More stores of Mum and her tame otters

It was another hot summer, 22 years ago - and Mum and the otters were still keeping me entertained during my recovery from CFS ~

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This month's cover story features former US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice ~

iBelieve - a glamorous new magazine for Christians

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Quite fun: The diary I kept when I first went down with CFS features in the June issue of iBelieve magazine

Am very excited! I didn't see that I was given billing along the top of the front cover.

The photo was taken on the jetty at my parent's house last summer.

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iBelieve, the Christian lifestyle magazine full of interesting testimonies

I was dazzelled to find that this month 'Funnily Enough' is being included alongside feature articles on such great Christian authors as Joyce Meyer, Nicky Gumbel and Sarah de Carvahlo

And there is an hilarious cartoon of me, looking GLAMOROUS and organised.

I'm always packing things up for the post but never this neatly.

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Gloria Gaynor and me - in iBelieve Magazine

The third installment of excerpts of Funnily Enough in iBelieve ~ the Christian Lifestyle magazine

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illustration provided by the publisher

To keep reading, Funnily Enough is available on Kindle and in print.

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A Radio Broadcast in the USA ~

On Saturday 23rd March 

at 10.00am

Sophie Neville was interviewed by Dr Diane Dike

on 

Second Chance Radio Show in the USA.

Diane, who also loves dogs, is interested in raising awareness about invisible diseases.

As well as talking about Funnily Enough she told listeners about the sequel Ride the Wings of Morning. Free Kindle copies of the E-book were offered on the show.

~ Click here for the link ~

To get a free Kindle app for your I-phone, Lap-top or other device 

please click here for details

Funnily Enough excerpts in iBelieve ~ the Christian lifestyle magazine

~ More extracts from 'Funnily Enough' in this month's iBelieve magazine ~

For two issues at £5, or to subscribe to the print edition, click here and scroll down to see prices on the left. For other subscription options and a preview of an earlier issue click here.

~ Click on the images for Amazon links ~

Home cures for the relief of joint pain and symptoms of CFS ~

Everyone asks me why I wear two watches. I wear a Bio-flow magnetic leather wrist strap to help circulation, which I find does help alleviate joint pain.

Some people are allergic to ginger but I'm not. I eat as much as possible. It is wonderful for the relief of joint pain and nausea: Ginger jam, ginger tea, ginger biscuits, rhubarb and ginger. New Forest Ice Cream make the most delicious oriental ginger ice cream.

If you grate ginger and garlic in equal proportions and add it to curries or roast chicken you don't taste either too much and yet the result is delicious. I know it is good to recommend eating large quantities of green and purple vegetables with any meal. We have purple sprouting broccoli ready for lunch.

You can also add ginger to the bath. Cut in it long strips if you do, otherwise it makes an awful mess.

Make sure your pH balance is right. I have to avoid acidic foods such as tomatoes and satsumas or counter-act them by drinking a lot of celery juice.

Trampolining? We found the trampoline in South Africa. I'm not that keen on them but they say that it is very good for the brain - especially children's brains - to jump up and down. Have fun!

Home cures for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or M.E.

I take:

Sunlight or cod-liver oil ~ for Vitamin D and joints

Marmite and more Marmite ~ for Vitamin B intake

Epsom salts in long baths ~ for Magnesium 

Prescribed to me by my ME Specialist

Since I am not a doctor I feel uneasy about giving advice to others about how to cope with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. We are all different. However, as someone with personal experience, I cautiously add my sixpence:

Graciously accept everything the National Health Service can offer you.

Ask to be tested (and re-tested) for other conditions such as Thyroid problems, Glandular Fever, Bilhartzia, Tick-born diseases such as Lyme's disease, allergies, intestinal worms etc. I found I had developed a new allergy to mold and so did well in an arid climate, albeit with sunglasses.

Listen to your body and keep still until you feel inclined to exercise. Suggest friends ring for a chat rather than visit until you are up for it.

My life was transformed by having all my teeth crowned. Now free from mercury-amalgam fillings I no longer catch bugs or viruses going around. 

Having taken herbal worming tablets I now buy broad-spectrum Vermox worming tablets over the counter in South Africa and take a dose every year. You would do this for an animal and I have no intention of losing my health to nematodes. Their evidence does not always reveal itself in NHS tests.

I buy Epsom salts for my bath from agricultural suppliers: Scats or the Farmers Co-op. You'll find boxes in the section for horses. Use when you need re-vitalizing rather than before you want to go to sleep. 

