May 2008 Archives

Lack of blogging? I blame it on holidays and work and overtime and car failure (groan!) and winter and warm fireplaces in lounges compared to the non-heated study where the PC lives.

Just life really....

Be back very soon!

• Concert was a rousing success, no photos I'm afraid, but daughter and niece very cute up on stage in their prettiest pink skirts and tops, Suzanne Prentice awesome (Miss 7.8 describes her as "real pretty, but actually - quite...old"), songs fantastic, all for charity too - World Vision, sponsoring children in the Honduras and all over the world - a Kids for Kids extravaganza.
  
• Small dark spot on back is perfectly normal mole, which in itself is unusual, seeing as I'm very much of the freckly blond/red-headed persuasion who doesn't normally have moles, but rogue mole gene must have crept through from moley father. Holey moley!
  
• When I got to work this morning had lovely East London-accented message waiting voice-mail: "Hi Fi, it's J, we're at Heathrow Airport, just about to get on the plane. We fly into - ooh, excuse the pronunciation...is it...Won-gah-ray-hee? - at 3.30 on Friday afternoon, your time. Can't wait to see you! Love you tons! Love you loads...see you soon, bye!!" Listened with dirty great big grin on my face, which I am wearing as I type this. Weeeeee!
• In a country of six million sheep, apparently woollen blankets (required to ward off creeping chill in Miss 7.8's bedroom) extremely hard to get in stock at present moment, according to the woollen blanket proprietors of Whangarei. So where are all these woollen blankets going exactly? It ain't blimin' Myanmar, that's for sure.
• Experiencing extensive spam bombardment at present for some unknown reason. Am total Spam Magnet. Have no idea why person would actively click on spam and purchase vacuum cleaner, but guess there's a one in five bajillion chance to get just that *one* sale, so why not annoy the crap out of the bloggers of the world in the process? Feckers!
  
  
  
  
  
  

This evening the Other Harf and I will be attending a concert held at Whangarei's main (in fact, only) concert venue, where Miss 7.8 and Niece G are performing as part of a chorus backing up a fairly well-known Country & Western singer. This fairly well-known C&W singer is touring the country and at each location local primary school children are selected to be her back-up vocals for an evening.

However, instead of C&W ditties (oh, thanks be) they'll be singing *Kiwi music with a few pop ballads thrown in.

The cousins have been busy practising for the past month, with a lot of input from Niece T, who has taken to singing solo just after getting out of bed on weekday mornings. Niece T was unable to make practices and therefore take part in the concert, but hey, obstacles like that don't get in the way of my youngest niece, who has a definite tendency towards the dramatic.

Regrettably her talents lie more towards dancing than singing and we are unable to distinguish the difference between her solos and the grizzling of 18 month-old Nephew T in the bedroom next door, wanting to get up and have his Weetbix at 6.47am on the dot.

Anyway, we have no doubt Miss 7.8 and Niece G  (who fortunately can both hold a tune) will do us proud, and we'll be sure to snap up their autographs after the show. 

*For the benefit of the Kiwi readers that lurk round here, the C&W singer is Suzanne Prentice and the song list includes Slice of Heaven, I Say Goodbye Even Though I'm Blue, Six Months in a Leaky Boat, Fraction Too Much Friction and I See Red - yay!

A trip into town to the park for Miss 7.8 to play on the playground and for me to snap away at all the gorgeous autumn-coloured leaves en route.

Afternoon tea for my mother in the form of freshly baked cheese scones, pikelets with jam and cream, Darjeeling and Earl Grey tea in proper teapots and served in china teacups.

For dinner; roast lamb, roast vegetables (veges peeled by Miss 7.8 and Niece T), broccoli (cut up with care by Niece G) with cheese sauce rounded off with apple crumble and more cream.

And finally, top it all off with one last spectacularly large Miss 7.8 hug.

Happy Mothers Day to all you wonderful Mothers out there.

Today my sister is attending the funeral of a close friend's brother who died of leukemia over the weekend at the age of 42. He'd been in remission for years, but a few weeks ago the leukemia suddenly decided to take his body over again, and it won.

At lunchtime I read on the internet about the death of a well-known radio personality - he died from stomach cancer diagnosed only a matter of months ago. I often used listen to him while I DIY'd when we lived down in Auckland and remembered his off-the-wall sense of humour and thought, shit. That's not right he's dead. And so suddenly.

Two of my regular reads posted about cancer this past week. Jo talks of a close friend who's just been diagnosed; Aimee writes about finding a scary lump in her breast.

The Other Harf, who's had problems with his digestion for ever and ever, had tests done a couple of months ago and went back to the hospital on Wednesday for the results. He came home from work that evening and announced, well, the doctor says it's definitely not cancer. My heart dropped to my shoes and my whole body prickled over with fear. Just at the mention of the C word, even though it was good news and he went on to tell me there was nothing wrong.

The other night I spotted something on my back after my shower  - something out of the ordinary that hadn't been there before. I got myself a pocket mirror and backed up to the bathroom mirror and saw a tiny little patch, a dark freckle, lurking between my shoulder blades.

I'm off to the doctor's tomorrow to get it checked out.

I see cancer as a dark, dense raincloud that hovers over every single one of us. Some it just spits on. Some it passes by without a drop. And then some it pours on with abundance and soaks them completely.

You just don't know when you're going to get wet.

I was lying on the couch the other evening with Miss 7.6 (she was watching Hannah Montana;  I was dozing ever so slightly).

Suddenly she turned to me with an extremely serious expression and said," Mummy, I think I want to call you Mum from now on, ok? I still love you though."

I smiled at her and said yes I knew that she loved me and that it was quite ok if she wanted to call me Mum.

But inside?

Not really ok at all.

After all, you're a Mother forever, but you're only a Mummy for a very short time...