Someone is looking after me...

THIS is a photograph Diane loved. It was taken in 1960 and sits in its original frame. She showed it to me when we first met and it has stayed with us ever since as one of our favourite things.

It's just a black and white photograph of a cruise ship, but like many highly sentimental items in a person's life, it is utterly worthless to a stranger but priceless to the person who holds it dear.

She cherished it, partly because it reminded her of Rotterdam, partly because it echoed her father’s working life at sea in this era – not on cruise ships, but as a merchant seaman.

The elegant boat, built in the 1950s, is the SS Rotterdam. I know how much it meant to Diane which is why it now means a lot to me. Sentimental value, which all the money in the world couldn't buy, like I say.

Some strange things have happened since Diane was taken from me in February last year but what happened last week takes some beating. I hesitate to say Diane is still influencing events in my life, deciding things for me, because I know what that makes me sound like.

But sometimes, things occur and you just have to shrug your shoulders, pull that “I dunno” expression and admit that something, somewhere must be making these things happen.

Surely it can’t all be dismissed as just a random series of coincidences.

My weight loss for a start – eight and a half stones in 12 months … and counting. Impossible to even contemplate 12 months ago. Taking up running after 40 years of not being the slightest bit interested in walking briskly, let alone breaking into a trot. The fact that I immediately became bitten by the running bug.

The fact that during this winter – the worst since 1910 we’re told – I have only once run in dreadful weather, a nine-mile training run round Leverhulme Park on New Year’s Day after a parkrun.

But, last Friday, what I discovered hit me as the oddest of all. It stopped me in my tracks, to be honest. I was deciding my hotel arrangements for April, where I’ll run my first marathon in memory of Diane, when up popped a familiar name.

SS Rotterdam.

I found out that the ship in the photograph which Diane got 54 years ago is now permanently moored on the Maas river in the city centre as a floating hotel. It's not far from the massive Erasmusbrug bridge which we cross twice on the route and which I stood on during my first visit to Rotterdam in January.

There it was. On booking.com, the same ship, built in the late 50s. 

So when I run this great race with Diane as my inspiration in less than seven weeks, I will be staying on the ship in the picture she held so dear.

Now, tell me that doesn’t start you wondering… 

Or shrugging your shoulders.

"I dunno...".

It's time these two took a bow...

I think it’s time these two incredible girls got the credit they deserve for getting me through the past 12 months.

For those of you who haven’t met them before, let me introduce Bonny Lulu on the right and her big sister Cassie. Cassie’s 13 years old this year and Bonny will be six in July. Let’s not forget they lost their Mummy a year ago and miss her deeply, too.

Diane always wanted a King Charles Cavalier and when she became ill, that seemed the perfect time to make that particular dream come true. We were lucky we found Bonny. From the start, the difference she made to Diane’s life was obvious. Bonny’s just a bundle of joy that everyone falls in love with and she never spent a minute apart from Diane.

Cassie has always been Diane’s great love, too. She was only supposed to stay with us in the beginning, way back in 2001, until we could find a good home for her but both Diane and I knew the minute this little scamp walked in ours that nobody else was going to get a look in. She was ours.

And so when their Mummy went out one day and didn’t come back, they were both devastated. Confused and wondering what I had done with her, I guess. But instantly they rallied round me when they saw how upset I was.

People who don’t “get” dogs, will never understand that. They’ll also never know what joy they are missing. These two beautiful girls have helped me through the past 12 months by showing me the kind of devotion, love and support I never thought possible.

Two little dogs, so wise, so sensitive to every mood I was in and so faithful.

They quickly became my focus, just as I became theirs. Knowing I had to sort myself out health-wise - so I could take them on the walks they deserved and was there for them for many years to come, hopefully - was a major reason for me deciding to get fit after the loss of Diane.

So I guess, in a way, they’re a big part of the reason why I’m where I am now. They have helped me become a better, fitter person. And they will be in my thoughts when I leave them for a few days in April to climb my own personal Everest.

Thanks to them, I have never come home to an empty house, have always been greeted with joy as I arrived home from work in the evening and have always had a loving cuddle when I needed it.

I have also never gone to sleep without the soothing, comforting sound of Bonny’s snoring from the landing.

They have kept me company, got me out walking for miles and miles, and never once have they asked for anything in return. Like I say, people who don’t understand dogs don’t realise what they are missing out on in life.

And so, I salute my little girls. And I say thank you with all my heart to the pair of them. My Bonny Lulu and Cassie, without whom I could not have made it through as I have. I am forever in their debt and they will probably never realise just what having them beside me this past 12 months has meant to me.