We found that acupuncture was not good for ME patients. Spending time on a General Hospital ward was not a healing experience but I concluded that it was important to accept the tests and scans offered to in-patients.

Funnily Enough on Premier Christian Radio ~

I really enjoyed being at Premier Christian Radio in London 

where Maria Toth invited me on her morning show 'Woman to Woman'.

You can listen to the programme on this link
only certain browsers will get you there,
You will need to use Internet Explorer or the latest versions of Chrome of Firefox 

A message of hope for 2013 ~

This is a page from my diary of February 1992 ~ nearly twenty-one years ago. It was the day I can truly say that I started to recover from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I was camping in the mountains of South Africa with my friend, Rebecca Hunter, who was recovering from injuries caused by a terrible road accident.

I hope you can read the original ~

Having been a teacher, Rebecca went on to write numerous wonderful books for children ~
click on: Books by Rebecca Hunter

A review on Goodreads ~

Nov 01, 2012

Carolyn rated it four stars

This book is rather esoteric in nature, so unless you have M.E. and are a Christian, much of it will not be of interest. However, I am both a Christian and have M.E. so I really enjoyed the book and found it helpful. I also enjoyed the rather understated humour...

Read more

Do write your own review on Amazon.co.uk or Goodreads

Now with colour illustrations on Amazon Kindle Worldwide ~

http://sophieneville.net/books-by-sophie-neville/

Funnily Enough, the e-Book is now available with colour illustrations

click below for the book's Kindle page, on either

Amazon.co.uk  ~  Amazon.com ~ Amazon.de ~ Amazon.fr ~ Amazon.it ~ Amazon.es

“I am LOVING this book! A great read!!!! Funny as promised, interesting and encouraging. Well written and I love the illustrations. Very enjoyable. ” Jenny Nash

I love the Kindle app on my iPhone, and know I always have a book to read if I find myself waiting endlessly at the hospital or stuck at the airport for hours. Rebecca was stationary on the highway for 8 hours not long ago.

A book review from British Columbia

A highly enjoyable, beautifully written & illustrated book! 

by Dave Miller

I first downloaded a sample of Sophie Neville's Funnily Enough book for my ereader a few months back and immediately loved it. I searched all my local bookstores to no avail but finally ordered it from Amazon. I devoured the book in a few days!

It's chock full of beautiful little illustrations throughout (done by Sophie herself...you've got to love that kind of personal touch!) told in a day by day journal over a year. Most journals can at times be boring and mundane in thier details but Sophie has chronicled her illness superbly. Not an easy thing to do when one's sick. It's interspersed with a great cast of characters (human as well as animals) that will make you laugh and cry and want to know more about them.

Having a few relatives that have/had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome I found the book to be an insightful read. I know back when they were diagnosed in the early 90's there wasn't much known about it at all. And they suffered the "it's all in your head" stigma. I'll encourage them to read this book!

From donkeys to otters and even a trip to the Lake District (which I've never been to but hope to one day) where she all to briefly mentions Swallows & Amazons (the movie in which she played my favourite character Titty). I'd like to think that the character Titty as she grew up would have led a very similar life as the actress/author who portrayed her. World traveler. Artist. Author. I wonder if Sophie maybe was inspired by the character too?

As I got near the end of the book I was a little saddened it was over so quickly (always the sign of a very good book though!). I'm delighted that there's a sequel of sorts (Ride the Wings of Morning) which I'm about to order soon. And if it's half as good as I found Funnily Enough I know I'm in for another fantastic read!

A book review from South Africa

Funnily Enough: funny, real and inspiring

I laughed the first time I read "Funnily Enough" and as I re-read it now, I am laughing at exactly the same places.

As much as the book is humorous, it also brings home the reality of how we push ourselves for fear of falling behind or losing what we have built up. We forget that all this can change in the twinkling of an eye and ultimately is not important.

The book helps to put life back into perspective and to remind us of where our hope, trust and faith should lie. Sophie's diary entries of the goings on within herself, the family and pets and with her friends over a period of a year while she is coming to terms with her illness and working towards recovery are thoroughly entertaining and illuminating. Her sketches add to the already vivid pictures that Sophie conjures up through her writing. Some of the incidents are absolutely bizarre but yet so typical of our journey in life. It was a completely enjoyable read the first time and even more inspiring the second time around. Superb. 

by Jennifer Hutcheon, Gauteng, South Africa
~ 3rd July 2012

Chronicle of a year in the ME zone ~

A review in The Church Times ~ June edition ~ Book's page

Click image to expand:

Questions for Book Clubs

1.  Is it important that Funnily Enough is a true story? Why?

2.  Whilst most readers say they laughed out loud whilst reading 'Funnily Enough' one reviewer thought it a sad story. Another said that it is not a funny book.  Is it sad?  Is it funny? Would the funny stories lack appeal without the reality that ME or Chronic Fatigue is a disease that needs to be taken serioulsy?  

