THE WARRIER QUEEN



Verdant Green Velvet Dotted with Glossy Black Cows


After the first course of chemo mum was predictably pretty unwell. She didn’t have any vomiting attacks, but despite advice to the contrary, her beautiful silver hair did start to fall out and her energy levels were pretty much zero. The best she could manage most days was to walk from the bed to her favourite chair in her sitting room and there collapse for the remainder of the day. It seemed that the first week was the worst, the second week only marginally better before heading back to hospital for the next treatment.

I was there each day to keep her company and to do whatever needed to be done. I was not very successful at trying to get her to eat anything much. Not until that is, I stopped off one morning on my way there and bought her some hot chips – that did do down well.

Mum was so valiant...............even tho’ she had pretty much no energy she persevered to the best of her ability. By the time we went back to see the Specialist prior to the second bout of chemo tho’, she had had enough. She asked the Dr what would happen if she discontinued the chemo - he told her she would have around 2 – 3 months best. Her response? “Oh, Hip Hip Hooray!” – She was serious. She was at that point in time seriously not going to continue with the treatment. I was in full agreement with this decision, although I couldn’t tell her that. I didn’t wish to influence her in any way. Sadly, the Dr then added, “The Lymphoma will return however, if you don’t continue on.” Poor old mum, her face just fell at that piece of news, and she then opted to continue the treatment, not being able to bear the thought of the lump returning.

Back to hospital she went for the second and the third treatments. It was just soooooo hard for her. I really had hoped she would choose not to have further treatment, as I felt her quality of life (in the short remaining term) would be so much better. I had thought to treat her with all sorts of little trips and treats to make the time special. I always felt it was doubtful she would survive the treatment.

The trips down to mum’s each morning were a bittersweet experience. During the winter months the Darling Range between Bullsbrook and Swan View are just gloriously verdant, rolling hills covered with lush emerald green velvet. All along the way the paddocks are dotted with glossy black cattle and beautifully elegant thoroughbred horses. I enjoyed those drives, as I enjoyed mostly, my time spent with Mum. We had a special connection thru’ those awful weeks. We talked more than we had probably talked all our lives, and for the first time ever, I really felt mum was interested in my life too. I spent a considerable amount of time reading her favourite poetry to her. We both love poetry, but to her it was so much more. It reflected the few happy times from her childhood, pretty much the only common ground she had with her own mother and memories from my childhood when she would read to me.We shared confidences, bad moments and good and really now in retrospect, I feel that those weeks which were so awful for her, were in a strange way, a great gift to me. Due to those weeks, my more difficult memories of mum are tempered by those later soft memories. I felt bad leaving her at the end of each day, but she was quite insistent I go. As I mentioned earlier, she loved the farm at Bullsbrook and she vowed that she was happy for me to go, as she wanted me to have that break and the beauty and peace that came with the farm, she also said that as I was driving home, she would imagine herself flying up the highway with me. I must make a confession here, on nice fine days with the sky blue above me and white clouds scudding across the sky, I would open the hatch on Zed, turn the old Rock ‘n Roll up strength ten, plant the foot firmly on the pedal and just about ‘fly’ up that highway. Sad as I was for mum, I really did relish that feeling of freedom as I headed home each afternoon. Naughty girl I know!

Mum’s courage was amazing. She was having such a hard time of it. Her poor old head was almost bald, just a few wispy bits of white fluff left, what little bit of body fat she had disappeared and she literally shrunk before my eyes. She still managed to find things to laugh about tho’ and I loved making her laugh. Although she didn’t try to hide from me how hard it was, there were a few times when she thought I wasn’t looking and she let her guard down and I saw more clearly how much it was taking out of her. One particularly poignant afternoon which is emblazoned on my memory forever, as I was leaving, she thought I had gone and I peeked back thru’ the front door as I was going. She sat there looking so small, frail and dejected and so very, very alone. I know that mum’s lifestyle was her own choice and that she was on her own due to her own selection, but it was still heart wrenching to see her like that. Particularly considering what a ferocious person she had previously been.

During this time, I had mentioned to Mum that I had no idea how we would cope if I became ill. Some sort of intuitive thing I suppose. Because of this fear, I agreed to have a ‘flu shot’ – something I have always maintained I didn’t need or wish to do. Hmm, goes to show, deep down we all know what is best for us.

By now, sadly, Brett had temporarily parted company from Nom and was staying with us at the farm (100k round trip for him each day in his little ‘Muzz Buzz’) and due largely to being the dad of toddlers and also his frequent flying around this country, he seemed to have a perennial cough. After a couple of weeks I too started to cough. I ignored it. Still ignoring the cough, I reluctantly had a flu shot. Within the week, my cough was considerably worse. By the time mum came out of hospital after her third bout of chemo I was very unwell. This posed a double problem – not only was I pretty crook in myself, but as mum due to the chemo had no immunity, I could go nowhere near her. I worsened, but believed that as in most bugs, I would be fine after a couple of days, kept promising poor Mum that I would most likely be there ‘tomorrow’. Folks, I cannot remember a worse virus. I have never in my life coughed up so much gunk. And It Went On....and On........and On. I spoke with mum twice every day on the phone, and I send DD down a couple of times too. Someone needed to help her, to do what little bit of shopping she needed doing, to wash her dishes, feed the beast, and generally tidy up for her. I felt so bad not being able to see her and help her, but I certainly could go nowhere near her. That virus (now known, in Perth at least, as the 40 day flu) would have been the last straw for mum. She would have ended up with pneumonia at the very least. The whole situation was terrible.

