Braving the Bald Look

After spending the previous weekend quarantined in my little hospital room and attached to a drip, it was like the best thing ever to be able to spend last Saturday and Sunday in London, relishing in the joys of freedom and 360-degree arm movement.

I had planned the trip to London for my friend Karen’s birthday lunch, but a few days earlier I was invited to take part in a mini-photo shoot for the Stylist magazine 2012 census – a form I delighted in filling in with my cat on one of my many bed-ridden sick days recovering from chemo. My photo was to appear in tiny version alongside many others in an upcoming issue of the magazine, so I decided I would go wigless for the following reasons:

a) to be a bit brave and unashamed of my bald head

b) to be 100% myself

c) to be a little bit original

I had planned to wear earrings and false eyelashes to accentuate my better features and distract from my bald head because my eyebrows and lashes are now wearing thin (more of this in a later blog post). However, I forgot to pack the fakies and, unfortunately, every single chemist and supermarket around the Holborn area was shut on Sunday morning. And so it was that my friend Sophie and I rocked up to Stylist magazine HQ false eyelash-less and au naturel.

Unfortunately, the Stylist photo booth didn’t take such flattering photos as my iPhone, I felt really self-conscious and hated the final result, but it was a great experience all the same and I’m glad Sophie came along to support me in braving the Sinead look! You’ll have to wait til the magazine comes out to see my individual photo but here are the fun shots of Sophie and I for the time being. (Apologies that it’s a photo of a photo but scanning it would require getting out of bed.)

Sunday afternoon I had a wonderful time catching up with old colleagues and friends at Karen’s birthday lunch and very much enjoyed my lamb roast at The Brownswood in Finsbury Park, before catching the train back up North and sleeping for more than 12 hours, such was my exhaustion from the weekend.

Saturday was spent mostly eating my way around London with my old housemate Beth, who almost succeeded in giving up sugar with me for two weeks, but for a few momentary lapses. Our gastronomic tour began at the Mexican restaurant Wahaca in Covent Garden, with tacos, quesadillas and Mexican soup. Unfortunately one of the things I am most craving is ceviche and sashimi but the chemotherapy means raw fish is forbidden, so I had to make do with the cooked stuff.

In the evening, for want of a better film to see, we ended up watching The Sapphires, which was amusing and entertaining, though far from being one of the best films I’ve ever seen. After two weeks on a no-sugar diet, I am still surprisingly not craving sweet things at all, but I can never resist having sweet popcorn at the cinema.  We were also offered a free dessert at Wahaca and you’d have to be a fool to turn down a free dulce de leche pancake, right?

Finally, we tried to go to Bubbledogs, the new hotdog-and-champagne place, but the queue was too long and I was too tired to wait by this point so we ended up at Roka, a Japanese restaurant on Charlotte Street that reminded us of La Huella in Uruguay, where we’d been together in February. It was a shame my rice and asparagus came 10 minutes before my seabass main course but, other than that, I couldn’t fault it and will definitely be going back to try the black cod.

I’m safely back up North now for another week of resting and a hospital visit on Thursday before THE FINAL CHEMO next week.