My older sister has been in hospital having a bowel cancer op.

She has been quite unfortunate with health generally having had thyroid problems from the age of 16 and a lot of other problems in between.

We are not generally on speaking terms these days as she has a very low opinion of me.  She recently emailed my other sister and expressed a view along the lines of how unfair it was that we had not been afflicted with cancer so far. We have several incidences of cancer in the family, (including my father who died a couple of months after taking early retirement at the age of 63), so there is no guarantee that I have escaped it.

She had a fairly successful career in nursing then health visiting and finally as a lecturer at Old Street until medical retirement, she also had a daughter in fairly good health and was married and has a very comfortable house too. Her husband died of cancer a couple of years back. Out of us 3 siblings she was the successful one, with the proper education and so forth. She also gets a very generous pension, which to be fair she worked very hard for.

I did a lot of odd jobs for her a few years back, I think perhaps she has forgotten all that. I hope that the op works out for her of course. Its very difficult to deal with the level of resentment that she projects on to us as she perceives that I and my other sister lead charmed lives. The reality is that for me the last 10 years have been have been the only point in my life where I have succeeded in anything much really. Getting 1 decent decade out of 5 is not that bad going really though.

Phew, a bit hot for me, but nice to see the sun.

More of the usual stuff really. Some pretty good fun gigs, mostly Delta Ladies duo gigs that went very well and a few at new venues that have got us repeat bookings so that’s pretty good so far.

I also have a date for my bone scan which will answer a few questions with luck. I am still getting a a bit of pain but less frequently and the more we gig the more exercise I get I suppose that must help.

Last night we returned to what used to be our home turf at a place called the Harringay tavern in Crouch End, it was a slow start but the second half was quite lively and even got a few people singing a long to some of the original tunes. We also told a few shaggy dog story’s and got a laugh or two which we do quite a bit on gigs now.

Latest bulletin from my sister just out of hospital is that (“I caused them considerable trouble over the last few years”). This is a truly remarkable achievement having not seen them for about 7 years or so, and I can only attribute this to my ability to channel the dark side of the force. Perhaps also attempting to play New Orleans style Piano also gives you the power of voodoo, though I am not convinced as none of these attributes has yet allowed me to win the lottery.