Two friends, two women carrying breast cancer alone, and the check-ups none of us should keep putting off.

My father-in-law, a doctor, called on day two with the same certainty he'd bring to any diagnosis.

Melatonin has slipped into family bedtimes so quietly that most of us never stopped to ask what it actually is. I understand how it happened. At half past nine, with a child still wide awake and a school morning looming, anything that promises calm looks like common sense.