Theres Gold in That Thar Hill.

I kid you not. This is a picture of the pay dirt heap at the Waihi Gold mine. The spoil from the mine is carried about 2 km from the open cast mine in town to the Baxter's Road site where the waste is accumulating in the form of a hill inversely proportional to the depth of the hole. When they send the gold bearing ore through, its diverted in the building that you see, up the conveyor belt at the side & on to the heap that you see. I wouldn't bother trying to flog a spoonful or two though. I think that the yield is currently about 6 parts per million or less. This is one of the interesting places that I get to visit in the course of my job..

Quote of The Day...

Or probably the week..... Maybe even the year...... " Y'know a fucking man would do that for a fucking lady." Sorry about the French, but that's the way it went. The lady concerned..... Sorry, the FEMALE concerned, was in the hospitality trade too.. Behind the counter of a bottle store. You see, our contract with regards to this particular customer is strictly door to door, so for this place its all hand unload. We have for years done this at this particular outlet, but a different female was there today & she could see no earthly reason why I shouldn't take it all through to the back of the shop to the stock room & put it on the shelves for her. The bit at the top was one of the less salty bits of the conversation with her. I behaved myself admirably. The words, "If there was a lady present I might consider it" ran through my mind, but I kept my trap shut.

I'm trying to lose weight at the moment. I blimped out a bit while I was on holiday. I have my excuses/reasons, but they don't change the fact that I topped out at just over 120kg's. So far, I'm back down to 115.2 kg's, which isn't bad going for me. Ideally, I would like to get back to under 100 kg's, but we will see how we go. Breakfasts are a problem. I dont particularly like breakfast cereals; My doctor suggested fresh fruit, but much as I enjoy fruit, I can't face it at that hour of the day. I'm a good old 4 bits of toast man. Preferably with a fresh tomato still warm from the morning sun in our garden, garnished with judicious amounts of salt & pepper. Left over stew, a small tin of spaghetti, bacon tomato & eggs, poached eggs all find their way onto the menu eventually. A good brekkie sets me up for the day.

Lunch in my prime was 4 sandwiches. I cut that to two some years ago & recently got down to one. The reason that a sammy is good is that it balances nicely on the engine cowling in the lunchbox lid between bites while you are driving. My cholesterol is up too. I refuse to eat margerine for the same reason I refuse to spread bread with used axle grease. I don't think its very good for you. So now that I have the time to stop for 10 minutes or so to eat, I have started making salads. Its very satisfying to incorporate fresh vegetables from the garden as they come to maturity. I'm looking forward at this point to fresh runner beans, Basil & our own tomatoes. I augment this with small tins of tuna & , a recent discovery, small tins of shredded chicken meat, either smoked or with mayo. I didn't enjoy lunch today. In a burst of dietary fervour, I asked Herself to get me some Tofu.. Yep, you heard right, TOFU. this to give a bit of bulk to my salads without upping the calory count too high. She responded with something called "Tofu Luncheon." With considerable misgivings, I diced some into my salad today. Misgivings, because it looks suspiciously like the roll in the fridge that I hack lumps off to feed our dog. I also found a squeezy bottle of "Lite Mayonnaise" in the pantry. "Cool," I thought. Wrong on both counts. The tofu was bland & dry. The mayo didn't taste anything like a real mayo should.

Vegetarian & diet products are OK, But I see no reason why they have to be bland & tasteless, or that far removed from real taste so as not to resemble the original at all. I have long had a mistrust of artificial sweetners & lite this & lite that & todays lunch has only served to re enforce the prejudice. You see, I like food. I like to taste what I eat. I like robust flavour. I don't particularly like chillies though. A little heat is OK, but I really don't enjoy a really savage heat. I'll go back to my original plan I think. It may take a little longer to get the weight off, but at least I'll enjoy the ride a bit more.

Oh by the way ! You know I said the tofu looked like dog roll? Well I thought, "To hell with it. If it looks like dog food, the dog should eat it. " After all, he is on a diet too, & if it stops moving long enough, he will generally eat it. Well, I put it in his bowl tonight. He looked back over his shoulder at me reproachfully with a look that was eloquent in its silence. I took pity on him, deposited it in the pedal bin & gave him some fresh meat & bikkies instead. The crunch line is that if a hungry dog won't eat it, I sure as hell aren't going to. A man must have some principles you know....

