I’M finding it harder and harder to keep my spirits up and the blue hours start earlier and last longer. Today it’s only 2pm and I’m plunged into despair.

I wanted to write something lighter but try as I might the darkness overrides any positive thoughts. Perhaps if I type, something light will bubble up. We’ll see.

I can only think of my big scan in Toulouse tomorrow when dye will track my insides and the path of the cancer. Has the chemo had any effect or is it continuing on its destructive, deadly course?

Once the results are known any possible hopes of buying time may well be gone and I face loss of home and César as decisions can no longer be put off and miracles no longer hoped for.

The fear of the claustrophobic scan itself is, for once, almost – almost – secondary.

And I can no longer push away the pressure from my son to accept Las Molieres and César are over and close to him in England is where I must be. My life is no longer my own but given over to others while I stare into a void.

And still I cannot understand how it’s come to this. I had a fall, broke my shoulder and expected to heal and return. Without it I would have been unaware of the evil taking me over and often I think I would rather not have known.

Ah, it’s too easy to think too much in this room into which I’ve shrunk. My walking – with a Zimmer now – has improved but not enough to escape elsewhere and stroll off the thoughts and ease the backside sores from constant lying or sitting, or the back pain which requires a morphine pill to give me relief for a while.

Temperatures have risen again to the high 30s which apply pressure to my chest and breathing and add more anxiety to my tally. And my fingers still slip and slide over my keyboard wiping out chunks of copy and forcing me to start all over again.

Well….not much lightness bubbling forth yet…

But as always you, my readers, and my twitter followers, are my constant, willing me on with your encouragement, your cosmic wishes and your prayers.

It will not have escaped your notice that I place great faith in prayer and my favourite saints, speaking to them with a familiarity forged in Irish Catholic childhood.

I have no desire to proselytize, for your beliefs or non-beliefs are entirely your own but I have been amazed by the number praying for me here.

If heaven hasn’t been stormed by them then it is not to be – it will not change my beliefs but I’ll be awfully cross at their failure.

One thing this week has cheered me up though. Thanks to the generosity of my old Glasgow hairdresser Taylor Ferguson and his wife, Anne, a wig has arrived and I no longer look like Rab C.

The nurses have been dribbling in astonished by its reality and perky cut a la Jane Fonda. Pierce thinks it’s more Tina Turner with its spikey bits but that’s okay too – I gave him a rendition of Nutbush City Limits, shaking the shoulders instead of the legs.

And once again we laughed and writing this, I feel my soul start to lighten as I write out my hopes and fears. I’m so sorry if I haven’t lightened you today but I know you’ll understand that the human heart is a tumultuous mix of emotions that churn away and change sometimes from hour to hour.

Also, Pierce’s return on Sunday is weighing on my mind. With Covid he must go into quarantine for two weeks making it more than five weeks away from his young family.

With the EU now talking of standardising quarantine for all travellers to Europe he fears the prospects of returning here diminishing even before adding Brexit to the mix. So, one understands his determination to have me near for both our sakes.

‘For you it’s always – I’ll decide tomorrow,’ he said in some frustration yesterday.

And he’s right. I always want to buy time…and hope. While there’s hope I can keep the demons at bay even knowing that in the end hope has to run out for all of us. That’s just the way it is and, also in the end, as the Irish say, it’s a good death we pray for.

Now my little morphine pill is starting its work and the back is almost ready for me to stand up straight for a few minutes.

Soon I’ll be able to raise the shutters a little as the sun moves away and allow light into the shadows and Pierce is outside finishing a business call.

I’m going through my Tina Turner repertoire to give us another laugh. ‘Simply the Best’ seems appropriate.

Anyway, thank you for listening. I feel better now. Sorry again if I’ve made you feel miserable instead.

So altogether now….upwards and onwards.