Family Affairs

guess who this famous celebrity is..

I’ve just been sent this information – thought some of you might be interested:-
Starting this weekend is the BBC Two Series “Wonders of the Solar System” which sees Professor Brian Cox explain how the heavens have been made and shaped in the same way that areas of the Earth have been made and shaped.
Looking at [...]

My friend’s friend’s brother is one of four mates who have embarked on the motorcycle adventure of a lifetime across South East Asia to raise much needed funds to help educate abandoned children in Cambodia.

They have a website if anybody is interested in either sponsoring them or following their journey which sounds mega exciting. Here is the latest update:-

BREAKING C2S NEWS.

ONE RIDER AIR LIFTED OUT OF THE JUNGLE;
THE OTHER THREE SPEND THE NIGHT IN A LAOS GAOL

Details are sketchy as contact with the boys is limited to text messages and broken phone calls.

‘Johnny’, the rider who replaced Tom on Sunday, had a freak encounter with a concrete pylon in rough off-road terrain in the remote jungles of northern Laos on Wednesday afternoon. He came off the bike, severely broke his leg and had to be airlifted out to a Bangkok hospital. He was operated on Thursday and reports out of Bangkok are that he is resting post surgery until he is strong enough to return to Australia.

The medivac helicopter raised the concerns of the local Laotian Police force and landed the 3 boys (Geoff, Paul & Mat) in gaol overnight on Wednesday with their passports confiscated. It would seem that the locals had never seen a helicopter and were mistrusting of how and why the boys had arranged for it to be in their jungle!

After exchanging the obligatory ‘incentives’; the boys were un-arrested late on Thursday, and have their passports back. They are now faced with the dilemma of how three riders get four bikes out of Laos and across the border to Vietnam. So far the solution looks like it goes on the roof of a bus on Friday morning!

What happens next will be the next news flash! Stay tuned!

To get more information the link is http://www.city2sunrise.org/

How cool that Kathryn Bigelow has become the first woman to win the best directing Oscar, as her Iraq war drama The Hurt Locker took six prizes, including best film.
She was briefly married to James Cameron whose film Avatar was pitted against hers. Even more cool when you think that her film [...]

I recently moved my large red poster that says “Keep Calm And Carry On” from my kitchen into my loo. I’m not sure why. It had begun to annoy me. Every time I looked at it provided yet another reminder that my life has gone just more than a little off centre and it had begun to provoke in me the opposite effect – more the “Now Panic And Freak Out” option.

But. What I hadn’t realised is that you have to be careful where you put it. Otherwise the advice can be misconstrued. I am going to have to move it again. It is clearly not working in the loo. My daughter told me that during a class at school her friend had pointed to the same poster on the wall – “OMG!!!!” she said “that’s the same poster that you’ve got in your loo!! I thought that was your mum’s special instruction on what to do when you’re having a poo!!!”.

Good grief.

Although, not bad advice for doing a poo.

I suppose.

Yesterday I taught a two hour workshop on deep stretching and strengthening, concentrating on the neck and shoulders. I was brilliantly assisted by my lovely friend who is bravely coping with cancer. She was feeling well yesterday after her second round of chemotherapy. We drove in her car and managed to park outside with all our equipment because she has a disabled badge. We got some funny stares moving everything in because thankfully yesterday, she did not look like she needed or indeed deserved a disabled parking sticker. She told me she had been confronted by people before, chasing her up the road in the entirely wrong assumption that she was abusing the badge. Once she said to an irate woman “OK, I tell you what, you have my cancer and I will gladly give up my disabled parking place”.

She is worried about her hair falling out. When we went to the Maggie’s event, she got talking to Janet Ellis who hosted the event. Janet told her to that she had a fantastic hairdresser that cuts wigs and that she would arrange for him to cut hers. She has since been in touch with my friend. It turns out the hairdresser she mentioned is only Mr Trevor Sorbie himself! My friend has now decided that even if she doesn’t want to wear a wig she’s going to have to go and get it styled by him anyway. Just for the experience.

She’s been writing about how she’s been coping with chemotherapy in her blog. You should take a look. It’s very moving.

