Life in the Slow Lane

It's a bore having cancer, but it's even worse when you lose your driving licence.

I’m beginning this Substack adventure because for various reasons I haven’t written for a while and it is cheering to write again. I live in the country with a Parson Jack Russell called Beano; four grown-up children come down and make me laugh and beat me at Scrabble. I write and cook and sew, sometimes I fish and ride, and it’s possible that some of the things that happen to me will resonate with you.

Does anyone know of a fun car for sale? Pale blue, maybe duck egg or primrose yellow? With a roof that comes off, ideally. I’m after something totally unsuited to my age and our climate. The yellow E-type that Audrey Hepburn, in dark glasses and one of those headscarves, zipped about Paris in. Or Noddy and Big Ears in Toytown; the details of my future persona are still unclear. For weeks now I’ve been sifting through online Car Porn for my dream car. Oh look! a dear little baby Fiat (No, because the potholes on my drive would swallow it alive). A Landrover, channelling my inner Vera? A smart navy blue Beetle…

This has all come about because, a couple of years ago, I found myself looking at a pair of scissors, big orange ones if you’re interested, and wondering how to make them work . Where to put my fingers, which way up to hold them? How on earth do you make the pointy bits open and close? There were a other few mysteries which I kept to myself (holding a pen upside down; trying to chop with the knife blade-side up). I went to see my GP and that turned out to be my final drive.

And yes it was a brain tumour and yes it was the unlikely secondary of ovarian cancer, which I’ve had a few goes at over the years.

Consolations of having a brain tumour:

· You get to see lots of your children

· People are brilliant

· Steroids make you feel on top of the world

· Small problems vanish

· Georgette Heyer audio books

· You give your car to your son and save loads of money

· The NHS moves like lightning with a date for surgery

· Handsome anaesthetist

Less good things:

· Not driving

We love our cars, don’t we? they’re a little bit an extension of ourselves. And an extension of our handbag. Everything I want is in my car: lipstick sunglasses pen chewing gum dog shopping bags coins umbrella poo bags. Where does all that stuff go when you don’t have a car? My mother wasn’t so bothered about lipstick but she often had a Jacob sheep in the back of her Fiat Panda, staring glassily out of the window.

Kind people invite you on visits and because they are absolute heroes and because it transpires that taxis won’t take you with a dog (why? Have they met my dog?) my hosts come and fetch me. You wait by the gate so as not to keep them waiting, with a pile of luggage which looks like something from the Highland clearances. All those things that stayed hidden in your car when you went away for the weekend – gumboots, Vera-type raincoat, dress on a hanger if it’s that sort of visit, dog food, a selection of hats – is now on display for everyone to see.

Then there is the unfortunate behaviour of your dog in someone else’s car. He hasn’t seen anyone for a week so he's beside himself with inappropriate excitement. You sit in the back and try and hear what your friends are saying over the sound of radio 2 and the noise of your overstimulated dog being sick. It’s humbling, this non-driving business.

Better go in our car

It's a quiet life, mostly. I have turned into someone from a Barbara Pym novel, probably called Dulcie or Phyllida, for whom the highlight of the week is popping into the church to put a few chrysanthemums on the altar and maybe catch a glimpse of the curate. I make marmalade and try and figure out ways of getting it delivered to farm shops or to the post office. (‘You should start a business making marmalade and then write a book about it, said no careers advisor ever.) Books, cooking, learning Italian. Molto difficile, if you’re a bit forgetful. Endless walking and not a curate to be seen anywhere.

Then one day last week the postman hands me a letter from the DVLA: just passes it through the window, quite casually, as if it were a normal old brown letter. At the very least he could’ve whistled a few bars from the Dambusters. And there it was, a shiny new driving licence with a photograph of Rosa Klebb on it. (From Russia with Love, keep up.)

I thought it was a wind-up and Whatsapped a picture to my wonderful oncologist Cheng.

‘When can I actually use this?’ ‘When you change that photograph’, she says, quick as a flash. All right Cheng, I’ll do the jokes.

Which is why I was looking for an unsuitable car. But it doesn’t matter now because my son is going to bring my car back from London – possibly because it’s a Skoda Fabia but mostly because he’s a lovely boy – and we shall be reunited after 16 months apart. It’s grey and the roof doesn’t come off so I won’t be needing one of those Audrey Hepburn headscarves. I’m thrilled it’s coming home and I’m sorry I flirted with those Fiats. I will take it for a lovely shampoo and valet and will quite likely put a blanket over it at night, like a pony.

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