When Dave asked me this morning “Have you done your blog today” I assumed he had decided that he was now interested in reading it. But alas no. (I can’t blame him – it is about him after all). The reason he asked is because he wanted to know what day he was up to. When I replied 61 he said “That’s 2 months. Geez I’m sick of this.” Its the first time I’ve even heard him heard him vaguely whinge.

I dont blame him at all. 61 days since that first treatment. If you add on the time since diagnosis, with all the appointments and tests, the road has been pretty long. Whilst he is happy he can now say that there is only on treatment to go, he is actually only now just beginning his second last time of feeling extra crappy from the side effects. As I have mentioned before, Day 5-9  after each treatment are the worst. Today is day 5 after treatment 5.

Victoria, and her friend Katrina, left Canberra just before lunch to head home. They  drove here on Friday from Katrina’s place in Wollongong,  so Victoria will catch the train back to Sydney from there. Hopefully she will be home before dark.

Yesterday Victoria, Katrina and Dave had an enjoyable day being tourists in Canberra including a visit to the War Memorial. Katrina thought it was great to go there with Dave, she felt like she had her own personal guide 🙂

I arrived in Canberra just on dark, having had a longer-than-needed drive from Mangoplah. I realized, once I was on the back road across to the highway that I didn’t have enough petrol to get to the nearest petrol station on that route, so I had to turn around and head south to Holbrook to get fuel. I’m glad my car could tell me where the nearest petrol station location was, just a pity it wasn’t in the direction I wanted to go. Oh well, scenic drive, on a road that I hadn’t seen for a while.

It was the most perfect winters day yesterday in the Riverina, and I really loved watching Will play footy. He played well, they got the win, and I managed to get 8000 steps up doing laps of the oval whilst watching. I saw quite a few people whilst walking who thought it amusing when I told them I was earning a pie for lunch! It wasn’t actually the truth, I was mostly trying to beat Victoria in our step competition, but it was a good yarn that amused them. I did have a very delicious curry pie at the half time break, crispy flaky pastry top and nice and hot. No sauce. You cant have sauce on a curry pie. Can you?

 

Last night Dave wasn’t up to going out again (he had already done the steps twice yesterday) so I cooked him dinner (well – reheated a meal I’d made a week or so ago and frozen) and the girls and I went to Molto, a great Italian Restaurant on the Kingston foreshore just near here. It was packed to the rafters, as it often is, but we still got amazing service and great food. The male Italian waiters certainly know how to give excellent service and had us smiling and laughing and ordering more than we needed in no time.  Menu here.

We started with rosemary bread, then each had entrees. Victoria had creamy Jerusalem artichoke soup, Katrina a dish of fried salted cod balls with rocket and I choose a cheese dish off the specials list: torn burrata, shaved truffles and focaccia crisps. All were delicious.

 

For mains we all had pasta. Victoria loved her ricotta and pumpkin ravioli, my squid ink linguini with seafood was bellissimo and Katrina had their signature ‘spaghetti cacio e pepe’, a simple but delicious hand made spaghetti with black pepper served from a hollowed wheel of pecorino, making it cheesey and well…yum!

There was definitely no room for dessert, so we waddled back to the car and I dropped them back to the hotel. Dave’s one bedroom flat doesn’t have room for four!

 This morning we also enjoyed eating out for breakfast then had a walk around the old bus depot markets. I got some great local dried apricots and a few vegetables but by 11am Dave was pretty tired so we came back to the flat for a rest and the girls headed back to Wollongong, via Ikea. After spending a lot of the past two months in Canberra I still haven’t gone to Ikea. I think it’s because I don’t trust myself not to buy things I don’t need. It seems to have happened to many of my friends 😉

We have decided to head back to Wagga tomorrow. Dave would like to see Will and have a few days at home. I hope he doesn’t end up in hospital like the last time we he was in Wagga! We will get up tomorrow and see how he feels before setting off and just take it slowly. I have a pillow in my car so he can sleep on the trip if he wants to, which, given he’s been asleep most of today he probably will.

 

To finish, I’d like to say a special ‘hello’ the my gorgeous 10 year old nephew Tom. He subscribes to this blog and when I missed a day on Thursday insisted his mother message me (from Fiji) and check everything was OK. What a beautiful thoughtful boy. Love ya Tommy xxxx

This is a photo of himself he edited recently on their holiday to Dads place in Taveuni, Fiji . Good looking kid 🙂