Past halfway

Mae has now completed six of her twelve chemo cycles and yesterday had a little picnic to celebrate. She's keeping her chin up despite lots of nasty side effects, the latest being that her skin is so fragile her feet are peeling and her hands cannot hold anything cold from the fridge. She tried to do an hour at work last week but it left her sweaty and shaky. Over the Christmas period she will have three weeks off chemo, so hopefully will feel OK for some of it. New Years Eve will be the next onslaught. What a way to start the new year.

Quite a few people came to the picnic, it was a lovely afternoon.

The picnic was at the very pleasant recreational reserve on the Cotter River. Amazing facilities including numerous shady grassy picnic spots each with a free gas BBQ, plus playgrounds, campgrounds,  swimming holes. The works. This area was burnt out in the 2003 fires and was closed for years until restoration. Huge poplars and plane trees survived being roasted and look better than ever.

There was a Pavlov's dog reaction all round to the distinctive sounds of an approaching icecream van. What hot-day picnic would be complete without one of these? I'm a bit of a healthy food nazi and even I had one!

Back home, Mia fends Mae off with a soft paw to the nose. Mia the rescue cat does not like her personal space invaded.

Final picture is a bit back to front. This is the well-deserved panoramic, calming view from my front-of-coach seat on the way in to Canberra a couple of days ago. I enclose this because I want to tell you about the stressfulness of the train trip that preceded this photo. Well, partly my own fault as I miscalculated the time to get to Taree station and only David's cool nerve and driving to Wingham got me on board.  Imagine the scene, you are approaching the station with half a minute to spare and have to screech to a stop at the level crossing as you see your train go past. It pulls out of sight somewhere while you frantically turn corner after corner looking for the station entrance. You leap from the car, waving your arms like a crazy person and gallop onto the platform hugging the ridiculous number of bags you have brought. A train attendant sees the spectacle and calls out "I'll hold the doors for ya!" You lurch on board. He sizes up the looks on mine and David's faces and says, "OK, now say I love ya, go on!" we say we love eachother and the door closes.

This could be a happy story except that the train then developed mechanical problems and took an extra 90 minutes to get to Sydney, arriving at 5.59pm. I made a gallant attempt at running down to Pitt Street for the 6pm coach, arriving at the departure point in an undignified mess, in time to see it disappearing round a corner. The next coach was an hour later and cost me extra. I dragged upstairs again and morosely bought a coffee and then my collection of bags tangled themselves in the cafe door. But here's the nice part. There was a woman in a wheelchair nearby. Quite disabled, with cerebral palsy and eyes that looked in different directions. But she called out, "Here, I'll hold ya coffee while ya sort yerself out" What a nice person and we had a good chat and I heard her life story. The kindness of strangers lifts you.

Oh yes, a post script to the blog competition that Lian was entered in.

http://rovrallover.blogspot.com.au/2012/11/vote-vote-vote.html

Lian actually scored the most votes, but in the final judging round, her blog lost out to an American one.

http://blog.navabi.co.uk/en/curvy-blog-award-2012-and-the-winner-is/

Of course, we don't think the other one is half as good. But there's always next year and thanks for voting!