In the middle of all of this Naomi also ended back in hospital with more of the same bowel problems she had experienced previously. The less said about the reasons why the better I guess. In the middle of me being super ill, she asked us to go and mind the children so she could go to hospital – she was not happy to get my negative response. Once again, I had no choice – but that is a long story and one for another time.

OF MICE & MEN

Blue Boy Drops In

I know I have spoken with many of you about my mum, her foibles and her very unusual and somewhat abrasive personality. I don’t know if I have ever however, explained her courage. She had to be one of the bravest people I have ever known. She sailed into this treatment with high hopes and amazing stamina for a woman her age.

When she was admitted to hospital the following Tuesday, we expected she would only be there a couple of days and then be sent home prior to returning shortly to commence treatment. Instead, they kept her there and commenced treatment pretty well immediately. The first treatment involved chemo to the site and steroid medication. The immediate results were totally dramatic. The lump disappeared literally overnight! All signs were super positive. After spending a week in hospital mum was sent home. The plan was 6 lots of chemo all 21 days apart. I have to say, they gave us very limited information as to what to expect. A few brochures and not much else; I had spent quite a lot of time at the hospital with mum, but nobody had bothered to fill me in on anything of real value regards what would predictably happen next.

Butchy checking us out

We picked mum up from the hospital late in the day, having been told to pick her up around 3ish only then to have to wait for another couple of hours for meds. The woman we picked up was a very different one to the one we had taken to the hospital some 7 days earlier. For one thing, Mum had never really been exposed to anyone who had a truly rough trot, either medically or any other way. Being a public hospital, the cancer ward where she had been staying had been full of women who were literally on their last legs. Full too of family members trying to spend what little time was left with their loved ones. Mother, to put it mildly, came away a bit shell shocked. I have to confess to being pretty peeved with her that evening as she harped on about all the awful people she had encountered in during the course of her stay. I was upset about her lack of human compassion. She had never really, until then, suffered any real ill health, nor any real awfulness in her life. Sure, her childhood had left a great deal to recommend it, but from that point on, she had pretty much cruised. When bad things popped into her life, she popped her head in the sand, or better still, into a glass of wine or beer. She had really been quite sheltered. I have to say that over the next couple of months she did respond much more kindly to the problems of others. I think a great deal of introspection opened up a whole lot of new ground for mum at that point in time.

BB (Big Beak) looking for a handout

During Mum’s first hospital visit, we stayed at her place. We pretty much had to as someone had to look after Sparky (the manic Wombat) who was so very accustomed to mum’s routines we couldn’t really take him up to the farm with us. In addition to my reservations as to the wisdom of taking Sparks up to the farm, Mum really didn’t want us to do that. She really wanted us to do just what we did, stay at her place looking after Sparks. Folks it wasn’t easy. We bought mum a big sofa-bed before we travelled, partly so she could have a lay down during the day (she would never lay on her bed during the day) and partly so we would have a bed if we had to return home suddenly. Well, who on earth designed these torture devices? It was diabolically uncomfortable on that contraption. The level of comfort was not abetted by the fact that DD point blank refused to remove the plastic cover from the mattress! Why? Who knows! Anyway, there was a fair degree of discomfort, but we managed. By the time Mum came home the first time, we had enough of that bloody bed and when she insisted we go home and leave her we were pretty pleased to do so. It was quite late that night when we took Mum home. She was exhausted, as were we and she insisted that she wanted to be alone, having had to put up with “all those awful people at the hospital” – I suppose I didn’t take a great deal of convincing, a – I was a bit disappointed with Mum’s behaviour and b – I was really needing a good night’s sleep on my own bed. With great guilt we drove to the farm that night, leaving my diminutive and unwell mother on her own. She was fine. I was back first thing next morning and spent the day with her, trying to tempt her to eat a little and generally keeping her company.

Now Don't Be a Galah

That pretty well established the pattern for the next couple of months. Mum had a total of 3 lots of chemo. After that first time tho’, we did stay at the farm overnight, heading down to mum’s early each morning to feed the wombat. Poor old Sparks, we stayed there every day just to be with him, leaving each afternoon after 4 and returning each morning around 8.30. Amazing what we will do for a dog! Anyway, as I said before, we really couldn’t take him to the farm, so not much choice.

Enjoying a Few Rays

While mum was in hospital, I tried to do a bit of cleaning out for her. You need to know here that she would never allow me to do that sort of thing while she was there, and indeed, up until that point in time, would never have allowed me to investigate her stuff in her absence either. I must admit, I didn’t warn her I was going to embark on a ‘spring clean’ for her, I simply started to ‘chuck stuff out’! My Mum never, but never, threw anything away. I cannot even begin to tell you the things she had accumulated over the years. Right down to all the bills over the past 10 years since my father died. Mum was afraid of identity theft and so was not prepared to put anything in the bin unless it was destroyed first – as she never managed to get around to ‘the destroying’, everything was preserved.

Just Where is New Hollland?

