Two weeks ago I went back to the hospital for another check up.  I’ve been really bad as after the last ‘all clear’ test I jsut didn’t want to go back for the next monthly check up.  It sounds stupid, but hey you go through this and then you may understand how bloody depressing these tests are.  You must always keep in somewhere in your mind that the results will be "you have cancer again"

I say it again, as I’ve already been through it once, and the biggest lurgy monster in all our minds are those words "its back".  For reader who haven’t had cancer, or been really closely associated it I apologise.  I decided when I was back in the UK that I would change my status depending on these tests.

So. I’ve now upgraded my status, I’m no longer a cancer patient.  I am a cancer suvivor. May sound odd but from my perspective thats a huge change.  It means I can put alot of it all behind me and rejoin the ‘world’ again.  It by no means its gone away, or will do for many years yet and the checkups will probably still be as bad, but for everyday life for me its a significant change.

Hope you understand

Having lived in the UK for a number of years and seeing the organic food movement take off, I myself try to buy organic when I can.  Yes it does cost more, which I think is more a supermarket get rich scheme than anything.  But I do realise that producing organic food is more expensive than the run of the mill food.  More

I’ve written a few entries lately about the trip back to the UK and how annoying certains aspects of it were.  I wrote a few comments on things to two different customer service departments, one at the request of the restaurant ‘Fifteen’ and the other to Virgin Atlantic about comments I overhead from there groundstaff.  I’m totally delighted to say that I got back two very well written emails from each.

Well, it took some time, and alot of head scratching, but I’ve trimmed the photo’s from Cambodia down from 900 to 288. I wanted to get it down to just 50 really good ones, but after going over them many times now I just couldn’t do it as there was so much to see, and it the pictorial needed to be shown in whole! I have realised I need to spend way more time framing my shot and making sure the horizon is correct!

The photos are all in the Coppermine gallery here. Sorry it took so long to get them up. Then again, I should have posted my Middle eastern photos and they have only just been scanned in. oh scratch that, just realised I deleted them all as I wasn’t happy with them, back to the scanner, and also putting the comments into the Cambodian ones!

Learnt today what happens if you miss a phone bill and the single reminder. They cut you off! Certainly a very effective way of getting you to pay, cos no phone. I found that I’d missed by monthly bill from September and must have not seen the small reminder notice. I was expecting to get another bill with both the amounts on it and could pay it all together. But thats not the way it works here.

Its finally the end of the week, and I can turn the alarm clock off!  Trip back was fine, but the whole period of so little sleep has caught up with me abit!  Also worked into a mountain of work, so time to get stuck in for a while!

Well I’m back from the UK.  Had a great flight thanks to Mr Nytol!  Arrived at airport early enough to get though and shop a little.  When they say 3 hours at Heathrow they really mean it!  After going through Narita a few times I forget that mess that is Heathrow.  I did get a wonderful insight while being checked in. The manager came down and as the guy was checking me in to go and do something else.  He asked for protection leaving a queue of 100 people to be checked in by one person! Her excuse was well it will be fixed when the other shift comes on?

I knew coming back would be different and it certainly has been a case of seeing things with different eyes. I’m on the train back to London (this was a paper entry so its only going in now). Its totally rammed with kids so I upgraded to 1st class which is hindsight may have been a bit of a mistake as there is nothing special about it. Seat is a bit wider, but not all that comfy. (and apparently my original ticket could not be upgraded so I had to pay full whack and the word extortion only just covers it, I’m not even going to say how much it cost, but suffice to say the flights to and from Cornwall were cheaper).

To add insult to expensive injury the buffet car couldn’t open as they "didn’t have a full crew" and we would have to wait and hour and half to Plymouth when the crew came on! And then to really finish the job the new crew merrily annouce that they will need 30mins to "get there shit together", (my words not theres!). Truely how long can it take two people to put some prepackaged sandwichs into a chiller given the other stuff was already there.

Now this train runs on a regular basis everyday so why is there no crew from Penzance? The train must have gone down there with a driver, and this is the 9:36 train so its not like the crack of dawn.

I personally think its a case of ‘just good enough Britain’. No one actually says anything to change the situation and this is what they get.

Today is lunch at the famous Jamies Olivers 15 in Cornwall.  I was so lucky to get a booking here for the two of us.  The girl on reservations took pity on me and let us squeeze in for a 12 – 2 lunch, which was perfect. 

Its so odd being back and walking the streets of Falmouth, its never really been my home, but there are many memories of the place. The street has all the familiar names like WH Smith, Boots etc, and after standing in Tesco’s waiting to be checked out it sudden occured to me that it also had all the people stereo types present, and that really nothing had changed at all.