The camel's back
My watch strap breaks.
It’s a seven pound Casio and there’s nothing wrong with it.
Except that it is now completely useless.
.
The cat brings a succession of dead animals into the house ever increasing in size and exoticism.
A mouse.
Followed by a rat.
Then inexplicably some kind of baby goose.
.
I miss delivery after delivery and they pile up at the post office because collection is only possible between 8am and 10am.
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The car leaks fluid and won’t start until it gets a new £600 radiator.
.
The dog vomits all over the kitchen one day.
Then wakes up in her own excrement the next.
.
I receive final demands for payment from O2 because I can’t bear to download the photos from your phone or risk losing all your messages by cancelling the contract.
.
The cleaner goes on holiday and forgets to tell me.
For two weeks the house is covered in dust and grime.
.
The washing machine breaks down just before we go away leaving us to pack dirty clothes.
.
Our daughter injures her knee a week before a gymnastics competition. We rest it but a few days later at sports day it seizes up on her leg of the relay race. As it does, she drops the baton. Through gritted teeth and tears she forces herself to finish, but she goes from first to last. After three hours of events, her house misses out on the school trophy by the 4 points they would have had if she’d won.
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I drop two plates.
.
We drive to Margate and the other car breaks down.
I call the insurance company but I don’t have breakdown cover.
I join the AA and await roadside assistance.
.
This all happens in the space of about a week.
.
Then yesterday as the kids leave for school the front door somehow jams and becomes immovable. The kids stuck on the other side waiting for their kiss goodbye. But as I try and reach them through the garage door instead, the electric roller refuses to budge. Unbelievably I am locked in the house.
.
I am the last remaining solid ground beneath their feet.
The only thing tethering them amidst the terror.
And they leave for school in tears hearing me cursing through the wall, screaming at the ceiling of our sixties semi.
Please give me a fucking break.
.
File under first world problems.
.
But we’re operating on the finest of margins.
No contingency.
Like running along a knife edge.
Scratch the surface and there is barely held at bay carnage below.
.
This morning I get a stone in my shoe
and I swear to you baby
it is nearly enough to send me over the edge.
.
I’m just waiting for the straw that breaks the back.
.
How I long to have something good to tell you one of these Sundays.
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On Coping is my story of surviving on the sidelines of cancer.
It begins in March 2022 with On Coping #1, written the day after my 41st birthday. The day my wife Imogen, the mother of my three children, was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.
On Coping is the story of what happened next.
Sending you best wishes and good vibes to blow those ‘straws’ away.
I feel those margins. But I do believe that one Sunday there will be something good xxx