During my ‘cleaning’ exercise I experienced a peculiar thrill one day. I was cleaning out a drawer beneath the TV. I had been in this drawer previously on several occasions looking for sticky tape, envelopes and general thingies. Well my dears, imagine my surprise when amongst all the stuff I spied what looked like a rubber skeleton of a small animal, you know, the sort you buy the kids at the $2 shops. Not A Rubber Skeleton at all! Rather, an entire intact skeleton of a very real mouse! I was fairly un-thrilled at my discovery and very gingerly removed said dead rodent. Some years back Mum had a mouse plague of sorts. Mobs of the determined small creatures gravitated to her place from the railway reserve across the road. Their inroads into the house were probably aided and abetted by the fact that mum was very much inclined to leave the back sliding door open for Sparky – not being prepared to have a dog door installed due perceived security issues. I know, sounds Irish to me too, but there you have it. As much as I am against baiting, eventually in desperation, she did absolutely fill every conceivable nook and cranny with Rat Poison. This did finally pretty much solve the problem, although during the thick of the battle, one was prone to find small carcasses lying in the middle of the room from time to time. Sparks had enough brains not to touch the small poisoned beasts and Mum had no sense of smell, so she was never aware of their presence. Sparks would try to tell her by slinking around the corpses in a Strange and Mysterious Manner, but generally due to all the above and her poor sense of sight she was sublimely unaware of the little deaths.

Can you see me - down on the fence wire?

Every so often when we visited I would comment on an unpleasant odour and we would search, usually in vain for the culprit. One such event was most likely prompted by the death of the ‘drawer mouse’. When I mentioned my grisly find to Mother, her reasonably dumbfounding (and scary) response, was; “Oh well – if that upset you, I wouldn’t clean out the drawer beneath the little china cabinet then!” At my startled look, she continued “I know there is a dead one in there, I sprayed it with fly-spray!” Oh joy! Not only did I have that to look forward to (she wouldn’t let me do it while she was present), but we had reasonably frequently used the plates in that cabinet to eat from. Oh well, I suppose we all survived. When I did finally manage to get to that particular drawer, I discovered not a skeleton but an enormous ball of grey fluff. The poor little thing had actually been making a nest in the drawer, using mum’s old diaries etc for its bedding. Sadly, the books which recorded many of mum’s early poetry and thoughts were much the worse for wear. Hopefully I will be able to preserve at least some of the stuff therein – mind you I am not looking forward to handling the things knowing their recent history.

Multi Cultural Bathing

NB Hope you enjoy the birds of Bullsbrook!

NEWS - THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE UGLY

Back to The Farm

The next few months of lives will hang in our memories for a very long time, there were some very sad times and some happy moments mixed amongst the sad. I hope you will excuse me for relating most of the events with a certain amount of levity. Life itself is often sad and dramatic, I don’t think I need to add to the negatives. Please understand I mean absolutely no disrespect to anyone when I use humour to convey our story.

On the Saturday morning prior to taking mum into RPH I had a minor nose bleed. Nothing to be alarmed about – I had a series of them around 3 years ago just before we travelled. Some of those had been doosies and very hard to stop, but this was just a little baby one. I simply thought to myself (stupid woman), how fortunate it was that the bleed had happened on the Saturday and not the Monday morning. Monday morning we needed to off from the farm around 7.15 in order to pick mum up some 40ks further south, so that we could get her to her appointment at RPH yet another 30 or so ks south. Fortunately, I had a very early shower and was dressed by 7am. At 7am, I sneezed! From that point on, my nose started not to just bleed, but to absolutely gush blood. Nothing I did stemmed the flow in any way. How I managed not to get blood all over me, I just don’t know. I certainly did a good job of decorating the ensuite in the van! I could do nothing. I could not remove my hand from my nose for even a split second without torrents of blood spilling out. The pressure behind my ear-drums was incredible and the pain was quite significant. I expected blood to start gushing from my eyes and my ears the way things were going. Anyway, I was determined to be with Mum this day and so I managed, with DD’s help to board Zed and we headed down to pick Mum up. When we arrived at her place, the bleeding had not abated and so I was unable to help her leave the house or, as I would usually do, help her climb aboard the Cruiser (Zed). Poor old DD had to do all the honours and I (by now on my second box of tissues along with numerous wipes etc) sat miserably in the front seat of the car.

Evening Glow

Locals

We took off and but by the time we reached the hospital, while the bleeding had slowed a little, my nose was still bleeding. Now...........the Ear Nose & Throat department in that old mausoleum that represents RPH is at least a half k walk. Bear in mind that I normally would be helping mum, holding her hand and making sure she didn’t stumble etc. This time, I still had one hand clamped firmly to my nose, my handbag, mum’s handbag, mum, and I think from memory, her brolly too! Off we limped on our long and (for both of us) tortuous journey to the EN&T dept. Amazingly we were on time! When we arrived and I advised them of mum’s presence, Mother, never usually very maternal loftily demanded that ‘somebody’ tend to her daughter. It seems quite hilarious, if not very fortuitous that it was the Ear Nose and Throat Dept. I was duly carted off to the nurse’s station where a nice young Registrar came along, examined me, had the nurses finally staunch the red flow and then cauterise the offending vessel. All the while I was carrying on about being with Mum when she saw the Dr. Finally I was sorted and returned to Mother’s side well in time for her to see her Dr.

