Lucie Hanaghan

Hi Everyone, A Basque Pyrénées week of storm-chasing and cloud-breaking. Of reaching peaks - witnessing the power of nature’s drive to survive. Cries from a siege of cranes call the soul long before the shifting V-shaped peloton-silhouette appears. Their dark arrow points south - life-struggle through gusts. An urgency in their chase. There’s joy in getting cold - wrapping up. Of pushing this shell uphill - muscle fibres ratchet each step - fierce focus on stone-tumbled ground guides nerve-numbed post-chemo legs. The rock-bunting warm-glow as it seed-hunts near open outcrops, pathside. Of lightness and landscape changing - appearing and disappearing - as weather passes overhead and around us. Pottok and sheep graze free, picking through blazing fern and sloe, highstepping life-flow streams. Their deep bells echo valley-wide, sounding a rhythm, placing them in real-time. A presence left on grease-laden scratching posts, teeth-marked bark, flattened horse-beds under hawthorn, mud-chiselled hoof-prints, dung-beetle fiestas. A picked-clean rib-cage pokes through wild blueberry brush. Vast vulture shadows track the ground in circles - energy-measured glide - waiting for opportunity. To tidy, clean and process. Purple crocuses spring-feel this autumn-rust mountainscape. A legendary beech forest of folklore and fables, its spirits give right-of-way to mutual respect. Basajaun’s presence - whistling through dense bark-lined shroomy slopes, trunk-curling, rock-lurking - guards this precious life-breather. Heavy mists shift above forest ponds and spill amongst trees. Silken spider-laced aerial-tracks catch the skin. Roots - ancient and cloaked in leaf litter - help or hinder through-goers’ passage. Wild-boar turf-diggings lie idle. Leaf-shuffle sounds. A twig snaps. Gentle forest-cover sheds softly from branches, down-fluttering sun-kissed to its inner mossy core. Tits and crests turn acrobat, insect-chasing. Busy nuthatch stock and crack winter-stash in bark-crevices. Chaffinch and siskin colour-flash, flit and forage the birch and alder noisily. This year's beech nuts fall open under lichen-adorned entish ancestors. The forest pulse is strong. The thrill of being in its arms again. Of noting how it makes me feel. Bottling it. Saving it for time of need. Craving more seasons, more peaks and valleys, more tracking of the wilds. Of thanking Iraty’s spirits for giving me this moment at least. Promising to find more. A red kite whistles overhead - barely visible through brightly decorated branches, tail-balancing on the wind - calling me on. Energy-seep through the week makes everyday tasks harder. Of digging deep hour-to-hour. Muscles slow first then thoughts. Speech tails off. A sensory distance spaces me from the world - nervous system moves to rapid shutdown. Battery leakage. Of making it back to Rennes for tests and scans this week. Blood tests show the post chemo auto-immune thyroiditis has worsened significantly, despite medication. Of this explaining the back-tracking to summer-time energy ebb. Further fluid-gain overwhelms tights - now prescribed the highest compression grade. Heavy cellular exhaustion. Hopeless depletion. There’s a brutality to the situation. An invisibleness to this condition. A mismatch between expectation and deliverables. The chemo slow-down was cyclical chemical stickiness - every third week became lighter, clearer, quicker before re-submergence. This auto-immune issue is a permanently-slowed entirety, unbreakable by strong-will - that doesn’t offer light-shaft escape. That punishes on days following excitement, concentration, physical activity. Reliant on medical reactivity and slow chemical fix. Counting the days gives an urgency. Return to through-the-window sky-watching. My spirit waits under beechmast forest-blanket. A four-year-long deep abdomino-sacral pain, removed completely with the tumour during surgery a year ago, now finds me again each night. Gnaws at me. A scan this week looking for any return of the cancer - scaled back due to the iodine contrast aggravating thyroid symptoms. Results due next week. Endocrinology consultation coming up - a repeat thyroid scan. Physio to trial deep fascial release in the left leg. And with it all, an overwhelm-anniversary of the second 8.5-hour surgery approaches. The sweet roast-chestnut smell over city cobbles quickly takes me back there. A between-surgery pause brought mixed relief and dread. Of not having the luxury to overthink. Of pushing forward. Of now visiting the same park roses that buoyed me this time last year in the days before. Testing my senses. Letting their petals - laced with late-autumn perfume - take me somewhere comforting, with a backdrop of woodsmoke, downed apple-sweet, puddles and raking. Escape-battle from medical birdcage not yet over. Journeys within journeys and paths within paths. Navigating mapless. No reference points. The layers repeat - steep slopes and clearings, transient views, dense mists, then clear skies. The weather shifts. Looking for a path out. For a gentle rolling slope home. A tune from my week - Snow Patrol, ‘Open Your Eyes’: https://youtu.be/fk1Q9y6VVy0?si=O2h_v_7_1nmSESR8 Thank you for traveling these paths with me. The fundraiser allows me to get the medical support I need while I can't work - it continues to get me through my everyday uphills. Thank you so much - your help makes all the difference to my fight. Your messages, videos and photos have been fun to receive. I’ve had an upside-down bed-hugging rain-shy Jack Russell in Ballinrobe; a pair of shockwave-therapy-readied Achilles tendons completing the Urmensch-Ultra in the Bottwartal, near Stuttgart; a Severn-skimming midflight heron-arc, a perfectly poised ruddy-darter and under-duvet winter-weather-strike birthday-nose-booping sausage dogs in Gloucestershire; towering sycamore, limelight-hydrangea and coot-watchingly songful niece and nephew in Monkstown; history-packed worn flagstone floors, medieval ironmongery, street markets and a 14th century Chaucer-inspired Parliament-of-Fowls chimney-mural, in Odiham; sunshiney 2 and 4-legged birthday songs and lime-tree dance from Dublin, Somerset and Cornwall; a Rock of Cashel stronghold-silhouette from cloudless blue-sky Golden Vale, in Tipperary; cake-readiness and a raging candle from the wilds of Devon; birdsong-bursts, monasterial cloister-contemplation and oaky wilderness from the Muniellos forest biosphere in Western Asturias; a dancing balloon-holding mouse in Ballyvary; a stacked sausage-dog-filled fleece-lined bed of storm-avoiders in Guernsey; pumpkin and sweet-chestnut laden baskets and a glowing christening in Monkstown; Turner-like light-filled skies and a cat-in-a-bowl in Brentford; a wild-storytelling colour-crocheted hat, witness to an iconic hostel-made-blanket-coat mobylette-riding Spain-to-Ireland 1960s family odyssey, from Dublin; a hand-themed physio-expedition, multicolour handprints and a wild-boar bite in Malawi; pumpkins, stacked crockery, and a sunlit painting in Rathfarnham; jungle, rice paddies, mud-climbs and bronze medal on the Jungle Marathon in Vietnam; glass-lake sunset reflections, a starry hedge-flower lunchtime view and an under-autumn-tree-sniffing long-shadow-casting work-overseeing tongue-hanging-out up-to-oxter-in-mud spaniel, with a most-under-duvet rain-avoiding high-stepping lake-side mud-dodging teddy-bearing whippet-workmate. Thinking of you all, Love from Lucie xoxo

