Surviving Brain Cancer in a Precarious World

Part 26: The Honeymoon…

On the way down to Cornwall, I made myself useful by managing our playlist while Nicky did all the hard work with the marathon drive. It seemed the most ridicules thing was the government’s new apparently “smart” motorways which basically kept slowing us all down causing traffic jams every so often.

Because of the lack of ketogenic options in service stations, I fasted most of the journey but I was impressed to see more electric cars with charging stations, especially my first sight of a Tesla charging station which had 2 gorgeous model S’s… goals!

Because travel insurance was impossible for me to get given the unrealistic quotes that would cost more than flights and hotels which made and abroad trip out of the question, I wanted our hotel to at least have a pool so we booked into a golf resort hotel just outside of Plymouth. When we arrived, we spent some of our wedding money on a fancy meal at the hotel and decided to explore Plymouth the next day.

I can honestly say Plymouth impressed us both and I thought Nicky did a brilliant job navigating around its rather confusing road system at the centre. This first day gave us our first proper break since our lives were changed forever by my diagnosis.

One thing we were both in agreement on was that we wanted to start trying for a child now and to do something as often as possible were we could fundraise for braintumourresearch.org and the MND Association as these charities would cover by what I had been fighting with brain cancer and Nicky’s uncle John battling motor neurons disease.

Thinking about what we could do to help raise funds for these charities, Nicky suggested doing a Christmas event at some venue where we could have a charity sale of some kind. It made me think wider at my situation and all the people I could see around Plymouth that day.

In this busy seaside city, I was very much in the moment when people watching, wondering what it would mean if humanity could come together to look out for each other more and put more focus into prevention of ill health. This is where my humanist values became my core values for life.

A few years before my diagnosis I had watched some Adam Kurtis documentaries called “The Century of the Self” and “All Watched Over By Machines of Love and Grace”. They struck a chord with me in his brilliant analysis of the modern world and how humanity has navigated its way into a society where people obsess about their own individuality.

It really highlighted negative consequences of Ayn Rand’s agenda and her “Randian Hero” disciples who were celebrating through her philosophy that they no longer needed to apologize for being selfish or sociopathic towards other.

So when we were exploring this beautiful place full of people who were only walking with and talking with their circle of family or friends without a traceable connection to anyone outside of it, I realised how much I didn’t like what Ayn Rand stood for because it just enables capitalism to become something far worse known as crony corporatism where the corporations as treated as 1 body that rules over all without the need to be elected.

Selfish people rise to the top of these corporations through ruthless unapologetic individualism which is a sentiment that can be found in many of the songs that were about Thatcherism Like “Money” by The Pet Shop Boys who are the band that first got me into electronic music, well before I discovered Depeche Mode.

I made sure to keep these heavy thoughts in my own head rather than confuse Nicky with boring deep tangents. After a feast of Chicken with Avocado’s and mushrooms at Plymouths packed Nando’s, we headed back to the hotel where I finally managed to get Nicky hooked on The Walking Dead watching it on our tablet.

Throughout our honeymoon, there certainly wasn’t much to do at the hotel given neither of us plays golf so the most we did back there was watch Walking Dead or go to the pool and Jacuzzi.

The next day we were just determined to get to as many beaches as possible which to us is of course what Cornwall is all about. Again Nicky did a fantastic job of navigating their challenging country roads which caused us many frightening situations with her cars failing handbrake when having to stop on very steep inclines.

One of the first places we found was a tiny fishing village called Cawsand which reminded us of the first time we went to Cornwall not long after we first got together and visited Porthcurno. With not much to do at the hotel, we got pretty good at going to several places in 1 day.

One of the places that really stood out was Looe which had the nicest weather the entire trip. I couldn’t help but think my pirate obsessed friend Klaire who had been my Usher would have loved it there because the whole town is full of pirate taverns and shops.

We also explored Polperro which although beautiful was surprisingly hard to find a decent place to eat given my ketogenic diet requirements.

Towards the end of the week, we explored down the coast a bit further and made it to Mevagissey where I simply had to come off the diet to have at least one genuine Cornish scone with clotted cream.

Mevagissey looked truly stunning in the sun

Although this was not my first marriage, it was my first honeymoon and for me, it wasn’t just a great continued celebration of our wedding day but a blessing spending so much time with the love of my life


The photo above is very symbolic to me because she is the light at the end of the tunnel for me. Before I met her, I had my heart toyed with by so many women who had either led me on, wasted my time or at worst abused me. I had so many chips on my shoulder as a result.
Thankfully my wife Nicky was exactly the women I had always dreamed about so I couldn’t be a happier husband to her and more thankful for all the universes complexities and dimensional forces that brought us together.

To Be Continued…