Green Fairies Dancing

We were ushered into a room where sat a delightful young fella. All roses and cream complexion and cultured English accent; he seemed to me to be around 19 years old. Once we were seated, Mother declared in vibrant tones, “Thank God you are white and Australian!”, while I muttered something helpful like “Oh mum!”, trying to look inconspicuous and ignore the very large Indian Dr lurking in the doorway, the young English registrar simply smiled sweetly and advised mum to ‘get it all out’ – what a honey! Mum then launched into the story of the Indian cab driver she had drive her to the hospital the previous week. When Mother had deposited herself into the front passenger seat of the taxi the nice turbaned Indian gentleman behind the wheel had proceeded to regale her with the story of his arranged marriage gone wrong. It seems that his wife- to- be was brought out from India for their nuptials and he (I guess being slightly Westernised) proceeded to attempt to please her, giving her all manner of gifts etc. It seems that the lady was not unduly impressed and the whole thing culminated in her departing our shores minus a wedding commitment. As Mum and her erstwhile driver arrived at the front steps of the hospital, it seems his parting words to mum were “and I bought her a Fucking Mobile Phone!” You may be shocked to think a gentleman of this ilk would use this type of language in the presence of an elderly and very upright looking passenger, but trust me, he was doubtless encouraged by that same elegant personage.

A chat around the Water - Cooler

I have never seen a young man blush the way that young Registrar blushed that day. I doubt he had kept bad company much and certainly was not expecting that sort of language from the very proper looking, diminutive, frail old woman sitting opposite him. He truly didn’t seem to know where to put himself. I have long since been accustomed to mum’s verbatim story-telling, and so my degree of embarrassment was minimal.

That was the fun part of the day – the young Registrar’s next words seemed to rob the day of any further joy. The lump on mum’s face was in fact a form of blood cancer and many more tests were needed and she was quickly scheduled an appointment with a Lymphoma specialist within the hospital. The week spiralled out of control from that point. That was the Monday, from the ENT department, we went to arrange RMI scans and a CAP scan was arranged at Charlie Garner Hospital for the Thursday. By Friday we were sitting in front of the specialist with all the results. It evolved that mum had a form of Lymphoma (Non Hodgekins I believe) which we were told categorically was curable. The cure however involved up to 6 lots of chemotherapy followed by a series of radiation treatments. I was somewhat horrified as I really didn’t think mum could manage all of that. Mum however was quite positive and keen (well sort of keen) to get on with it. The Registrar arranged for her to be admitted to hospital the following Tuesday for further tests, largely to satisfy him that she was indeed strong enough to withstand the treatment.

Just Dropped In

Just before I lead into the next part of Mum’s story, I must just tell you about the day we had all the children together to tell them about our marriage. Everyone was there with the exception of Bree who was by now in London. Getting everyone there at the same time proved to be somewhat of a nightmare; as I have said before, they are all soooo busy and without telling them why we wanted them there it was hard to convince them of the necessity.

I had arranged (made) a large cake for the announcement, that being my way of sharing the day with all. Predictably Naomi was super late and so making the announcement to everyone simultaneously still did not eventuate. We did manage to tell everyone tho’ and all were predictably happy for us. The day was marred however by the revelation that two of our various offspring were facing marital problems. Brett & Nom were it seemed on the brink of dissolving their marriage for at least the short term and Danni took me aside to tell me that they too were not experiencing plain sailing. It was sad news indeed, particularly in the case of Brett & Nom as there are children involved there. Hopefully all will be well in each instance.

Peace

CALLED HOME AGAIN

COASTAL GLORY

I had of course, during this time been talking to mum each day on the phone. No sooner had we left home than the lump that had appeared on the side of her nose just before Christmas, (the one that was deemed to be an ant bite), reappeared. Not only did it re-appear, but it rapidly become quite large. Mum once again tried antihistamines, this time to no avail. Her general health too, seemed to be suffering.

It almost seemed she had just hung in there until after the marriage ceremony. The following day she seemed worse than usual on the phone and decided to go and see her GPs. Now, I’d better tell you right now that the next episode in our lives, revolving around mum, will take quite a bit of telling. I know I am never brief, but this will be more wordy than usual so I apologise in advance, but I cannot in all conscience, with respect to mum or anyone else going thru’ similar events, short cut at this time.

A Storm Approaches!

During the past 12 months I have become more and more horrified at the way some of the medical fraternity and their staff, treat our oldies. I guess the fact that we are becoming older ourselves help to fuel that uncomfortable realisation.

River Mouth

Mum was attending the local Dental Hospital to have a fair amount of dental work done and to have a small partial plate made. As I usually took her to these trysts I had a pretty good idea of how they dealt with her. On one noteworthy occasion, they kept mum in that chair way past the time when she told them quite clearly she was no longer able to handle the treatment. She was at the time, 86 years old, and quite frail. When she told them she could not continue that day, they should have ceased. It was not a procedure that had to be continued, from memory, I think it was a cleaning procedure, following a fitting for the dentures. I also heard the way she was treated at the front desk, both at the dental surgery and the doctors’ surgery. The staff, for whatever reason, seem to think that if you are elderly you must be both simple and deaf. The only way I can describe the general treatment is as a form of bullying. Listening I would cringe on mum’s behalf – she was certainly neither of those things and in her heyday would have given any of these self righteous excuses for human beings a run for their money.