The Day the Music Died

Purists will no doubt protest at my use of that quote to talk about John Lennon. I know that the song was written about Buddy Holly, but I do seriously think that the quote is just as applicable to Lennon as it does Holly. For those of you that don't realise, it's 29 years to the day that John Lennon was shot. A sad day for music & humanity in general I think. I remember well what I was doing when it happened. Me & a Fire Brigade buddy, Bernie, were in deepest darkest Otara going about our lawful business in the way of secondary employment namely debt recovery & repossession. I forget exactly what it was that we were chasing. Either bedroom furniture or carpet springs to mind. Bernie & me used to work together evenings for things like that & cars, that need two people to take the stuff.

Anyway, there we were, surrounded by hostile natives, & trust me, NOTHING can be as hostile as Pacific Islanders when you are taking stuff out of their house that they haven't paid for. So Bernie had just taken something out to the wagon, where we had left the radio on. I'll never forget the look on his face when he came back in. He leaned against the hall wall & very softly said to me, "Someones just shot John Lennon." I think my reply mentioned the act of fornication, but I'm not sure. We stopped what we were doing for a few minutes & talked, not necessarily about lennon, but just to ground ourselves out & provide some mutual reassurance. Bernie wandered off outside again with something else that we had recovered leaving me alone with the family. One of the younger ones wandered past me & to make conversation & said, "John Lennons been shot." He looked at me all strange & said, "Who?"

That gave me pause for thought, & I gradually came to the realisation that I was part of a bygone era. Oh, at that stage most of the young ones knew of Paul Mc Cartney. It was after all, the heyday of Wings, but John Lennon ? The Beatles? Sorry, who are they ? I was there, musically speaking. At the time, music was stagnating somewhat, so it was utterly mindblowing when the Beatles started being played. Part of their success was the fact that they appealed to a broad spectrum of listeners. Grannies were quite happy to sit & rock to their music along with teenagers.

After they split & went their own ways, I must admit that I much preferred the harsher sound of Lennon. Goody Twoshoes Mc Cartney still appealed across the board. Yeah, I do enjoy the music of Wings, but Lennon singing "Stand By Me," still puts shivers in my spine & tears in my eyes. I missed a lot of the music of the early 70's. I was busy trying to build a career & a family. (Cue tears & violins) In my dotage, I seem to have grown out of the mid to late 60's music. In later years, I have developed a fondness for the more urgent sounds of bands like Led Zeppelin & others that I missed first time round. I do own Beatles albums. One of the most prized of my albums is a mint copy of The Beatles "White" album. I haven't played it it yet, & I may never do so. Its worth far too much money. I also have a fair collection of their other works as well that I very rarely play. They just don't have the substance that I need any more. They didn't last all that long anyway. The archetypical bad boys of rock, The Rolling Stones, are still basically doing it, with more or less still the original line up, only missing one of the original lineup. OK, so the packaging is showing a lot of wear, but they can still turn out a damn good concert. Surely far more successful than the Beatles ever were.

My taste in music is fairly variable, depending on my mood of the day, but I can still listen to Lennon no matter what. Sit down & listen to "Working Class Hero" sometime. I mean sit down & REALLY listen to it. We miss you John..

Dive ! Dive ! Dive!

Its a long time since I have sat down & watched a reasonable WW2 submarine movie. I think it was just about one called "Das Boot" which was excellent. Tonight, however, I sat down & watched one called "U571" which was good enough to keep me up till 11.00 pm to see the end of it. I don't think I have seen it before, but if I have, it doesn't really matter, because I don't remember it anyway. It was notable in that it had Harvey Keitel playing the gritty old chief, & John Bon Jovi playing the engineer on an American Pig Boat, who sends a boarding party to capture a German U Boat that is lying somewhere in the Atlantic, disabled. Now there is summink curious. Have you ever noticed that submarines are traditionally called "boats," while surface vessels are called "ships." Just a small aside to give you something to go "Hmmmm....." about. Anyway, it was an OK movie, with plenty of action & drama &, believe it or not, not a woman in sight.

