On Saturday morning I decided to visit the old cathedral in Coventry, a place I have loved since childhood.  There is something about its defiance and vulnerability that has always struck me, and the various statues of reconciliation are beautiful and meaningful.  I took time to walk to the stone altar - I recalled it being barred by railings but there was no sign of them - and felt the charred timber of the beam-cross against my hands.  I imagined the various priests and bishops who had stood there, looking out at the congregation.

Then I moved on to pay homage at the grave/memorial of the person who might or might not have been a distant relative of mine, Bishop Neville Gorton (the connection is disputed among my rellies and I haven't a clue of the truth).  To my horror, right next to his memorial stone was the very ugly entrance to a museum of wartime stuff from which 1940's music emerged at high volume, and two guides or stewards laughed and joked as they awaited customers.  In a second the preciousness fractured... I was affronted on behalf of my maybe relative and in that instant something changed irrevocably.

It's still a lovely place, and the statuary is no less beautiful but the sounds of piped 1940's music and gales of laughter, for me, changed everything.

And here's the thing I've been puzzling over since: I have no high theology of place and have no problem with multi-functional buildings, indeed I am very much for church premises being employed effectively.  I found myself wondering what Bishop Neville might have made of it - would he have minded?  Would I mind if it was my final resting place?  In the end I deduced it was less the 'what' than the 'why'.  Why is there a museum in the ruins of Coventry Cathedral?  What is its purpose?  If it is to educate and to challenge the fear and hate that lead to violence then it's OK.  But if it is to provide income, no matter how well intentioned, then I'm not so sure.

So, plenty to think about - the dangers of inadvertently trampling others' precious memories, the challenges of motive and the appropriate use of places of worship.  And perhaps it is this last where the nub lies - the old Cathedral, so far as I can ascertain, is still officially a place of worship, or at least a place of stillness, not a tourist attraction to generate revenue through entertainment.

My memories are not what they were, but it remains a place I love, and which in its wounded beauty still has stories to tell to those who can hear the quiet whisper beyond commercialism's roar.

We all get lots of circular emails that are a bit kitsch that purport to be written by people regretting things they didn't do and now can't.  One I had forwarded to me a few months back talked about using the best china whilst you could (and of course if you don't it decays in the cupboard anyway) or driving with the windows down on sunny days or eating ice-cream in the park in winter  and so on. It was a tad mawkish but its sentiment rang true - we all (I think) put on hold the frivolous and the indulgent in favour of the practical and purposeful.

So, today I bought a red duffle coat.  For years I've looked at them and then settled for something in a nice sensible shade that would be suitable for work or for formal occasions and didn't, when it got a bit worn, make me look like some long lost relative of Paddington bear.

I am fortunate to be able to wear strong colours and along with 'peacock' shades of blue and green, I love red.  So this winter I shall wear my red duffle coat (with its nice warm hood to protect my head from draughts) and the next, and the next and the next and so on, until even Paddington would give me a hard stare... by which time I will have left far behind me the turn of events that prompted me to abandon my usual practical modus operandum and choose it in the first place.

What's your frivolous indulgence?  And why haven't you indulged it? (RNR as we used to put on correspondence on my industry days)

OK, so the first stile I felt I had to climb over was getting my hair cut in anticipation of the chemotherapy.  You have to understand that I've always had long hair, have never wanted short hair and after a bad experience with a hairdresser, who when asked to trim 3in off my then almost hip length hair left me with it just past my shoulders, I have never darkened the door of a professional haircutter again.

So this was a big step for me - minute for most people, but this is my footpath and these are my stiles.

Some one at church suggested a hairdresser who is used to this kind of work, as he works with hospital inpatients, and someone else very kindly handled the booking and came with me.  I was very relieved when he dismissed the 'shorter the better' advice from the literature and said that a 'classic bob' would be a good option.

So, here's the new style - it's a poor photo taken with my webcam, and I opted not to smile as that looked daft, but it gives an idea of what I look like, at least for a few weeks until the really radical becomes inevitable.  Comments are permitted but there are rules:

You are allowed to say it looks good, because it does, it's an excellent cut and still basically feels like 'me'; I am content with it

You are not allowed to say I look better or younger - even if you think I do, because I don't want to know - I was happy with how I looked before.

You are not allowed to say I should have done it years ago - reason as above.

For anyone who wonders, I have the pig-tail carefully wrapped and safely stowed in a drawer: at some point I may be ready to part with it but not yet!