Honeymoon Suite

This general type of treatment was exemplified when she called the surgery to make a double appointment to see a GP. Sadly for mum, there were a couple of circumstances which had lead up to her being a bit of an orphan as far as GPs were concerned. Her long term GP, the one who not only had she been seeing for some 20 or so years, but who had also been her mother’s Dr, retired; there was another older Dr at the practice who mum had also been seeing on and off for around the same period of time. This particular Dr, an Asian lady was super thorough, but painfully slow, largely because she refused point blank to use a computer at all. Every time mum went to see her, there was a wait of at least, at least, 2 hours. That is a long time for an elderly woman (and her not so young daughter) to be sitting in a germ ridden, busy, noisy, often cold waiting room. The only upside to these prolonged waits was that mum invariably saw someone she knew and had some quite nice chats while waiting.

Two of the colourful locals

By the time mum tried to make her next appointment the Asian lady Dr was on leave, this was probably not necessarily a bad thing, as due (we think) to her own poor and deteriorating health, she had given mum an incorrect prescription – when she was supposed to give a prescription for a higher dose of blood pressure medication, she had in fact written out a script for a lighter dose – considering how high mum’s blood pressure was at the time, an error which could have proved fatal!

On this particular occasion, mum called and asked for a double appointment. Not for the first time, she was bluntly asked “Why” by the woman on the phone. Honestly, I just don’t get this! What bloody business is it of a telephonist why you need to see a Dr for a longer period of time? The appointment, double or single is being paid for after all. What medical experience would these people have that would enable them to make a decision as to whether or not the request was valid? Why should any of us have to explain our private medical affairs with a telephonist? Anyway, thanks to the surly tone etc of the person on the other end of the phone, mum ended up with just a normal length appointment. She had wanted to talk to the Dr about getting Taxi Vouchers verified and of course, about the lump on her face. This lump by now had grown so rapidly, it was pushing her glasses up above their usual position.

A single appointment was made with the Dr who generally fielded all the’ drop in’ patients, you know the type of Dr I am talking about here. They generally are super quick and not particularly interested – many surgeries employ these quick operators in order to get thru’ the patient list quickly. Mum had been compelled to see this particular GP before and had found him to reasonably OK. Anyway, she was pretty desperate by this time.

I can only relate this now, as told to me by mum. This wonderful chap, DID NOT AT ANY TIME look at my mother’s face. According to mum, he didn’t even look up from his desk/computer. She asked him about Taxi Vouchers and was told in very abrupt tones that “You are not technically Blind”, “You do not use a Walker”, “You can catch a bus!” – you know, by now Mum was unable to walk more than a couple of yards without stopping for a break, she had very little stamina, and whilst she was not legally blind, I had to hold her hand all the time to stop her from stumbling, as her eyesight simply couldn’t adjust from shade to bright at all. She had, while we were away the previous year for a week or so, fallen in the middle of the road outside the optometrists, in busy traffic I might add. I am not a vindictive person, but part of me wishes this particular GP some tough times when he gets to mum’s venerable age. Oddly, despite his little rant, he did sign the relative paper work for her however. Mum was bundled out of the surgery without having him attend to the really important issue of the lump on her face.

All of this had happened in the two weeks since we left home for Denmark. The lump had been nowhere to be seen when we went, but had re-surfaced aggressively in that short time. Yet another locum was called, this time, mum was told to have biopsy performed on the lump. Now she was scared!! The next day she took herself out to the Emergency Department of Swan Districts Hospital where they took very good care of her indeed. She was there for the whole day and they took a whole series of tests and made an appointment for her to go into the Ear Nose and Throat department of Royal Perth Hospital (RPH) the following day. They took her everywhere in a wheel chair and provided her with Taxi vouchers to use for going to RPH. Mum did all of this in our absence and it must have been hard indeed!

By now, this was one week after we had tied the knot. On Tuesday, mum took herself into RPH as arranged and they performed yet more tests and an appointment was made for her to attend on the following Monday in order to get the results. She really had been thru’ the wringer by now and we immediately decided to call short our stay in Denmark and head on home. I promised mum we would be there to take her to the RPH appointment the following Monday.

We packed up the following day and headed directly home, not stopping half way as we could have normally done. We arrived home on the Thursday and headed down to visit mum on the Friday. The rapid deterioration in her health was notable as was the huge lump now clearly visible alongside her nose.

Remember now, we still had not shared our Big News with the family. Only mum knew we were married. In order to remedy this we called around to arrange a ‘bun-fight’ at the old farm on the second Sunday we arrived home, still not telling anyone anything.



Goodbye to Beautiful Denmark



THE BIG EVENT!

 

The Happy Couple


So.....................of course by now you all know that we married this year, but back then it was all very hush hush. The only person we really shared our plans with was mum – that was largely so she would understand our need to leave her for a few weeks. Mum was so relieved we were planning to wed. She had some very old fashioned ideas about my lack of vows and really, I think, worried about me unwed. She was also disappointed not to be able to be there with us, but she truly simply could not have managed the trip and subsequent ‘holiday’. Instead she was relatively content to be in the ‘know’ and part of the planning process.



The Bridal Party



Doug listens intently to instructions!

