Ten years ago, I went to visit my dad in Australia. I walked to the edge of a cliff and looked over and tripped. I righted myself but my head was over the edge. No one saw it.

Nine years ago I discovered I had stage 3/4 uterine cancer and went through nine months of excruciating surgery, illness and chemotherapy. In that time, I touched death and it was the most powerful transformation of my life. I was forced to learn to take care of my body.

I can dodge the bullets – I’m lucky.

And actually now having had the advantage of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and being able to look at some of the records of what the apartheid government was doing, the thing that is surprising to me is why so many of us survived. I mean, how is it that they did not assassinate more of us?

Steady, reaching, bewildered.

To be stuck in the past.

It’s usually a slight feeling that, having got through the day, I didn’t get any time to do any writing or something creative – it was a lot of admin, exhaustion from that and rumination.

Putting chocolate mousse in my agent’s face. Somebody had done it to me – that thing where they go, “Smell this, it smells funny”, and then they put it in your nose. A year later I was in this French restaurant with a very 1980s-style dessert trolley and, before I knew it, I had a bowl of chocolate mousse in front of me. And my agent went, “What’s that smell?”, and it felt impossible not to … I immediately felt awful and tried to apologise. He, of course, said that he found it funny. But I knew he didn’t.

A movie. Does it have a name? It might do.

I’ve not always been great friend material. I’ve tried to get better at that, so to be remembered as reliable by a few would be great.