Are You a Yoga Teacher or Do You Just Hate Me? When Kundalini Knows Best

It’s got to the point where I’m telling people about the mikon who is growing inside me. Of course, everyone’s an expert, and the latest piece of advice from my pilates friend is ‘You must come to yoga. It’ll really help you.’ Now I’ve never got on with yoga at all. At best it’s boring, and at worst it’s really competitive. But, I’m trying to do this open mind pregnancy thing, and thought, since I’ve been banned from trapeze, what better thing to do on a Thursday evening before dinner? It’s the old achievement anxiety creeping in again. Now that I’m up the duff, I’m terrified of not being able to things. As a result I’m manically trying to do everything – sanding doors, painting, shifting furniture, gardening, even working. It’s difficult to sleep easy if you haven’t got anything done that day to justify your existence on the planet. I can’t buy into the attitude of some mothers - that bearing and raising children is a duty – ‘someone’s got to do it.’ I’m not contributing to the master race thank you very much. I’m doing this totally selfishly, to serve my own ends, to tick the box marked motherhood. Only please let it be a girl, they’re so much more fun to dress up. Oh yeah, and I suppose there is that continuity of life thing (dead dad = new baby) - as Mr B. said at the scan ‘I’ve had just about as much life and death as I can take.’

So Thursday rolls round, and I’ve made soup for my return, and I have plenty of time and the right money on me. There is no excuse, I have to leave for the community centre. It doesn’t bode well when the first person I see is my neighbour Griselda, the local year round swimming outside witch who gets angry if someone puts a shed in their garden. This is the first person from the street who I have to tell the news, which she is delighted at. Remarkably, she manages even in these circumstances to make a double edged comment on my fertility, ‘Well, it’s about time, I mean you’ve been together how long?’
‘About 10 years’
‘At least 10 years! There’s so many babies in the area I think I’ll have to move!’

The rest of the class comprises the nice pilates friend, an angry lesbian who tells me off for having the wrong mat, and the usual community centre randoms. I don’t appraise the class too randomly, but there are a couple or elderly ladies in leggings, a robust looking young man in cycle shorts, and an antipodean young latecomer named Leah who proves to be very flexible (bitch). They’re all doing strange S&M stretches involving a canvas strap which they tie to various parts of their bodies and pull.

To my horror, the teacher arrives, reminding me of all that is wrong with this quasi-religious exercise. She is English, wears her hair in a long dark low ponytail. She is skinny in a wizened way which makes me think she is younger than she looks, and hersagging tracksuit bottoms are black velour – an interesting variation on the more common faded cotton. It’s hard to make out every word she says since she has that softly spoken quality which is typically accompanied by a slight self-loathing vibe. This is just what you never want to be like. I ask if it’s OK to do the class, given my present condition. She eventually agrees, checking first if there is anything else wrong with me.

As the class progresses, it begins to come back to me. There really isn’t much right with yoga. There’s the yoga people who hate you if you’re too flexible, or if you’re not flexible enough. There’s my response to the competitive vibe, which is to compete, and over extend myself. Why is it that something which brands itself as non-competitive, is probably the most cut throat of activities, where there is even a measure of whether you can relax well enough? Then there’s the aesthetic – that drippy vegan emaciated thing. There’s the fact that my body just isn’t built for this. I live in fear of dislocating everything. This is a very long hour and a half.

The teacher is barely audible, so I have to keep craning round to lip read. This isn’t much help, as rather than telling you where to put your left foot and your right hand, like in twister, she just says, now we’ll do supta padanghasaya followed by pranayama, or something. I find myself wondering who in this class actually knows what she’s talking about.

The final straw, apart from getting chronic cramp in my foot, is at the end of the class. Everyone puts their hands in a prayer position and bows to the teacher and says ‘Namaste’. I just can’t do this. Neither my mind or body will let me, so I sit slightly sheepishly, nod and smile. It’s the best I can do. I won’t be going back.

I'm sorry my dad's dying - how can I make it better for you?

Now, the thing about people dying is that you have to deal with other people’s issues. I know this is true of many other circumstances, but in death, there really is no escape – you have to do the hugging; you have to do the crying; you have to have intimacy thrust upon you by all sorts of people you don’t choose.

There are two events leading up to my father’s death that come to mind, and seem to be a prelude the onslaught of sitting shiva (albeit a non-conformist, atheist shiva).