But then they just love their Dad. They don’t see why it has to be any more complicated than that. There’s a lesson they can teach the rest of us.

For my Forever Valentine...

A year ago today, I gathered with family and friends to say goodbye to my darling Diane at a service celebrating her wonderful life, a life cut far too short by the curse that is cancer. 

It took from us all a very special person – it has a habit of picking on the best – and the world is poorer for not having Diane here in it any longer.

I remember that Valentine’s Day last year very clearly. It was a day much like today. Overcast, with clouds blocking out any hope of sun. It’s how I felt inside as I stood there watching her be carried in, my last moments with her in this life.

But not my last moments with her, by any means. She remains forever in my heart. She will always be my Valentine, the woman who made every day special and who still, somehow, manages to do that now. She still guides me, looks after me and is still my inspiration. She also still slaps me down when I get too big for my boots. So no change, really. 

I just missing not seeing her, not touching her and not being comforted by that gentle smile she always had.

People have said that it was unfortunate her funeral was on Valentine’s Day, that every year the day when everyone falls in love would forever have a sadness for me. I didn’t see it that way. To me, it was the perfect day to have it. It is the best day to remember the woman you love, wherever she might be. 

It’s the day when, a year ago exactly, I looked at her one last time in this life and swore I would love her forever.  I know I can’t send her a card, roses or chocolates again. But I can give her one thing today, for sure. Me. For keeps.

I know that Diane will always be my Valentine, always filling my heart – nothing and no-one can change that.

So for me, from today, this isn’t going to be called Valentine’s Day anymore. From now on, February 14 is Diane’s Day. Our day. A day to remember what true love really is.

Just like I promised you...

At that service, I wrote these words for Diane. I hope you don’t mind if I share them with you again.

“There is a reason why everyone loved Diane.  She was simply the kindest, gentlest, sweetest, most generous person you could meet. She saw good in the worst of people and rescued me when I was at my lowest. She is quite simply the love of my life and the most important person there has ever been in it.

“Everyone who met Diane is a better person because of it. She had that effect on people. And she will always live on in our memories.

“It’s so cruel.

“We had just started making plans together again, now the future seemed so much brighter than a few short months ago. Then this. It’s all so unfair.

“It doesn’t end here, though. Neither Diane nor I will allow it to.

“They try to keep telling me she’s gone.

“So how is it I still feel her hand in mine, still feel her head on my shoulder and hear her voice in my ear?

“The might think they have taken her from me, but they haven’t. She and I will stay together forever.

“Just like I always promised her we would be...”

Please do whatever you can...

The sad truth is the situation Diane and I were in is not unusual. There are more than 500,000 people living their lives under a diagnosis of breast cancer. That’s 500,000 people waking up with cancer, getting the kids ready for school with cancer, going to work with cancer ... there’s not a moment in your life after diagnosis that doesn’t have that cloud hanging over it.

That’s why the work of Breast Cancer Care is so important and why Rachel and I are running this marathon in Rotterdam, the city where Diane grew up.

Please help by donating whatever you can using the links on the right. Do it for the 500,000 living with this terrible disease. For the 50,000 more who will find out in the next 12 months have it. And do it for the thousands of wonderful people – like Diane – who didn’t make it.

My favourite photograph... reminding me a year on just how much I lost

This is my favourite photograph of Diane and me. 

It was taken almost 20 years ago during a great evening in the company of two very dear friends.

We look happy, because we were. She looks radiant, full of joy... just as I remember her. You can see the warmth of her character, sense that special something which made her so wonderful. The hopes, plans, dreams and wishes on a star we had then can be seen in those beautiful eyes.

I can sit for ages staring at this picture, this memory frozen in time of a moment in our lives when we thought we had it all and that we would have it forever.

I see those eyes, that smile, that bright and loving look on her face and I realise just how much I have lost and how much I miss her. I see in this photograph the woman I still adore. I often hold this picture close again and remember that golden time when we both knew how much we meant to each other.

I’m holding it now, it’s the one I always turn to when the going gets tough.

And it doesn’t get tougher than this week.

This Thursday, February 6, it will be a year since Diane lost her battle with cancer. It is the anniversary I’ve been dreading, the day when I think back a year ago and have to relive the pain of seeing this beautiful woman be taken from me.

She slept a lot of the time in the days previously. I hoped she was dreaming nice dreams, free of the pain she felt when she was awake.