Initially we had some idea of simply having a Registry Office wedding but when we discovered just how much our Government charge to marry someone, we had second thoughts. We opted instead to have a very quiet and small civil ceremony utilising a celebrant. Logistically it proved a little challenging to arrange the wedding some 400 odd ks away from where we were living at the time. Thanks to the magic of the net however I was able to find a delightful lady in Denmark to do the honours for us. I also found a pretty venue, ordered flowers, booked hair-do’s and make up all from information gleaned on line.

I have to get a little girlie here and spend some time discussing the female elements of the day. The first items of course were the rings. DD’s idea here was to simply set me a dollar limit and send me off on my own to select my rings. Girls, I have to say I sallied forth with very mixed emotions. Part of me really wished he would have come with me to select the rings (more romantic I think) but part of me agreed with his logic which revolved around the fact that he would only rush me and I would end up with something I didn’t really like. Probably true! Anyway, I selected a set (whatever that is called) of matching Wedding and Engagement rings. The Wedder has a row of small diamonds across the top and the Engagement ring has a raised cluster of stones complementing the Wedder. Being a ‘bling baby’ I am not much of a one for solitaires, feeling that you get more ‘bang for your buck‘ with several smaller stones. Anyway, I am happy with the result.

This is how it is going to be!

The next challenge, much harder, was an outfit. We were only going to be four folk on the day, just us and our good friends Steve & Sylvia. The venue was a winery restaurant and the time was around midday. I just needed something pretty, feminine and not too over the top. Preferably something I could get use of at a later date. Considering my very un-sylph like form, that proved to be relatively difficult. Finally however in desperation I stumbled on a beautiful little boutique in downtown Midland (amazing!) and there after a brief discussion with the owner came up with a wonderful solution.

The Ring

The Vows

The Kiss

The very clever lady there had designed these knee length sheer jackets, in all different colours, the intention being to wear two different colours (one over the other) together. Brilliant! As I was a little undecided about the colours I wanted, I did the only sensible thing – I purchased one of every colour!!! Lovely.........I now have an outfit for just about every event and occasion I may ever need to attend – until the end of my days. In this event, the jackets were worn over a little black top and black dress pants. Accessorised, it all looked just fine.

As red roses have formed such a big part of our history, I wanted to include a deep red into the day, but finally balked at wearing red and black – just didn’t feel right somehow, and ended up with peacock blue over cerise – it worked very well. I told DD he needn’t wear a tie as we were keeping the day casual. We had thought he would wear grey strides and his blue blazer, but sadly when the blazer was aired it was discovered that it had shrunk a couple of sizes – truly! Instead he wore his grey suit, a deep blue shirt and cerise hanky – very swish!

The Blunder

The big day was planned for May 1st and to this end we departed Perth and arrived in Denmark one week ahead of time. We were so lucky with our dear friends Steve & Sylvia who were at the time visiting relatives in the area. We let them into our secret and enlisted their help for the day. It proved to be perfect as they are the only ones we still know who we were friends with when we were a young courting couple all those many years ago. They in fact were courting the same time as us. Couldn’t have been better!

Oh No!!

Of course I am assuming here that you all know our history – just in case there is someone there who is not conversant with our story, in brief, DD and I were teenage sweethearts, life intervened (as life does), we parted company, in due course both married others, had two children each and in our own respective times, parted company with those partners and then some 33 years down the track our orbits once again collided. Our first meeting, now almost 10 years ago, saw DD arrive at my home with a seafood banquet, wine, brand new crystal glasses, photos of then and now, and best of all ladies, 33 long stemmed dark red roses, one for each of our years apart. I was blown away of course. Each year after that he continued the roses, adding one each year until finally I had to call ‘uncle’ as it was getting a bit difficult to find suitable vases each time the roses came around in October. Since then he has simply given me a small bunch each year. Hence the preoccupation with red roses; I have to say girls that was pretty much the first and last romantic gesture by our boy – not that I mind, that was a good one and has stood him in very good stead ever since.

The Serious Bit

Back to the Big Event – once in Denmark we were able to visit the venue, and do all the little final things we had to do for the event. Steve & Sylvia arrived a couple of days after us and being the darlings they are, and tee-totallers to boot, they agreed to pick us up and bring us back to the van on the day. Yes, we did just stay in the van – I know that doesn’t seem particularly romantic t o some, but trust me, we were more than happy parked at the mouth to the river in beautiful Denmark.


Its Official


I had come across all feminine and decided to have my make-up done for the day – ladies, can I tell you now, if anyone of you in my particular age bracket decide for any reason to have you ‘make up done’ – don’t! Not a good time to discover just how many wrinkles one has on one’s face! I rarely wear much makeup and nor do I often look in the mirror with my glasses on (take my word for it, a VERY GOOD THING), but on the day in question, the lady who did my hair, also did my face and every hitherto unrealised crack, crater and wrinkle all of a sudden came out to say HI!! Bugger! On top of that debacle I for some peculiar reason opted to wear a fascinator. Why?! Buggered if I know now, but at the time it seemed like a great idea. Well girls, I would like you to picture the following.

The Venue

Early in the morning, I dressed myself in jeans and a shirt that didn’t have to be pulled over my head and took myself off to the hair-dressers. There the nice lady curled my hair and ‘put it back and up’ for me. Very nice; She then proceeded to layer, oh at least a kilo of stuff on my poor old face, hmmm.............oh well! Then to top the whole thing off, she placed my dark blue fascinator on my locks. Ohhhhh!