Hi Everyone, A short weekend dose of moss and folklore-filled Brocéliande - much needed after 7 months. A forest clearing and a stony Arthurian spring. Legends of lion-saving, of confronting discouragement and despair - of triumph over darkness, of fire and water bubbling the clear, clean flow. A place of earthily-scented magic, of deep-rooted love. Of absence. Of wishes made on crystalline water and trickling hope. Of moments in time in a changing season. Of resilience in re-greening leaves. Of renewal. Of forest life quietly continuing after a summer heat tempest - scorched canopy tale-telling. Appointments for the leg issue, but measurement of compartment pressures delayed for a number of weeks. Narrowing down the diagnosis. Needing an escape before winter sets in. Feeling well enough to adventure-seek - a week making up for 6 months lost to a post-chemo auto-immune attack on the thyroid which created energy-collapse, painful joints and debilitating left leg pain. A summer immobilised. An autumn of gentle re-establishment with a thyroid issue improving but still uncontrolled. A trip south to the Pyrénées, following the wingbeats of swallows, kites and sparrowhawks, buzzards and cranes. Hoping to join a team counting migratory birds of prey for a day or two. A long-held wish to return there since falling ill. Looking for weather and energy-windows during the coming week to make it possible. Deciding to take a brief pause from writing these updates to fully experience it. To immerse and be. To lose myself - ourselves - in familiar and soul-nourishing mountains, far from the ether. Poised now on the Basque coast - resting to recover from the trip and weather-watching for an opportunity. Current heavy rain, onshore winds and high swell. Messy cliff-crashing waves - vibrations felt under foot. Of feeding off its roar. Its power. Of early white-out sea mist and drizzle-rain. Of lifting my head to face it - embrace it. Clothes stuck fast to skin. The joy of droplets running off nose and cheeks. Of movement and feeling. Of brooding inky-blue night skies, dense with potential. Of salt-heavy air filling strength-tired spaces. Of a mountain storm and possible snow-showers on high peaks this week. Of uncertainty surrounding any weather-window. Of readiness and hope and determination. Of the next few days deciding whether a visit will be possible. A high-mountain beech forest so deeply rooted that it calls me back into its arms. A place of realisation. Of decades-long connection. One of a handful of places that my mind has visited during difficult moments. Those of intensive-care vein collapse and the urgent hunt for a viable cannula re-insertion point; the head-spinning gut-turning side-of-bed moments in the post-operative days; of those last endless seconds in the operating theatre - breathing deeply as I hand myself over to unconsciousness and life-changing surgeries. The hope to smell the richness of its autumn under-canopy. To feel its delicate leafy soul again. To reflect and restore in its soft light. To thank it. To re-find high altitude and above-cloud perspective. The thrill of remoteness. The joy of the cold. Parallel survival with bears and wolves and lynx. There, danger and risk hold another sense. Hoping to experience and cache these moments - storing them for the long winter to cling to when needed, for the promise of more. A tune from my week - Eurythmics, ‘Here Comes The Rain Again’: https://youtu.be/ko8Ec7ojahU?si=BTMrQwyqMGUTj_3f I’m blown away by your ongoing support on this fundraiser which allows me to pay for medical help, accommodation and everything that comes with taking on ovarian cancer. And Orla - for thinking of, setting up and running it. Being between jobs when I became seriously unwell - and with no income - your help makes a huge difference to each of my days. Thank you all so much. Thank you for your texts, videos and messages. This week I’ve had a dazzling blue-eyed camera-staring jackdaw, backdoor Aurora skies and sausage-dog guided forest paths in Gloucestershire; a trophied 9-year-old man-of-the-match, all in green, in London; a couple of upstandingly-determined hanging-in-there, tall October sunflowers in Mayo; a taking-shape house extension, cold-weather campervanning and skylit red-golden retriever in Worcestershire; uplifting rainbow-sprouting sunlit clouds and sand-ripples on Benone Beach, Limavady; a pair of studious auction catalogue up-markers and a poised-for-action sales ring in Wales; a sunshine-topped Breton-reminiscent breakfast buckwheat galette in Dublin; an Alpine-like low cloud Brentford backdrop, a Thames-reflecting red-sky-at-night and Kew Green pause for golden retriever paws in London; a focussed roast-potato-catching springer in Guernsey; home-made-curry last-drops dinner-downing in Mayo; 20th birthday balloons, leopard-print wrapping paper, banners, cards and family celebrations in Cornwall; a brightly scattered hope-filled arbutus harvest in Rathfarnham; a shiny just-arrived Guinea pig, misty treelined happy-horse silhouettes, French oaty breakfast and owl-hoot-filled night-walk in the Cotswolds. Thinking of you all, Love from Lucie xoxo

Hi Everyone, Rennes’ seasons turned in a week - big skies, warm days and cool nights tumble All-Hallows crisp. Energy brings measured outings on foot - long outings on hold. Pacing. Stowing energy at one end of the day for the other. Tentative strength-work resumes - impossible for post-chemo auto-immune thyroiditis energy-starved cells over summer months. Aloneness swept away with friends and friendship over lifespans. Of different countries. Of filling in gaps. Of being and sharing. The delight of having this energy to ration. The precious novelty of evenings. Afternoon park time. Grassy human nests and Coco’s pine-cone fixation. A lime-tree nutlet spins down dizzily, around her still-concentratedness. Children stop to watch her watching the cone - everyone willing it to move. They take her in, then hang upside-down around us from low branches in groups. Batlike. Complicity. Their running, hiding, finding, constructing. There’s energy to be taken from their energy. Leaves fall like stardust making small feet rustle, giving away position. The yaffle of a green woodpecker rains down on us - beaky soil-searching. Tasty fourmiments. Blackbirds squabble amongst path-trodden beechmast - summer heat-hardship survivors now fight over poor harvest - half-empty hairy husks lie open, springy underfoot. Desperation in their cries as they build feathery frames to face what winter brings. Prairies Saint-Martin within reach again - waterside reeds and canal paths. Highland-mist cows emerge from another time. Ball throwing dog-socials build human connections. City fountains, statues, colombage. Les Bonnets Rouges and the river