I hoped she would be running somewhere, perhaps riding her bike as she often told me she did all the time, every day, growing up in Rotterdam.

I hoped she would be laughing, playing with her brother John and their friends in those innocent years. I prayed for her that in her dreams she felt as if she didn’t have a care in the world. And I hoped that somewhere in those dreams, she would find room for me.

I had stayed by her bedside each evening, watching her sleep. Even as she slept, I held her hand, and I would kiss her forehead as I said goodnight and told her I’d see her tomorrow.

I knew that one of those tomorrows wouldn’t happen. And so it was on that Wednesday.

I remember the phone ringing early in the morning, before dawn, and knowing when I heard it that it could only be one thing.

She had become worse during the night, they said. I should come quickly, they said. I immediately started to get dressed, but before I’d even pulled on a shirt, the phone rang again. It was the same nurse. She was sorry, but Diane had gone.

I still rushed to the hospital although there was no need to hurry. She was always going to be waiting for me when I got there. I held her hand and kissed her forehead as I always did. I held her close, one last time, and told her yet again how much I loved her.

She knew that anyway.

She remembered the evening that photograph was taken as well as I did...

I tried to fix you, Di...

Little things can trigger the most intense memories. One of those things of seemingly little significance which remind you of a particular momentous time or event, forcing you to take a moment to regroup such is the impact of this recollection.

Sometimes it’s a phrase someone says in passing, something as daft as a TV show, even a scent or smell that reminds me of Diane. 

Today, it was a song we both loved. 

It's a song which today stopped me in my tracks. I know I’ll get a load of stick for admitting this, but hey, I have toughed it out liking Sleepless in Seattle all these years so I can take it. Coldplay’s Fix You is one of my favourite tracks. And hers. But after Diane was diagnosed in 2006, it became difficult to listen to.

Maybe I was being silly, too precious about it (after all, the lyrics probably mean something entirely different) but the words seem to hurt all of a sudden, instead of warm the heart. 

The lyrics might indeed not necessarily mean what they came to mean for me, but that doesn’t matter. They still hurt when I heard them. So I stopped listening to it.

Lights will guide you home,
And ignite your bones,
And I will try to fix you.

When she was diagnosed, our lives changed in an instant. The sky turned dark and it became in a split second a future full of fear instead of hope.

I looked at Diane on that day we were told all our suspicions were true, and I saw the joy that was so obvious in that favourite photograph drain from her face, I saw the look of fear and worry in the eyes that shone so brightly in that picture... and I just wanted to fix it.

And I couldn’t. I couldn’t promise to make it all better this time, like I had in the past. I couldn’t be the person who put my arms around her and held her close to protect her from all the bad stuff. This was bad stuff I couldn’t fix.

I felt helpless.

We had our moments of respite, times when we genuinely believed we could get through this. But then she would have a bad day and we would be back to thinking the worst. But still we tried to fix it.

But, despite all our hopes, despite the belief that at the end of 2012 we had finally come through the worst, despite all that, I was there at home early that Wednesday morning, numb with grief.

And the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something that you can’t replace

So today, when the song came on the gym TV halfway through a work-out, I feared it would bring me down again.

But strangely, it didn’t. It didn’t hurt any more. I felt inside me a fresh resolve. It made me, if anything, more determined to do this for Diane as I remembered how over the years we had held each other close while we listened to it. Oddly, today it seemed to have gone back to making me feel I was with Diane again.

Maybe I couldn’t fix her, couldn’t stop cancer snatching away her body. But I can damned well stop it taking away that special thing we had.

I can and I WILL fix that on April 13 in Rotterdam. I’ll fix it so the love you can see in our eyes in this photograph can never be taken away from us. 

The only way is up - Part One

Another day, another diet, at worst another con trick, at best another silly gimmick. Diets, diets, diets. Something has to be done to stop people falling for the magic tricks of the con artists who dream them up. It might be time for the B-Plan. The Beevo Plan. The only plan you will ever need. 

But you're not going to like it. 

It won't make any newspaper headlines, it won't be something to wow your friends with. It's not a 4/3, 5/2, intermittent, no carb, protein-only designer diet. It's very boring. You just lose a massive amount of weight in a short space of time and it stays off. Sorry. I wish I could make it more interesting or give it a trendy name.

Fad diets are aimed at people who think they'll run faster if they wear expensive running gear. What little effect it does have is usually psychological. Because you're kitted out with designer stuff, you might feel more up for running and indeed initially you might see a difference in your time or performance. But it won't last.