3.  Do you think the story could be made into a stage play?

Or could be read on stage with music and sound effects?

4.  How would you alter the story to make it into a feature film? Would you make it into a romance, a thriller or both?

5. One Book Club thought that the Christian content would hinder sales and book reviews in mainstream newspapers and magazines. Do you agree?  If you were a publisher would you reduce or cut out the Christian sections?

6.  Do you want to know what Sophie did next?

How I came to write 'Funnily Enough'

I was directing a drama serial for the BBC when I fell ill with ME or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. The doctor at work sent me home to my parents’ farm, telling me to keep a diary whilst I recovered. I not only recorded the funny things that happened to me over the course of a year but made sketches, drawing the people and animals around me.

Years later, when I was really much better, I felt urged to type this diary up. Having done so I flew to Kenya with the work on a disc, only to have my bag stolen in the Masai Mara. Our tents had been slashed open while we slept. I decided to search the bush around the camp and by some miracle found my discarded bag with the disc still inside.

My palm top had vanished. I couldn’t afford to buy a lap top, but I finished adapting the diary, into what I hope is a readable, humorous book, on a school computer in South Africa. I sat on one of those tiny plastic chairs made for infants, typing away for all I was worth. Whenever the teachers had a break I gave them tuition on how to use Microsoft Word in exchange for the use of their PC.

I had a watercolour, I'd once painted at my parents' house, that I thought I could use for the cover but Funnily Enough took me much longer to make into a book than I ever imagined. The original diary had great gaps when I had been too ill to write anything. It wasn't very funny.

Just as I was getting rather stiff on a tiny plastic chair, Johanna Mutshudi, the headmistress of the primary school, asked me if I could keep the computer safely in my room over the two month summer holiday, which falls over Christmas in South Africa. I turned down party invitation to keep typing, sending out drafts to be checked by the real characters who appear in the pages.

At one stage I stopped writing and said, 'Lord, this is taking ages. Do you really want me to spend so much time on this?' Immediately a verse from the Old Testament came into my head. I looked it up:   

"Write the vision

And make it plain on tablets,

That he may run who reads it'"

Habakkuk 2:2



This was in 2001. I thought the word tablet rather old fashioned but kept writing. When I finished, I immediately started work on the sequel, Ride the Wings of Morning followed by Makorongo's War.

In 2011 I went to China on a delegation with the Bible Society. We were taken around the vast factory where China's bestseller is printed. There, on the first press, was my verse: Habakkuk 2:2.

I returned to England and started to format Funnily Enough for publication. I now have it on an electronic devise called a tablet. And I run around with this in my back pocket.

I hope that what I've written will bring light, encouragement and laughter to many. It was originally designed as an undemanding holiday read or an illustrated book you can give to anyone stuck in bed with 'flu. I have it on my I-phone now, accessed via a Kindle app. It is great to have book on your phone. It gives you something to dip into on the train or if you get stuck for hours on the motorway.

My palm top computer was eventually returned to me by the son of the Masai who must have stolen it. He had been convicted my writing and sent it back from Alaska where he was at university. Funnily enough someone living in Alaska is currently reading my Blog ~ http://sophieneville.net/

Illustrated with 64 sketches from the original diary Funnily Enough is available from Amazon books, on Kindle, (£1.92) and direct from Lulu.com in hardcover (£12.60) in paperback (£7.99) and  to order from your library or bookshop – ISBN:9781466213487.

How do you cope with being laid up in bed day after day?

15^th April ~ A huge Get Well card has arrived, signed by my entire cast and crew. It’s a picture of a crocodile in bed with a thermometer in its mouth. Not a very sexy looking one. My P.A. had written ‘Rest: don’t feel guilty about spending time in bed, you work too atrociously hard.’

I’m reading a book about the French Revolution but I can’t take it in; my brain seems to have shrunk to the size of an apricot.

