Follow Your Dreams Until You Die

Cousin Ben and I are watching ‘The Stones in Exile’ on BBC iPlayer. It’s a documentary about the making of the Rolling Stones’ sleazilicious double album ‘Exile on Main Street’.

What I love about being in my own home is that I can lie on the sofa singing along to all my favourite songs – and there are many of them. Ben has the good grace to not roll his eyes. “My biggest regret in life,” I announce, as if to justify my annoying habit, “is that I wasn’t a singer.”

“Well Lily, you still can be,” says Ben, as matter-of-fact as you like. And why not? Six years ago I wasn’t a writer. But I am now. I resolve to call Daisy and recommence singing lessons.

And then I realise that there’s another life label that I gained only recently: I am now a cancer survivor.