walk, an inclusive October rose Roz’Eskell dragon boat for all women touched by cancer. Under-bridge laughter-paddling to drumbeat and onboard mascot-barking. Autumn deck-chair soaking. Air sticks close and sits heavily. Dark rolling clouds - lightening shocks brighten open doorways. Dense raindrops cut warm night air. Watery drumbeat on roofs and pavements chases heartbeats. A rapidly falling coolness - full of freedom. Cloudiness clears brain brouillard. Reflection comes easily. Stars seem closer in this colder, bigger sky. A waning crescent moonsliver - shared brightness. Its edges blurred, cobweb like. The tangy smell of rain brings back childhood and everything in-between. Brusque movement of air - arbory friskiness. Longer midday shadows. This feels like the end of one thing - the start of something new. There’s an urgency about it. Birds make group calls - feeding, surviving. Sounds go further in the cold. Brouhaha. Rallying lycéens. Footbeat chants. Calling for change. This week last year - the first week following my ovarian cancer diagnosis - was Ruby’s last. Watery-eyed and joyous to the end. Courageous and generous. Leaving me with the challenge of my life. Navigating new territory after 14 years of shared challenges in shadowpack. A star-filled wander home - the thrill of being outside late. Of not wanting this energy to ever run out. Of electric hope and sky-high will. A weekend morning in the wilds - to touch the Atlantic, to touch home. Tide far out, beach empty. A silhouette further up coast, dog-like, becomes clear. A deer in the sea at low-tide mark! Standing alone, head down - swaying. Behaviour driven by pain’s clear language - easily heard by an observing ear. A broken leg dangles uselessly. Staying back, body quarter-turned, calling rescue services - the pompiers earnestly begin to move - they’ll be less than 10 minutes. A specialist animal section with the skills to capture, collect and transport. To bring it out of this alienscape. To quickly ease distress. Agony now a low-pitched mew. Then, from the dunes, a figure approaches - phone held up, videoing the scene with square-shouldered steps. A call for them to stop - voice swept high, rendered useless by the wind. They push on, videoing within touching distance. The animal lifts its head and surges forward blindly, staggering three-legged past this threat, as videoing continues. Witness to a humane opportunity lost to inhumanity. A chance to prevent an inevitable end being long, slow and painful - now chased away. A blood-trail follows into the forest, as blue lights appear silently beyond the trees. Endocrinology review and another thyroid scan. Medication, blood tests and lymphoedema review. Vaccination and medical supplements to protect a fragile immune system. A trauma orthopaedic consultation - edging closer to a much-pursued diagnosis of the left leg issue. Light falls more quickly this time of year. A pink rose offered me street-side in support of cancer-comrades. Another crane goes up within the apartment’s outlook - the first crane’s magpie family make a full inspection. A familiar dusk-dew song draws me balcony-side. The blackbird is back! After summer-silence, now perching poignantly in their old spot, drawn to full avi-height in soulful serenade. Heralding the end of one day and orange-sky hope for the next. Life shaped differently moves forward. A tune from my week - David Bowie & Gail Ann Dorsey, ‘Under Pressure’: https://youtu.be/rkzcszmeVrs?si=EVUy0RG2XexLv6OL Thank you so much for your ongoing support on the fundraiser which allows me to pay for accommodation, travel expenses, medical equipment and the help I need in my quest for recovery from ovarian cancer and its treatment. Thank you for your messages, videos and photos. This week I’ve had a tail-on-ground red fox, a leaf-nibbling sika deer, a whirlagust of floor-foraging green woodpeckers, rusty orange and yellow woodland vistas under big open skies, and sausage dogs focussed on a mighty biscuit-wielder in Cambridgeshire; a piled-up family-pack of slow-weekend-starting in-fleece mid-dream pet rats, just outside London; an unamused but colourful bedroom-displaced paint-dodging z-bed-camping sausage dog, in Guernsey; a westward-bound sunrise-in-the-rearview-mirror birthday-fuelled drive, moody-midgefest low-cloud skies, road-grazing hoggets, jack-russell-fuelled walks and whiskery Connemara-pony camera-kisses in Mayo; fiery orange sunrise-skies with sunlit silver-lined wish-filled clouds in Falkirk; a feather-fancy branch-posing crane-stanced buzzard in Gloucestershire; ferry line-up campervan novelty-mug tea-time and sunrise-silhouetted Poolbeg stacks at Dublin Port; a fighting-strong trail-runner swim-to-bike Bayman XXL triathlete in St Malo; a sunny summer-ready old-school annual golf-match get-together, lightning-ended second hole wash-out and golf-club-replacing flood-rescue clubhouse-mops in Spain; mists and mellow fruitfulness in under-tree-lined hazy field-views in Guernsey; a pink October rose, a tractor-drawn family wine harvest, a starting-in-white harvester and a lagares-perched foot-treading red-legged grape spectacle in Portugal; a still-cold-looking multi-layered woolly-hatted equestrian coach in Wales; a horizontal-rain in-cloud viewless toe-takingly gusty white-out peak-conquest in Mayo; an orange-skied dawn, a fountain-bathing crow, a needy adolescent gull, perky palm-trees and a pigeon-festooned Fusiliers’ Arch in St Stephen’s Green; field-happy sunshine horses, a cocklebur-laden mane-and-tail puzzle for unpicking, an on-the-move pink-bucketed Guinea-pig triplet with new adventure-extension, a night-time return to a delight-filled wiggle-driven squealingly happy springer-whippet duo in the Cotswolds. Thinking of you all, Love from Lucie xoxo

Hi Everyone, A clear message kicked this week off - last week’s pool exercise was too much, too soon! Heavy flare of a not-yet-controlled autoimmune thyroid issue - debilitating symptoms for 3 days, then equilibrium refound. Non-linear navigation of this post-chemo immune-shaped landscape. Putting impatience on a leash. Pacing-threshold lowered. A week packed with appointments: GP, rheumatology, vascular, bloods. Dawns and dusks close-in. Parks open to refresh unusually thunder-hot late-September nights. Changeward weather. Ducks night-glide through the moon’s overspill water-smudge - its pale moonshine lake-disc follows me as I circle it. Wonder-filled Coco dips and dives, butterfly-like - her first time meeting scores of camouflaged land-travelling toads. Lime trees scatter bright yellow heart-leaves, lighting up our steps. Cool damp earthiness. Olfactory balade. Bench-pause under a weeping beech tree - branches animated by a sudden power-breeze. Dance surrounds me. Balcony evening-time. Not-too distant chants, firecrackers and klaxons met with blue-light sirens. Schools closed. Faculty of law blockaded. This young city protests - new-wave resistance. A darkening sky sits over orange-soft street-light and window-dotted early advent-calender. Nearby, a cellist rehearses. Resin-rich velvet-blue undertone-hues wrap around