For the love of hugging....

Have you noticed, on Twitter...the number of virtual `hugs` that get sent around if someone`s having a bad day? I`ve sent a few. (I`m going to send one to Kelly in a minute.) And I`ve had a few back. Mad? No--it`s touching. Without touching. Someone out there, often someone you`ve never met, feels for you and cares about your problems. I like that about Twitter.

I like hugs in `real life`, too. Because they can convey so much.

A couple of days ago, I witnessed two grown men: one English, one French, wrapped round each other in a HUGE bear hug. Neither spoke the other`s language terribly well, and they hadn`t seen each other for months. A handshake didn`t seem enough. So they just went for it. With a bit of pally backslapping and throat clearing to round it off. And then the Frenchman came in for a blokey shot of Scotch.

I know a bit of French--but sometimes, not the words I need. Down the same little lane in France, a dear friend had just lost her mum. I needed to say something, and it had to be right. I texted a brilliant linguist mate of mine back in Blighty, and she penned a couple of lines for the card. I wrote them, sealed it up, bought some flowers, and tiptoed down her drive. Why did I tiptoe? You just do, don`t you, in those circumstances.

Annick opened the door, and without words, we hugged. I thought I ought to say something too....and started with the usual `ca va...?`...but found myself biting my lip, and lurching into phrases like `tres triste....` and then stumbling into how I`d `pense` about her in the `jours difficile` that lay ahead. Then, both of us close to tears...I hugged her again. Which hopefully said it all.

The next day...same lane ; more hugs--but happy ones...this time from another French neighbour I hadn`t seen for months. This was a little `yelp with delight` hug. She speaks no English, and she`s heard my entire French vocabulary over and over, several times. (Yes, the roses in her garden really are beautiful. Yes her kitchen is very sunny. I just don`t need to tell her every time.....) But the hug made it clear to both of us that we love each other`s company, get along just fine with or without words, and can`t wait to see each other again.Probably in her sunny kitchen, overlooking her beautiful roses.

And how about a hug from a complete stranger? Ever had one? I survived a nasty crash on a snowy M6 once. The car skidded and landed on its roof, in a ditch. Dangling from my seatbelt, I realised that nothing hurt. But wondered whether the car might just catch fire. Minutes later, I`d kicked the door open , scrambled up the bank ...and fell into the arms of some bloke who`d stopped to help. I just wept with relief at being alive and unhurt, and all the while, he hugged me tight, like a long lost friend. Thanks, mate.

See? Hugs are so useful when you don`t know the words. Or when you do know the words, but because you`re so choked up, you can`t say them. Some hugs you just never, ever forget. That car crash hug is one of those. Another was when we left our eldest daughter as she started university. September goodbyes on a London pavement. So much I wanted to say, still, but nothing came out. Just a gasp and a sob. Those trembling, loving, `can`t let you go` hugs stay with you forever.

Anyway, it`s freezing out. Warm up a bit. Have a coffee . And a hug from me x

How brave are you?

Can you remember the first time someone praised you for being a tough cookie?
I reckon that, for me, it was when I was tiny, getting a sticker at the doctor`s after a polio jab.

In adult life, I went on to win a bravery plaudit for removing a spider from a boyfriend`s bathroom sink. He found that being a six foot three prop forward`s no use at all when you`re terrified of the eight legged beasties, and want to brush your teeth. The plaudit was undeserved, as it happens, because the arachnid in question was as big as my hand, and hairier than the prop forward, so I sent the boyfriend out, crashed about for a while, slammed the window shut , did that swishy handclapping gesture and yelled a resounding `HA!`.

The beastie was forgotten.

Until 3 am, that is, when boyf popped to the loo, clocked the eight legged bugger running free and let out a bloodcurdling, `YOU LIED TO ME!!!!` that was enough to wake the neighbourhood. Oops.

I`m not always a wuss, though, or dishonest; honest. I mean--doctors and nurses have told me I`m being brave when I`ve had *nasty stuff* to go through in hospitals. Maybe they say that to all the patients though. And while you`d never find me abseiling down the Shard or leaping from a plane, with or without a parachute, I reckon I`ve been dead courageous sticking up for people at work in the past. Royally hammered for it at some considerable volume right across an office once, mind, but it took a certain kind of guts, and I`d do it again. whether the bully was there or not.

You see real examples of true, tearjerking courage in the media all the time, don`t you? And rightly so. Servicemen and women who`ve risked and sometimes surrendered their lives, to protect others. People coming to terms with horrendous, lifechanging circumstances with a stoicism or a smile that`s truly humbling.

But the reason I`m even thinking about bravery at the moment is because of a story, and a woman, a little closer to home. For courage, this lady takes the biscuit. (She`s been nil-by-mouth for a couple of days, actually, but they`ll probably start loading her up with hospital rich teas and buttered toast fairly soon.)

I`m not even going to name her, because although I`m very fond of her, and we`ve talked about this, I haven`t checked that it`s ok to share her story.

So let`s call her Lucy.

Lucy has three children, a husband, a job, a home, everything to live for. She also has a strong family history of cancer, and got the shock of her life a few months back when doctors thought she had an advanced, life threatening lump in her breast. It turned out to be a false alarm, but the nightmare lasted long enough for Lucy to have to think about preparing her loved ones for the worst.

It was a terrifying, wretched experience, and she decided she didn`t want to go through it again.

So this weekend, she`s been having her two, perfectly healthy breasts removed, then reconstructed, so she doesn`t have to feel that fear again; or take her family there again.
It was obviously a major medical procedure, and morphine and an amazing sense of humour`s getting her through it.

I think it`s an incredibly brave decision. For a start, there`s the discomfort and the element of surgical risk. For some, it might seem crazy to take a surgeon`s knife to a perfectly healthy pair of boobs which have been so important to you as a woman, as a mother, as a wife. And for sure, Lucy knows she could, perish the thought, be hit by a number nine bus next week, or face any other kind of disease life chooses to throw at her.

But not breast cancer.

She`s weighed up the risks, the odds, the potential misery her young family could face without her if cancer decided to strike and claim her, and decided to lessen those odds considerably.

Could you do it?

Support your wife or partner if she wanted to put herself through it? I`ve got enough cases of breast cancer in my family to need to consider it too, but I`m not sure that I`ve got the guts to ask for that kind of surgery.

Anyway, I know that in a while, she`ll read this. So,`Lucy`? Loads of love.You`re incredibly brave. Your friends and family love and support you, and can`t wait to give you a (gentle) hug. Well done.

ps Reading this on Twitter? Please RT for me. Thankyou!!

A Big Mexican

Meal, that is; not bloke. Guacamole, enchilladas. spicy chicken n`cheese --oh and tortilla chips with all kinds of things on top, warmed and served up as canapes.

That was the feast served up on Saturday night, by the man they called Dolmann back in the 80s, when he had a number one hit in Me-hi-co. Truly.

It was called `High Sex Drive`, and, come to think of it, we should have got him to sing it for us.A kind of inter-course treat.

But `Yes, Chef!`, as he became known , and the non Mexican sounding Maitre D` (aka Ian Perry), were way too `busy in the kitchen`.

And it wasn`t *just* that it all tasted fabulous. It was the gesture. By some amazing mates who sat in my house and raised several glasses to the start of my new life.Life outside the BBC bubble. Life with a dollar in my pocket and freedom to do, every day, what I wish.

It was a top night.They`re fantastic mates. And do you know...they washed up afterwards.