Mum went around in a Police car today with a video camera, in an attempt to catch speeders speeding. The life of a J.P. (Justice of the Peace.) She absolutely adores being a magistrate. Having always complained about public lavatories, it gives her a title suitable for bullying people to do something about them. And, she always had an aptitude for prosecution. I can remember waiting at the traffic lights when we were little when Mum sharply informed a boy on his bike,

‘It’s getting dark, you should have your lights on.’

‘So should you lady,’ he answered back.

He was right; she hadn’t turned her own headlights on.

Alastair came to see me, leaving a trail of destruction. It comes naturally to him. In the last few years he has broken the dishwasher, sloshed coffee all over the Persian carpet and split open our pink bath. He stood in it. For some reason he got in without any water, which was just as well as Dad found a live electric wire running underneath. Rats had gnawed off the plastic insulation.

It’s sweet of Al to come over, but it’s rather enervating having him around. Like many high achievers, he switches from being frantically outgoing to being totally self absorbed. I just wish he could understand that we love him for who he is and not for what he can achieve.

I don’t know; he’s crazy about what he does; Alastair is even more engrossed in his work than I am. His great passion in life is birds and he loves, loves, loves making films about them. I once asked him what was the most important thing in his life, thinking he might talk about his faith or his family, his health or even perhaps me. He said, ‘Peregrine falcons.’

‘Oh. What’s the second most important thing in your life?’

‘White fronted bee-eaters.’

James says he finds it somewhat annoying; not the bird fetish so much as the desire to get up so early in the morning. Al says he’s sure everyone thinks he’s bonkers but doesn’t care. The great thing is that one is whisked along with his enthusiasm and where it takes you; out to see gannets on the Farne Islands in sparkling sunlight and high seas or off to remote parts of Morocco to find the flamingos and egrets he last filmed in the Camargue. Surprisingly good fun. A group of us girls went out to Kenya one Christmas to see him when he was making a film on the white fronted bee-eaters with Simon King. Al was so focused on the project that when we returned from a long and adventurous journey to Lake Turkana he didn't even say Hello. Mind you, he was battling to complete a sequence with a mongoose. (They predate on bee-eaters.) It wouldn’t do what Alastair wanted at all and that can be extremely frustrating. I had the idea that Marmite might smell like a female on heat. They got a shot of the mongoose sniffing a bit but somehow the Marmite got everywhere. Under Alastair’s arms, on Simon King’s pigtail, all over the mongoose, and I was covered in it. Mongooses don’t smell very nice either. The idea of making wildlife films suddenly lost its charm.

16^th April ~ My littlest sister Mary-Dieu, aged nineteen, has a baby girl aged one. She’s called Daisy, has no schedule at all and arrives with a huge pile of laundry. It’s pretty difficult looking after her as she normally sleeps in bed with my sister and objects to being plonked in a cot. But she’s come to stay because Mary-Dieu wants to go ‘Clubbing’. Night clubbing. The thought alone exhausts me.

Daisy is a delight. Her big eyes and curls make her look like a little imp with a question mark on top of her head. I really didn’t know what to do with her, but found Atalanta’s baby-walker behind the sofa. Daisy thought this was great and spent all afternoon whizzing about my room. I rather need a baby-walker myself.

Nicola, one of my best friends from school, came over. She looked at Daisy with horror and then said in a small voice, ‘I’m pregnant,’ sounding like a frightened sixteen-year old. She isn’t sixteen; she’s twenty-nine and has been married for two years. I think it’s exciting that she’s going to have a baby. I showed her the schedule, which is still hanging on the sitting room mantelpiece.

‘Oh, Sophie, I thought that was for you.’

‘Yes. I suppose it could be.’

‘Do you manage to keep to it?’

‘No, we’re always behind.’

Daisy is sleeping with Mum in her bed and my father has migrated to his study. I lie alone in my high four-poster, looking at the card of the crocodile. Mary-Dieu (Dieu as in mildew) was nearly four when we adopted her. I was fifteen. She was the sweetest little thing, easygoing, bright and extremely articulate. Our only problem, and it was quite a hazard, was that she was, and still is, radically outspoken. She could state the obvious at embarrassing and inopportune times. We all had to go to court for her formal adoption. Mum knew that the old judge only had one hand. The other had been replaced by a hook. We were all terrified that Mary-Dieu would declare, ‘You’ve got no hand,’ or something and had been drilling her frantically. Instead, she walked into the court, paused in the doorway, and when sure of everyone’s attention, looked at the judge, looked up at Mum and said, in her clear piping voice, ‘I no say anything about the hook. I just tell him to be careful of the crocodile.’