buildings, gallop down streets and hang low like a melancholic mist. Deep colour-sounds soul-soothe readied ears. Coco groans happily, turns her belly skyward - lips pulled earward, smiling. Her contentment brings me to my grandfather’s home in the west of Ireland - cascades of peatsmoke and pipesmoke and music. A pianist himself, convinced Lyric FM satisfied his collie’s musical tastebuds. A productive artist, tooling a knife to create bold oil-based textures, swirls. Landscapes - dark purple heather-soaked ridge-silhouettes stand against big skies over flag-filled bog, leaning down to wind-swept trees, sky-lit lake pools and white-horse tides. His dancing rainbow-spirit still jumps off canvas as scent, touch, taste, feeling. The other end of that painting knife oft-used to stir the coffee pot with flair, adding colour to actual tastebuds! The softening morning light reminds me of this week last year. Three weeks post-op. Anaemic. Daily 6am heparin injections. Stitches recently removed from 3-point-laparoscopy and nethers-to-bellybutton laparotomy. Fragile wounds. Aparthotel room - my first alone-week. Our beloved 14-year-old collie, Ruby, snores heavily bedside. 9pm calm. A sudden metal-sound-explosion as a hidden pipe bursts, hurling under-sink pots and pans across the room. Lights go out. High-pressure waterflow. My horizontal finds vertical. Splinted compression-tight-clad legs sit ankle-deep in hot water. Ruby finds and guides me - night-blind - to the door. The carpeted hall, now river-like, floods other people’s rooms. I call for help. Wading back into my room - finding the headtorch, saving medical records and electronic devices - precious communication with loved ones. A staff member finishing his shift knows I shouldn't lift anything post-op. Instead of going home he runs upstairs, packs my kitchen food, medication and belongings - helping me, and an upbeat Ruby, into the dry. My then current book - Anne Berest’s ‘Finistère’ - bobs randomly amongst bagged fridge-food, catching his eye. We discuss it in a moment of normality in this extraordinary situation - a book written in response to the author’s father’s cancer diagnosis. Tracing a Breton family’s contribution to social, agricultural and resistance movements. Strength in numbers. Freedom and equality-chasing. Organisation against adversity. Three days after the flood - an appointment with the surgeon to find out if the tumour was cancerous. The walls of the room close in to: “We have received the results and it isn’t good news”. Aoife’s hand finds my knee. Time slows and words drop heavy like a fall at speed - each micro-second under scrutiny. Each sentence and facial expression etched into memory - to deal with later. Calmness takes over. Positive solution-chasing. Looking for possibilities. For survival. Digesting news like this is highly personal. For me, slowing and tackling it logically. Emotion can come later. Truth-hunting at all costs. As a patient, I own that truth - it’s mine to know, share, adapt to, plan for. Days after my cancer diagnosis - now staying in a short-term rental on the other side of town - I bump into that kind Aparthotel staff member, who helped me during the flood. Me going to get the next book to read - him en route to his second job, as a bookshop-keeper! He offers support and reassuring words on behalf of the team. Grateful for this instinctive generosity and collective solidarity. Strong beat-sense weaves through all my years. Tempo and rhythm fundamental in sport - that metronome overspills into everyday subconscious. Recent motion, speech and thought has been laboured - slowed since May autoimmune crash. But low-dose thyroid medication is my early morning sunlight on a gecko’s back. Giving hope for more. A drumbeat dance returns - movement my own behavioural thyroid-function indicator. A viscerally-driven way to information-process. A way to feel. To ground. From my week - CDK dance company, ‘Somebody That I Used To Know’ by Gotye: https://youtu.be/REPPgPcw4hk?si=wWVF0E_RGdm3WoSe Thank you for your ongoing support on this fundraiser, which is allowing me to get the medical help and support I need to take on ovarian cancer and fight my way back to normal life. And thank you Orla for coming up with, setting up and running the fundraiser. It makes such a difference to each of my days. Your messages, videos and photos have been great to receive. This week I’ve had mist-filled red-dawn skies and under-crochet over-wool blanket-surfing bed-sharing sausage dogs in Guernsey; a Moonprayer for Vishnu, Uneed shop and tricycle-gift childhood memories, and a seaside trotter-drawn sulky shining on Brighton Vale, in Monkstown; a pair of bedtime-hugging, rain-dodging upside-down-sun-smiling sausage dogs and homemade lemon-curd cake-making-prowess in Gloucestershire; a dad-designed, baked and petal-adorned first-birthday cake with balloons, banners and beaming birthday-girl, in London; a generation-strong wind-dancing branch-twirling iconic lime tree, singing memories to me in Monkstown; autumn-filled sunshine and lively lower-lake boathouse water in Marlay Park; cuddle-mania energy-saving squirrel-filled boxes, a pigeon-catching Harris hawk and a GPJ-vibed bustop-resting racing-red MGB GT, in London; a beaming couple of tornado-dodging TGV-hopping adventurers in Paris; a bike-filled street-sipping after-work Comely-Bank beer-fuelled view from a familiar auld catch-up watering-hole in Edinburgh; a moonlit coastal-road sea-view-railing post-Purty stop-off and hardy stripey-gowned swimmers in Seapoint; a huge haul of home-grown purple sweet-potatoes and a highly dedicated sweet-chestnut-crunching human-springer team in Guernsey; leaf-nibbling Guinea-pigs, circus-tent gravity-defying aerial-acrobatics, morning colour-filled Camelotesque and evening mirror-clear lake-views and a laptop-hugging workforce-whippet in the Cotswolds. Thinking of you all, Love from Lucie xoxo

Hi Everyone, Recovery from ovarian cancer finally slipping into more familiar territory. Post-chemo thyroid-issue treatment beginning to give a window of opportunity. Energy-feeding cells. Sensory and motor clarity. Rapidly accumulating fluid disperses, easing unbearable gravity-dependent leg pressure. Medically-induced movement liberation. Pushing this new shell out of its comfort zone again. Strength-seeking. Resistance reps and sets. Starting from scratch - but happily starting. If cancer was a musculoskeletal issue, I’d have nailed it long ago. Illness like this - so alien to everything that went before. Now expecting the unexpected. Still clinging to controllable things. A four-month long chemo-induced thyroid-stilled and slowed shell - unwelcome summer-long energy wind-down. Of sensory dullness. Now, autumn neurological speed-up, arms-open to sense colour-finding. More in-movement time. Return of physical fidget. Wanting to - needing to - move. Playful energy on the come-back. Imagining life. Pathward access clearing to the first peak of this mountain range. Conscious of poor outcomes in late-diagnosed ovarian cancer. Pushing aside the hard-struggle-years that came before. Looking