More Great Chrissie Pressies

There’s nothing snugglier than a cashmere hat from Brora. 

A Bold Beanies cotton beanie is great for wearing under a thicker hat on cold winter nights.

Layer the beanie with a super warm sheepskin hood by Fuudluxe.

If your friend is having chemo she may be finding shoes and even slippers rather painful to wear. A pair of Couverture duvet socks will keep her tootsies warm around the house. 

Cashmere socks from Me & Em are lovely for wearing in bed or on the couch.

No woman can have too many scarves, especially if she’s bald. Me & Em do a dotty cashmere gauze scarf that is ideal for chemo heads. It is long enough to make into a decent turban, non-slippy and super warm. 

Zara have a striking floral print wool scarf that will glam up a simple outfit. 

Or push the boat out and buy her a vintage Hermès scarf, a gift that will become an heirloom.


Books

Anti Cancer – A New Way of Life by Dr David Servan-Schreiber. This is the definitive anti-cancer lifestyle book. Dr Servan-Schreiber presents clear, practical suggestions on what to do and what not to do to maximise one’s chances of remaining cancer-free. His advice is backed up by excellent research. I wish I’d read it twenty years ago - but then again, he only wrote it in 2007.

Your Life in Your Hands by Professor Jane Plant. A thoroughly researched book about the factors that promote breast cancer – and how best to minimise them in our lives.

Breast Cancer - Taking Control by Professor John Boyages, MD, PhD. This is a comprehensive guide to every aspect of breast cancer. It provides information about all the different types of treatments in clear language with loads of illustrations. It's and empowering book that gives all the information we need to make informed choices about our own cancer journey.

Jingle Bells

Oh cripes. It’s Christmas again. I’m desperately sticking my finger into the dyke of denial about the whole event. Nonetheless Jingle Bells are leaking through here and there. I use my free hand to cover one of my ears. For Christmas last year I got disappointment and betrayal. Now I don’t want to think about the so-called season of goodwill anymore.

But what does Christmas mean to you? Peace on Earth. Goodwill to all. Presents!

You’ve probably got all the essential seasonal bribes for your kids, parents and partner by now, but what does one buy for one's friend who has cancer? After all you should get her something if only to cheer her up. But you don’t want to seem preachy, nor inappropriately jokey. And in the back of your mind there is a tiny, nagging whisper that this Christmas might be her last... it’s a minefield.

Here is a roundup of Canalily approved Chemo Chic Christmas gifts.

Natural and organic beauty products

Organic Pharmacy Virgin Cold Pressed Rose Hip Seed Serum. Fabulous for rehydrating dried chemo faces and also an excellent healing helper for scars.

Moo Goo Anti-Ageing Face Cream with Resveratrol. Dreadful packaging with pictures of cows’ faces contains a simply outstanding moisturiser.

Spiezia Intensive Moisturiser. A super-nourishing rich night cream made purely from organic, cold-pressed oils.

Nude Cleansing Facial Oil. Smells gorgeous and removes all makeup without dehydrating your face.

REN Rose Duo Gift Set. Divine body wash and body cream.

Pit Rok Crystal Deodorant. A great alternative to aluminium based deodorants – and it works!

John Masters Organics Evening Primrose Shampoo. If your friend’s hair is growing back she really should give it nothing but the best. This is a gorgeous shampoo with no SLS, SLES or other nasties.

Less is More Hair Lacquer. Smells lovely and contains no nasty chemicals.

Invisible Zinc Sun Screen. Wide spectrum mineral based sun screen without nanoparticles that doesn’t turn one into a pale ghost.

Non-toxic make-up

Organic Glam Mascara. Margo Marrone spent five years developing this alternative mascara. It glides on and is luxuriously lengthening.

Organic Glam Lipstick red. Creamy lipstick with incredibly intense colour.

Inika Organic Eye Liner. Has a nifty sharpener built into the lid.

Inika Mineral Eyeshadow. Vibrant colours. Can be used wet or dry.

Priti Nail Polish. No nail polish is totally safe but Priti is one of the less toxic brands.

Priti Soy Polish Remover. Non-toxic, not carcinogenic and it takes off your nail polish quickly.

This Christmas list is bringing on a bout of covetousness. I'm going out for a walk in the snow. I may be some time... stay tuned. 