The first takes place a few weeks before the main event. I’m at home, about to have one of the many administrative house meetings of the day with Mr Beaten. It’s scheduled for 12:15, and whilst I’m preparing the agenda, I can hear the tinklings of the obsessive neurotic – the sound of my domestic life. I’m enjoying the mundanity of this moment in what has been a gruelling week in a gruelling year of much crying, anxiety, and caring. Hearing a knock at the door, I find Mr Morris-and-co my unexpected guest. Why can’t London be like New York, where dropping in is just not the done thing? I am forced to invite Mr M&C in for a coffee, in spite of the impending meeting. This is a man of such emotional incontinence I find his presence utterly repulsive. A family friend, he’s the kind of man whose dewy-eyed outpourings I’ve had to stomach on too many occasions, and am in the awkward position of not having ever returned his calls when I should have done, and am consequently always on the back foot. Bastard. The pretext of the visit is that he’s dropped off one of his daughter’s friends at the local 6th form. I find myself glad I am no longer 16 and subject to the inappropriate gaze of middle aged men. The meeting will have to wait. I can fast see my one o clock appointment to cut Mr B’s hair being cancelled as I warm the milk for an elaborate drink as directed by our cuckoo in the nest. All pretty annoying so far, but then Mr M&C starts to ask about my father – ‘how is he’. As brightly as possible I tell him the ins and outs of hospital admissions, bed allocations, and pain management. I’m thinking that now is not the time to be sad, as I’ve done a lot of crying already that week. Now is not the time, and I’ve got things to do. But then I see my guest begin to well up. The hands go to his face as he strains to really go for it. I steel myself. There is no way I’m getting drawn into this. After telling me how much he loves my father, his parting shot, is, ‘I just think…if it were me, I’d want to die. I couldn’t let my family go through all this suffering.’ I can’t remember what my response was to this. I only know what I wish I’d said – ‘Fuck off. No one asked you.’ And what I really should have said of the whole episode was ‘I’m so sorry that my father’s dying, how can I make it better for you?’

The second episode takes place during the Lancaster days – perhaps in the run up to Christmas. This is more of a series of events, involving crazy Polish landlady and her desperation to discuss grief with me. I find this distasteful as daddy’s really not dead yet, and surely the grief comes afterwards and not before? As star signs are mentioned I begin to stiffen. When I realise that what she really wants to do is witness my emotion as a way to heal her own trauma, I retreat. Though this is difficult with someone who thinks they can continue a conversation through a closed door.

There was just this terrible lead up to my dad’s ultimate decline. When the talks about getting dad out of hospital came up, our options were very limited. We had the choice between having him at home without enough help or support, or waiting for a hospice bed. At one point it looked like he’d be coming home. I remember being in the family home and speaking to him on his mobile whilst my mother gathered herself to go and fetch him, Thelma and Louise style, from the hellhole ward. I said, ‘So what do you think? Do you want to come home? If you do, we’re ready to get you.’
Long pause: ‘Yep…let’s do it.’
‘Is there anything that’s really worrying you?’
Long pause: ‘…pooing’
‘Well, I’ll talk to mum about it, and we’ll make sure we can find a strategy to make that OK. I promise. Is there anything else that’s worrying you?’
‘I suppose it’s too late for god.’
‘No it’s not. If you want to do some last minute just in case business, I won’t think any less of you.’
[laughs] ‘That’s very sporting of you.’
‘I wouldn’t’
‘Well I would’
There was a lot of loving my dad, but I loved him particularly then. I had and still have such respect for his resolve. Whether or not it’s an anti religious sentiment is not relevant to me. It’s the context of that thought with that man at that time. What I care about is the strength of his belief, of his mind, of his devotion to science, and the committed and serious way in which he decided not to be religious.

As it happens, he never did come home. A fall in the hospital coincided with a bed being made available at the hospice, which was beyond all my expectations (an a really good way).

