Round Two

This is the opening page of my copy of The Wind in the Willows, an iconic illustration by Ernest Shepherd - he who drew Pooh too - embellished in colour by my own fair hand. The book was bought for school, and I had to cover it in brown paper, make a bookmark, and illustrate the front cover. So I carried on colouring inside. I'm now not so sure this was a good idea, but it does show my enthusiasm at the time.

The enthusiasm was shared by the whole of class 2H at Hurst Primary school. We were in the second year of junior school, which would have made me about 8 years old, and our class teacher was Miss Hill - hence 2H. Every class had to do a project which involved learning a passage from a book which we then performed in front of the whole school at a morning assembly. Our book was The Wind in the Willows. and for the set piece Miss Hill chose the dramatic passage from chapter three when the Mole recklessly enters the Wild Wood alone on a winter afternoon and gets lost as the light fades.

I remember how we practiced the build up, starting softly till we reached the climax - 'first the faces began...then the whistling began...then the pattering began...and then he knew the dread thing which the Rat had vainly tried to shield him from - the Terror of the Wild Wood!' The whole school was transfixed. It was my first experience of the power of drama.

Preparations for the recital were quite elaborate. Miss Hill got us copying the illustrations, which may explain my clumsy colouring of Shepherd's line drawings. She herself had been an art student and painted some marvellous life-size cardboard cut-outs of the main characters which we took on stage with us. Afterwards some of us took the figures home and I think I got Ratty, though my favourite character was Otter. He was bold, confident and didn't take nonsense from anyone. My least favourite was Toad, because he was so boastful. In the values we absorbed as children, particularly from my mother, being a show-off was to plumb the depths of moral ruin. I still tend to agree.

Finding myself in Marlow today, the Wild Wood has drawn closer. It is hard to identify all the real places that inspired Grahame because most of them are composites that came together in his imagination. Toad Hall, for example, is based on lots of places, including Cliveden, and even his river scenes merge the Thames around Marlow into the river Fowey in Cornwall which Grahame visited frequently. But we can be pretty sure that the Wild Wood is in fact Quarry Wood, which is just down the road from here.

Another thing from The Wind in the Willows that has current relevance is food.

In the book food magically appears in great quantity. When Ratty first invites Mole into his boat, the first thing he puts into it is a 'fat, wicker luncheon-basket'. When they are in the Wild Wood and stumble across Badger's den, the first thing Badger does after inviting them in is to provide them with a great spread. His kitchen is described as 'a place where heroes could fitly feast after victory'.

There is an echo of the Odyssey here - Grahame grew up with the classics - for the Greeks are always feasting. When they land in strange places, Odysseus and his men are offered food, be it sacrificial cattle from King Nestor, or bread, wine and pork from Odysseus' old swineherd Eumaeus. Hospitality was a serious matter to the ancient Greeks. (The one exception is the giant Polyphemus who in an egregious display of bad manners does not give Odysseus' men anything to eat, but treats them as food instead.)  Hospitality of a more convivial kind mattered to Grahame's characters as well.

The biggest difference to the Greeks is in the nature of the food on offer. Most of the food enjoyed by the animals of the riverbank is what a Victorian gentleman would take on a picnic - cold chicken, cold ham, cold beef, gherkins, French rolls, salad, ginger beer...all of which must have been prepared by servants who remain invisible in the book.

These menus provided inspiration for round two of my chemo. Given the timing of the treatment it became clear that Le Colombier would be beyond my reach, so it had to be a picnic. The contents of one we prepared overlapped considerably with that of Ratty's 'fat, wicker luncheon basket'. It was just as well it was fat because I stayed far longer than expected, and it had to cater for dinner as well as lunch.

I was just finishing off the first round of sandwiches at lunchtime while waiting for the main session to begin when my phone went and I learned that they needed to do the blood test again because the first sample was too coagulated. So I rushed over to re-visit the smiling girls with the needles for my third prick of the day, after the first set of bloods and the cannula. Then I had to wait for the analysis of the new blood sample before the drug infusion could begin. It was at that point that a White Coat casually announced that if my white blood cell count was too low they could not do the infusion and I'd have to come back another day. My heart sank. As it was, things did go ahead, but started several hours late. My son Caspar kept me company during the afternoon and I did not leave the hospital till after 9pm with my other son Felix escorting me home this time round.

I slept soundly that night and have thankfully done so every night since, so maybe the insomnia is in retreat. Some other symptoms like the shivering/sweating cycle have faded. However, fluid has built up on the lung again, so breathing has once more become difficult. The team has decided not to drain again, but to do a scan next week to get a better idea of how much fluid is in the lung and what the effects of the treatment have been so far.

The most visible old symptom is weight loss. Since April I've lost over 5kg, and it shows. In response I am trying to eat as much as possible, but calorie input volume will not make any difference until the disease itself is under control because it just gobbles up whatever I put in. Even a thoughtful food parcel from the Hebrides containing some delicious Selkirk Bannock fruit bread to help fatten me up has not had any visible effect.

The food focus at home is therefore on protein, fibre and improving absorption through gut enzymes. Kam's culinary expertise is fully deployed and I am also taking novel supplements such as fish-based collagen to add to drinks.

The newest symptom is visible on my head. Moulting is now in full swing. Comfortingly, I am told that it is now fashionable for young men to shave their heads. This old man is getting to the same place without shaving at all. With just a little patience I will therefore soon enjoy a trendy new look with no effort on my part. Watch this space!