Clikerty clak... clikerty clak...

My environment is gently bumping and rocking.   The brown/grey ballast is just a dusty streak.   Overhead power cables skip from pylon to pylon.    The shiny topped rails remain constantly fixed in their parallel grip.   Trees flicker past and the flat countryside seems to twist about my window as we speed across it.    Sidings gently swing towards us and then their rails cut under the carriage as they meet the main line.   Occasionally we jump over level crossings and float across rivers.   Platforms pop out of the ground, wobble alongside for a brief moment and pop away again.   The last one was Peterborough I think.   Way off in the distance I can see a gaggle of power station cooling towers having their steam slowly ripped from their tops by the passing breeze and then suddenly… WOOMP WHRRR  WHRRR  WHRRR  WHRRR  WHRRR  WHRRR  WHRRR  WHRRR  WHRRR  WHRRR  WHRRR  WHRRR  WHRRR... WOOMP! Makes me flex back a little in my seat.

Can you guess where I am then…?  (apart from just north of Peterborough!!!)   yes that’s right.   I’m on a fast train piling north up the country.   For the train spotters amongst you, it’s a twin loco 125 class HST (high speed train) numbers 43097 and 43134 with 13 car’s comprising of 3, first class and one buffet car.   I actually have 2 such sets with my model railway.   Of course having purchased my HST models way back in the late 80’s they carry the British Rail ‘Intercity’ swallow logo and colours.    Now a days I’m surprised these trains don’t bloody scrape by as they pass!   These comfortable, smooth yet elderly coaches must be at least an inch wider each side with the amount of paint that has been daubed on them over the years!   Since the privatisation of our old government funded national rail service these trains have changed hands like a set of old Ford Mondeo’s between camel hair clad dodgy car dealers.   Private companies keen to get their gaudy colours down the side and charge you a fiver an hour for wi-fi access (!) come, make a hash of it and then get bankrupt and eventually flog the lot on.    Then another chancer spins the roulette wheel whilst dreaming up another colour clash (“err… guys, how about pink windows, yellow wheels and green doors!?!) and reaches for the brushes and tins!  

One thing I didn’t mention in my wistful opening was the twit with the booming voice who is sat right behind us having conversations with anyone who will listen to such exciting anecdotes like; giving his mum a spa voucher, the architect who had is e mail as .com instead of .co.uk, the garage door that needs to open ‘into’ the garage on the plans, the best way to claim money back as over time rather than bonus and a mate who hasn’t sold his boat yet!!!   And of course we know thanks to his extensive conversations that he’s getting off at Newcastle…!  AAAHHH!!!!

But… hang about… what’s this..?   as I peer back between the seats..  I can see the pages of the ‘specialist’ magazine he’s reading!   Yes, yes I can see it’s a publication of the more ‘cultured’ variety for the more er, shall we say ‘lonely’ man.   Its littered with pictures, giving no doubt as to the nature of his ‘hobby’ mag!   I can’t believe he’s got the audacity to read it in a public place.   I promise you that this is absolutely genuine, as I report on what I see.   The guy behind us, ‘mr chatter box’ is calmly, as if it were a normal thing to do… thumb through the pages of a model railway magazine!!!   He’s just like me… a model rail enthusiast… only unlike me doesn’t mind people, especially attractive girls, knowing about his passion.   Obviously it seems that I’m bearing all on this page about my own model rail facination but I’m amongst friends, here, right?!?  Unbelievable!   I can’t resist another peek back…  “cor look at the livery on that!!!   She’s got a crackin’ set of bogeys on her!!!   Phwoor, look at the rail’s on it!”   Ha!

Oooh, here we are at our first stop, York… an hour and fifty minutes up the road, sorry rails!   But hang on a minute…   where are all the people on the platform trying to sell you carpet, or lease an elephant, stirring a dubious looking concoction in a dustbin on wheels, or wanting you to take an interest in the snake in a basket!   Oh yeah, now I realise…  we’re not in India.    Hold up… the station’s moving backwards… nope.   It’s us, setting off and heading for the Scottish border, once more.

