Saturday 8th March dawns a little cloudy but with a promise of sunshine. The temperature is mild, even by March standards. Mr Mason and I get ready for paddling as we are off to the Royal Albert Dock to train hard; it is only a few weeks before we go to Venice for the Vogalonga. Dog makes a sad face as we leave him in charge of the house and cats.

It is an important day. 2 years ago I was sitting in hospital being prodded, scanned and biopsied (I’m not sure if that is a real word but you know what I mean) before facing the surgeon who gave me the news that I had cancer in the most cavalier way possible. In case you haven’t heard it before, this is how it went.

“I am very worried about you. The radiologist is very worried about you and I think you should prepare yourself” I ask what I should prepare myself for, thinking he is telling me I have terminal cancer. “Well, when you came in here this morning you told me you didn’t think it looked good so I thought you had prepared yourself.” A few sniffles from me. I look blankly at him. What do we do now? “Do you want to read the radiologist’s report?” I do not know. I ask if I should read it. “Well, it doesn’t make very nice reading” he says, deadpan. He looks at me as though I am a boring person at a cocktail party,not the patient he has just delivered devastating, life-changing news to. No smile, no sympathetic look. Absolutely deadpan. And before you go thinking that’s just my memory of events, Mrs Halford is with me and she is shocked by his attitude. She snatches up the report and says “We’re going”. At the desk, pausing to make another appointment, I ask the receptionist through teary eyes whether I can see another surgeon and she confirms in a way that makes me think she knows what he can be like. The man in the blue chalk-stripe suit, the silk hankie tucked into his breast pocket and looking like a man who hasn’t a care in the world.

I sometimes see him now when I’m waiting for an appointment in hospital and think – should I ask him if I can talk to him for 5 minutes and then give him a good slap tell him how his delivery felt? Would it make any crack in the hefty veneer? Possibly not. I have not found the courage/energy/will to tackle him. Maybe a letter but I would not know what the response was and that is something I would need to see.

So, Saturday, out on the water. It is glorious. We work as a team and I find I am able to paddle a few strokes more each time we perform the gruelling pyramid. We start with 10 strokes with 10 seconds rest, then paddle 20 strokes with 10 seconds rest all the way up to 100 and back down again. It is tough and I cannot pretend I paddle 100 strokes all in one go but by the end of our training session, we find out we have paddled 10km! Wave Walkers even has its own little entry in Wikipedia. OK, cough, cough. I have to admit I added it but why not?

There have been many people and events which have helped me on the road to recovery and who have been around through some of my very darkest moments. Especially Mr Mason who found himself holed up in Boston with me on morphine trying to celebrate our wedding anniversary. That was a pretty bleak moment. He didn’t even get anything to eat that night. No fat rascals. Nothing. I cannot name everyone who has had a hand in pulling me out of the cancer mire but it feels quite emotional to get to this point. A point I was not sure I would reach at times. For those of you who read my Facebook blog – I kept most of the bad stuff out of it. It seemed cruel to tell how I was feeling when it wasn’t good. But here we are today, out on the water with fellow cancer survivors, the wind in our hair and the sun on our faces. I have a ribbon in my hair and I may look ridiculous but you know what? I don’t care.