New Kids on the Blog

I have decided to schedule some guest slots on Chemo Chic. Look forward to reading ramblings from luminaries of style Kell Skott; Trinny and Susannah; Iris; Wanda; Bella Freud and my Mum, to name but a few.

To kick off the programme I am proud to bring you a Christmas Message from J.J. Connolly, celebrated author of Layer Cake.

My Christmas Message to the Commonwealth

Every year it's the same - that "where did the year go?" feeling...

Just as I'm getting used to putting one year's date on cheques and invoices, they go and change it all over again, leaving me playing catch-up. I’m sure it’s not personal. But precious few cheques are getting written these days, what with Internet banking and the much-loved inter-bank transfers. And precious few invoices either, what with that nasty global recession business.

They say as you get older the years speed up - something to do with Einstein and his theory of relativity. According to Albert we begin a sprint towards life’s finishing line. If this is the case, I’m getting worried because I appear to have gained a momentum of a runaway train coming down a steep Alpine mountainside, the years rushing past in a blur. Someone needs to pull the emergency brake handle PDQ - and hang on tight – swing on it if necessary.

Add to the heady new year party punch the fact that we are about to leap feet first into a whole new decade – that will eventually be, no doubt, christened “the teens” - it all becomes too much to bear. When I was a kid ten years was ten years – it felt like ten years. Now it seems like only the other week that we were all getting terribly excited about the turn of the new millennium. The Queen and Tony B. were down the Dome yodeling Auld Lang Syne – the Queen looking, it must be said, like she would prefer to be anywhere on Big Planet Earth than next to Tone and his Big Mad Grin. I’m not big on sympathy for royalty but you’d have to be totally heartless not to feel for the old dear...

And now ten years later we’ve been handed the check - the reality check – and we’re all scratching our heads like some squiffy Japanese tourist in a Soho clip joint.

Transpires it wasn't just me who was running a large tab throughout the spendthrift noughties and has suddenly been hit up with the mother of all credit card bills... it’s like all your Christmases and January statements have come at once. Seems everyone was living on credit - individuals, the banks themselves and entire countries - and the money was just spinning around and around and around. It was all an illusion - a nice, warm, cuddly one but an illusion nonetheless. But we were all getting a little more than just lightheaded – mesmerized would be a better word. We were behaving like sailors on shore leave.

The noughties were not as obviously brutal as the Eighties when we were all programmed to become ruthless, Armani-wearing cannibals and eat more raw red meat, but in a cunning, sneaky way, during the last ten years, we became slowly persuaded that it was foolish not to be borrowing vast amounts of money and living on limitless credit...

Bailiffs knocking the door off and making off with the telly? Priceless.

Late payment charge, sir? That’ll do nicely...

Disillusionment is sometimes a gift and sometimes a swift, harsh lesson – a big slap up around the head. Bankers, their bonuses and billion pound bailouts are the new vaudeville villains and scapegoats but the truth is, if we dare to admit it, we believed what we wanted to believe – that we were all flush and getting richer just by tumbling out of bed in the morning and being good enough to pay the overextended mortgage. The problem with spinning like a Dervish is that you get trés dizzy and start to fall over - not while you’re at it and having a giggle, but when you stop... that when the trouble starts… especially if you have to stop abruptly.

And now it’s tough “Out There” again. And maybe that will be the making of us. Maybe it will make us see the value in things - what’s actually important, who’s actually important in our lives - rather than spending our time and energy ramping each other up in some smug, ultimately hollow, mass hypnosis. But I remain, like most people, a sucker for a charming snake-oil salesman, so if anyone knows any get-rich-double-quick schemes, foolproof investment opportunities, treasure maps, disused gold mines, legal or semi-legal swindles, you be sure to let me know.

For some unknown reason, maybe all this talk of the filthy lucre, I am reminded of the gent who, when asked - in the unlikely event of him being fortunate enough to win millions on the national lottery - what he would do about all the begging letters. He replied that, in spite of his newfound wealth, he would continue to send them - you never know what's around the corner.

I take his point.

- J.J. Connolly

Oh My God, It’s Nearly Christmas!

I have been consumed with the anticipation of finishing radiotherapy treatment today and then jetting off to the sunshine. I depart from Heathrow on Christmas Eve and arrive in Sydney on Boxing Day. Thus Christmas Day, for me, has been vaporised.

