Anna

Chloe checked that Anna, the friend she travelled with in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan where Mr C and I had such a good time with them both, was up to visitors.

She got quite ill when travelling and when she got home it was discovered she had stomach cancer. She has had very strong chemo. Her spirit is strong but she did tire herself out with the excitement of seeing us. She is an amazing woman with many friends and normally has such a full and busy life with art, politics etc.

After our visit we went to the British Museum to meet Tracey, another new friend from our trip, for the Living with the Gods exhibition - Anna had arranged it before she knew she was ill. It was a facinating exhibition, though I could not find some of the items that Neil Ferguson did his radio programme on.

Strangely someone from my past recognised me when we were looking at the same exhibit. We had a quick chat. He was an art teacher and there from Cambridge.

Tracey and I bought Anna the book from a previous exhibition of the Scythians which we’d all missed but we learned a lot about then in Kyrgyzstan, and Chloe got her the book of this exhibition. Anna is struggling to concentrate on reading but she did want these,

The three of us had a late lunch, then we walked to Trafalgar Square via Stanford’s the map shop so that I could buy Mr C a map of the Karakoram Highway and a book for the Trans Siberian Railway.

After getting back to Chloe’s we had a lovely relaxed evening with her partner.