Just like you might see early weight loss on a fad diet but that won't last, either. That, of course, doesn't matter to the snake oil salesmen who dream up these useless diets. All they need is for you to lose weight in the first week, then when you fail to progress with further weight loss, they can blame you for not sticking to it properly. Then they'll dream up another trick to con you with.

If you told yourself you were determined to lose weight and changed nothing, you would probably lose some weight in the first week. That's because subconsciously your attitude towards food changed. You were, without realising it, more disciplined in your eating. But this will fade and you will then stop losing weight. That's the same way fad, trendy diets work. They make the headlines or the magazine cover and capture your imagination but soon they have no effect at all. And you can't stay on them forever so what happens when you come off? Even without returning to your old bad habits completely, you'll still find the weight you lost creeping back on.

No. Sorry. I'm afraid it's boring and simple. I lost eight stones in 12 months that's a third of my original bodyweight by watching what I ate, what quantities I ate and by exercise. And it's staying off. Tedious, isn't it? There's not even a fancy name for it. Not even some "leading nutritionist professor", from a clinic which probably only exists on the internet, to explain the science ("It must be good, cos I don't understand a word of what he just said"). No Hollywood endorsements. No glamour. Just massive weight loss. Boring.

Boring, but amazing. I'll talk you through what I did and you follow me and the same thing will happen to you. Guaranteed. There's nothing special about me. I'm not prone to easy quick weight loss or I would never have got to 24 stones in the first place.

But that's what I was last January. Then I decided to do something about it. My spur, my inspiration, was the loss of my wife Diane to breast cancer last February. Last January, about this time, it became obvious to both of us she had more than just one of those winter bugs that were knocking about. I think Diane knew then that something was seriously wrong and yet she

kept insisting she was feeling better each day. Perhaps she was terrified of being told the truth.

When she died on February 6, I was not only a wreck emotionally, I was a physical wreck, too. I had watched the woman I had shared over a third of my life with fade away, cruelly snatched from me by this cursed disease.

It took me a while to get my head around what I had to do. In the weeks following the death of a loved one, particularly when that loss leaves you on your own, there are two ways you can go. It's touch and go which path you choose. You might think now, as you consider how you would react in the same position, that you be strong enough to get through it, but trust me you cannot possibly know until you are there. It's scarily easy to crumble.

In the end, I simply refused to allow myself to become The Sad, Fat Old Man Who Lives In The Corner House. The one the kids throw grit at the windows to annoy him and to get him to come to the door, shaking his stick at them to chase him off.

I could have become that person. But how would that have made Diane feel? I had been given the opportunity to spend the rest of my life paying tribute to her and keeping alive her memory. How could I do that if I slid into a self-pitying, self-loathing shell of a man living in a pit of depression.

I realised she hadn't gone. Cancer might have destroyed her body, but it couldn't touch the part of her that made her special and what made us special together. That spirit of me WITH Diane, the woman I adored, was still in my head and my heart. She was still guiding me. And it was still my duty to make her proud. Still my duty not to let her down.

And so, with her help, I chose to look up instead of down. And I joined a gym...

TO BE CONTINUED...

13 miles ... and counting

Twelve months ago, on our 17th wedding anniversary, Diane didn't feel like celebrating. She was still feeling under the weather with this bug she had got over Christmas.
Neither of us had any idea what was really going on inside her body. It never entered our heads that her cancer had returned. After all it was only a few weeks ago that she had come out of the Royal Bolton Hospital's Breast Unit with a broad grin, positively skipping back to the car with the news that she was off the tablets and could look forward to the rest of her life.
We could start making plans again, start building our lives back up now the clouds had parted and fresh rays of light had peeked through. All those years of darkness, now a hint of sunshine. It was the happiest I had seen her for more than six years.
Now all she had to do was shake off this bug and we could get on with our plans.
One of those plans was for her to finally take me to Rotterdam to see where she spent her childhood. Where she lived, went to school, played, laughed and cried. She would show me where she fell heavily from her bike and broke her teeth. She used to tell me how she would jump between the huge barges that were strapped together at the side of the Maas, the giant river which slices through the centre of Rotterdam.
Maybe some of her old school friends were still living in the city, perhaps one of her old teachers was still alive. It would be exciting for her to see how much it had changed. I was excited that I was to see it for the first time.
But all our plans were to be futile.
It wasn't a bug after all. Soon she would be gone.
Which is why I spent our 18th wedding anniversary running my first half marathon around the country lanes of Lancashire. More than 13 miles, the furthest, by some distance, I had yet attempted.
12 months ago, as I sat with Diane and hoped she'd soon be feeling better, I had no desire to run 13 yards, let alone 13 miles. But that was all to change.
I need to do this to help others going through the same pain. For those who hope they can too start to make plans again like we did. And for those, like us, who will see their dreams shattered.
So, here I am a year on. Less than 100 days away from running my first marathon. In Rotterdam. Where Diane lived, went to school, laughed, cried and, yes, lost those teeth.
I will at last see the city that holds so many memories for her. It will soon hold some cherished, precious ones of my own.
I did the half marathon yesterday. Eventually, after nearly two hours and 40 minutes, I passed that 13-mile marker and turned the last corner to the finishing line. I know now that having done that, I'm ready to realise this dream. To run in Rotterdam with Diane.
At last.

