Not bad at all, although I’ve come to realise that I don’t write books for reviewers. I could go down the road of fane wrayting, I suppose, but there’s already a bit too much of that about, and I feel very sorry for the judges of literary prizes having to wade through it all. I think I’d rather write books that spoke to ordinary people.

In the picture, I don’t look at all sure about that herbal tea…

And, finally! A picture from the set taken in January, with me in a pink suit. I thought those shots must have disappeared.

(11 meg download) BBC Bristol 9th April 2008

Again I hit my limit, chatting for too long in an Ethiopian restaurant on Saturday evening. Suddenly, sadly, I just had to run for it. Actually, since, there was music playing as well, it’s amazing I managed to sit there for any length of time at all. I was on the phone for two hours this morning, and got a steaming headache. Roll on brain health, whenever that is.

However, after my experience the other day, I wonder if that’s a good idea. People really are funny.

I’d been in Kentish Town, and decided to walk part of the way home. When I got to Adelaide Road, I felt too hot and tired to go on, and decided to wait for the 31 bus. When I got on, I was pleased to find an empty seat at the front, in the ‘Please give these seats to disabled people and those with children’ seats. (I don’t have the phrase to hand, but will try and find it.) I flopped gratefully into one of the two free seats, my stick folded up in my bag.

A couple of stops later, an Irish woman in her 50s got on, and an old white-haired lady who she seemed to be accompanying. Perhaps it was her mother, who knows. I glanced up, and figured that if the old lady needed to sit down, she could take the seat next to me. The older Asian couple in the seats behind got up and said they were getting off at the next stop, so the two women ended up sitting together.

But this was clearly not good enough for madam. She began a rumbling bitching session about ‘her’ in the seat in front, addressing the back of my head, and how awful it was, and how those seats were ‘actually supposed to be for old people,’ and yadda yadda, all of which I ignored because in truth I did not have the energy for a confrontation. When we got to my stop, there was more muttering and an evil glare.

It got me thinking. What on earth are all the people with cancer, heart disease, Crohns, or emphysema (to name a random sample), or recovering from strokes, supposed to do, in order to signal to all the self-righteous bullies on public transport, that although they are not limping or in a wheelchair, they are in fact quite ill and could do with a bloody seat?

Not sure why this got to me, in the same way as the receptionist at the anticoagulation clinic managed to do last week. Looking back, I wish I’d given them both, separately, a mouthful, I really do, just to restore the natural balance of things, but I was just too tired. And, of course, two wrongs don’t make a right.

Actually, it’s the other hospital, the one in North London where I’m having my blood tests, that’s totally doing my head in. It’s taken them nearly a month to get my address right, so they’ve lost my anticoagulant book twice now. I have no record of my results and dosages, although I have kept notes in various places.

If that wasn’t enough, the woman who works at the clinic front desk is, frankly, a patronising cow, who shouldn’t be working in a public-facing job. I was upset for several days after dealing with her on Tuesday, and I’m still considering making a complaint. Blimey, what a little flower I am. But you know what, I’ve had a bloody stroke and I expect to be treated with just a bit of, like, respect – or at least niceness.

But I’ve come to the conclusion that most stroke services are simply not equipped to deal with the needs of younger sufferers – (not going to get into the ‘Victim’ versus ‘Survivor’ thing) – despite the fact that, (according to my neurologist; I hope I’ve remembered right), 25% of people who get them are under 60. They expect all patients to be old, doddery, and incapable of thinking for themselves, and perhaps supported by a band of relatives or social workers ticking forms on their behalf. The nurses talk to you like a child some of the time and it’s baffling.

If I ever get a progressive illness, I dread having to deal with the NHS, I really do. I think I would turn into a crazy shouty person, like the woman I saw while waiting to see the neurologist the other day. I think she was attending the MS clinic, and she had found her notes lying on a table and was reading them. One of the nurses told her off and said it was against protocol to let her do that. ‘I just want to see what’s going on with the treatment for my illness!’ she snarled. I don’t blame her. She was about my age, and was walking with a stick, and didn’t look well at all.

Oh god, enough dread and irritation. Come with me and let’s live in the moment.

I am currently in search of a neurologist to chat to, so if you are one, or you have a friend who is, please drop me a line.

I did a reading last night, at the Vibe Bar. Actually, it turned out to be an ill-advised venture for me. I thought it would be OK to just turn up somewhere in London and read and then go home again, but we were sitting right in front of a speaker and the noise marched straight into my head. I even asked Don to turn it down a bit! Cripes, what an admission. In front of everyone he reminded me of ‘Where’s My Rock N Roll’, which I used to do at the old Cultural Virus back in the 90s. I felt very odd when I got home, and realised that I had just pushed my limits. Hmmm…

Two, in fact, on the morning of Wednesday 30th January. (Forgive the dramatic pause). It was very frightening. But 10 days later I can at least walk and talk, and I’ve been bloody lucky. My left hand is going to take a while to catch up with my right, so I’m doing therapeutic typing to get it going again. Watch out Facebook! (Actually, strike that. No one need fear that I’ll be deluging them with Mohamed the travelling bear, or The Dog That Does Absolutely Fucking Nothing. And I certainly won’t be making lists of my ‘top friends’ and then displaying them. Hold on, though. In that case, what exactly am I going to be doing?)

Lots of lovely friends came to see me. Last Sunday turned into a bit of a party round the bed, with me surrounded with flowers and chocolates and magazines. I read Daddy’s Girl by Stella Black (a novel that is brilliant, erotic, but above all wise), The Long Exile by Melanie McGrath (a heartbreaking, tragic account of the gratuitous relocation of Canadian Inuit to the high arctic in the 1950s), and I started Close by Martina Cole. By the time I’ve finished all 663 pages of that, I ought to be fully recovered.

As I’m still in media tart mode, I was furious that I had to cancel five BBC radio interviews at the end of last week, and a Spanish one this week. But I still managed to stay in touch with the world, with the help of wonderful Alex and his magic phone.

God, listen to me. Now’s the time when I should be taking up watercolours or something. Knitting is sadly off limits for the moment.