Foregoing the habits and intentions of a lifetime, Clare is now a tattooed woman. This is necessary for the alignment of the X-Ray machine: her five weeks of radiotherapy start in a fortnight.
We shopped in Taunton's M&S afterwards. The streetside parking meter swallowed 50p and refused to disgorge a 30 minute ticket. Clare wrote a plaintive note to any putative traffic warden and put it on the dashboard (this was at 2.30 pm). My shopping experience in the Food Hall was ruined (ruined!) by the thoughts of some bulldog warden, not a believing bone in her body, duly ticketing the car. I had visions of us in the county court, Clare in tears, as we vainly protested we had paid but had not received a ticket. The stern and utterly cynical judge sentences the two of us to years of hard labour (we stick to our cause - it's a matter of principle!).
We were back, clutching our laden shopping bags, at ten to three. Not a traffic warden or ticket in sight.
