With a deadline to meet by Friday, I must finish my essay, but there's just time to send a 'get well soon' message to my lovely Rose who phoned for some long-distance mummy advice the other morning. 'Mummy! A lump has come up on my neck overnight!' 'It's probably a gland.' (Poor Rose got really clobbered by glandular fever as a teenager and it returned for a couple of repeat attacks afterwards.) 'You don't think an alien has laid its egg in my neck and I'll have to lure whatever's in there out with a piece of bacon, do you?' 'Er... no.' A trip to the GP confirmed that no bacon is required, but that Rose's glands are doing a truly impressive job of fighting some lurgy. I'm hope you feel better soon, darling. Painting is 'November Sea' by Tom Tomos
Christine Stovell, author and freelance writer, on living and writing in West Wales