However, en route to this resolution, the droves of ‘good works’ people kept coming, and it’s only a matter of time before you’re caught at a weak moment. It’s never with someone you’d like to be with. And before you know it, you’re crying, and having to hug Roger! Awful.

suicide my ass, I've got a headache

Please let me never become one of those people whose identity is defined by how 'damaged' they are. You know, the people who love crises. What most of these people are lacking is humorosity. Mr Beaten ascribes the 'you've gotta laugh' tradition to jewish culture, but I don't think this is exclusively so. He comes from the cold British hippy tradition, which, I'm afraid, is pretty fucking ernest and distinctly lacking in humour. When he sees my family pissing ourselves round my fathers' hospital bed at a joke involving making your hand look like a bum through a hole in a picture with a lady lifting her skirts, he puts this down to the jew in us. Not so Mr B, not so. I can't help it if my family's better than yours though can I?

Unfortunately I find myself in Lancaster staying in digs with a theatrical lady, much damaged. Though I give my Sleeping Beauty sometimes twice daily, the christmas cheer is rather strained at my temporary home. I am typing this from my landlady's computer, which is not very good form, but she's away for a couple of days, so this is ideal opportunity for a good slagging. Where to begin? With the generosity of lifts, food, computer use, offers of all kinds? No, far better to get to the nub of it. This is the kind of person who carries on talking even after you've left the room, after you've climbed the stairs, entered the bedroom, closed the door. I know what you're thinking, how mean I am. Well now here's meaner - she's got good reason to be so, her daughter killed herself 15 years ago, and her second daughter has just left home, a recovering anorexic. All these things are bad, and I am more than sorry they happened.

But, when I return home with a headache, I don't want to discuss the three hour consultation with the astrologer in Keswick, who assures her that the daughter's chart points to the suicide so there's nothing she could do as a mother to prevent this kind of thing. This is, of course great news, but astrologer man also points out that landlady's chart aint that great for the coming year. This leads her to thinking....and as I creep from my room for a quiet early breakfast the following morning, I'm 'BONJOUR'ed at and followed down the stairs to the beaming greeting 'I've had such a busy night, and I think I must go to the doctor. Thinking about my chart, it's probable I'm terminally ill'. I don't reply, but try to consume cornflakes and exit as quickly as possible. Feeling slightly irritated by this comment for obvious reasons. I don't want to mention the cancer again, as like a sponge it will be sucked up, and I will feel guilty for not doing an opening up weeping sharing thing with her.

So I leave for the theatre where we 'put on an happy face' and I can pretend to love prince charming and get paid for it. When the curtain comes down though, I find myself loitering in cafes, avoiding the innevitable arrival home. I even find myself staying out to hear bands, and getting a cold on the way home. And now, some days later, I find myself in landlady's bedroom on her computer and not feeling guilty at all. She gave me a cold for fucks sake which meant I wasn't allowed to see my dad when I went home for the weekend, which meant I couldn't meet the lady with the Mr Whippy haircut, who my mum befriended in the ward through her 'I'm up for it - come on then, entertain me' body language (as opposed to my eyes down, don't business stance).

The moral? Just lighten up, for fucks sake. And if you can't, get out of my face.

Is It Home Time Yet?

This being a London journal, it may seem wrong that I’m writing this from France. Though judging from the voices heard in the street and the supermarche you could be forgiven for thinking that this is an extension of Barnes or Camden – middle class London sur Loire.
Of course we, the well connected ‘art class’, or ‘poor bourgeois’ are staying as guests at a little chateau. You know, belonging to the French version of the Sitwells: bi-langue, cultivated, impoverished aristocracy. Where you’d have rare patterned wall paper in Bloomsbury, you have regal printed fabrics stretched over the walls in the Touraine – ‘far more practical than that paper don’t you know, what with the movement of old houses cracking the plaster, paper and paint work,’ says Madame de la Chateau. I’ve a mind to try it myself on my return to Beaten Towers. I’ve had long discussion about the practicalities of this with Madame – grandmother to several perfect children. She’s between chemo treatments at the moment. So right now she’s darting about tending the plants on the estate, boring her bright blue eyes into anyone who’s interesting enough, and sporting country chic attire – crisp linen, blue jeans, white wig (of the cancer kind, not 18th century). I think it best I should bleed dry the font of knowledge before she’s too ill to talk. I’ve noticed with my father that he doesn’t want to engage, and I’m sure this is because of the treatment. For him it’s either the tour de France, Heartbeat, or Friends. He won’t talk, he must watch TV – I sympathise – who is more interesting than the telly?
Mr Beaten is the Fonz of the chateau. He’s doing it all. One grandson is desperate for revenge on the tennis court, whilst the other clamours for help in transcribing some fusion, and Pere de la maison is happy to discuss contemporary French music any time.
This leaves me at something of a loss. I’ve nothing to do! I can’t swim – too wet. I’ve done all my sewing, and please would someone take me to Petit Bateau for some faire du shopping before I go bloody mad? There’s only so much French rural bastard idyll I can take.