We went to see our local Xmas Parade today. Herself really wanted to, & as our other plans didn't come to fruition, we went. She is determined to do the full Xmas thing this year & who am I to stop her. We don't know how many she has left. I'm not really a Xmas sorta person, but its nice to see Herself enjoy it.

Our GP has extracted a promise from the Neurology Department at Waikato that Herself will get an MRI scan sometime in the next two weeks. In my heart I think I know what the answer is going to be. I think we both do really.

Ups & Downs

We went to the Doctor on Friday. Herself's test results were in. After all the shagging around & possibilities, we are left with two options now. Either a stroke or Lou Gehrig's disease. If you want to know about the latter, look it up for yourself. It's not pretty. Our Doctor is calling in all sorts of favours to jump the queue to get herself an MRI scan. That should finally tell us. Meanwhile, our next appointment with the Hospital surgeon is 9th of January. Him I'm not happy with. Aside from him not answering a letter from our GP requesting some assistance & info, he is also the one that definitely told us she had Bulbar Palsy. You really don't want to know what its like to go through the grief process that a diagnosis like that involves, only to be told a month or two later that it might be something else. We've been through a lot of diseases & conditions to get to where we are now. She is also supposed to see a visiting neurologist at Thames on, I think, the 11th of January, although what use that will be without an MRI scan I really don't know. Will keep you all posted anyway.

Well, that was the down. The up was we went fishing Saturday morning, two & a half hours & we had our limit. Herself didn't really want to come in, but we had to watch the tide a bit as we were using Te Puru ramp, & anything less than half tide makes it a bit tricky to get The Dog on the trailor. We had a good day. Today was blob day with 2 hours of Star Trek. I did get a bit of work done round home though. Tomorrow, back to work & hopefully news of an MRI scan, who knows................

Offending everyone

Every once in a while there comes along a truly funny story that is original in concept & most importantly offensive to just about everybody. This is one such joke......


A bloke from the bush walked into a Sydney antique shop.



After looking around for a while, he noticed a very life-like bronze statue of a rat.

It had no price tag, but it was so striking that he decided to buy it anyway.

He took it to the owner and said: 'How much is this bronze rat?'

The owner replied: 'It's $12 for the rat, and $100 for the story.'

The fella gave the owner his $12 and said: 'I'll just take the rat, you can keep the story!'

As he walked off down the street, he noticed that a few real rats had crawled out of the drains and begun following him.

This was a little disconcerting, so he started to walk a little faster, but within a couple of blocks the swarm of rats had grown to hundreds, and they were all squealing and screeching in a very menacing way.

He increased his speed and ran on towards Sydney Harbour and as he ran, he looked behind him and saw the rats now numbered in their MILLIONS, and they were running faster and faster.

By now very concerned, he ran down to the pier and threw the bronze rat as far out into the water as he could.

Amazingly, the millions of real rats jumped into the water after it .........and were all drowned.

The man walked back to relate all this to the shop owner, who said,

'Ah, you've come back for the story then?'

'Shit no!' said the bloke. 'I came back to see if you've got a bronze Muslim, a couple of Asians, a Poof, anything Aboriginal, and an Indian spin bowler.

Feel free to tailor it to which ever location & ethnic minorities that you want.... Enjoy.

Isn't it ironic.

We deliver a considerable number of pallets of the type of circular. You know the ones. If you have an open fire, you use them to light the fire with in the winter, but they aren't even much good for that. Usually they are printed on glossy paper. No good for wiping your butt with either. Nothing sticks to them, even with extensive & vigorous crumpling. Don't ask me, I just know this OK ? Anyway, they don't burn well because of the huge amount of ink in them. They do make pretty coloured flames though. In the summer time, when the weather is hot, you chuck 'em in the recycle bin. Some of you even get annoyed enough to post a very prominent sign on your letterbox that reads, "No junk mail" or something that displays similar sentiments. I personally don't like delivering said pallets, because I don't like receiving them in my letterbox. I have stopped short of posting any signs, however, as you just never know. One of these days there JUST might actually be something worthwhile there.