Now, the plan was that as soon as I was ‘done’ I would phone DD who would come and pick me up pronto – right. I am now in down town Denmark, country WA, home of all good ferals, alternatives and solid country folk – sitting out the front of the strip of shops, looking like...................you know I’m not really sure what I was looking like, but from all the sideways glances I was receiving, raised eye-brows, grimaces, grins and the likes, obviously if nothing else I was good entertainment value. DD you ask, where the hell was he.....................oh, out chatting somewhere, not with phone in pocket, and so not getting my call. Lovely! I am not sure how long I sat there for awaiting my errant knight, but suffice to say long enough to entertain the locals considerably.

Steve & Sylvia picked us up and drove us to the very pretty winery – the day was not wonderful, but at least it didn’t rain. As rain looked possible, we elected to have the event inside. We had by now met our lovely celebrant Wendy and had explained our somewhat eccentric idea of our day. We all sat......yes sat, around the table. On the table was, you guessed it, a vase of dark red roses. Steve kindly took DD’s camera and ‘shot’ the wedding for us. I’m not sure what particular demon demanded he only take photos of me looking like a stunned mullet, perhaps it was because he is such an avid fisherman, but whatever, each and every photo of me is a shocker. Maybe I just always look that way! Everyone else looks fine in the photos Steve! Hmmm. We also took movie camera with us and that was running the whole time – some of the stuff on that is quite good.

For your edification, the following is the ‘reading’ I wrote for the event:

Sometimes in a lifetime there comes a love that is so enduring it can survive even long absences and hibernations. Our love is one such as this.

When we met we were in the moment of youth. Our ambitions were clear, our spirits were strong and our respective pathways clearly mapped.

Passion was strong and we, in love’s sweet youth taught each other a little of love. Like sweet champagne love bubbled in our veins, sweetened our kisses, warmed our embraces and heightened our senses.

Youth however is headstrong and too soon our pathways, whilst briefly intertwined, separated as we both followed our dreams.

Parting was steeped in sorrow. Only the resilience of youth made our separate journeys plausible. As often happens with those who truly love, we each locked away a scrap of love, a place in our hearts that would always belong each to the other. That small particle of ourselves was to forever belong to the other, as so much had been shared and so much had been given, that vestige of our love was as perennial as the seasons.

The people that we are, did not allow any examination of that scrap of love for many years – as we clove to others, we honoured those relationships and put old loves aside. No waking moment was spent in reliving old loves, no conscious thought was sacrificed to regret. New promises made to others were respected and our new loves and families rightly occupied our thoughts and endeavours. Our dreams however, visited occasionally the first love. In that pleasant realm we sometimes returned to remember the sweetness of youth and the delight of discovering love for the first time.

As too often happens in this hurly burly world, despite our good intentions, those other loves, those other lives we lived paled and eventually faded away. Only then did we each allow our thoughts to return to those heady days of youth. Only then did we each separately stretch out our senses and begin our search to reconnect with our youthful love.

Wondrously somehow, perhaps with God’s blessing and help, with our spirits seeking each other, we reconnected on this earthly plain. In the magic of the moment 33 long years evaporated and once again our deep and abiding love for each other emerged. Now where once love had bubbled in our veins like sweet champagne, a deeper, stronger, quieter love flows like golden cognac.

Dark red roses marked the day of our love’s return and will forever remain to us a symbol of our love - love that is enhanced by our separate life experiences, and blessed by our respective families - a love that is so deeply enriched by all that we have been and all that life has taught us.

We have been twice blessed in our love – to experience love’s first bloom and then to be enriched by each others’ company in later life and until our days’ end. As they say in the classics, we have indeed saved the best till last.

For the second reading, we chose Robert Burns classic poem, A Red Red Rose.

A RED RED ROSE

O, My Luve’s like a red, red rose

That’s newly sprung in June:

O, my luve’s like the melodie

That’s sweetly play’d in tune



As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,

So deep in luve am I ;

And I will luve thee still, my dear,

Till a’ the seas gang dry :



Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,

And the rocks melt wi’ the sun :

And I will luve thee still my dear,

While the sands of life shall run.



And fare thee weel, my only luve!

And fare thee weel awhile!

And I will come again, my luve,

Tho’ it were ten thousand mile.



The plan was initially for DD to memorise the whole poem and quote it to me, I was advised by said man however, that he was literally incapable of memorising so much. Plan 2 was for us to both memorise alternative verses and quote them to each other. Plan 3, was for me to memorise my verses and DD to simply read his. Oh well..............when it came to the crunch ladies, he still mucked it up and instead of romantically declaring in the second verse “I will love thee still”, instead he rather violently and vehemently stated to our various amazements, “I will HAVE thee” – well, due to his other stuttering during the preceding ceremony I was already having trouble keeping it together. Poor Sylvia, sitting directly opposite me had been watching my face, and this proved to be the final straw. Sylvia who is the most contained and poised lady generally just lost the plot and I followed. Thereafter all decorum was lost and the day evolved into a lovely happy luncheon followed by slowly consumed coffees and for DD and me, several lovely glasses of bubbly.