forward - driven to live to the max physically possible, the moments left. Wasting any time feels unacceptable. The last 4 months could easily fit this wasted mould - but this new thyroid-medicated handbrake-release gives clarity. The medical bird-cage door leans open, inspiring flight on still easily-tiring wings - but a will on fire, to make every beat count. A year ago this week, wrestling with compartment syndrome in both legs. A rare collateral-damage tissue trauma. Same mechanism as a crush injury - due to positioning needed during a complex gynecological-digestive surgery. Surgeon’s lightness and speed of adaptation to a totally necrosed, torsioned ovarian mass, with multiple pelvic attachments. Quickly converting to open laparotomy. A large fall-apart solid tumour causing surgery to be twice as long as expected - 5.5 hours. Salle-de-réveil - no abdominal pain after belly-opening - but first awake words alert to intensely overwhelming calf pressure-pain. Motor weakness in lower limbs. Numb ghost-white cold feet. Walking causing distal leg balloon-swelling. Daily work to restore function. Night and day leg-splinting. Pressure-pain deep in rigid calves. Stretching through it. Fighting ankle stiffness - a constant battle. Barely restoring range before the second marathon-operation in November. This time last year, waiting for histopathology results - to know if it was cancer - following surgery. Feeling physiologically well - all hellish symptoms removed. My application to the Irish health service for cover for medical care abroad that’s not available in Ireland in time - turned down. The refusal arrived while I was deep under anaesthetic, physically opened wide up - the time of day and date of surgery well known. Reeling at this unnecessary block to aid in the hours after my surgery, I then spent my well-days post-operatively, appealing their refusal - which was based on errors. This time last year, moving accommodation regularly. Instead of maximising post-surgical recovery, I had to compile the evidence again - and pen a carefully documented appeal. This week a west coast between-appointment trip. Large open skies. Rainbow sunrise and sunsets. Days pulling in. Migratory highway still busy with passereaux, with swallows dancing and dipping - late-butterfly catching, midge-clearing. Marshy reed-filled habitats. Barnacled bikes, oyster beds, limestone sculptures, mudflats. Marina low-tide curlew-whooping echoes in the distance. Coffee-scent escapes from open windows. Sudden-rush insect-life after scorching summer heat - collecting in an early autumn-sky fiesta. A missed summer-season compressed instead into a few September days of togetherness - of seeing nature again, of feeling and experiencing life. A chance to progress. To gather and store energy from new experience - hoping for kindness in the seasons ahead. Pool escape from compression-tight oppression. Same exercise - now no longer clock-watching. Limbs moving quicker. Response gives motion liberation. Muscle stretch replaces joint-pain range-block of weeks ago. Length-swimming, speed-chasing. Heart rate reasonably-responding. Water-based leg drills. Concentrating - left leg not yet cerebrally-connected, but neural-pathway learning. Safe proprioception and coordination - retraining nervous system in water cradle. Hydro resistance classes - familiar muscle-burn possible. Endorphin life-buzz. Below-scar abdominals engage - take the strain. At brief and difficult moments of pool exercise - neuromuscular fatigue fraying clean movement - deep-digging now physically possible. When there’s nothing left, maintaining focus by imagining an audience of health-system decision-makers - now, poolside - watching this effort. Seeing an example of someone unable to access timely care in Ireland, despite direct demand for help at home before receiving urgently-planned surgery in France. Now in my mind’s eye showing them I’m doing my best to turn this thing around - thanks to this fundraiser. Your help. Proving to the health system, to those responsible for blurry, unclear and delayed treatment pathways - that forced me out of my home and far from loved ones - that I’m fighting back. I’m coming back. What happened to me should happen to nobody. Strengthening and stretching - translation into everyday function. Starting to recondition bones, muscles. Thrilling response to physical questions asked. The aftermath - careful management, note-taking - looking for patterns of energy shifts or pain that follow exercise. A new structure and motivation. A promise-filled bright new harvest moon tomorrow - for all the tomorrows. A tune from my week - Twenty One Pilots, ‘My Blood’: https://youtu.be/1Pjt_pT_xuc?si=f9lARWwIibEV-jbP Your help on the fundraiser continues to blow me away. Thank you to each of you for supporting me on this wild path - my recovery from ovarian cancer, which hit hard after 4 years of unwellness - just before beginning a great new job. Having you alongside is inspiring and reassuring. The fundraiser gives me the chance to secure fixed accommodation - after 14 changes in 6 months. To pay for travel, rehab and the timely medical care I need to get through. Thank you so much. Your messages, videos and photos have been fun to receive. This week I’ve had delighted Rouen-bound sea-voyagers on an annual expedition, complete with wine spreadsheet, in Dublin; soft woodland-filtered Moorehall under-canopy light, a leaflitter-pathed walled-garden, a determined plastercast-clad warrior and a tail-up nose-down Jack Russell, in Mayo; ornate wrought-iron street-lamps, under-glitterball-cloudsky steeple-dancing and inflatable-slide headfirst-adults at a 4-year-old’s birthday party, in London; September storm-sky crepuscular rays in Loop Head lighthouse’s nighttime beam sweep, window-lit courtyard, iconic jagged peninsula with stacks and hugs, in Clare; a match-report starring 7-year-old in first rugby team line-up photo, in Limavady; a tiger-like equestrian coaching-cat in Gloucestershire; an under-moonlight night-jogging family, a lakeside-sniffing lost-in-thought high-stepping whippet and a pheasant-rustling speed-hitting hedge-detouring springer, in the Cotswolds. Thinking of you all, Love from Lucie xoxo

