Home is the hunter

Well, its fairly evident that we are back from Dunedin. We had a great time. The only bad bit was when they wouldn't let herself take her knitting on the plane on the trip down, but we survived that. I took about 300 odd photo's but due to a glitch with the camera at present, this is the only photo that I took that I have managed to retrieve. When I figure out how I did it , I will probably bore you all with a lot more.

This is two very proud Grandparents having their first of many cuddles with Anna Jayne, Our precious wee grand daughter at the Dunedin Air terminal. She is so cute, but I'm probably biased I guess. We had an absolutely wonderful time. My boys did us proud. Sean looked after us wonderfully & was extremely generous in sharing his time & his wee daughter with us. he took us to a place called Macrae, about an hours drive north of Dunedin where there is a huge open cast gold mine & a little further on, an old mining town, complete with a stamper battery. From there we went up to Moeraki, to look at the round boulders on the beach. I thought there was heaps of them, but they are only on a small part of the beach. I will show the pics when I figure out how to get them out of my camera.

We stayed with Ian on the weekend, & celebrated his wife's birthday the day we arrived. We had dinner at the Speights Brewery Restaurant, a wonderful place with incredible atmosphere. Again , pictures to follow. Ian works part time as a bouncer at various night clubs in the city & Saturday night on the grog with him was a real eye opener. One of the places he works is called "Monkey's Bar" & is an old church. Its under the Historic Places Trust, so can't be altered. Picture the organ pipes at the back with the disco gear in front of them. Very dramatic. Like something out of a Goth Vampire movie. He took us to the Chinese Gardens on Sunday. They were prefabricated in China, shipped out & assembled by teams of little Chinese men with wheel barrows. A lovely place. Again , photo's to follow.

The trip home was interesting. Too much cloud for sight seeing, but it didn't matter. We were sat next to a fascinating lady called Camelia, no kidding, who is a psychologist from Transylvania, again, I kid you not. It's actually part of Roumania, but you knew that, & she was there during the fall of Communism in '89 & did she have some stories. Touch down in Auckland was almost a let down she was so interesting. The final nice thing that happened was my boss rang Friday & said I could have another week off, maybe two so I might get some fishing & concreting done after all. Well, thats the Readers Digest version of our week away. More to follow when I can retrieve my photo's

Leaving on a Jet Plane

But I know when I'll be back again.. next Thursday probably. We be off on our big OE tomorrow. Firstly up to Auckland to overnight with Jude's brother who is going to take us to the Airport on Wednesday morning, then to Dunedin via a half hour stop over at Christchurch. We be flying friendly skies with Virgin Blue.

To tell the truth , I'm more than just a bit nervous about it. We are staying at my eldest son's place so that Herself can spend some quality time with our newest grand daughter, Anna Jayne Leslie & also so that myself & my two sons can do a little fence mending between us. I'm very proud of the pair of them the way that they have rallied around their old Dad. I just hope I don't stuff it all up...

See ya next week.

Eight Miles High

At least thats what I felt like this morning. Not sure why. It could have been for a variety of reasons. For a start, i didn't take my sleeping tablet till late last night. About half an hour after I turned the light off & I didn't go to bed till quite late, & read for about half an hour. I was going to try a night without them, but I chickened out. See, my old mate Hawkeye rang about twenty past seven last night & we talked till after ten. It seems that yesterday marked two years since his wife Jen, passed away. Hawkeye has had a major heart attack since then & I think he is feeling his mortality a bit.

The conversation eventually degenerated into the usual "Remember when" session. We both agree that someone should write a book, but also agree that nobody would believe half the stories anyway. Add to that, some of the stories would probably break marriages & occasion law suites, so I guess not. Its always good talking to Hawkeye. We are old comrades in arms from Fire Service days & we seem to fit each other like a comfortable old pair of slippers. Even the fact that he really fancies his chances with Herself is Ok as well. Herself regards this with a sort of bemused bewilderment tinged with a little amusement. I know Hawkeye is all shit & feathers anyway & would rather cut his drinking arm off than offend me.

Night before last, I talked on instant message to somebody who I prefer not to associate with, but she is lonely & basically has a good heart. Aside from offering any help she could for Herself & I she also told me some horror stories about my thyroid medication. Being the level headed sort of bloke that I am, I checked it out with both the Chemist & the Doctor. I have nothing to worry about, but it turns out that I have been taking my tablets at the wrong time of day for the last 20 odd years. I have been taking it in the evenings & am supposed to take it in the mornings half an hour before eating, so I changed today. That might also be another reason for feeling so weird.

An aside from this is that the chemist who looked after my family for years has sold his business & set himself up as a natural health practitioner & he just happened to be filling in at the Chemist we now go to. I filled him in on what had been happening with regards to Herself, & also queried about my Thyroxine. He rang back about an hour later with some very good council on both. He also phoned later that evening & asked us if we would come down to his clinic as he wanted to run a few things by us. We went out to Kopu, got some really lovely fish & chips, took them down the coast a bit & sat & ate them before going in.

What actually happened was that he gave Herself a consultation that lasted about an hour & a half & then refused to charge her for it. What he said made an awful lot of sense. Apart from cutting bits out or off, modern medicine can't actually cure anything. All it can do is mask or lessen the symptoms till they either become bearable or go away by themselves. he made a lot of sense. he also wrote it all down for us. We are going to give it a try at the least. At the best it could prolong Herself's time here. At the worst, she will die healthy. At least we will know that we have tried.

