We’re all too familiar at the moment with bumps and holes in the road. Okay, this speed bump is meant to slow traffic down but even this shows signs of wear and tear and what about the huge holes that are all over the UK at the moment? But I don’t wish to talk about holes, bumps or roads. What I want to talk about are the bumps or ups and downs we encounter in life.

2025 began with such excitement and anticipation – two family weddings, amazing! First that of my aunt marrying her partner in her 70’s. It’s never too late to marry. It was a fantastic occasion in East Sussex on a cold February day which warmed up your insides.Then, our family anticipates the wedding of my nephew in August and before that my sister has a big birthday. The year couldn’t get any better could it? Then we hit a bump in the road in the form of my husband’s aunt, a lovely lady in her nineties dying. Okay, she had lived a long life but it was a life of suffering cancer and nursing a husband with dementia, not an easy life. However, she never forgot a birthday or a special occasion even those of her nephew’s partner!

Fast forward a few days and I am recalled to a simple breast screening appointment to find out that I have cancer. A real surprise. The good thing is that the tumour is very small and of a low grade so is easily dealt with. However, all these bumps in the road affect our writing time. They make us tired, they sap our energy and time moves onwards without many opportunities to write. Meantime others are busy scribbling away.

But I guess it’s during the tough times that we refuel and find the words to write for the future. It was after Kate Nicholas’ much worse diagnosis of breast cancer that she found the strength in recovery to write her first book and now the new one. So I am hopeful that the ideas mulling around my head will be able to take root when the time is right.

I have read Sea Changed but have yet to read the second, to the Ocean Floor, but it is on order. Well worth a read.