Hi Everyone, A week with medical stability in my sights - an improving clinical picture that is night and day compared with 2 weeks ago. Auto-immune thyroiditis-induced exhaustion eases, allowing the return of everyday activities without constant symptom flare. Getting to appointments by public transport again. Able to go food-shopping. Deep left leg pressure-pain has been reduced as the fluid-retention stabilises - a striking result of thyroid medication after 5 weeks. Summertime crutches ditched. Bite-sized, carefully managed, rationed and planned exercise possible - if balanced with more rest. If this activity-to-rest ratio is not controlled, a repeat-flare of auto-immune thyroid condition causes the same summer-long symptoms of swollen, painful small joints, intense physical fatigue and rapid weight-gain. Thyroid medication to be increased in small increments every 6 weeks. Told a further 3-6 months to safely bring it to a stable dose. Continued immuno-suppression to survey. Onward bound - despite cautious management. Holding back my will to go faster. Containing impatience. Pacing myself in this endurance race towards a constantly moving finish line. With rationed energy, a thrill-seeking water-borne antidote to last week’s travel mayhem and 9 medical appointments. Time off together - a first since Christmas, when it was shared with the aftermath of the first - biggest - dose of chemo three days before. A short trip from Rennes to where the Vilaine meets the Nantes-Brest canal at Redon. A brief backward-brake-pedal bike-ride along the canal path and a paddle-powered exploration of the Vallée du Don. Dropping into the body of a canoe off the jetty from a wild-flower filled field. Coco leaps in - she must have done this in a previous life! Push-off, finding timeless paddle-rhythm through this watery riparian-woodland path. Wildlife unphased by humans this shape. The first sunlit glade harbours flame-yellow fleabane blaze, flickering with speckled-wood papillon wings - sun-soaking. A buzzard whistles high above, then roaring self-powered silence. The strike-splash of the blade cutting, biting the water - leaving a silk-rippled trail in the river’s flesh. Iridescent blue-flash - kingfisher water-swoops under dense willow and oak, low-slung ash on the lean. Fallen-tree navigation, bloom-filled ivy-vines and hip-covered wild-rose. Striking reflections. An old château. Horses, heads low, observe gently from the fringe - their scent brings me back. Fast-passing clouds. Libellules hover-sparkle - brush-wing faery-sounds over lilypads. Legend-linked to home - water-spirits and magical energy. Of starlight and moonlight and luck. A new moon waxing crescent to gibbous, and building. The same moon, now a year from my first post-op hospital escape. Then, 6am nurse-visits with heparin injections for 35 days - into alternate, bruised thighs. The elation, after a week’s strengthening, to walk to the nearest park bench 200m away. Sitting there and feeling all the woodpeckers in Rennes had come to welcome me out, under this old oak tree as it threw its acorns around me in celebration. The newness of spontaneity on this parallel week. A night under stars and soft-edged lunar sea-mist glow, as sundown-air cools quickly. Of velvet-soft sand retraining afferent plantar nerve-fibres. Of reduced foot symptoms allowing an Atlantic dip in summer-warmed sea, without risking blood-vessel injury. Freedom re-found. Pitching myself against and diving through waves. Of Coco paddling out earnestly behind. Of surfing them in together. Of saltwater-tightened skin. Of sandy-toe squeeze into compression tights, to the chorus of piping shoreline sanderlings. This inaccessible, wildly empty beachscape fronts biotopic dunes and dense maritime forest. Hare’s tail and marram grass stroke through pepper-fresh rocket. Sandhill snail-covered stalks and fence-post moonshadows. Lush green pine and hollyoak shade. Undulating deep sand tracks. A chance nightjar encounter - its rattle-purr encouragement echoes over freshwater forest ponds - frog full, singing to this new start. Beckoning me onward. Life-hunting. Normality-chasing. Consultations this week - ongoing review of chemo-induced auto-immune thyroiditis since May - a complex medical situation. An electromyogram of hands and lower legs confirms sensory nerve injury, explaining ongoing proprioceptive challenges since the first chemo dose in December. A summer-season lost to cellular exhaustion, in an untreated auto-immune storm. A body so thrown by chemo, its immune system attacks itself. Now, despite the prospect of months on a thyroid-medication see-saw, this newfound taste of energy feels strikingly positive. This symptom reprieve recalls a distant memory of feeling able and well. Surfing waves instead of wading against a strong undercurrent. This moment, right now, is surely my first opportunity to begin post-chemo and surgical recovery. And with this recent well-feeling, an important realisation of how terrible the last 4 months have been. The daily physical struggle. The deep-digging to surmount it - to push energy-starved cells in this shell uphill. These symptoms eclipse anything experienced during chemo - where corticosteroids body-buoy, lifejacket-like. Reaching a tangible recovery trail on the approach to the autumn equinox and its harvest moon. A hard-work reward. A new beginning. A red sky at night. A song from my week - Richard Ashcroft, ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’: https://youtu.be/_8dVRByLvnQ?si=26KhjAhY3rkDuBjK Your support on the fundraiser allows me to pay for accommodation and travel expenses, as well as the medical equipment and help I need in my quest for recovery, in the aftermath of ovarian cancer and ongoing treatment. Thank you. Your messages, photos and videos have been great to receive. This week I’ve had a toe-pointing aerial snow-goose, an alert crest-up skylark, a bullet-shaped in-flight whinchat, a heron perching, a pronking deer, a badge-winning sniffer with an insistently gentle waker-upper alarm-clock sausage dog, in Gloucestershire; a candle-lit positive-vibe-filled flame-fest in Roscommon; a palm-tree framed rainbow-view of St Peter Port marina from Victoria Pier in Guernsey; new plasterwork and early morning Malvern under-tree golden retriever action, in Worcestershire; sweat, smiles, sunglasses and post-race pram-support, medals and PBs on the Richmond Run Fest in London; a bandage-sporting pill-box-rattling post-infection pampered springer in Guernsey; a Paris-Nice cycle for ovarian cancer research, sent from Dublin; cosy-fleece hammock-stacked pet rats and new senior-school starters with ‘tude, just outside London; an intrepid hiker, a scrambling chamois and a lunar lake-filled landscape on the Via Alpina followed by marina swims, clean(ish) clothes and narrow winding port-streets, in Slovenia; a tree-nestled view of a memory-filled family farmhouse deep in the Mendip foothills of Somerset; a moonlit lighthouse, a floodlit fountain-dipping alsatian, pre-swim straw hats and full-bloom jacaranda in Cadiz; an upside-down amongst-lettuce allotment-cat, a skewbald guinea-pig and a hairless feline in London; a green-wrapped fresh cloud-filled lake, a duvet-demanding autumnal whippet and a deer-stalking hare-hunting rabbit-catching sheep-scented springer, in the Cotswolds. Thinking of you all, Love from Lucie xoxo

