A VISIT TO THE SOUTH SIDE

We are all terminal but Linda is the only one I know who has a measurement in weeks or months – nobody is able to give her anything more definite than that, and she seems to feel strong, apart from the pain, so all the signals are mixed. When we left she looked pale and tired but happy to be part of pretty good crack between me, her two cousins, and Angela; the laughter spilled all over our table in the massively packed, busy restaurant on the first floor of the brand new billion pound hospital wing.

And now I've just finished eating flame-grilled cow with cheese in Burger King, waiting for my movie to begin; I can't pass up a trip to the city and not catch a film, get my money's worth from my yearly ticket; £16.40 a month, and the cinema is way out of my way...and I'm such a lazy bitch I can't get myself out of the flat on my days off. The year is up at the beginning of December and I won't be renewing it – I'll be rich!

Money will have to be spent in The Works; I can almost see it, along the road from where I'm sitting. Acrylic paints have been bought from Lidl's, and new brushes...I'll be creating a lot of my Xmas presents; Tibetan silver pendants and beads, and finger and hand puppets are winging their way towards me from all over the world. I love Ebay...and am itching to get crafting and arting.

Last night I was listening to a bit of Isabelle Allende's biography and it made me think of returning to mine. Linda's news enforces that, and again I find myself thinking that I must tidy up the pile, leave proper files and instructions behind when I saunter off this pitch. But now I want to wander a few yards of Sauchiehall Street in the late summer sun before the rain returns, and before the shop shuts.

LUCINDA

Oh, my eardrums echo with her white noise;
she's a ghost of herself, carving her desk
into a monument of waiting. Long
weeks hoot like quiet owls. Cancer doesn't
whisper: it growls deep in her bowels.
Surgeons cut and thrust the necessary,
bagging her like a take-away...and we
are left to wander. Memories, pale nights,
and three of us discussing possible
properties of money-oil – and how to
cast a spell to decimate financial
dyspepsia. Her laugh, like a cartoon
dog, wheezing in, and out of damaged lungs
reminds us to howl at the bloody moon.

A MUST-READ BOOK

On opening Catherine Czerkawska's historical novel, The Physic Garden, I know immediately that I will have to plan ahead and read it chapter by chapter because it is so beautifully written, with each chapter encapsulating a thought, a question, a time. You want to stop and think, relish what you've just read – also, life has to revolve around work and shopping and cooking/consuming meals...there will be no housework done until I have finished this book.

Half-way through and I am still captivated by the interesting detail, the characters and the hook – I want to know; what happened? I'm a city girl and really interested in how the writer has stuffed every crack in the floors with knowledge...things I want to know but have been too lazy to find out for myself, so far. When I'm reading I'm immediately immersed in these characters' lives, and it's so annoying when real life interferes and I have to stop.

Oooh, there's a fabulously disgusting passage 85% of the way through, describing some of the poorest places in Glasgow:

'...I found myself peering into rooms that never saw the light of day, stinking bug-ridden rooms and passages...in a drab and deadly succession, all leprous with damp, I thought that I had found myself in some hellish labyrinth, an underground warren where only troglodytes might live.'

...and, several hours later, I have finished reading a wonderful tale. I don't need to tell you what it's about – you can read that on the book blurb. This is not a genre story; anyone, with particular likes and dislikes would love it. It is set in the historical past but is fiction, and such an imagination has conjured up a place and a time that will leave you spellbound.

A VIEW OF GLASGOW