Here are some of her recent words:-

Thursday: First to enter chemo ward at 8.45 am. Last to leave at about 7pm. Only advantage is I have eyed up my favourite position (in the corner with the shelf) so getting there early means I get a choice of seats. Lucky old me hey? We get straight on with it. 1o hours later I am full of toxic chemicals, steroids, tonnes of fluid, anti sickness and I think I managed half an egg sandwich too.

Last night after much sobbing, I went for a walk. Around the dining room table. Yes the dining room table. It was quite an achievement.

I couldn’t quite make it back to the sofa so ended up on the floor near the sofa on the grimbles carpet. Jonny reached out to me to help.

I wailed “you need to take me to the seaside.” And again, “the seaside!”

Bless he said he would. Just not last night.

Simple dreams hey. So far we have the field and the seaside. Although sunshine is needed for both.

So. After a week at home in grimbles land, I have made it out of the house.

And it was SO nice. Coffee (ahem well sparkling water) with friend this morning, followed by being driven to Marble Hill Park and the very pretty coffee shop where I managed to share both a main and a cake – like real proper food and everything. Look at me everyone.

My friend asked me what kind of things I like to do. I said “things like this.” Share life. Share living. Share cake.

Yes there were tears today. But I felt better for letting them out.

I really need to invest in some better blusher though. Seriously I put a lot of that stuff on this morning and apparently I still look really pale and washed out. Need to consult my make up expert.

One of my experiences of the past few days has been letting local hospice care help me at home. This has been hard. Emotionally. It’s that word. Hospice. Is that where I am? Is that what I need? How can this be?

It turns out that this is Ann’s job though. To visit people like me who are dealing with side effects and symptoms at home. And she was really helpful. She just got it on many levels.

I had been putting a lot on myself about how badly I have been coping recently. Whilst the reasons were not what I wanted to hear, to have someone who knows there stuff tell you it is not you, it is your body and everything you are going through, gave me some acceptance that it is not just me. I’m really sick. And that isn’t my fault. So we are pleased and so grateful for this help. Even if it is a hard one to accept.

She left some leaflets on the coffee table. Some of which were hard to read even the title of. She also mentioned the day hospice. I am sure for some who are isolated and alone these are a real life line. But for me, right now, I’m not sure. You see I have tried various cancer support places before and it turns out I don’t really fit in there either. Why not? Well one reason is my age. Believe it or not I can find myself in a situation were the staff and other visitors all treat me like some sort of “weird special case” because I have this dreadful disease at such a young age. So I end up feeling like I don’t fit in the one place where in theory I should. But I don’t think it is just my age. I know of others in my situation who that kind of thing is not for them. That’s not to say that this support is wonderful for many. And maybe I will change. But right now – it is not a place I feel I belong.

For me this disease takes over enough. And I long to be free of it. And when I feel well enough (which is not that frequently right now) I want to see those friends and family I trust. Who I know just see me and not the cancer.

I believe most of us yearn to belong, wherever we are in life. For me, heartbreakingly, doors have been closed. But that is not to say I don’t belong anywhere. There are special people and places and moments where I totally do. Not defined by illness or labels or what I look like or whatever. A level beyond any of those temporary things that seek to destroy my human spirit.

Where I do belong.

Yesterday I started eating properly again. I had a very frustrating mid week experience where I wanted to eat more than just toast but my stomach was really struggling to take it in. Last night someone made us fish pie. It hit the spot.

Whilst I have been FED UP, the other member of our household has been very WELL FED all week. We have been so touched by the kindness of the church community who are reaching out with love at this time. For over a week we had Jonny’s evening meals delivered for him and this has been a huge help. There have been pangs of guilt. You may have got by now I struggle with accepting help. But goodness. The boy has eaten well.

Obviously this illness doesn’t just affect me. On our wedding day we had a phrase from dove poem which read “two parts of a loving whole, two hearts and a single soul.” And whilst I am camped out in chemo land at home, the other part of us is working 12 hour days, coming home to try and look after me, as well as dealing with his own emotional fears I know. So having a good proper meal sorted has REALLY helped.

So we say thank you. Thank you. And thank you again.

Tonight we will be eating in Pizza Express. And that feels like a massive treat of a different kind too.