Ah, Scotland or “shcaatlandia” as the Russian puts it to her mum on the phone.   To give it its proper Russian spelling its Shotlandia.   Why Scotland?   Well it all boils down to my current situation.   Sadly, earlier this year, my doctors in London told me that things weren’t looking so good.   My blood results say that things are growing again…AGAIN! AAAH!   The high dose chemotherapy got me back to zero counts but since late December, early Jan my counts started to rise.   So I needed scanning to find out the location of my regenerating ill’s.   The technique used is known as a P.E.T./C.T scan.    It basically involves me being injected with radioactive glucose, leave it to spead for a while and then scan my body to see where any active areas of disease ‘light up’ with activity.

The best result we could wish for is a single location, preferably in my abdomen, to show the only sign of activity that can be specifically targeted and worked on.   Either with a blast of radio therapy or a quick swipe from the surgeons knife.   Alas the results show there are 3 active areas.   One in the abdomen, one in the lung and a new thing showing on a couple of ribs suspected to be either a new growth or a cracked rib.   No new aches and pains for me sadly gives me the worst probable outcome for that little bugger!   So as my doctor pointed out there are other drugs he can give me but there’s a good chance they would just make me ill with the same outcome as all the other drugs I’ve had:- good initial killing of cells but a re-emergence of growth after the drugs have run their course.

The one option I put to my consultant was the alternative mistletoe therapy available to me at a private clinic in Aberdeen.   Thanks to a contact given to me by our friend’s mother, Pamela and with Dr Shamash’s blessing, we have had the opportunity to jump on the train for the 7 hour schlep to the east coast of ‘Shotlandia’   I mentioned this opportunity earlier last year in one of my waffle blogs but now the time to give it a shot is suddenly upon us.   I spoke at length to my consultant on Monday afternoon and by Monday evening, after a chat with Dr Geider (Dr mistletoe) we were Aberdeen bound.  

We’re staying on site at the Camphill medical centre in one of the self contained apartments, 6 miles outside the ‘granite city.’   As far as we can work out we’ll be away for approximately 2 weeks having an intensive course of mistletoe.    According to the web site, (have a look if you fancy www.mistletoeforcancer.org.uk) there’s plenty to see and do up there and I should be well enough to enjoy it.    The theory behind this treatment is that cancer sneaks up on your immune system, which is unaware of anything the matter.   It’s a poison that can administered in a number of ways and brings on reactions that kick start’s your body into fighting back.   The way chemotherapy works is to decimate everything indiscriminately wiping out the good and the bad.   Please check out the mistletoe web site and see for yourself.   The centre is private and has a charity scheme set up, which you all will not hear the end of when im all fixed and singing its praises!

Mistletoe works with some of your bodies systems and can often make you feel much fitter and healthier.   I have been told that there is a number of days that I will be off and hopefully be well enough to get about a bit.   Great compared to the soul crushing confinement of a hospital.   There are walks on the nearby river Dee and the opportunity for some drives into Scotland’s beautiful interior plus the Russian is keen to visit Edinburgh, the capital, for the first time.    There’s even plans a foot to make it over to the famous Loch Ness to try my hand at ‘Nessie’ spotting.   We’re hiring a car for the first week and seeing what’s what.   It’s Thursday (16^th) today and we are due in to Aberdeen at 17:10.   The train left London at 10 this morning and there are no changes all the way through.    There’s plenty of time for the future ‘Mrs’ Russian and I to sit, reflect, daydream out of the window, work on the ‘puter’ (in her case) and scoff the offerings of our raid on the M&S food hall at the station…. Hmmm avocado salad, very middle class!

I’m sure they’ll be plenty of time in our little Scottish condo to report on my progress and let you know if I did manage to get a snap of the Loch Ness monster!   I may even stick up an old blog about my day at west ham vs Millwall that I was gonna report on this week until I got more crappy news from my quack!

I’ve still got my chin up and we are both looking forward to a chance to escape the London life for a while.   My ever devoted parents are following us up to join us on Monday.   I will be able to report back about how the team are getting on and what sort of time scale we are looking to spend north of the border, once I’ve consulted with my new doctor.    I also heard David Cameron was in Edinburgh today, trying to persuade the Scots to not form an independent country.   I might join him for support.   He’s claiming we’d all be worse off un-united and I agree with that opinion… we’d have to abandon one of the most beautiful flags in existence, the union flag, for starters!!!   Can you imagine…?  The UK having a different flag…?    Impossible!

And on that burst of nationalistic fever I leave you with the grammatical horror that is starting this sentence with the word ‘and’ er, and bid you all a very good day.    X