The only consolation I have, is that none of the contents of the pallets that I deliver actually end up in my own letterbox. I'm glad of that. it could present all sorts of moral dilemma if I should have to.

Anyway, what is ironic about all this diatribe ? Try delivering a pallet of this stuff to a house that has very prominently on its letterbox, " NO JUNK MAIL."

We had a good day today.

We went fishing. I was planning on taking one of my workmates with us, but he decided against it. It wasn't a problem really, Herself & I went anyway. In retrospect, I'm glad we went on our own. It was one of those really wonderful day. One of those lovely balmy spring days, the tide was right, the weather was beautiful and the fish were biting in spectacular fashion. I worked my butt off looking after Herself's rod; baiting up, taking fish off etc., etc. I think that the day has given us something special to remember as partial compensation for some of the horrors we have been through lately. Nice memories for her anyway.

It would appear that Herself isn't the only one that's falling to bits. Blood pressure's up, Thyroxine levels are all to shit, Cholesterol is at an unacceptable high & I have finally admitted defeat & gone back on anti-depressants & very grudgingly agreed to counselling. I'm not sure that it will do much good & that is probably not a particularly good attitude to go into it with. I know that I shouldn't have a preconceived concept like that, but counselling & I don't have a particularly good relationship, but for Herself's sake, I will do my best with it.

We had a good day today anyway.

Doctor Doctor tell me the news

I wish. The conjectures as to what Herself has grow wilder & wilder. We now have just about everything to choose from. Stroke, MS, Bulbar Palsey, Lou Gehrig's disease, (Not particularly nice one that) & Most things in between. We think Myasthenia Gravis has been ruled out as she lacks one of the classic symptoms. About the only thing they aint having a serious look at is Beriberi of the Bronchial Bone. Our new doc has written to the hospital doc to get him to throw his not insubstantial weight behind a request for a neurologist & an MRI scan.

Meanwhile, in other news we had a lovely night out at a surprise 80th Birthday party last night. The company was good, the food average, the bill a little on the high side.

In other other news, we are going fishing this morning, so I better get my ass into gear I guess. wait for the next exciting installment....

Well, I'll be ducked

We was home last night doing what we do at night. Don't be nosy, OK ? All of a sudden, there was this penetrating piping noise & in marched these two little tackers

All of about 2 days old they were. They just marched in the back door proclaiming their presence. After I trapped them, Herself took them down to a neighbour who is in the bird breeding game. She even has an incubator. I'll spare you the gory details, but neither survived. While on the avian theme, you have heard me mention Mr Bird, the Thrush that supervises all out door activity's here & even dines out of the dog's bowl in the back porch. He very nearly met a very sticky end yesterday. Fattums came round the corner of the house proudly carrying him in her mouth. A few words of praise from herself & one proud miaouw later, he was on his way at warp 9.

On a serious note, tomorrow is the 11th day of the 11th month. Take a minute of time at 1100 O'clock to reflect on the sacrifices made by my Grand Parent's generation. My Grand Parents lost two sons in that dreadful conflict we remember as World War 1. The war to end all wars. So please, take a minute of your time to reflect to this track by a Canadian singer, Terry Kelly called' " A Pittance of Time."

Erection 08

So America has its first black president. My how they have grown up. wasn't that long ago he would have been whipped & put to hard labour as "An uppity nigger." Its nice to see that the Leopard can occasionally change it's spots. We will just have to wait & see now what this Leopard's appetite is like. Also, anyone want to guess on how long it's gonna take before some recessive inbred redneck goes after him or his family with a gun or some homemade explosives ? After all, as one particularly duelling banjoish individual pointed out quite seriously in a TV interview,"His middle name IS Hussein ya know.."

Well enough of that. On to the real news. Helen's out, Johns in, Winston's gone in 60 seconds. He could always get a job selling vacuum cleaners door to door. Tauranga pensioners would queue up in droves to buy them from him. Wonder if National will improve funding for health ? Would be nice for herself to get to a neurologist, & maybe get her MRI scan. Opens window & checks for flying pigs & can only see Winston hurtling through the air from the general direction of Tauranga.

