Substack diary no.149: Sunday, 10th. May 2026

It is very sunny and pleasantly warm in my part of Devon today. After a week of almost no breeze it is decidedly boisterous this morning and, unless my senses deceive me, the breeze seems to be slowly increasing in strength as time progresses. Not windy enough to stop me donning my straw hat if I venture outside, a purchase I made only two years ago after a series of operations to remove basal cell carcinoma from my face. That was fun. Not.

The lesson learned, almost certainly too late to be of any service, is wear a hat with a brim when out in the sun. The shade afforded may be less than ideal but certainly better than no hat at all. I do not wish to go through any more cutting or stitching or plastic surgery, but I suspect it may be unavoidable. As it happens we have an excellent skin cancer team here in south Devon, led by a very nice man originally from Mauritius. Now there’s a place I would love to visit. It will never happen of course, but I can hold onto the thought for a while.

Sometimes – rarely – I think perhaps as a non-smoker might upon being diagnosed with lung cancer. It seems unfair, which is of course entirely the wrong word to use in such circumstances. But I have spent much of my life studiously avoiding exposure to the sun. It hurts my eyes for one thing, and I learned as a young teenager that the cause of my severe migraines was photosensitivity. I had to start wearing specs. Not good when you are 15 and knowing – incorrectly it turns out – that girls don’t like boys who wear specs. For a time my nickname, aided by no small measure by National Health specs, was Joe 90. That will not mean anything to you unless you are a fan of the marvellous 60’s shows of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. F.A.B!

I like being in the dark. On a sunny day you will find me indoors in the pub. In the past, friends and colleagues have forced me into a lunchtime pub garden, where I search for shade as a hermit crab might. And then you have flies and wasps hovering unnervingly close to your cider. I don’t so much mind them being close to me, but please don’t fall into my cider. I suspect it may be those lunchtimes in summer pub gardens that planted the carcinoma seeds. Not that they are seeds of course, but you know what I mean. How cruel life can be! So much for being born in sunny south Devon…