Except it wasn’t. After seven months in our new Northumbrian home, I’m increasingly disorientated by the city. The lack of sky bothers me. So does the squash of people. One day, walking to the tube station, I forgot I was in London for a moment and said ‘good morning’ to someone walking in the opposite direction. Not only did she not respond, she looked terrified. I could see the words ‘I knew I should have put my stab vest on this morning’ flash across her features as I passed. (To be fair, though, the Ocado delivery man having a sneaky fag by the park did smile as I went by.) I have lost the knack of moving between the crowds in Clapham Junction station, and get in everyone’s way. It’s noisy. I can’t believe how expensive everything is.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying the city is bad. There are many things I love about being there. There’s a grubby energy that rolls through the streets. Shopping is an activity you can do on your way to or from somewhere, not an expedition in itself. Sushi is readily available. I get to spend time with my son and my godchildren and their families and I love it.

No, what’s surprising me is how utterly adrift I felt in the place that was my happy home for more than two decades.

This week has shown me how much our immediate environment influences us, without us ever realising it. Which in turn shows how difficult it can be to think well and make good decisions – without noticing, we are influenced by what surrounds us. Of course we are. And so, so much of the work I do is about showing others how to get past the immediate and to take a look at what we habitually overlook. This week, I’m learning that anew, for myself. A wise trainer once told me something I’ve never forgotten. ‘In the end,’ she said, ‘you will teach what you need to learn.’ I think that’s what I’m doing.

What have you stopped noticing?

(To read more about what I do, take a look at Indigo Business Services and, for my work with individuals, Stephanie Makes You Think.)

Welcome. Please come in.

Please let me take your coat.

Here’s what Joy calls the Dibrary – dining room/library.

All hail to hardworking Ben and Steve at Woodhorn Joinery Services, for fitting eight bookcases into four corners where nothing is at right angles to anything else. (There are plans for more shelves where the Christmas cards are.)

Here’s our living room, proud home of the Angel, and made lovely by the people who are in it. (Although when I took this photo, Joy and Hope were upstairs Doing Christmas and were on no account to be disturbed.)

My beloved kitchen,

transformed by taking out a breakfast bar and a little cooker and replacing them, respectively, with what I like to call my ‘open pantry’ -

(OK, they’re shelves) and a range cooker. It’s a joy to be in. (Especially as we also have a Futility Room in which to put all of the boring, ugly necessities like washing machines and dishwashers and ironing and recycling and the steam cleaner I have owned for more than a year and never yet taken out of its box.)

We had fun finding a home for this little piece of Alan’s history. It’s his certificate for passing his Temperance Knowledge Examination, back in 1955. (Sadly, Alan cannot recall the details of the exam. I like to think it was a whole series of questions along the lines of ‘Which is the best drink at the end of a hard day’s work? (a) Gin (b) A pint of bitter with a whisky chaser (c) A lovely cup of tea.)

Anyway, above the wine rack seemed the perfect place.

And this nook pleases me enormously.

I made* the notice-board; the blackboard works really well as a living shopping list; I love the tilting bowl, made** by the lovely Rhian Whinslade, and I can pick something out of my Blue Sky Tin whenever I choose.

This is our home. Thank you for your patience in reading my wibbling about it for all of these months.  (In a break with the usual tradition of this blog, I’ve shown you most of my downstairs and kept my upstairs to myself. There is another bit of it I want to show you, but it needs a post all of its own. I think you’ll see why, tomorrow.)

*May not actually constitute craft. In this case ‘made’ means: I bought a frame from eBay, bought a corkbord from WHSmith, bought some pretty pins from Paperchase, got my Dad to cut the cork so it fitted inside the frame, went through my fabric stash for something cheerful, wrapped the corkboard in it and tacked it taut, and got Alan to put some hooks and wire on the back of the frame so I could hang it up.

** Properly made. She has a kiln and everything and her work is amazing. She made the pot on the dining room table too.

At the weekend, we had some bookcases installed. (Not as easy as you’d think as there isn’t a right angle in this house and everything had to be scribed to fit.) The shelves themselves will arrive on Friday – they are being cut to size off-site, as every bookcase is a different width – but in the meantime we are starting to sort our books out.

Looks like chaos. Feels like chaos. I hope that it won’t be chaos, in the end. But I have absolutely no hope of finding a book to review for you until this lot is sorted. So the Bah! Tuesday book review will be back next week. Unless of course I get trapped under a pile of books between now and then. (Doesn’t someone die of that, in a book? Can anyone remember which one?)

What I hadn’t factored in was the sheer volume of boxes involved and how the fact that the contents were written on the side wouldn’t necessarily help me to Actually Find Anything.

But as time goes on and homes are found for our possessions, and load after load of cardboard goes to the tip, it’s getting easier to reconnect with the stuff I have been not so much ‘looking for’ as ‘vaguely hoping to come across again at some point’.

Like the box at the bottom of this stack.