WE went fishing yesterday on doctors orders. I kid you not. Its nice to have a GP with a balanced set of priorities. We didn't catch a lot & herself caught the lion's share, but its always nice to be on the water. I got my relax coming back. A full speed beat along the coast about 500 meters off shore. There is always great satisfaction to be had for me overtaking cars on the road. Every time I go out, I learn something new about the boat. This time I found out where the grease nipple is to grease the steering gear. I had noticed that the wheel has been getting stiffer. I'll do that today, along with removing a few old fittings that aren't needed any more. All just part of a general tidy up so that the Dog looks pretty for the annual poker run on Lake Karapiro later this month. We had a ball last year, but suffered the ignominy of having to limp back to the ramp at reduced speed because of a loose petrol pump. That aint gonna happen this year. The Dog is gonna be there ready to rock an roll & foot it with the best of them.

Once more unto the breach dear friends

Well, it's Monday night. That means tomorrow is Tuesday. That means gentle reader that herself has her next appointment with our new nice young American doctor at Te Korowhai. I like going to Te Korowhai, There's a sense of coming home, even though its herself that has the Maori blood not me. They are all nice people & the place is very family oriented. I like that. What it means is that hopefully, the results of the tests he ordered up last Thursday will be through; hopefully, the long awaited results of the tests sent overseas will be there as well; hopefully too, we will at least have some form of closure as to what is actually wrong with herself. You never know, we may even see the odd flying pig outside the surgery as well. god this waiting is tough on both of us.

I talked to you earlier about the hammering my faith has taken over the past few weeks haven't I? Yes of course you have you fool, get on with it. Well, Herself came home from the hairdressers the other day, nothing strange in that, she usually does, but she had an interesting story to tell. You see, the hairdresser is part of the "spiritual" community & is actually a very lovely lady. But sometimes, she suffers from a lack of putting brain into gear before engaging the mouth. She came out with this little gem the other day, "Oooohhhh.... Spirit must really want you back to do all this to you.." What a load of absolute crap. While I consider it to be the biggest load of irresponsible crap that I have ever heard, and had no hesitation in sharing this opinion in very gentle form with herself, it did have one very big & beneficial effect on me. It had the effect of galvanising my thoughts back into action. It made me realise with a jolt that I still do actually believe in self determination. For that, in absentia, I thank her. For putting rubbish like that into Herself's head, I could cheerfully rip her arm off & beat her to death with the soggy bit.

Anyway, enough of that, as the actress said to the Bishop, back to the main event. I'm not sure how I feel about tomorrow. Part of me aches for closure & at least the knowledge of what it is that the two of us have to stand shoulder to shoulder & contend with. All of me is terrified that it may be the worst of the 3 case scenario's that we have been presented with so far. All of me remembers the agony that we both endured when we were told that her condition was terminal. I for one have no wish to endure that again as, I would hazard a guess, neither would Herself. Being the confounded optimist that I am, it's very easy to take hold of one or the other soft options & run with it. Its not a thing I should do & I know that I'm probably setting myself up for a fall of monumental proportions, but still I do it. I guess I'm a bit like the optimist that fell off the top of the Empire State Building. Apparently, somewhere about halfway down, he was reputed to have said, "Well, so far, so good." So far, its been a helluva fall, with some very strong updraughts. I'm not sure what's at the bottom & I'm not sure that I really want to know what it is, but I do hope that the landing is a soft one. We could sure use a little clemency in the fates department at the moment.

101 Uses For a Dead Bath Tub

For a while now, there has been basically a brand new bathtub doing nothing at our depot. It was in saleable condition right up to the point that some numpty dropped a stack of pallets on it & did a lot of damage to the enamel on it. Exit stage left to the Flatcattery, where the fishpond that I made about 4 years ago has sprung a leak. Getting the connection yet ? I finally got around to asking the Boss what they were going to do with the bath at work & she said , "Take it." So I did. After some TLC with a tube of white silicone sealer & a mornings hard work hauling the old pool out, this is what I ended up with..

Its not fully finished yet. The tub is a little shorter than the original hole & needs filling in & covering with weed mat, but that will happen when I dig out some more dirt from mowing strips. That will cover up the raw end that you see. Meanwhile, no job is complete until the resident Clerk of Works issues a certificate of Approval.


