Walking

G'day all!

I've been walking a lot recently. I walked more than 7km on Saturday and Sunday and about 5km yesterday, and only 3.4km today. Today was a work day. Oh, but we will go for a walk soon and it will be about 2.5km or maybe more.

I have decided I am in training for the Mother's Day Classic. I think Australia follows the US date for Mother's Day (second Sunday in May) (yes?). The MDC is a fundraiser for breast cancer research. As you very probably know, breast cancer is a subject very close to my heart (ok, it was the right boob but that is still pretty close). Plus my MiL was treated 10 years ago and my aunt died of breast cancer 20.5 years ago. Treatment for BC, or most cancers for that matter, tends to be a crap shoot - they blast the thing with whatever shotgun treatments they have (chemo, radiotherapy) and hope for the best. There are specific treatments for hormone responsive BC but they follow or are concurrent with the shotgun approach. Some chemo agents are better than others for different types of cancer but they still don't really know which ones work best on what cancer markers. (Cancer markers are like red hair, tongue rolling, attached ear lobes etc, but obviously cancers don't often have hair or tongues or ears as such, and red hair and tongue rolling and ears are not things that need to be treated.) This is why heaps of research is being performed on cancers, and why I enrolled in a study to see what happened to the cancer markers in my body as I underwent chemo.

People can walk or run 4 or 8km. I walked it three or four years in a row before moving to the US. Last year I was too sick to do the walk - walking 1km was becoming beyond me, let alone 4km. And running? Fuhgeddaboudit.

This year I'll be walking in Sydney's Domain but there are events all over Australia. It isn't too late to register - you can even register on the day! Or if you so choose, you can sponsor me :-D (though I don't expect anyone to and those overseas? No tax benefit for you, just warm fuzzies)

I am going to be sporting the most amazing hair for the event, and for some time afterwards too :-) After that I think I'll eventually get my hair coloured back to something more natural and let it grow out a little, though I do rather think I am rocking the pixie cut at the moment. I never would have cut it this short though, so I guess it is a good thing coming out of the BC journey.

I shall not whine or complain about how dull Sydney's weather is at present, I shall just note that the sun was not seen at all today, not much yesterday and some on Sunday. I shall also point out that the average sun hours per day for April and May for Sydney is 5. I wish I had five sunny hours each day! I bought a 150W spotlight and a timer today so that we wake up in the morning - it's been so dull that our body clocks have no idea what time of day it is. I've had to run the lights all day - our flat faces southeast and gets no direct sunlight unless it is clear when the sun rises. And it hasn't been clear in days. (It rained this morning around sunrise I think cos I remember it being vaguely light and rain falling.)

I finished Nathan's lurid, fuzzy, bouncy and very warm orange hat last night. Alas, grey weather and sleeping in (to 9:45am! on a workday! on *any* day!) meant there was no opportunity for modelled shots. I immediately cast on for my own hat, a beret. I think I'll knit one of these. I need a hat - it is getting quite cold here, well cold as far as Oz and Sydney goes.

In some of my walking yesterday, I ventured to Scroatfight at Birkenhead Point. Note - this shop, though only fairly new, is pretty scroaty indeed. It already looks scruffy and service is pretty poor - I don't blame the staff who get overwhelmed with their duties, more the management model. (I got the impression that the boss was out trying to help customers but the boss was a bloke who had NO idea of what his store actually stocks.) The new stores at Auburn and Rock-something are much better - bigger, huge actually, with more stock and the possibility of service. If you are lucky, though the cutting queue at one of them was about 10 people long.

Anyway, they had some really cheap velour curtains on clearance. In a colour that I really like. I hummed and harred about them (hemmed and hawed if you are American) as they are polyester and I am trying to only get stuff that rots (within reason) and grabbed two. They really brighten up our loungeroom :-) And they really are the same colour, it's just the lighting that makes them look different to each other.
110502_aquacurtains

I also saw some really awesome red-nippered crabs running around the rocks at Birkenhead Point. Alas I only had my phone with me so the pics could've been better. Trust me, the nippers were really red.
110502_rednippers

Wish me luck, we might possibly get a little bit of sun tomorrow or Thursday. I'm not used to getting so little sun. I don't think this is typical weather for here, I hope it isn't but I don't really know. Surely it doesn't stay yucky forever?

anon!

Comments

  1. Hi Lynne,
    That shop at Birkenhead Point is a new old one. Much bigger than the former.. Personally I think it's management problems from top down. Perhaps you were still OS when the staff were offered a raise. Some tremendous amount. From memory, and I stress memory, it was well under a dollar.

    The other relatively close stores are Rockdale and Auburn, not Ashfield unless there will be one there when the renovations to the mall are done.

    Auburn seems to be much better run than Birkenhead Point. It has stayed relatively clean and tidy for several years now.

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  2. Me again. Your sponsorship link comes up with your name at end of URL but will not load. I left it several minutes twice. Perhaps you could check with them as I would have sponsored you.

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  3. Hey Lynne,sounds like youre settling in there ok? glad you could find a sewing shop,only got one in Kal and all Quilting stuff and I cant find a good mail order material shop for other fabris,like dress linen cottons and silk! Even fine wool without being very costly,I miss the Cinderella Club from Qld!

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  4. I could imagine those curtains with little red crabs sewn on them....

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