I went out for a Halloween themed dinner this weekend. Which was a pleasant surprise. Not the dinner part, obviously. That bit I’d been pretty confident about, what with being invited round for dinner. But I wasn’t necessarily expecting to be met at the door with a choice of masks (bat, pumpkin or Frankenstein’s monster, FYI). Or to be offered witches’ fingers as a pre-dinner snack. Contrary to all expectations, with all the blood, gore and general creepy crawliness, Halloween really lends itself to a dinner theme. Especially if you have a penchant for Italian food. Tomato sauce, mozzarella balls and spaghetti offer an exciting range of presentational options.

This, in itself, was a worthwhile discovery. There’s more to Halloween than panic buying Haribo on the way home from work, only to find that today’s trick or treaters apparently expect a sizeable cash handout in exchange for holding off on the tricks – more in the manner of an extortion racket than anything else. However, reflecting on what was a really very enjoyable evening, I made an even greater discovery. For the first time in over a year, I realised I’d spent a whole evening with friends without anyone mentioning, at any point, anything whatsoever to do with my cancer. And I didn’t think about it once, either. No one asked how I was feeling, how my treatment was going, or made any reference to any of the cancer-related events of the last year. And I didn’t wonder why they weren’t asking, or feel annoyed about their lack of concern. I didn’t even notice. Other things are happening in all our lives. New jobs, house moves, all sorts of big events. And there were loads of other things to talk about, too. The recipe for those witches’ fingers, for one. My cancer is no longer The Big Story, the one that trumps everything else and cannot be ignored. 

This is not only a welcome and positive development for what it signifies. On a practical level, not being the main focus of attention, and not spending anything like as significant a portion of the evening blabbering on about myself, leaves far more time for interrogating my friends about the interesting things they’ve been up to. And for nodding wisely whilst cramming in another jelly worm or two.