Literary Pretensions

Look, when I made a wish on an eyelash to be Little Dorrit, I didn’t mean be her in real life, I meant to be her on the telly. So what am I doing dutifully folding my father’s shirts whilst he reclines on the bed making demands for drinks and little things to amuse him? I fetch his shoes, I carry his stick, I worry after him when he wants to climb the stairs. He isn’t allowed out, except to the garden, his marshalsea yard, from whence he sends me to the shop to buy a paper and a ‘lucky dip’. Yes, another disconcerting new habit: minor gambling. He explains it as ‘I’ve broken my arm, I’ve got cancer, if I could win a million pounds I’d have something to leave my children.’ However, since these slips lie, accumulating, ignored in his wallet, it’s unlikely he’d ever know if he had won anything.
It occurred to me today, as I was making his bed, that once he’s dead, I won’t experience being loved like that ever again. I never thought about it before, but there is something about his unconditional love and admiration that is so consistent I’ve always taken it for granted. This is the cleverest man I know, and he thinks I’m clever! I can’t do crosswords – I feel bright if I’ve managed a word-search; chess is beyond me, in fact I have no patience for puzzles at all. I certainly don’t feel under any obligation to complete any such mental gymnastics to feel I’ve achieved something in the day. I don’t read maths for fun, or know any dead languages. I know my mother loves me, but she can also see my shortcomings. My father is blind to these. To him I am beautiful, clever, gifted, faultless.
He may have taken on some of William Dorrit’s characteristics, but I’d like to paint a kinder picture than that. Of course, he’s decided he’s Hamm from Endgame. Glad his self-image is that of the existential hero.
In some moments I feel like I’m the entire entourage of George III, trailing after him as time brings another whim each minute: ‘garden’, ‘some morphine’, ‘a glass of water’ , ‘my book!’, ‘I need my pen from the attic’, ‘not that one’, ‘crossword’, ‘ryvita’, then silent agony when he thinks he’s fucked up his morphine spreadsheet. God knows what inner torment this brings. He won’t explain the problem. He won’t be helped. ‘It’s too annoying’ apparently. But he doesn’t understand why he can’t print from the laptop, which is not connected to any printer. Nor will he be told.
An endless stream of health professionals trail through the house. My father has a spreadsheet for these too. He gives them marks. These aren’t numerical, but adjectival. When I’m in charge of the keyboard they are things like ‘dreamy’, ‘lovely’, ‘incredible lantern jaw’, ‘special needs’. When he is able to type himself they are more like ‘fool’, and ‘idiot’.
I find his aristocratic air when dealing with these people, particularly the carers, amusing and alarming. He is under the illusion that it is more important for a tea to be brought to my mother in bed than it is for him to have help dressing. In fact he is remarkably polite; only losing his patience once, when one of them insisted it is safer to walk downstairs backwards.

My mother thinks he is the smartest dressed out-patient in the hospital. This would be true if eccentricity was equal to smartness. He is keen on a pale blue nightshirt with white polka dots for daywear, corduroy trousers, a pastel multi-coloured stripy poncho on top, and a rather ‘ethnic’ red and blue skull cap. Along with the black eye from his ptosis surgery, and sling for the broken arm, he is quite a picture. Perhaps the red socks and Birkenstock sandals are a little de trop.

