Yarnivorous

(Not such a) G'day all! I've been all of a twitch recently.  I read my cancer's pathology report.  Then I looked up research papers. I wish I hadn't. I know what the words mean. Then, today the (recently stepped down) president of my footy team in Oz died of melanoma.  He was only six months older than me and has been engaged in battle with the blasted thing for 2.5 years.  RIP Jimmy Stynes .  You will always be a legend. Last year my fave footballer, who played alongside Jimmy and also came from Ireland (though he was technically Scottish), also died.  He was a year older than me. So I am all of a twitch.  These deaths cut way too close to the bone. People often tell me how well I deal with it all, the cancer stuff and all that crap.  Y'know how I deal with it?  In a good old-fashioned human way of ignoring it.  It is too much to cope with, so I ignore it and hope that if I ignore it, it will forget about me. I'm overdue...

G'day all! Thank you all for the kind messages of support. I'm still a bit freaked but I'm still here, just been realllly busy! Keeping busy is the only way I know how to deal with worry stress. (I am learning meditation which I am assured is excellent.) So I've been knitting madly on my new FO Summerflies , which I finished just in the nick of time for July, and I've been spinning up some very pretty brightly coloured yarn, and am prepping fleece for a shawl I have to knit by mid September (my bad! but the fleece is lovely and hopefully the FO from it will be wonderfully soft), and we've been out quite a bit. We went for a drive up to Warburton on Thursday and yesterday was free public transport day after a spectacular PT fail on Wednesday, so we tooled around the city and caught the tram to the spinning guild and Brunswick and bought fabric and stuff.... I have to share pics from our travels and talk about them too but I am run off my poor sore puffy foo...

G'day all! Thanks for commiserations. This new chemo sucks! My energy levels are pretty low at the moment, though I am getting some bits and bobs done *by my choice* (and DH is helping out and doing stuff I'd otherwise do). I need some help. Last time I whinged about DH's behaviour. I probably should not have, and I apologise to him. Why? People are (in the Australian form) dakking on him. Yes, he needs to find work, I've sat with him this morning as he's gone through the online job forums and quite frankly, there is not much out there for someone with a strong research background but no financial background in computing. If you step back and think about it, how would you feel if: a) you lose your job b) you have to move countries at short notice c) your wife is diagnosed with cancer d) you can't find a job e) you fear you are going to lose your house, and f) you fear you are going to lose your wife? He's having huge difficulties finding work. There...

G'day all! Well we have tickets back to Oz. Dangit, if we had chosen the 9th, we'd be on another A380. Yes, they are better than jumbos. More space, less noise, higher cabin pressure. That adds up to less jetlag. But we are still leaving on a jet plane (don't know when we'll be back again). The cargo is booked in to be taken away on the 8th, I hope. I sent the form and the credit card off yesterday. I've just sent off an email to make sure it was received - I hate not getting any form of acknowledgement on these sorts of things. OK, it's acknowledged. I have soooo many things to fix up. And today I am going for a drive before I sell the car tomorrow. I need to get out of the house before the last round of packing frenzy hits and the freecyclers start coming through the revolving door. I need to go say goodbye to some places, have one last drive on that crazy end of Skyline Boulevard, the little narrow windy unsealed bit that clings to the side of the h...

Still not a g'day sorta day... Bushfires Back 'Ome are very very very bad. I think there is going to be massive loss of human life, let alone critters both native and not. The bush, well the bush burns and usually regenerates, it's fire adapted (cept the rainforesty bits), but it isn't meant to burn as badly as this. The fires hit so quickly noone had much chance to put their fire plans in place and even those who were well prepared had little chance due to the ferocity. Whole towns just don't exist any more. I feel overwhelmed by the immensity of it all. If you want to see some pics, go here or here . And then if you are in Oz and have any spare cash, please donate to the Salvos or the Red Cross or online to the NAB's bushfire fund, like I did. I haven't linked cos the links are all over the local media. There has been knitting in between fussing over the fires. One sock is finished, the next is started. The sock is a bit big for me even over my ...

and not just in Tallarook. Looks like the bushfire situation is pretty bad around Melbourne. At least 35 dead and a number of small settlements razed, along with a couple of larger ones. Many of the places were ones we liked to visit, like Kinglake and Marysville . We hope the family we know in Kinglake got out in time. Their house and business would have not stood a chance in these fires - they had a forested block and the trees were all eucalypts, which are adapted for burning. They need fire to reproduce, though this is a true wild fire and horribly destructive to tree, man and beast. It is a terrible thing. Thousands are homeless, with not much more than the clothes on their backs. It sounds like quite a number of people got caught short, with the fires hitting quicker and harder than expected. Plus a cool change blew through, which means long narrow NW to SE fires turned and became wide fires pushing SW to NE. There is very little I can do from here and there'd be ve...

G'day all! I am no longer grumpy but dangnabbit! A cop just cited Nathan for riding on the footpath. Grr. Nathan rides about 20m on the footpath cos it is the way to the train station and bingo bango they nab him. That is the only time he rides on the path! It isn't actually clear from the Californian highway Code or whatever they call it here that it is illegal but there was a ped so Nathan was "being dangerous." And the cop called him an illegal immigrant. I would love to show you photos of all the lovely things I've seen recently to take the edge off the dangnabbits but they are on Nathan's machine and I have to copy them to mine rather than just looking at them through the network (cos looking at them via the network doesn't work at the moment). I have lots of pics and couldn't find them cos I forgot they were on either my desktop (which is out of action) or Nathan's, which is inconvenient. I bought 3 balls of yarn today. My bad! anon!

Early morning all! Why am I awake at 2am worrying?* Why am I worrying about handing over my car to his new owner? Why am I worrying about me not having an income? Why am I worrying about having our house sitters in? Is it because we made various promises with the idea that we were leaving last week and now the possibility of staying here for an extra three months is rearing its ugly head? Our house sitters need a new place to live ASAP - their current landlord is making things very difficult for them. We effectively said they could live here from last weekend. Umm, how? There isn't room for us all! I've effectively sold my car. Soon I will be carless, which will be blasted inconvenient. I'll just have to get used to catching PT and riding my bike to the shops that I can get my GF food at. I have promised various people various items (in particular one person). I hate breaking promises or assurances. That is probably what is fussing me most. Other things are fussing ...