.  My hair for a start has regrown.  I have had a scare since; last November another lump in exactly the same place which was nothing but scar tissue, but still another operation, general anesthetic and a return into hospital where memories beseiged me.  But the manacle of cancer has left my ankle now, and although you could, if you searched, find the scars of my treatment, it is nearly over.

Nearly, because it isn't quite five years yet, and as every survivor knows, it is the number five which is magic.  Due to the recurrence five months after the final treatment, my five years is beyond the normal five years so it will be six years after it all started in September 2005.  Next year I will finally be free.

But, to be honest, one is never really free. Recent hip pain sent me back to the doctor, and a bone scan.  Inevitably and yet again, the cancer monster raised its head, fixed its gaze on me, and I writhed in its glare.  False alarm: early arthritis brought on by chemotherapy. The dragon has curled up in the corner, nosed its tail and shrunk to a lizard.

Long may it stay there!

Minerva