Here is our resident Engineer checking the underpinnings of the bridge. It met with Fattum's approval, so she passed on my application to the Clerk of Works, TiggerPuss who is seen here taking care of the paper work..



So, pending infil of the two ends, which constitutes a hazard to small furry felines & suitable donations of tasty treats, I think I have approval.

Meanwhile, it's been Labour Weekend. For those of you that live outside of NZ, we have the monday off to commemorate the introduction of the 40 hour week. Remember the 40 hour week? I think I vaguely remember it. The main significance of it now is that its the first long weekend of summer. Well, usually anyway. Well, maybe not usually Labour Weekend is renowned as being the final tantrum of capricious Spring before the weather settles for Summer. This weekend was no exception. Herself's two sons came down on Saturday & went home Sunday. We had hoped to take the boat over to Cooks beach & give them a look round Mercury Bay. Winds of 50 knots or so put paid to that. Sunday afternoon, we went to the 60th birthday party celebrating the birthday of a lady that I grew up with. Her Dad & mine were in business together. We had a lovely time. Her & her husband have this beautiful old house that looks out over the local golf course, & round across the Hauraki Plains. Add to this, beautiful well established raised Rose gardens beautifully laid out & you have the idea. The most surprising thing of the whole afternoon aside from a rather intense hailstorm, was meeting an elderly lady that not only knew my Grandmother, but also knew Jude's as well. She came from Taumaranui originally, & her husband was the first man that my Dad worked for in Thames.

So today we put in a good morning redoing the fish pond,(see above) back to the grindstone tomorrow I suppose.

Oh by the way, I think I have a reasonable idea of the lesson that I'm up for this time round. I think its got something to do with humility. You would never guess that I have a problem accepting help from others. All my life I have been used to doing for myself. My Dad brought me up with the principle of cutting my own track, & I have always done that. Now I'm faced with a situation that I just can't cope with on my own. All of a sudden I am having to say "thankyou" to a lot of people. Some that I don't know, & some that are very dear friends that I guess I have helped out in the past, & now I guess the circle has turned full turn. I must say that its a hell of a lot easier to give than receive, but it's wonderful & very comforting to know that there are people out there who will help. I guess its been a pretty good weekend all round.

Values

Its funny how values can change over the years. When I was at High School, the most priceless things anyone could have given me would have been a self winding watch with a calendar function & a 10 speed bike. Aaah, the naivety of youth. My values have I guess, changed a lot over the years. I have had a lot of experiences, good & bad in my life, & some have said I should write a book, but this is, I think, about as close to that as its going to get, but two days ago my sense of values changed dramatically.

At the head of the list is still the outside hope that whatever Herself has is going to be treatable. Two days ago my dear old Mum had her operation to remove a cancerous growth from her foot. I had an absolute crap day at work caused mainly, I guess, by me worrying about being so far away if anything went wrong. Herself, as usual, carried the brunt of things signing all the forms & seeing her off to theatre. I shot straight up to the hospital after work & ended up having about 5 minutes of lucid conversation with my Mum. The first time in about 3 years. She told me she loved me, & also took on board the fact that she has a great grand daughter & another one on the way. later on when rang my sons to tell them about all this, my eldest son called me "Dad" & told me he loved me. You can't buy moments like that with any amount of money.

Ya Gotta have Faith..

George Michael said a lot more than he realized here. Firstly, let it be known that I am NOT.. repeat NOT a George Michael fan. I would rather see myself off by repeatedly dragging my throat across an extremely blunt & rusty saw blade than be stuck on a desert island with only him &/or his music for company. But you do. You have to have faith in something, from the Atheist's blackness to the holy rolling Godbothering full choir of angels with accompanying St Pete soloing on Pearly Gates or hell fire & damnation if you've been naughty.

I have, for a long time now, leaned towards the idea of self determination; that life is a progression of lessons through stages beyond this earthly plane, eventually becoming one with the Godhead. The lessons we choose to learn on each incarnation are up to ourselves, that we set our learning to experience what we need to know in order to progress. The reason that we don't remember our past incarnations is so that we don't just accelerate the learning process so that we can get our lesson over & done with in the shortest possible time & check out, a bit like the difference between walking around in the dark at home where you know where everything is & blundering about in a dark strange hotel room.