17^th April ~ Mum came plodding upstairs to ask if I wanted Rufus Knight-Webb to come and see me. I looked at her a little oddly. I know that Jesus wanted the sick to be visited but I’m not sure I should have so many people in my bedroom. Rufus is the son of our old G.P. and I haven’t seen him since he was adolescent. He’s an artist and lives in London; I’m sure he won’t want to come.

‘You’ve absolutely got to see his wife. She’s beautiful.’ I’d no idea they were downstairs.

Mum was getting impatient with me. ‘It’s all right, they live in a squat.’ She was referring to the chaos in my room.

Rufus’ new Yugoslavian wife is beautiful. Startlingly so. In the way she is, as much as how she looks. She speaks not one word of English. Rufus, in contrast, hadn’t brushed his hair for a long time and spoke without drawing breath.

‘I’m painting with ultra-violet in the dark,’ he told me. I could just imagine it. Rufus in Peckham, painting in the dark. I showed him the luminous stars stuck to the ceiling above my bed. His works of wonderment need to be illuminated by a black light or something. Weird. (How can you get black light anyway?) They’re going to James’ dance in May, when we all have to dress up as soap opera stars. I tried to persuade him to go as a carrot and represent The Archers.

My photos of South Africa have arrived from the developers. Oh, how I wish I’d never come back. The horses look so beautiful. I’m sitting on a big black Friesian with a flowing mane and tail. There are shots of us riding with the game. Shots of us walking through the mountains. Well, me walking, Sarah-Jane striding. I must’ve known her for twenty years. She has a wild and free life. And I mean a life in the wild, where she has freedom. Strong minded and independent, she’s torn away from convention and does what she wants. And why not? About five years ago we drove down through Africa and, although she had no money at all, she decided to stay and start her own business in tourism. Rebecca was on that trip. I’m going to send her some of these photographs and persuade her to get out there. It’s very much her thing.

18^th April ~ Syndrome worse today. Achy back. I can hardly do anything at all. It’s so frustrating; being unproductive goes against the grain of my essential make up. I’m not even much fun to talk to. But surely I’ll be better in time for James’ party.

I went to see my family’s General Practitioner. She peered down my throat.

‘Yes, well this is infected for sure, but tell me, do you always push yourself to the limit?’

‘In what way?’

‘Were you getting stressed-out at work?’

‘I was under a great deal of pressure, but I’m used to coping with that. It can be all quite exhilarating.’

‘How long have you been doing this job?’

‘I’ve worked for the BBC for about eight years, and have been in this particular job, directing stuff, for three.’

‘But is it a stressful job?’

‘Yes, it’s up to me to come up with the goods; the filming is pressurised,’ I admitted. ‘I work with children who are only allowed on set for a limited time, so I have to operate at a fair pace, directing with two cameras, but it’s not as if I was getting particularly anxious or worried. I enjoy it.’ I do, I love my work. I didn’t go into the details but it was the stupid recce that nearly killed me. These times of planning and reconnaissance are normally fun, but we had no time at all. I was going to have to film difficult sequences from a canal barge and wanted everything to be well organised. It was all rather difficult to envisage. Instead of delegating, insisting my production manager chose the locations, I’d spent a Saturday cycling miles up a gravely towpath and I think I pushed myself too hard physically. The only stress was on my muscles, which I’d thought would be good for me. But I was still on antibiotics and must have felt better than I really was.

‘Well, you have had two bad bouts of ’flu this year. I’d say you definitely have post-viral fatigue.’

‘How long can I expect to be ill for?’ I asked.

‘It’s hard to say.’

What I somehow never managed to explain was that while I was with Sarah-Jane I recognised the fact that I was badly in need of a long break; a proper sabbatical.

I staggered back from the surgery, sank into bed and spent all afternoon in a deep, hot sleep. Mum came back from Gloucester looking pretty exhausted herself. She told me that Mary-Dieu was still in bed when she’d returned Daisy at half past five. In the evening. Honestly, even I get up before then, and I’m meant to be in bed.

‘Her basement was filthy,’ Mum reported, ‘so I set to, scrubbing away. Mary-Dieu just sat on the sofa smoking, and watching me.’ Mum hates cigarette smoke. ‘I don’t suppose the night clubbing was much fun.’ Mary-Dieu’s lived in Gloucester for two years but hasn’t many friends. She seems to lead a nocturnal sort of life that I suppose cuts you off from the world after a while.