Hi Everyone, A week of contrasts. Of crises and kindness. Of standstill and rushing. Of staring into space and intense concentration. Of observing the worst and best of human behaviour. Of short energy peaks and long evening troughs. Being ground-lagged. Of pushing against the natural order of day and night - circadian scrambling - to reach an important goal. A trip to Galway - a solution-hunting voyage for treatment-related complications threatening quality of life. Of setting up return pathways. A backdrop of air-traffic grounding. Planes in wrong places. Finding myself in the eye of the storm without the right gear - on the airport floor at Nantes - waiting for news. Energy-ebbing evening time. Of the will to live well physically - to seek answers - too strong, too invested to exit here. No appetite for abandon. The first guillotine drops and takes the head off the starter-link in a journey-chain. Flight cancelled. A stampede of non-chemobrained people. Of decisions made and actioned rapidly around me. I stand, but seem unable to start in any direction. A leaky energy-tank drops near zero - refuelling bypasses the motor. My shell losing its ability to get necessary energy. I take an earplug out to listen to announcements and dose-up on medicinal Haribo, looking at the information screens. Buses, trains sold out. No flights from Nantes to Ireland for 2 days. No accommodation left. No easy way out. Shrugs. Retracing steps in this impatient crowd. Of hearing a quiet voice despite the decibels - a calm face. A young French guy trying to reach London for work, shows me another exit corridor, avoiding the crowd. One more train to Paris - one seat left. Now on the bus, returning to Nantes train station - trying to pay online for that seat, but the internet is saturated. The leg yells at me, disturbing clear thought. Remembering codes, 2-step-authentication. Retyping. In English, in French. Refocus. Brain fog freeze. Payments finally go through and I get that last seat - a lottery win. We walk together to get the Paris train. I wish him courage, knowing that with 7 double-decker carriages and random seat allocation, it’s unlikely we’ll cross paths again. As I get settled into the seat, a stubborn Haribo doesn’t seem to submit to my teeth. I take it out and find a miraculously-still-intact earplug! Conscious of the effort needed to get through the evening-time hypothyroid energy-crash - but decide to launch myself into chaos, knowing I still might not make the appointments. Watching the Loire-Atlantique slip away as the train powers forward in half-light to the City of Light. Reflecting on this year-long battle - after the wealth of a healthy life. That perseverance is the only way forward - despite setbacks, disappointment and hardship of challenges like this. The leg issue has changed my mobility - removed options, altered my lived experience. This trip and additional scan - looking further, digging for logical explanations - hoping for specific treatment options rather than a general approach. Having no time for guess work. The train takes us late into the night to Paris Montparnasse. Two seats ahead, this now-familiar stranger stands up and waves at me. As I wave back - laughing at the odds - I wonder if he’s real. Asking myself had I actually seen him interact with anybody else! He gently melts into the crowd and is gone. The rest of the round-trip to Ireland was peppered with bus, train, plane cancellations and delays. Of endless re-booking on the move, connections, medical paperwork. Of sitting on the floor with the leg up - pressure building with gravity in standing or sitting. Of barely 5 hours’ sleep in 2 nights. Of needing a taxi in Paris to fill a 4am gap in the airport bus timetable. Of it arriving with a flat tyre! Of surmounting it together - the taxi driver and me. Of discovering, during this odyssey, that he too has cancer and is currently receiving treatment. Of a moment taken at setdown - swapping experience, outlook and hope. Later that morning, perched on the top deck of the Galway Citylink - racing past pastel blue-hue Heuston warehouses, into overriding greenness and Guinness-ness. The Liffey snakes through the grasses in Chapelizod. Later, the lungs stretch a bit - oxygen richer, soul watered, muscle fibres lengthen - as the bus crosses the Shannon, westward home. Rushes blaze in the morning light across bog - tufted humps and troughs, old cut-marks, sliced tweed cake - heavy and rich. Sunkissed grasses sway, lying wind-flattened like hares’ ears. Curves and smooth lines - the softness of nature’s edges eases tired eyes. The top deck feels close to the cloud blanket which travels fast here - wrapping low and tucking in on the horizon, just beyond the fields rising and falling in quavers and harpish green highlights - disappearing beyond heatherish-outline of mountains - their low sleeping form, rain-camouflaged as they kiss the clouds and feed the tourbières. Sponge-soaking water, sphagnum-slowing, pooling for frogs - near bog orchids and cotton, where lichen-bright hawthorn sprites call faeries to stargaze. Nowhere else hosts clouds and skies like here. Today, the anniversary of the first urgent surgery. All year, this was a date guarded from medical appointments - a day together. Just to be - to take charge. But travel delays push appointments back into this space. That small gap in the cage door, not quite wide enough for escape. Six appointments in Rennes, including kidney being cleared for vigilant self-management - ownership with a safety net; thyroid medication being increased; another haberdashery visit for a fitting - smurf blue tights replaced with black ones; a vascular consultation and a second one in a couple of weeks. Those mountain tops might be out of reach, but they’re in my sights. Radiohead’s ‘High and Dry’ - https://youtu.be/EhiJ1OU5NJc?si=G59qJTPFHNG1lZfq Thank you for your incredible support on the fundraiser which allows me to access medical care, including this trip, and gives me the space I need to get physically better. I’ve loved receiving your photos, videos and messages. This week I've had an on-the-vet’s-doorstep music festival and a Dr Seuss-style cat-in-the-hat, in Rugby; a surfer-topped Severn bore, silken sunrise and molten sunsets, a cosy sausage-dog hug and a treeline-skimming buzzard clutching a frog in Gloucestershire; home-grown bananas in full-flower in Guernsey; a spirit-hearted dad-climbing 10-month-old in Westport; spinning flowers, a paper frog, colourful braids, a double-fronted toothfairy-offering, new clicking fingers and swamp-swimming stories from Hell & Back, in a video update from Rathfarnham; Gaudi-inspired family outside La Sagrada Familia, a mosaic lizard and berry-bunch, colour-flooding stained-glass windows and an iris photo-shoot, in Barcelona; limestone formations, Lipizzaners and low clouds, mountain forest climbs and blue-sky rewards, high on the Via Alpina in Slovenia; Basque restauranting and family-phoneside surgical news-awaiting anniversary-memories from Cadiz; drain-hole mud-making, concrete-laying and a post-rain eau-de-chien-emitting golden retriever in Worcestershire; Guinea-pig fresh-grass exploration circuits, things rustling in hedges, an enthusiastic night-walk brake-failure camera-person-wipe-out springer and a reluctant post sausage-stealing pillow-hunting whippet-prince, in the Cotswolds. Thinking of you all, Love from Lucie xoxo