But not for you... I receive an email from Eleanor asking what she might give her breast cancer afflicted friend for Christmas.

Here are my top tips.

If your friend is having or is about to have chemotherapy she will probably lose her hair. A soft cotton or silk sleeping cap is a necessity both for catching falling hairs and for keeping her bald little head warm in the cold winter nights. Similarly, a cotton beanie is great for wearing around the house. If it’s freezing outside, she can don a cashmere hat over the top of the beanie.

Just because your friend has cancer doesn’t mean she can’t be drop-dead glamorous. Get her a velvet turban for topping off dramatic evening looks. If you want to splash out, an Hermès scarf is a gift that will be fabulous for a lifetime and then be handed down to her daughter.

Cancer treatments can be very drying to the skin. Here are three products that she will thank you for: Spiezia organic rose and vanilla face oil; enriched hand cream by Absolute Organics and organic foot softening balm by Saaf. I found myself keeping tubes of lip balm everywhere that I went - in my handbag, in the car and by the bed. Burt’s Bees do a three-pack of their lovely beeswax balms.

Your friend will be spending a lot of time lying on the couch. A pair of cashmere socks or a luxurious cashmere throw will make her feel more like a reclining princess that a languishing invalid. A subscription to Lovefilm is like giving a present every week.

There’s not much that you can do about the fact that everything she eats will taste revolting. But even at my most ill I could always manage to force down a bar of Green & Black’s Mint Chocolate. Alternatively, if your friend is of the 'all sugar is poisonous' camp then Sanchi Furikake Japanese Seasoning and Clearspring Ume Plum Seasoning are a couple of condiments that will lively up her brown rice.

What with feeling sick all the time and the thought of food being enough to turn one's stomach there are few pleasures left in life. Things that smell nice will give her a lift. Either a divine scented candle or a bottle of gorgeous Weleda bath milk is a sensory treat.

Reading trolley loads of cancer memoirs, cancer cures and cancer diets can be overwhelming, not to mention tedious. If your friend is the kind of person who likes to help herself there is one book that I would recommend: Your Life in Your Hands by Professor Jane Plant.

When your friend finally does haul her backside off the sofa, encourage her to go out dancing. To distract from the fact that she is bald a really bright lipstick and a pair of drop-dead chandelier earrings are in order.

If you're feeling super-indulgent, here are the most outstanding anti-cancer gifts that I have received. First, a Champion Juice Extractor (thank you Flossie). With this you friend will have life-giving, energising juice of the highest quality every day to keep her going. Add in a weekly organic fruit and veg box for good measure. And an aeroplane ticket (thank you Mr P), dated for two weeks after the end of her treatment will give her something to look forward to throughout her darkest days.

Finally, the best gift you can give is your friendship at a lonely and frightening time in her life. Make a commitment to visit once a week. Whilst you’re there make her a cup of anti-nausea ginger tea, cook her dinner, water the plants and take out the rubbish.

Bah, Humbug!

I hate Trailfinders. Well, let me reconsider that. This morning I hated Trailfinders. I’m getting over it now. I’ll probably be friends with them again by tomorrow.

I called them this morning, full of breezy joy, to confirm my flight to Sydney. Sandy the sales agent and I chit-chatted about beaches and barbies. Then she casually mentioned a price that was £200 more than the price that her colleague told me yesterday. I attempted to set her straight but she was adamant. She suggested that I might be confused. That riled me. I told her that I had it all written down: the fare, the flight details, the booking reference – everything. I pointed out to her that I had made all my travel plans on the basis of the quoted fare and that Nick had gone ahead and booked internal flights and so on.

I cannot possibly ask Mr P to pay more for my ticket than he’s already agreed to.

In the end she admitted that her colleague had quoted me the wrong price. She said that she was sorry but there was nothing they could do about it.

So we cancelled that and went back to the beginning. Sandy searched for any other flight that would get me to Sydney in time to catch that flight to Hobart. I have to say, she worked diligently on my behalf. She did find another flight, with a much longer route, on an inferior airline.

It departs on Christmas eve and arrives on Boxing day. How strange. Christmas won’t be cancelled it will simply cease to exist.

I need to remember how lucky I am. All my friends will be spending Christmas day in the London drizzle. And after all, what do I care for Christmas? I’ve got everything I need. Santa has already been.