My mother also thinks that she is Mrs Manningham in Gaslight, to my father’s Mr Manningham: his behaviour bringing her own sanity into question, as objects disappear, get lost, or move mysteriously from one room to another.
My brother, however, pisses himself at my father’s, when-your-back-is-turned- hyperactivity, calling him Andy from Little Britain. The guy in the wheelchair who leaps about when no one’s looking.
Yesterday, my father and I were filling in a feedback form for the out of hours GP service. You’ve got to find something you can do together and I totally love forms. I usually don’t send them. It’s the box ticking that’s satisfying. Isn’t that why people want to be teachers? So they can tick registers?
It came to the final question – ‘how satisfied overall where you with the care you received?’ with a choice of four answers. I think we chose ‘satisfied’, but my father insisted I add a note to this: ‘see King Lear’. Dutifully, his Cordelia added these words, whilst declaring that perhaps this wasn’t totally appropriate behaviour for a man who wants to remain on the outside of healthcare institutions as much as possible. He said he remembered discussing Lear with his father towards the end of his life. ‘Poor man,’ he had said, ‘he had three daughters’. Oldness and infirmity doesn’t turn you into a nice person. If you’ve behaved horribly to your family all your life, you’re not going to change the habit when you start feeling crap, are you?
Anyway, dad has got his left handed typing more up to speed now, and has started making incomprehensible entries on his own blog. Now I'm thinking he fancies himself as a new Joyce. And in new trousers from Primark, he can fancy himself full stop.

February 29th My Arse, Or, I'm On The Blob But You Can Take Me Up The Shetlands

I was never the kind of girl who had planned her dream wedding from childhood, or ever. Last night, However, I had my dream wedding. I’ve never given flowers, guest lists, menus, gowns or venues any thought. It’s just not in my culture. I do have a huge ability to fantasize, but this is usually channelled into other kinds of showing off. In terms of visualising ones future, the strongest fantasy self image I can remember dates from when I was about 17 and envisaged myself in my twenties living on my own and being able to do the splits. Neither of these things ever happened. I have been married though. Every night for a month, on stage in Newcastle. It was a gypsy wedding. Mostly it meant being thrown around, lifted, spun and danced with. The downside was my husband being murdered just after the wedding every night, and having to bury him myself with stones. However, the Pina Bausch style grieving was excellent fun.
Last night, I had a nightmare. The kind where after you’ve woken yourself up and persuaded yourself that you probably won’t die if you leave the bedroom and walk through the hall to the loo to have a wee, you leave the light on once you’ve returned to bed. This way, you hope, the dream won’t continue when you shut your eyes.
I was getting married. Only I couldn’t figure out what to do with my hair, and it wasn’t behaving. In fact, as I swept it up in the mirror, I mostly see scalp, with a brown spot by each hair follicle. I had no jewellery. I’m desperate for the loo. I’m in my friends’ house – a house I know intimately, and I cannot find a toilet with a door. My friends are being horribly casualist about the whole thing, and are cutting it very fine for getting to the ceremony. I’m not even sure they know what time it starts or where it is. Eventually I find somewhere to have a wee, not without first bumping into those Mitchell and Webb people off the telly for god’s sake. Pulling down my knickers I see that I’ve got my period a week early, and that they are very ‘soiled’. This is what comes into my head – ‘soiled’.
I know why this is. The other day in real life I was discussing the uses of the words ‘dirt’ and ‘soil’ in American and English. I’ve always found the word ‘dirt’ for ‘earth’ rather distasteful. But then we started thinking about the word ‘soil’ and realised that this is just as bad, and talked about the phrase ‘I’ve soiled my knickers’, and visualised a heap of powdery earth in the gusset of some pants.
Anyway, after the upsetting pants, I have to get into the ceremony which is through the back entrance of a museum. What I notice is that there are lots of guests, and I couldn’t give a shit that any of them are there, and it’s probably not that interesting to them either. Then I woke up – all hot, heart racing, terrified.
No wonder I have no interest in getting married. It’s obviously a terrible idea that people get inveigled into because of constantly being asked, ‘When are you two getting married then?’ to which the answer should be, ‘Why don’t you fuck off and die’, rather than a pathetic giggle followed by crazed private discussions with your partner to set a date, get it done, and shut them all up.
One day, however, my friend K and I have planned a little commitment ceremony for Mr B and myself. K will dress as her alter ego, George, a Greek club singer. George will perform the ceremony. We’ve thought of many details – outfits, moustaches, perfect weather on Hampstead Heath. We don’t have Mr B’s agreement, but I’m sure we can strong arm him somehow. Perhaps I do need to show off even more than these traditional wedding types. It’s really a ceremony dedicated to how funny K and I think we are – ‘You just have to be different, don’t you.’