On the side I have scrawled,  ’Bah! BBB- keep separate’. (I think I meant ‘keep these books, which I don’t actually own but am holding until the right person in need of a good read claims it for their own, separate from the books we do own’ rather than ‘Isolate this box!’. Although at that point in the packing process, things did get a little hazy.) In there is a trove of wonderful reads donated to the Bah! Brilliant Book Bonanza. I’m looking forward to giving them away, very soon. So please, don’t give up on the Bah! BBB – I haven’t.

Current books available for anyone in need of a good read are here. They are fabulous.

But I still can’t wait to get to that box.

One thing that’s surprising is how much we are throwing away, even now. Because when we packed, I was fairly certain that – apart from the few random boxes at the end where you are chucking in all the stuff you don’t really know what to do with – we were only bringing things that we love and need. I was rigorous, ruthless even, in what I threw away. We had endless trips to the tip and a running free jumble sale on our front windowsill for about 3 weeks. (Not that we lived in a midden, you understand. It’s just that there was a lot of, well, stuff.)

And yet, there are still a lot of black bin bags going to the tip here. I am opening boxes and wondering why on earth I bothered to wrap THAT in newspaper. I was a little perplexed until I remembered a conversation I had with Nathalie. She said that whenever you pack or unpack, there’s only so deep you can go. There’s only so much of your possessions and past and belongings that you can ditch at any one time. So no matter how well you think you pack, there will always be more to get rid of at the unpacking.

I think she’s right. And I also think that this insight sheds some light on to some of the things that happened during my dance with cancer. Although I try hard not to dwell on the past or play at ‘what if’, there were definitely times when I think I could have done more – to stand up for myself, to be physically stronger and braver, to ask more questions, to be clearer about my treatments and my needs and how I wanted to be treated. And sometimes I wonder why I didn’t.

I tend to put it down to being ill or not myself or now having the benefit of hindsight. All of which may be true. But it may equally be true that, in any new or difficult situation, there’s only so deeply you can delve at one time. Being assertive with oncolgists needs a certain amount of patience and a lot of ‘I’m not here to be liked I’m here to make sure I get the right treatment for me’. And although I can do assertive pretty well, patience and being prepared to be disliked come a little harder to me. When in pain it’s not easy to get deep enough to find your extra bravery.

I love how the cancer answers keep on coming.

We’re not there by any means: this will be our library.

But some rooms are pretty habitable.

We are getting used to life in the country. Here’s a photo from the porch.

And I’ve found a little space for this.

(I haven’t been to the doctor yet. I’m sure there will be time soon. And anyway, I don’t know that I’ve ever felt better.)

There’s one thing I haven’t done, though. Well, there are a lot of things I haven’t done, but this one I haven’t done deliberately, rather than not getting around to it yet.

I haven’t registered with a doctor.

I know, I know, but the thing is, I’m enjoying being a carefree new Northumbrian. I’m loving the dog walking and the furniture shopping and the being able to drop in on my family without it being a major deal.  I’m playing, really, at new houses and it’s so much fun I don’t want to stop. (I’m thinking it will be even more fun when we have a house….) And I feel that as soon as I go to meet my new doctor, sit down, and say the c-word, well, this little holiday period in my life will be over. I don’t want to have to go through the whole sorry tale again: I don’t want to be referred to a new hospital and sit in a series of different waiting rooms and have my annual mammogram and get poked around and generally feel like cancer girl once more. (OK, cancer-nearly-40-year-old-woman. Doesn’t have the same ring, somehow.) In short, I don’t want to get back on the cancer bus.

I know this is silly. I know that I won’t catch cancer from a doctor and I know that I need to be vigilant and the hospital system will help me to do that. But I’m really, really liking the way I don’t have to ‘do’ cancer right now. I have enough Tamoxifen to keep me going for another fortnight, and then I’ll do the necessary. Until then, I’m just a woman with a home to make.

Then there are a couple of other dimensions of limbo. There’s driving limbo: I’m spending a huge amount of time behind the wheel, and have my test in a couple of weeks, but I can’t actually properly drive (in the technical and legal senses), and I keep putting things off until I can. ‘There’s no point in finding a yoga class/ Pilates teacher/knitting group’, I say to myself, ‘ until I can drive, because then I will be able to get there myself’.

And there’s book limbo. I have The Idea For The New Book – I even have The A4 Sheet With The Plan On It – but it’s not quite ready to start going onto paper yet. (Also, I need to get my head around Scrivener. Which, come to think of it, is something I could do while I’m waiting for the new book to take on enough of a form to go on to the screen.) As for The First Book – well, I have a meeting about that in a couple of weeks, which should move things on, so I’m in a bit of a limbo there too. (I’ll tell you about it as soon as I can.)

For all this, though, one thing is not in limbo, and that is our feeling about where we are. Alan and I went to the beach on Sunday evening. This is what it was like.

4 fisherman, a couple with a dog, this sky, and us. It’s not always this spectacular, but it’s always this beautiful. And almost always that quiet. We walked and we talked and we got a bit chilly because we still haven’t quite got the hang of just how many clothes you need in Northumberland on an October evening. And we agreed that here is exactly the right place to be.

