IT’S strange but rather delightful. Most mornings, if not suffering the horrors of treatment side effects, I wake up in a peaceful glow of all is right with the world – a happiness in fact.

I electronically raise my shutters and myself, and look out to the still darkness and watch it gradually change content with its progress.

Nurses come and go in a choreographed routine – pills, thermometer reading and then breakfast of good bread, butter, jam and cold, cold orange juice. Finally, the door closes again and I am left with my peace.

By now, as is often common in these months, the sky is showing its blue, blue mantle with shafts of sunlight turning the now lush grass of winter to sparkling promise of further late growth.

And my mind is calm; ordered even; not a dozen different, differing thoughts and conclusions fighting away with each other. All seems logical, right and working to a good, positive purpose.

I have started walking again – my Ferrari/Zimmer parked up but there in case I need the additional security and the joy of unaided steps on so much stronger legs is almost beyond words, leading to pleasurable sighs instead.

Then I think of Las Molieres and how there I would be manually opening and clipping back the shutters. Often, I would stand at the open French windows, shivering slightly in the mist which seemed a daily morning occurrence where we are.

I would range my eyes from the distant village church glimpsed through the now bare upright arms of the woods over to the crossroads diving into the valley or turning towards Lavit.

And I would listen to heavy silence broken only by the rush of Cesar’s body racing back from his check of the land that all had been well in the night.

And that mist, like the hospital darkness, would dissipate too…slyly sneaking away to let the weak light come forth and the sky show its glory.

Then, vaguely discontented and already bored, I would make a cappuccino from a sachet, open the computer and begin the morning read of the papers.

Ah, if I had only known what was rushing towards me, already multiplying and festering in my cells, how much more would I have relished such mundanities.

Perhaps that’s why I now waken with such surreal happiness because now I know.

The serenity and the certitude grow less and less as afternoon turns into frighteningly early evening and darkness falls and I press the shutters for their return downward journey.

It depends what the next day holds as to how quickly the mood evaporates and the demons return to bicker and debate in my brain.

Rosemary Goring's Country Life: steering a safe route towards winter

After a break, the doctors are to give me immunotherapy tomorrow and I dread what may follow with a visceral fear. Towards the end of the month, now having been measured for the mask, I will have ten consecutive days of preventative radiation focused on the brain. That fills me with fear too in case something is ‘lost’ in the power of the radiation.

And they now no longer feel I should be in London. They believe I should continue and end my treatment here so that there can be no risk of any delay at the other end.

Logically I agree with them until I speak to my son who wants to come, sweep me up and into the Marsden who he says will immediately continue treatment.

But I’ve lived too long not to know that life does not always run on linear lines and much is out with our control at times. Pierce feels betrayed by me I think although I assure him I am committed to London…when able.

I understand – he has worked so hard to ensure my acceptance there and has such faith in them, not so much in France. He is filled with impotent frustration and sees me dying faster than I still see me living.

Unfortunately, these conversations take place mid evenings when I begin to ebb and nothing seems certain or too hopeful and he leaves me with too many what ifs for a restful run up to sleep.

Today too I went across to the unit I must move to and depression has descended with the night. An older building, the rooms are smaller and uglier, the corridors narrow and scuffed and I felt I’d been cast out of Paradise.

But after treatments I need the presence of nursing care day and night and for this, the way the French system works, I will have to pay 2000 euros a month.

The same high standards and protocols apply; the food comes from the same kitchen and my boiled eggs are safe. But the nursing teams are different and I will leave behind the great kindness of those who have cared for me all these months.

The ones who know my foibles; the necessity of plugs and placements for my Mac and phone; the chair or table to hold them all.

However, for now, for a few hours on the good days, starting with the coming of the dawn, I am suffused with happiness and for that I give thanks. Onwards and upwards.

Rosemary Goring's Country Life: steering a safe route towards winter