Stage 4. Incurable. Those two words sitting in a room with you, a doctor across the desk, and the rest of your life suddenly looking very different to how it did that morning.
I want to write about that day. Not because it was the worst day of my life — although in some ways it was — but because of what came after it. Because the story of No Time For Beige doesn't start with the diagnosis. It starts with the decision I made in response to it.
What I actually felt
People assume you must be terrified when you get news like that. And I understand why they assume that. But if I'm being completely honest — I wasn't scared for me.
I've had a good life. I've lived it on my own terms, made my own rules, never spent long doing something that didn't feel right. I was never a nine to five man — I'd always get restless after six months and find another way. We didn't always have much, but we always found a way to make it work. I've done things, been places, felt things. I've had a life worth having. If it ended sooner than I'd like, I wouldn't be leaving it with many regrets.
The fear wasn't for me. The fear was entirely for Catherine. For Daisy and Rosie. For what this meant for them.
That's where it hit me. Not in my chest — in theirs. I was sitting there thinking about the three of them, about being a team, about what it would mean to leave that team sooner than any of us had planned. That's what overwhelmed me. Not my own mortality — their loss.
Sorry, but not broken
I was sorry. Genuinely, deeply sorry — for potentially leaving them sooner than they deserved, for the worry I could see it putting on Catherine, for the shadow it would cast over all of us. That grief was real and it sat with me for a long time.
But sorry and broken are two different things. And I was never broken by it.
I think that comes down to the kind of life I'd already lived. When you've spent your whole adult life finding a way rather than saying no, when you've always backed yourself to sort something out, when "we can't afford it" has never really been the final answer — a diagnosis like this becomes something to navigate rather than something to surrender to. It's just another problem that needs solving. A very big, very serious, very unfair problem. But a problem.
I could have crashed into it. Pulled the curtains, gone quiet, waited. Some people do and I don't judge them for it — this is brutal and everyone handles it differently. But that was never going to be me.
What we've done instead
Since the diagnosis we have visited more countries and done more things as a family than we ever did before. Not despite the situation — because of it. Because I stopped saying we couldn't afford it and started finding ways to make things happen. Because "maybe one day" became "why not now." Because when your timeline becomes uncertain, waiting stops making any sense at all.
Our family has been through more than most. Without going into the details — me, Daisy, Rosie — between us we've all faced moments where things could have gone very differently. We've had our share of bad luck as a foursome. Rome was actually a promise made to Daisy during a time when she wasn't well — long before my diagnosis. A promise that we kept. And that trip, standing inside the Colosseum together in the golden hour light, felt like exactly what it was — a family that refuses to be beaten, showing up for each other.
Since my diagnosis we've been to Portugal, Wales, Ireland, and more besides. We've got more planned. Because that's what we do now — we make it happen rather than waiting for the right time that might never come.
No is not a word I use much anymore. Life is too short for no — and I have the paperwork to prove it.
Determined above everything else
I said I wasn't scared for me. But I was determined for them. Determined to be here for as long as possible. Determined to do everything I could — the diet, the exercise, the treatment, the mindset — to give myself the best possible chance of more time. Not out of fear. Out of love. Out of the very simple desire to still be around, still be part of the team, still be there for the next thing.
That determination is where No Time For Beige came from. The understanding that you can let something like this make your world smaller, or you can refuse to let it. The belief that even now — especially now — there is more life to be lived, more colour to be found, more reasons to get up in the morning and make something of the day.
No time for beige
The name says it all, really. Beige is what happens when you stop. When you go quiet, go grey, shrink into the diagnosis and let it become the whole story. I understand the pull of that. It would be so much easier in some ways.
But I've seen what the alternative looks like. I've stood in front of the Colosseum with my family. I've watched the sunrise from a mountain bike on a quiet lane. I've eaten things that taste like life and cut out everything that doesn't serve me. I've talked to people I never would have talked to, thought about things I never would have thought about, opened myself up to things I'd have previously dismissed.
I am more alive now, in many ways, than I was before August 2024.
Cancer picked the wrong bloke. There is absolutely, categorically, no time for beige.
— Nick