Hi Everyone, Leaving Ireland to return to Rennes was difficult. Solution-chasing. Multiple appointments - for the leg issue since last year’s surgery, as well as the thyroid condition that began at the end of May. Battling on with pressure and pain in the left leg and foot. The chemo-induced auto-immune thyroid issue has been causing rapid metabolic and physiological changes: heavy exhaustion, small-joint arthralgia and rapid weight gain. After 5 weeks of medication, the last few days have given a sudden, slight, but welcome improvement in energy. Bodyweight edged further upwards until the end of this week - then the first significant drop. With it, small joint-arthralgia and swelling seems to fluctuate - rather than the stagnant pain of the previous 12 weeks. A so-far successful trial of light walking without impact-support from crutches. Working towards medical stability - hoping it might not be too far away. Delight in autumness. Damp brings smell into focus. The sun, lower, moves around the building more quickly - shade easily found. Roads and cycle lanes busy - pressed with nervous back-to-school energy. Song-like babble and chatter of small children on the back of bikes - inquisitive school and crêche drop-offs. The massive student population of Rennes is returning, and residential streets are alive with moving-in activity and get-togethers - gently spilling over to late-night and early-morning top-window balcony chats. Parks and green spaces - humanly quiet but birdly busy. Trees that have held on are letting go: conkers, hazelnuts, chestnuts, acorns - strewn harvest offerings despite this year’s hardship. The wind returns as a playful, swirling artist - dry leaf-litter their material - creating constantly changing pavement art. Coco high-tail diving, pouncing and chasing. Adolescent jackdaws pitch themselves against the gusts, holding bobbing positions before a tumble-dive play-fight and repeat. Pigeons still court, wandering on foot with nesting-material-stuffed beaks. The flash of a willow-warblers’ green hue. Flitting blue and long-tailed tits - the nuclear leaders of these small mixed bands of feeders - move at speed through the park, busily working grubs from cherry trees and hazel branches. Fringe-side delinquent chaffinches. Starlings have begun their seasonal dusk-gatherings up on buildings, radio masts and cranes - diving noisily into dense trees to roost out of sight, shuffling and chattering together as though making plans. I sit in my favourite Rennais park for the first time in months - absorbing its energy. I’ve missed a whole season here to heatwaves and debilitating symptoms. The park looks well. Deep-rooted ancient trees have a good grip - able to find water. Under an avenue of huge lime trees, the wind builds in high branches, leaf-rustles gain momentum as more catch the wind like sails - their collective force moves my soul. I close my eyes and am taken well above these whispering trees. I imagine the aerial view of park activity around me - book-reading, sketching, chatting, contemplating, being. How grateful I am for this newly accessible energy! That I won’t get stuck and need help to get back to the apartment. Like a bird, I spot a possible escape route from this medical cage. Dusty frass and tannin-sloughed bark collects at the base of giant sequoias. Red squirrel acrobats jump between oaks, spiralling the trunks in pursuit. The day’s clouds clear a little, offering midday blueness. My look is drawn skywards. The hairs on my arms stand up at the chance - a raptor kettle circles tight above the park, thermal-catching for energy-saving migration. Honey buzzards (from number and silence) - powerful feathered messengers passing over Rennes from the north, heading southward through that mountain gap I love, by the forêt d’Iraty, to be counted on their journey to equatorial Africa. A cardiopulmonary exercise bike test was arranged following my trip to Lyon - to know the heart and lungs were not damaged by taxol-based chemo. Fast-building lactate - working at aerobic threshold. Breathing laboured, fighting off CO2 but feeling an adrenaline buzz now. Battling heavy legs. Digging deep - pushing through the pain. Fighting acidosis - quads hardly respond. Searching for a way to get nerve signals through. Yelling at them! Of the cardiologist choosing now to start a conversation about the west of Ireland - I desperately want to join, but can’t without stopping! This, an added test of willpower and concentration at peak exhaustion! Of loving the challenge. Of going til I can’t. Results really good given the circumstances, at 149-200% of the healthy age-average. As my grandfather would say - get me! More biological tests under my belt before a urology consultation for the kidney next week. An appointment in that medical haberdashery brought me straight back to February’s smurf-blue compression tights - they remembered me! Several GP and blood test appointments - monitoring. A small surgical procedure to sort out an embedding toenail - a common issue after chemo, but which can exacerbate lymphoedema. For me, autumn is about embracing change. Running fast through early mists suspended over fields or diving into cool, uncrowded swell. Harnessing energy to the purr of far-away chainsaws and oaky bonfire drift. Watching the lowering still-warm sun, as it sinks quickly now. Change is so welcome. A song that found me this week - Birdy, ‘Wings’: https://youtu.be/eBKfy0FwUC8?si=Gl9v3hdPMRfl2ybJ Thank you each of you, for your ongoing incredible help and generosity - and to Orla for coming up with and creating the fundraiser. Thanks to you all, I can get medical support I need. I’m blown away by it - and you - every single day of my recovery. Your messages, videos and photos have been brilliant. This week I’ve had crashing waves and craggy cliffs on Aberfelin Bay, Green Bridge of Wales and Elegug Stacks, light-filled St Govan’s Chapel, joyful sausage-dog beach ball-games, wild-wind ears throwing shapes and double dog-prints in the sand, in Pembrokeshire; sunshine, long evening shadows and great friends at one of the last Bohs’ matches at Dalyer, in Dublin; Belle Époque Jersey lilies in full pink-trumpet bloom, heralding autumn, in Guernsey; high silver skies and cobblestone-perched pigeons, on the Thames in Brentford; an exhilerating family-reunited up-to-the-shorts stream-paddle, and delicious looking left-overs, in Devon; a house uptuttle in progress, a dawn leaf-litter walk, a home-made hotel-room meal and a relatively-uncomfortable-but-better-than-nothing open-air couch and a sporting garden-sitting golden retriever, in Worcestershire; family smiles and send-offs in Gatwick; a green and red Mayo hat, flag and blue-sky love, The Banshees of Inisherin and Keem Bay birthday celebrations, in Achill; a 3D rainbow-coloured flower-power knitted snail-scene, warming hearts - and a postbox - in sunny Belfast; a new wrist cast primed for signing, and a list of exercises from MUH in Castlebar; a 21st wedding-anniversary celebration and a jetsetting storm-chasing canine classic, back on the boardwalk in Porto; a track-practice precision showjumping session, a striped and spotty multi-species coworking team, show-stoppingly juicy bramble-berries, a side-winding cat-bed pose, a perfectly square-halting whippet-springer lakeside team and a focussed field-tidying springer, in the Cotswolds. Thinking of you all, Love from Lucie xoxo