Well, it's like this. Lately , my life has become a very dark & very strange hotel room. If you have been following my blog, you will know what I mean. I find it extremely difficult to believe that those that I love are choosing to experience the sufferings that they seem to be undergoing at the moment just so that I can find out what it is like to lose loved ones by particularly nasty methods. I hope that I'm not really that selfish. The fickle finger of fate seems to be following me right on my heels at present. At the moment, I'm leaning more towards either the Insh'Allah precept as followed by the Arabs or a God with a particularly mean streak of boredom at the moment. For some reason, I keep thinking of the story of Job in the Old Testament, & Gods bet with the devil regarding his faith. Well, I'm not Job & I'm not interested in boils on my arse as a means of testing my faith. OK, good things happen as well, & I really do savour them a lot more at the moment as a means of escape, but it would be nice for those around me to have something nice happen. Like my dear old Mum just die peacefully in her sleep rather than go through having bits cut off her & the black beast eat her from the inside out. It's all the more unjust for her, because her mind is mostly gone & she really doesnt understand.

It would be even better if Herselfs condition was non terminal & treatable, as much for herself as much as any selfish reasons that I can come up with. My Dad had Alzheimers & died of pneumonia after he fell & broke his hip. The only one that has had a dignified death so far is my big sister, Karen. I think that as much as anything, she was just worn out, & died in her sleep. If any of you that read my blog are into prayer, I think we could all use a leg up in that department.

Reading this, it all looks very black & self pitying, but its not really intended to be. I'm just trying to sort out at this point if I really believe what I have so glibly eschewed to myself & anyone else who ever cared to listen. Maybe all this is designed to sort out what I really do believe. I believe at this point, that a good nights sleep is probably the best thing that can happen to me, so I believe I'll go snuggle up to Herself in bed until she gently tells me to roll over & stop snoring, so God bless & good night.

Livin Next Door to Alice..

We had an out doorsy sort of afternoon today. Conscience got the better of me & I dragged out the old Mk1 grass smasher & decapitated the lawn. Then I made up a brew of weed killer, did round the edges & killed off the bit of lawn that Herself wants to add to the vege garden. Less lawn for me to mow. Then I planted the grape vine that Morty so kindly grew for us. Then I saw silly old Fattums basking in her favourite spot in the rock garden. You remember my Alice in Wonderland rock garden?

Being of that frame of mind to piss about with the camera a bit, I activated a function called "solarise" This is what it does. Makes your photo's look like paint by numbers. I think it looks cool. Really Alice in Wonderlandish.

Where wild things grow

I went there yesterday. It was scary. Herself went to stay with her daughter, which was absolutely great for her. She had a great time. I didn't. It was as well that she went though, because things got pretty scary for me, & I don't think that it would have been a good thing for Herself to witness.

Once again my old mate Hawkeye came up trumps. You see, he's met the wild things. His wife died of a fairly obscure crap take no prisoners, give no remittance sort of disease. It cut him that deeply that he couldn't stay & watch her die. You know when you are talking to someone that has been down that track that you aren't going to be served any helpings of hearts & flowers or optimism. Its cut him that deeply that it has destroyed any faith in any sort of God that he has ever had. Still, a healthy dose of hard arse realism served up by someone that has been there done that is definitely better than anything else on the menu.

A long long time ago, in another galaxy, when my first marriage was spiralling rapidly down the toilet, my then wife pressed me into going to a councellor. I grudgingly agreed, if only as a means to try & keep my marriage together. Councelling isn't easy for me, as I am normally a private sort of person who doesn't easily share his innermost feelings. So I sat across the table from this kid about half my age who blandly assured me, "I know what you're going through." needless to say, it was a case of "Exit stage left." I'm happy for anyone who has done the yards to sharetheir knocks & how they dealt with them, but "I know what you're going through ?" No thankyou.

Anyway, I survived. Some heavy support from my two dear sons helped a lot when I was slipping a bit. It's not easy telling your sons that their Nana , whom they absolutely worship, is probably riddled with cancer. The only consolation for me, is that at least with her mind gone the way it is, that she is spared the horror of knowing what is wrong with her. I have no idea really how Herself is reconciling things within her head. It's not really something that we have talked about at any great length. I think we are mutually holding our breath till we find out the results of this latest blood test.

