Finding Sushi in Farringdon

I popped in to see an old friend in Moorfields Hospital last Friday. For Sophy (yes we thus named like to challenge autocorrect) this isn’t her first rodeo with a tumour in her left eye. However, the radiotherapy is. Unfortunately, I have an aversion to seeing eyes being poked about. The addition of this being my first visit to a hospital ward since Tony’s horrendous experience gave a new meaning to queasy. However, seeing our Sophy so positive even though under her own admission, the Tramadol was working and frankly she liked the taste of Morphine, it couldn’t help but enlighten the mood cells. Yes, she is going to lose the sight in that eye and yes, the pain without drugs is like having glass shards shoved in your pupil (her words) but her outlook on the future is filled with humour and overcoming anything that stands in her way. Obviously this effect transferred onto myself and Irene in our later unsuccessful attempt to find a Sushi restaurant in Farringdon with Google maps. You have to have a sense of humour when you pass the same pub three times and the ‘Guided Walks start here’ advertisement stuck to a tree outside said establishment. It was so nice to finish the day sitting outside a more familiar eatery in Herne Hill listening to the comforting noise of car stereos at full blast and ambulance sirens.

This widow’s journey has taught me that you can choose two paths when you pass the first year. You can stagnate in your memories or you can learn from those like Sophy. And my dogs. They wake up every morning and wow, it’s a new day! Not a ‘oh no it’s Monday again’ or ‘yay, Sunday lie in day’, just the start to one of new experiences. As I write, there are dogs snoring flat out in the new extension (new floor next week!) as the open doors let in a warm breeze. Yet I know as soon as I get off this barstool, they will arise with looks of expectation at what I am going to surprise them with next. Then they’ll sigh and go back to sleep as I struggle with an Ikea cabinet. Dogs don’t see that sort of thing as fun, can’t imagine why.

I went on another date this week. Nice looking, well- dressed but so dull that even Arry fell asleep. I’m beginning to think I expect too much from all this but as my friend Irene says, you have to kiss an awful lot of frogs before you either get sick of the taste or find the proverbial prince and mutual dog lover. I find myself being completely politically incorrect in my search however. Too old, too young, too short, too fat, too hairy, not hairy enough, too much ego, too clingy and just weird. I blame Tony, I blame him for most things but I especially blame him for being just a little too perfect for me. Except that he never taught me how to stay calm when you find you have put that final cupboard door on the wrong way……

“What counts is not necessarily the size of dog in the fight; it’s the size of fight in the dog” (Dwight D. Eisenhower)