"Agustina, tu tiene cancer"

This is a favourite line in our family, and has been since we saw Almodovar’s film Volver. If you haven’t seen the movie, it’s when the character Agustina appears on a daytime talk show (think Jerry Springer/Jeremy Kyle). She has agreed to sell various family scandals in return for money medical treatment. During this live appearance, she has a pang of conscience and decides to back out of the agreement, much to the upset of the host, who bellows at her… “Agustina, tu tiene cancer!? (Agustina, you have cancer!)” – utterly perplexed by this show of integrity, which is more like mentalism in her view.
Unfortunately, I’m having to use this catchphrase rather a lot. My dad’s been diagnosed, and is facing surgery, radiotherapy, biological drug treatments and NHS politics.
Here’s what I’ve noticed – some people have a distinct lack of humorosity, and write you off as a gonner the minute you mention the C word (no that’s not ‘cunt’). I’ve had to encounter more doey eyed empathetic looks in the last two weeks than I’ve experienced in the past ten years. I expect my dad’s had to endure rather more. No wonder he doesn’t want to tell anybody. Would you, if it meant listening to everyone’s greeting card philosophy and trite phrases? Yes, there is the obvious point that people are only trying to do the right thing because they love you and care. But honestly, if they’d just shut up and bring the dinner round I’d be happy.
My mother and I have decided that being labelled as an unfortunate has one advantage. You have carte blanche to do whatever you like. This week, I have bought two dresses, two necklaces and I’ve booked a haircut. For the first time in my life I’m going to have a hairstyle, as opposed to the all one length long thing that actresses have. This was supposed to be a move towards taking control of my life, but I was scuppered at the last minute by booking with the hairdresser my agent told me to go to. One step at a time. I’ve also bunked off two birthday parties, been late for work a lot, had a bad attitude at auditions and reached saturation point with my chocolate intake. I’ve also decided not to give myself a hard time about anything. I’m not a movie star, I don’t appear to be on the brink of an amazing career, I’ve missed pilates classes and dance classes, I have no muscle tone, I’m not pregnant. I did have a few nights of non-sleep and desperate trance like days, but this seems to be over, and now I’m rockin’ on the cancer tip (or canther, when pronounced correctly).
My mother, for her part, didn’t go swimming yesterday (crazy), and she didn’t attend the screening of Mr B’s mother’s worthy film about violence last night. I think there may have been some spending, but mostly she’s just encouraging me to drip money from my fingertips.
Last week I had the honour of accompanying my father to his first appointment with the consultant. I had to do quite a lot of bracing myself, since I knew they were not going tell him they could make him better. I was chosen as the most together person with the best ‘acting’ skills, in preference to my mother, who was a wet rag at the time. I think that was probably the hardest performance I’ve ever given, though certainly not the best. Have you experienced the intense pain of holding in tears? It makes your throat contract in such a way that, the harder you try to keep it in, the more it hurts. It was quite a long day – we had gourmet sandwiches in the sun by the canal, but I failed him by not packing an apple. I wasn’t aware that this was part of his diabetic routine. Satsumas are wrong, apparently, even if they’re organic.
Our approach to the hospital wasn’t exactly auspicious – there seemed to be a big crowd outside one of the buildings. It must have been a fire drill. You may not have seen one quite like this. I began to notice a large prevalence of drips and wheelchairs. The best sight was of a middle aged woman in full makeup, in an armchair, knitting on her lap, sudoku in hand. Just to her left behind her stood her drip. Quite comic. My dad didn’t notice.
Afterwards – can the details of the consultation and windowless waiting area be of any interest? – Quickly then: The hospital, mid audit, had the appearance of the service entrance of a hotel – all corridors of the wrong shape, narrow stairways, non-functioning lifts, and the distinct feeling that, having dragged myself and the sick man up several flights, we would have to turn round and go back, having followed the wrong signs. Waiting room with no windows and a lady with an unfortunate red growth, like a cherry tomato protruding from her left nostril. Toilets strictly for hospital staff and patients only (does this include us? – better do a poo there anyway, just in case), featuring in depth instructions on the wall on how to wash your hands – changed my method considerably. Maybe this will stop me getting cancer. Strict consultant with fraying trouser leg. Being told to sit on the examining bed with my father. Cheery nurses taking blood. Digital Dictaphone recording rather faintly.
Afterwards, I pointed out that had this excursion been with my mother, we would have gone for tea and cake now. Given the diabetes, alcoholism and lack of interest, this wasn’t about to happen. However, as an apology for having cancer, he insisted on buying me a cake from the most rip off bakery in NW6. It was very nice, thank you.