She was supposed to go to an MND support group meeting & lunch in Paeroa yesterday. She went to Auckland & took her grandchildren to the movies instead. I think that was a good choice.

Physician heal thyself

Well our family physician has had a complete mental breakdown & his practice is closed indefinitely. I feel for him. His surgery has looked after my family for 3 generations. The bitch of it is that its a really crap time for it to happen. Now we have to find someone else to go to & explain all the shit that is presently happening in our lives. Did I mention that my Mum has a particularly malignant cancer on her foot that has possibly spread throughout her entire body ? No, I guess that one slipped by me a bit. Its a selfish attitude I know, but we are waiting on some very critical blood tests to come through. Herself, among a zillion other things today contacted the Medical Center & got them to inquire on our behalf regarding the results. They have all come back normal except for the one that was sent to Canterbury. I think that is probably the one that will tell us if Herself's condition is treatable or not.

I saw an old work colleague in the street today. When Herself was first diagnosed, him & his wife made a big deal about wanting to be there & to be involved, inviting themselves round for a cuppa & a chat. We stayed home that afternoon specially. They didn't turn up. We did get a phone call 2 days later ; "Sorry, we forgot." Haven't heard from them since either. He bounced up to me all smiles & says,"Gidday mate, hows Jude?" I nearly said, "She's fucking dying. How do you think she fucking well is?" but reason prevailed & I behaved myself.

I did something new today. I took a load up to a place called Whenuakite on the crane truck. I've never operated the crane truck before. I have operated Fire Service aerial appliances & done a course at the waterside training facility in Auckland, but that was all a very long time ago. I did alright too, sliding 2 pallets of floor tiles in through a door with literally only an inch of height to spare. I felt really great, right up to the point where I came home & found out about my Mum.

Herself is off to Auckland tomorrow to take the grand kids to the movies. That will be really nice for her. I've told her that she is not to come home on the same day though. It would be way too tiring. So an overnight stay it is. That will be great for her. The shit of it is, that I don't actually want her to go. Entirely selfish reasons ; I feel very old, tired & worn out at the moment & don't really fancy the thought of spending a night with only my own company. I haven't told my boys about their Nana yet . I don't have the heart to. Especially my youngest son. He has just found out that his wife is pregnant. I don't really want to drop crap like that on his head at the moment. I don't really ever want to drop that sort of stuff on either of them, but I guess if I don't tell them, nobody else will.

Life looks fairly bleak at the moment. It seems like every time we have something nice happen, like Herself's birthday, something even heavier drops on us. Right at this point in time I have just about had enough. I'm not really sure how to cope with this all. Maybe the bloodtests will come back with something positive, but I'm not counting on it.

Happy Birthday

And indeed it was. The party at Sharon & Richards place was a roaring success in more ways than one. Some really nice family stuff happened & Herself had an absolutely fantastic time, which was really the whole point of it all. What was even more touching was the amount of people there that quietly came up to me & inquired how I was dealing with everything, & offered support. That was wonderful, & quite unexpected. Here is a lovely pic of Herself with her three children & two grand children. Sort of says it all really this pic.


This one is Renee after swiping her Poppa's beer. She didn't drink any of it, but its a cute pic what with her Dad looking on in the background. I'm saving this one for her 21st birthday. I think it's beautiful. Just so typically her.

Notice the gap in the front teeth? She is starting to get all grown up with all her new teeth coming through. God time flies. We both love being Grand Parents so much..

Happy Birthday my Love

Its Herself's Birthday today. Its been a hell of a year for her in one way or another. For both of us I guess for that matter. If you've followed my blog you will understand what I mean. Still she has survived with her head still held high. Her big brother came down today & took her out for lunch. Even her ex husband rang & wished her Happy Birthday today. I took her out for tea tonight, nothing flash, just the local Chinese Smorgasbord. We're going to her daughters place tomorrow for the weekend, as her daughter wants to throw her a big party. I'm very proud of her for that.

God, I love that lady