The lovely Erica at Little Mummy has organised a group of bloggers to do guest posts on each other’s blog. I am lucky enough to have swapped with Heather from Notes From Lapland, who writes a HUGE and wonderful blog from Finland, where she writes about her life in that strange and beguiling land, her struggles to come to terms with some of the culture and any other nonsence that comes into her head.:-

“-51C was our coldest day,’ my husband says, smiling fondly at the memory.

I look out of the window at the -25C weather and my jaw drops trying to imagine it another 25 degrees colder.

-25C is the kind of weather that freezes your nose hairs within seconds of stepping outside, that makes your eyes water, eyelashes frost up and your tears freeze against your face. The sort of temperature where your thigh muscles begin to scream in pain 30 seconds after leaving the warmth of the house and your lungs feel as though you are breathing in jagged glass if you take anything more than shallow breaths.

-51C sounds like a whole new level of hell.

As I pull faces trying to imagine it, my husband talks about how the water pipes froze and the family had to walk to the lake and cut a hole through the meter thick ice. How they had to light a fire underneath the tractor to warm the engine and pour alcohol into the fuel tank to stop it freezing. ‘Feeding the cattle was almost impossible,’ he says with a sad shake of his head. ‘It was all we could do just to keep them alive.’ He sits quietly for a while, lost in thought and then looks up with a grin. ‘It was so cold they even had to close the schools.’

How the Brits deal with snow and cold is a constant source of ammusement to him. How can a few sub zero degrees and a little snow bring an entire country to it’s knees? Whilst January brought school closures and countrywide melt down in the UK, it was -35C here in Lapland and everything, busses, schools, shops, business, still ran as normal.

Just 60 miles south of the Arctic Circle with temperatures between -15C and -30C for 120 days of the year, the cold is just a part of life. You either learn to live with it or you leave. Originally from Rochdale, Lancashire, I am in no way used to it or the rest of Finnish culutre yet, as my blog details in humourous and graphic detail, but waking up to see the thermomter showing – 25C or colder doesn’t fill me with the same dread anymore. Perhaps I am finally aclimatising after 5 years.

The winter isn’t all doom and gloom though.

Sure we may have to plug our cars in via a little electric plug they have on the front to heat the engine oil, 2 hours before we can even start them, use studded tyres on our cars, shovel snow off our rooves to stop buildings colapsing and dress our children up like Michelin men before we can go out, but the winter brings some magical things with it too.

The silence you experince standing on our snow blanketed farm is like nothing on earth -your ears actually start to ring for lack of things to hear. The sun sparkling off the snow and in the dry frozen air like diamonds makes you feel as though you have been transported to Narnia. Catching sight of a reindeer making it’s way along the bottom of your garden. The northern lights, which we are lucky enough to witness often over the lake at the bottom of our farm, are the most amazing display in the star studded night sky that they really take your breath away.

And those stars. Wow, who knew there were so many?

There is one thing, however. Something more chilling than the cold, more worrying than the midwives advice to put babies outside to sleep down to -10C, more disturbing than hearing the neighbours sheep are being eaten by bears, that may put you off this frozen winter wonderland.

Something dark and sinister lurking in the Finnish countryside

Naked people of all shapes and sizes, running, jumping, rolling in snow and throwing themselves into holes cut into the ice covered lakes can be found the length and breadth of the country.

The Finnish sauna experience is just that, an experience, and an eye opening one for sure. It may seem ridiculous to us Brits and our relatively prude ways, but most Finnish get togethers involve climbing naked into a hot wooden cupboard with friends and quite often running around in the garden afterwards without even a fig leaf for discretion.

Like many visitors to the country, I couldn’t help feeling as though I was being conned somehow the first time I was instructed to take my clothes off and climb into that hot cupboard with a group of people I barely knew, but that is a whole other story.

The naked people, aside, there isn’t anywhere else I would rather be. After all, where else can you say you’re on first name terms with Santa’s daughter or buy a vibrator from the supermarket?”

Her post has brought back fond memories of my week in Finland a few years ago. I want to go out and do it all again….Finland will have to be included on our bloggers gap year travel itinerary for sure.