Whilst this isn't what I'd have wanted, it does mean that I now have an idea of a style I would be happy with once all this is behind me - and that has to be a good thing.

This is advance posted - I am visiting family this weekend for the last time before treatment starts but I'll be back, hopefully with a better quality up-to-date photo to go in the top right corner, next week.

... does someone crash their car outside my home at about 3 a.m., disturbing my beauty sleep and then it takes until almost 5a.m. for recovery to occur?  Grrr.

Hopefully no one was badly hurt - I assume not from the relative lack of blue lights outside.

It's a nice wide road, visibility is good (unless you are trying to turn out from the flats during rush hour) so I'm not quite sure what caused it.  Bet the police will be glad to get back to the station for a cuppa though...

Having walked a few long distance paths now, having found ways of coping when the going gets tough, and having found that other people use the same techniques, it's time to break the mystique and share a few of them with the rest of the world.

One of the things I'm not great at is long, steep inclines, and I've done a fair few, including the 'Switch Backs' of Offa's Dyke with a badly sprained ankle.  As I stand at the foot of a hill and look up at where the path will take me, my heart sinks: it is all too big.  So I select an easier target - the first bend, the tall tree, the interestingly shaped rock, promising myself a rest when I get there.  More often than not, I pass the target and am good to go for a good deal further.

Another soul-destroyer on long walks is false summits.  You watch the treeline and it levels out, surely this must be the summit, but no, a twist, a turn and it climbs again.  I have learned never to focus on the perceived summits which sing like sirens and lure the unwary into despond; instead I focus just a few steps ahead, far enough to see the path without being discouraged by what lies ahead.

Then there is the counting technique.  Everyone I know thinks we invented it, and maybe we each did, but it's pretty much universal.  The terrain is hard, the body is tired (the injuries ache and the pain-killers have nearly worn off) and there's a long way to go.  Counting steps - a promised break after 100 steps or 50, or 10 or 5 or whatever it takes.  Little by little the ground is covered and there is a sense of achievement once the goal is reached.

Long-distance walking is not a competition.  It's easy either to feel the need to walk faster than other people or to be discouraged if they overtake you.  Experience shows that irrespective of speed, you keep meeting up with the same people.  Hares need more rests than tortoises, and there are usually only a few stopping points anyway.  I am, ostensibly, a fast walker, but am often overtaken by racing hares who I later pass exhausted and in need of a rest.

Dip days.  Everyone gets them.  On a seven day walk mine is usually day 5; for my wonderful walking friend it is almost always the last day.  What gets us through them is each other.  We each know the other well enough by now to handle the dips, so if I need extra rests my friend waits for me, if she slows significantly I wait for her.  We don't pretend we're fine if we're not and we give each other permission to be true to ourselves.  I worry though, if she stops wanting tea, this is a serious sign that all is not well, and we still joke about the day she wanted neither tea nor flapjack.

Stiles... over 200 on Offa's Dyke, zero in the Great Glen (well there may have been one but you could skirt it).  They are a pain when you have to face them, they slow you down, break your stride, leave you ankle deep in mud (or worse) but once over them you can get on with whatever's next.

Expect the unexpected - crazy landladies in B&B's (my walking friend and I still laugh when we think of 'man' who had the room opposite us at one B&B of whom all we ever saw were his trainers), stray socks, boots, tee-shirts etc strewn across the path, inviting stories about those who have lost them en route (is this some strange form of strip tease or more likely the laundry dropped from a rucksack), moments of breathtaking beauty, shared hilarity with other walkers as you swap tales of B&Bs, struggles and the pretentious people you meet ('my shorts dry in 4 minutes' being one we often recall).

In my quest for a better metaphor for what I am faced with in the next year or so, I wonder if maybe the long distance footpath might be a helpful one.  I feel I've encountered a few stiles already, and know there are many more ahead.  I have become aware of the danger of looking too far ahead and the need to find my own interim pause points.  No doubt a day will come when I need to count my steps just to keep going, or I'll reach what I thought was a plateau only to discover I have been mistaken.  I find myself wondering about the other 'walkers' I will meet - each with their own personalities, their own take on the right equipment to take, their own funny stories.  This specific long distance walk was never in the grand plan but now it's begun, now the itinerary is starting to emerge, now the first few tentative steps have been taken, there is a goal to be reached in my time, at my pace and that has to be good enough for now.