24st to Marathon Man - the story so far

For those just joining the blog, a quick catch-up...

RUNNING anywhere on February 6 2013 was the furthest thing from my mind. My beautiful wife Diane had just lost her six-year fight against breast cancer. She died at 7.20am, before I could get to the hospital.

Fortunately, the previous evening, like every other evening that she had lain in hospital, I had kissed her on the forehead, told her yet again that I loved her and would always love her and said goodnight to her as she slept.

In the final days, she slept most of the time. She looked serene when she was asleep. So I would just sit beside her bed and hold her hand, and watch her.

I hoped she was dreaming. I hoped she was dreaming that she was well again, that we were laughing once more and that the pain had gone. Sweet dreams, my darling Diane.

After her death, I realised that I had to do something to help others who were going through what Diane and I had.

When Diane died, I was in poor health. I weighed nearly 24 stones, had Type 2 diabetes and struggled to get up a flight of stairs. I felt vulnerable and alone. So I decided to get fit.

When I joined a local gym in April, I couldn’t walk on a treadmill for more than a minute. Now, seven and a half stones lighter, I’m looking forward to running my first marathon around the streets of Rotterdam where Diane grew up.

By the time I line up at the starting point I will have lost 40% of my bodyweight, dropped eight inches off my waist and gone down six shirt sizes. All within a little over 12 months. And all inspired by Diane and the need to make a difference.

To make a difference to ease the strain and stress of people going through what we had to go through. And the best way for me to do that was to run and raise cash for Breast Cancer Care.

I discovered I loved running – after 40 years of couch potato life – and did my first 5K round Salford in Lancashire where Diane was born. And Diane ran with me. This wasn’t in memory of Diane or “for” Diane – it was “with” her. She was there every step of the way, driving me on and making sure I did it. Thanks to the generosity of friends and colleagues, that run raised a magnificent load of cash and I was hooked. Now for that marathon …

But there is nothing unique about my experience, nothing special. The heart-breaking scenario, where you are forced to watch a loved one be slowly taken from you, is being played out in families the length and breadth of the UK.

And luckily, the dedicated team at Breast Cancer Care is there to help. Which is why I’m telling you mine and Diane’s story in the hope you’ll support this marvellous charity through helping us.

There are loads of ways you can help. If you're running in 2014, run in aid of the campaign. If not, then just follow us on Twitter and retweet our messages to get them to as wide an audience as possible. And join us on facebook at www.facebook.com/runningwithdiane. 

Let's make 2014 the year everyone Runs With Diane.

This whole experience has transformed my life and now I work on behalf of Diane raising money for Breast Cancer Care.

You can too. Be inspired like I was.

Breast Cancer Care does amazing work for families affected by this terrible disease. More than 500,000 people are living with a diagnosis of breast cancer. 50,000 more will find out they have it in the next 12 months.

That’s 500,000 living with cancer, getting the kids ready for school with cancer, dashing off to work and grabbing a slice of toast with cancer, getting the evening meals ready with cancer, doing the weekly shop with cancer. There’s never anything you do without cancer casting a cloud over it.

More and more people are beating the disease, but too many still aren’t. They need your help.

Once you get that diagnosis, the sky falls in. And it’s too much to face everyday life on your own. Family members can struggle to cope too. You need help, support, guidance and someone who cares.

And that’s why the work of Breast Cancer Care is so important. Because that’s what they do – help, support, guide and care.

If you’re running in 2014, please run it in aid of Breast Cancer Care. Help them help people like us.

Do it for all the brave and courageous women who are getting through each day under the cloud of this terrible disease.

And for all the brave and courageous women - like Diane – who didn’t make it.

Thanks.