After lunch, Steve drove us back to the van park and left us to our own devices. I know some of you will feel we let the side down with our low key celebrations, but for us, it was perfect.

ADVENT OF 2012

He gave you what for Christmas?

2012 - nobody warned me about 2012! Nobody told me in advance to watch out for this year; it turns out that this is the year in which our lives changed forever. I guess each of the recent years has contained an element of permanent change, but none of them compares to 2012 – and we are not quite at the end of September yet!

Sorry to race ahead of you here – I will backtrack a little for your comfort and try (with my rather faulty senior’s memory) to put things into chronological order.



Honestly!!

 When we last spoke (aside from the ‘Literary Spit’ in May) we were about to celebrate Christmas 2011. I had just taken mum on a wildflower trip and we had had more dramas with the health of my daughter in law Naomi.

Eeiew!

Took me ages to think of it!



Hey - Bro!

 To pick up that thread, Christmas was a fairly quiet affair. Naomi was only just out of hospital in time for the event and we had to keep a very close watch on her to make sure she didn’t over exert herself. Mum was looking forward to spending the day with us lunching with Brett & Nom, Troy & Shell and all the grandies. Sadly on the day, mum just wasn’t up to scratch and opted to stay at home. We had no choice to leave her, after a brief visit in the morning, as we had a goodly portion of Christmas lunch with us.

We had a pleasant, albeit quiet time at Brett’s and then wandered over to Trent & Danni’s (DD’s son and Daughter in law) to spend a few very pleasant hours with them and DD’s ex, Carol, and her new hubby Bill. . Leaving Trent & Danni’s we happily meandered back to our little country retreat, lapping up the luxury of the peace and quiet.

Fortunately, we had already taken mum for her annual visit to her sister Suzie during the week prior to Christmas and so were off the hook for that annual event.

Life post Christmas was pretty hectic – mum’s health was not good and there were a few more health scares for Naomi. We did in that early part of the year manage to have all my lot up to the farm for a brunch and swim in the pool, but other than that we rarely saw any of the offspring. Thanks to the kindness of our good friends Sue and Rob and the donation of a sofa-bed we were also able to have mum come and stay for a couple of nights (along with the manic Wombat). Just like us, mum fell in love with the place and was fascinated to see all the birds and roos coming in for evening nibbles and drinks.

We were a bit peeved with the kids as it did feel to us at the time that we were only there when needed so to speak. In retrospect, I do understand that all our grown up children do indeed have super busy lives and I guess the 50 odd ks to come and visit was asking a bit much – best to think that way anyway!

Mum continued to have poor health and we were kept pretty busy looking after her, doing shopping, taking her to Dr’s appointments and generally being there for her. I don’t think I mentioned that prior to Christmas she had a little lump come up on the side of her nose and ultimately had a locum have a look at it. She was told that it was an ant bite and to take antihistamines to fix the problem – she did, and they did. We also, around the same time, took her into Royal Perth Hospital to visit the Ear Nose and Throat people about possible polyps in her nasal passages. It was confirmed that there were indeed multiple polyps but that surgery was not recommended at her age. We, mum included, all agreed with the outcome.

Other than the nasal problems, mum was just plain tired and her eyes were really worrying her. Despite all the assurances from Eye specialists, opticians and general practitioners to the contrary, she felt that her eyesight had deteriorated markedly. Despite this she was still able to drive at that time, legally, but probably wisely opted not to do so. Not being able to see well really started to impact on her quality of life – reading after all was her big thing and not being able to do that, combined with the lack of ability to do simple things like read labels etc really impacted adversely.

During this period, DD turned 65 and we had the inevitable appointments with Centrelink. Hmmm, don’t know if you have experienced this particular agony yet, if not, be prepared for a frustrating time. We were given conflicting information from various employees and ended up with quite a dramatic time trying to sort out all the bits and pieces. The main drama revolved around the question of whether or not we are deemed home owners. Believe it or not, and despite the advice given to us by their own people, despite the fact we do not own a home in the traditional sense, as we live in our own van, albeit travelling around, we are deemed home owners. As you may appreciate, that impacts on our somewhat meagre investments, and any partial benefits we might or might not be entitled to. I won’t go into any details here, but if any of you are about to launch into this area of your lives, we would be only too pleased to share our own experiences with you. We didn’t win any battles incidentally, but we are very pleased to be able to utilise the benefits provided by DD’s health card – now that really is a good side benefit to being a little older. Mind you, as we are a little older, we now do need some benefits for medical supplies! I think one of the worst things about being associated with Centrelink is the fact that it feels our lives are no longer our own. Each and every decision we make of a remotely financial nature must be shared with these people. It really does feel very invasive.

On the subject of health issues, DD went back to see the Heart Specialist and all was good. He has to stay on blood thinners pretty much ad finitum and have regular blood tests but all in all he is fine. He has lost a significant amount of weight and that combined with his breathing techniques has kept the sleep apnoea at bay and helped him to maintain good health.

We had to face up to the fact we were not going to get away to Tassie as hoped and so hatched a new plan to run away just for a few weeks in early May. I can tell you now, that the reason we had been trying for a couple of years to get down to Tasmania, was so that we could get married there. It was a nice thought, but ultimately we decided to head down to Denmark on the South coast of WA in order to tie the proverbial knot.