Would we be here without my dance with cancer? I don’t know. I don’t think so. We wouldn’t have been ready for such a big change: we wouldn’t have looked at our life the way we have over the past couple of years. Another thing to add to the list of ‘things I’m strangely thankful to cancer for’. It’s an odd, and lovely, world.

On Monday, the movers came to our home in London. I missed it all because I was working (deep guilt/deep ecstasy), but Alan masterminded the whole thing, and once it was done, he loaded Maisie into a cat carrier and drove the 350 miles north to my parents’ place in our brand new car. (Properly new. It was delivered at 2pm on Monday. We haven’t had a car in London but it’s a necessity in Northumberland.)

So on Monday morning, I left the house that has been my home for almost 15 years for the last time. It’s been the place where my children have grown up, the witness to the end of my first marriage and my first happy decade with Alan, the haven I survived cancer in. I’m not sorry that we are leaving, because it feels absolutely right. But I feel grateful to our lovely old house, for sheltering us in more ways than one down the years. Most of what is special about it, of course, goes with us. (Although I do wonder whether the next person who lives there will switch the kitchen light off with the tip of their nose when they are leaving the room with a plate of food in each hand.)

I finished the cape I’ve been knitting.

On Monday and Tuesday, I ran a Lateral Thinking workshop; showing others ways to think differently reminded me how differently I now think myself, and how crucial the brain is in any dance with cancer.  And I love my job. I really do. Also, one of my delegates was a ten year cancer survivor, and I can’t tell you how great it is to meet one of them.

Also on Monday, my beloved goddaughter Evie’s baby sister was born to my dear friend Scarlet. It’s such a thrill to get a whole new person to love.

I was sorry to get some sad news on Monday too. You may remember this guest post about the young Mum who asked her neighbours to befriend her daughters because she had terminal cancer? Well, she died. I’m not going to try to wrap that up or make a point with it. I’m just going to say how very sorry I am. Bloody cancer.

And today, Dad and I are driving down to London to meet Ned and take part in the Night Hike. We’ll be walking 20 miles around London to raise money for Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centres. There will be a couple of thousand people, and we’ll all be wearing bowler hats. Look out for us. Keep an eye out for my Twitter updates. Please sponsor us if you can.

As I walk I’ll be thinking about Vikki, and about the 10-year cancer survivor that I met, and about all of the people I’ve seen in waiting rooms and chemo chairs and radiotherapy clinics over the last couple of years. I’ll be thinking about the new baby I hope to meet tomorrow and how I hope that in her lifetime cancer becomes about as medically significant as a bumped elbow or an ingrowing toenail. (Yup, I’ve still got the ingrowing toenail going on. Please note that ‘medically insignificant’ is not the same as ‘painless’.)  I’ll be thinking about me, and about the family and friends who have got my through. I’ll be thinking about you, Bah! readers. Some of you I know, many more thousands I don’t. But if you are dancing with cancer, or watching someone else do it, then I’m walking with you in my heart.

1. Add your Declaration to yesterday’s post.

2. If you’ve got a guest blog post for me, email it over, and earn my undying gratitude.

3. Have a look at the current Bah! BBB and add your name to the ‘Pick me!’ list.

4. Send someone a card. In the post. No, you haven’t forgotten a birthday – well, you might have, but if you have you need to send that as well. As I have packed, I’ve found cards everywhere, and gathered them all together, and been overwhelmed by all of the good wishes that have come my way over the last nearly-two-years. I have get well soon cards, which are lovely, but also ‘how are you doing’ cards and ‘I am thinking of you’ cards and ‘you could probably do with a bit of cheering up’ cards. All of these dropped through the door on a comletely random basis and all of them made my day. I’ve packed them all into my ‘bugger herceptin and pass me the gin’ box, and can just about get the lid on. Now, emails and texts and ‘how are you doing’ phone calls are brilliant too, don’t get me wrong, but a card through the post, that someone has bothered to choose and write in and buy a stamp for and find my address for and put in the post, is really special. Who do you know who could do with one of those? If you are dancing with cancer, maybe there’s a ‘thank you for being there’ card you would like to send?

5. That said, there are probably a emails or texts that you could send too, just to let someone know you are thinking of them, to keep in touch, to arrange that meet-up you’ve been meaning to sort out for months.

6. Make a bit of time for yourself. No matter how busy you are, 10 minutes to have a coffee and look through the paper, maybe do the crossword, maybe read a chapter of your book or get a couple of rounds of sock knitting in (get started here), will do you the world of good. You know it makes sense.

7. If you’re under pressure, try to keep a sense of perspective. Ask yourself, ‘Will this matter so much in a month?’ or ‘If I do this tomorrow instead of today, will it be a disaster?’ If the answer to either (or both) of those questions is ‘yes’, fair enough, but it’s amazing how often the answer is ‘no’.

8. Please, if you can, sponsor Ned, Dad and me for the London Night Hike in aid of Maggie’s Centres. Just click here. We’d really appreciate your support. (If you could do a little bit of training for me too, that would be a real help. Just walk 5 miles and email them over. Ta.)

9. Add something fun/cool/nice to the Bah! to-do list in the comments section.

10. Have a driving lesson. Oh, no, that’s jut me. Have a great day.