Some Days are diamonds

This is Herself with our eldest grandson. We went to Auckland on Sunday to visit him, his Mother & Father & his little sister. Coincidentally, her two sons were there as well, & an old friend, an ex sister in law made the trip from Titirangi to Albany to see her. We had a really great day & a good trip home.

Yesterday, we both got into the back garden & hauled a trailer load of weeds to the dump. Some other good stuff happened too that helped restore our faith in human nature, but that is gonna have to stay confidential at this point. Even with all this, which should have made for a really good day, I took Herself out for lunch as well, I had a dreadful day. It ended with me holding Herself like there was going to be no tomorrow & sobbing my heart out.

Like the song says,"Some days are diamond, some days are stone." Sunday was a definite diamond day. Clear , pure, sparkling & full of hope & happiness. Yesterday for me, was a cold, hard, stone day, with the stone sitting very heavily in the pit of my stomach. I haven't decided yet what today has been. I haven't done a great deal apart from fix a pot for herself so she could plant it, & muck about in the garage a bit pretending to clean up.

Oh I finished an excellent book by Joe Haldeman called 1968. Its the story of one young conscripts time in Vietnam, his return home & his integration into society. Its a sad book, but I guess it was a sad war.

Its not dark yet

Says Mr Dylan. This song says it all for me at the moment.

My oldest & one of my dearest friends Kathy rang from the States, (Texas actually) last night. She & I have been corresponding since we were both 12 or so. I'm not gonna tell you how long that is, because that would give away her age & a gentleman NEVER does that. We don't actually talk to each other per se that often, but we do keep in touch via email & here. It was good to talk to her. She asked me some very searching questions that I had to come up with answers for. They were mostly things that I had filed in the "Too Hard" folder under the subheading "personal stuff that I'm not ready to cope with yet." I know that if I had said I don't wish to talk about this that she would have let me off the hook, but I hung in there . Kathy, thank you for your love, concern & prayers.

Its hard for a resident comedian like myself to be humble & just say thank you to people but damn, I seem to be doing it one hell of a lot at the moment. Its so good to know that there are folk out there that actually give a damn. Morty, I know you have issues of your own to cope with, so that makes the love & concern that you have for Jude & I so much more cherished. Cwnda, you somehow have knack for saying the right thing. Thank you for being there. There are a hell of a lot of people in Jude's circle of friends out there that are there for us as well.

Well, thats really enough of the sad soggy bits for one day. We be going to sit up half the night & watch the opening of the Olympic Games.. Gosh, I wonder if Tibet will be represented...

Eight days a week

At least that's what it feels like. Its a week to the day that we found out about Herself's problems. Well what else can I call it .. Disease ?? Illness ??? Incapacitation ???? Anything else you can come up with ? All I can say is that it has to be a problem shared if the offers of help & support that we have had in the last few days are anything to go by. How many of those will continue to be there in the cold light of day when they are asked is anybodies guess, but I know that there is a solid core of friends there that will stand up & be counted no matter what the cost or inconvenience to themselves.

We had Jude's youngest son & his wife come down for the weekend, which was wonderful. They are both towers of strength, & it was wonderful to have them here. They gave so much positive support. Thanks guys. Today we had our dose of optimism in the form of a trip down to Tauranga to see Morty. Now there is more than a friend. If you follow her blog, you will be aware that she has her own problems, both short & long term, but Jude & I know beyond the remotest shadow of a doubt, that when the excrement hits the revolving air mover, she will be there for us. Her positive & practical outlook is very comforting, & actually leaves me feeling as though I might actually sleep tonight without waking up with this incredibly cold ball in my stomach.

Jude's natural brother Brian rang last night & was absolutely devastated on two counts. Firstly for Jude, as her loves her dearly, & is such a loving gentle soul, & secondly because as he told us, his ( & Jude's ) mother, died of pretty much the same thing, so we surmise that heredity is a factor. He is coming down to see us this weekend, which will be great.

Bewilderment Rules

It's 7.17 AM on Saturday morning. I have just finished work for a month. Herselfs youngest son & his wife are coming down to spend the weekend with us. My two sons in an amazing act of generosity & reconciliation have offered to pay for our airfares so that we can go down to Dunedin, spend some quality time with them both, get to know our new grand daughter & help my youngest son's wife celebrate her birthday. Apart from the weather, surely a time for celebration & rejoicing.

Unfortunately not. Let me explain. You see, for some time Herself has been exhibiting symptoms of having had a stroke of some sort, but we just put it down to other things such as ill fitting teeth. Finally a dear friend insisted she see a doctor about it, so we did. He sent her for Xrays & a CT scan, the Xrays being to rule out Parkinsons disease, which they did.

So on to the specialist, which we did on Tuesday. Since then, we have been struggling to come to terms with the fact that my beloved wife & best buddy has got a condition known as Bulbar Palsy, & as a result is going to have an extremely shortened life span. Since then, we have existed in a state of shock. The only bright spot is the support, offers of help & general compassion that has been freely offered from friends, loved ones & workmates. Thank you all