Mum, worried about christening her granddaughter, once asked Mary-Dieu if she had a church. ‘Yeah, I belong to The Church of Can’t be Bothered.’ It’s her choice but she must be so bored. Poor Daisy has to put up with all the muddle and smoke and the darkness of this ~ I don’t know what you call it ~ alternative lifestyle. Mum was quite funny though, going on about the mess; her own room is just as bad. The things she has on her windowsill alone: piles of letters, Agatha Christie books, wire coat hangers, one shoetree, empty boxes, her old specs (I bet she’s been looking for them for ages) and we are not allowed to interfere. Mary-Dieu knows this of course.

19^th April ~ Woke up with a stiff neck, feeling turgid and somehow compressed. It seems I’m unable to do anything productive. I ended up sitting slumped by my bookshelves reading about a boy who was dying, called William*. I was completely caught up by the story. His mother, Rosemary Attlee, tells the first part. Now I’m reading the journal William wrote in the last four months of his life. He was nineteen. It’s a spiritual journal and so touching. All true and much better reading than the French Revolution.

This diary of mine ought to be a spiritual diary but I’m shy about what people might think. I mean, it’s very personal. I used to think faith was a private thing, but we’re not going to learn anything by internalising what we experience. Anyway, it’s exciting hearing about what God’s doing in people’s lives. I don’t know if what’s happening in mine will be. Where do I start? I’m in the middle of so much. Start where I am now. Not a good place because I feel that nothing spiritual is happening in my life at all. I feel clogged up intellectually (and can hardly spell. I’ve just spelt hour: OUR and her: HAIR).

Should people pray when they’re ill? Well, yes, I’ve so much time on my hands. I ought to try to get closer to God. He really is here the whole time. That I have noticed. It’s a staggeringly beautiful spring for a start. These last few days I’ve been sitting quite motionless for ages, just soaking in all that is around me. I look out of my bedroom window at the cherry blossom. It’s spectacular. In the past I’ve been so busy filming that I’ve missed this extraordinary sight for years. Now it seems as if it’s out just for me, undaunted by wind or snow. Do people just get so busy they fail to appreciate God’s presence in their lives?

20^th April ~ Tried to pray. Can’t; too groggy. Must, must keep my intellect at least ticking over by writing more creatively. It’s essential to persevere. And take risks.

P o e m

If it wasn’t for all the mud and rain

Reality wouldn’t be the same.

Better try harder.

Try brain exercise. Must read newspaper. Reach for The Times. Ghastly news:

It says that an estimated 100,000 people have just died in Bangladesh, killed by a cyclone. That’s an awful lot. But then you read (well, I read in Bill Bryson’s book) that 1,360,000 people in the USA are airborne (flying over it) at anyone time; that must be about 5,000 aeroplanes; more. Dad says unless a load of planes are in the air, there’s not enough runway space for them to park up. Can’t bear to think about it. Give up. I don’t think I’m very well. Perhaps I could write about being ill for the advance of medical science.

I was just beginning to feel dejected when Mum appeared bearing ten pairs of the most enormous knickers I’ve ever seen. Five pairs white, five pairs ‘flesh tone’. Tamzin, who claims to be my most down to earth sister but is really quite glamorous, had just sent them to her for her birthday. Being a housewife she doesn’t earn any money, so my brother-in-law Johnty had had to pay for them. What an hysterical present. Mum had asked for knickers and told her to get the biggest possible, but these are VAST.

Dad, seriously concerned now about safety aspects of handling garden machinery, is writing an article about his experience with the rotary cultivator for The Kitchen Garden Magazine. They’ll just think he’s nutty.

21^st April ~ Nicola has kindly given me some emu oil for my skin. Real emu oil, all the way from Australia. The Aborigines say it has wonderful healing properties. The only problem is that it makes me smell like a roast chicken.

I’d love to be married like Nicola, but it’s just as well I’m not. I can’t bear anyone touching me at the moment. You don’t when you have ’flu and I feel like one does the day after the fever has gone, only this day seems to be going on and on and on. I must thank God for all the good things. He is in control. Control over a sick girl smelling like an emu.

Dad came back from buying plants looking relieved as he learnt that he’s not the only one to have an absurd relationship with a motorised plough. The man who runs the nursery, who after all is a professional gardener, said he started his rotavator in the garage and for some unknown reason it leapt into reverse too. The thing pinned him to the wall, blades spinning frantically within inches of his person. Like Dad, he was all alone and there was no way of escape. He had to wait until it ran out of petrol, which took about forty minutes.

*'William's Story' by Rosemary Attlee (Highland, 1987)