Campione d’Italia. Have you heard of it? Neither had I till we started to plan this trip. Dave, who knows more about world geography than anyone I know, suggested we visit this town as soon as Northern Italy was touted as a holiday destination. Campione d’Italia is an exclave of Italy. It sits around 20kms…

Beds. I like a soft bed. Supportive and not too soft. But not hard. Pillows. I like a fairly firm pillow. Large, but not too large. Not thin and flat.  A good hot and spacious shower, clean sheets, thick fluffy (but absorbent) towels, a nice view, thick walls, good heating and cooling, fast Wi-Fi… the…

I’ve always considered myself a pretty positive person. I naturally see the good in most situations. I look for the wins, not the losses. 2016 has really stretched my ability to be positive. Dave’s cancer diagnosis earlier this year was a shock. I was indignant about the impact on our seemingly perfect life. It was of…

Reconnaissance: the exploration outside an area occupied by friendly forces to gain information about natural features and enemy presence. (Wikipedia) or… the process of obtaining information about the position, activities, resources, etc, of an enemy or potential enemy (thefreesdictonary.com) To recce: to check out the scene (Dave Morley) “Time spent on reconnaissance is seldom wasted” Major Arthur Rowley (British mate…

Our day in Venice yesterday was terrific. I don’t know where to start to tell you what we enjoyed most… But first to clarify my declaration yesterday about my desire for ‘simple’. By simple, I don’t mean boring. By simple, I don’t mean lacking intelligence. By simple, I don’t mean bread and butter for dinner….

Simple. I’ve decided it’s the best way. Simple thoughts, simple conversations, simple values, simple food. Things don’t need to be complicated. More is not necessarily better. We are here in Venice after a long but pleasant trip. We both arrived in Sydney on separate flights within five minutes of each other. Victoria picked us up and…

Hi everyone. Things just got too hectic and the roller coaster too extreme so I decided not to blog for a while. Dave has four treatments of radiation to go for the Hodgkins Lymohoma. A few weeks ago he had to have an operation to remove tumors they found in his bladder. At the time…

Who doesn’t love weekends? Sleep-ins, time for long walks, cook-ups, watching footy in the sunshine… what’s not to like! For those of you who don’t know, I am a cricket tragic. There’s not a lot I enjoy more than watching a big game live, or even on TV whilst on the couch on a warm…

Finally, I have found time to sit down and blog. It’s been a hugely busy week. I need to re-read my blogs from a couple of months ago, when I had plenty of time on my hands, not too much to do and actually thought through what I was doing and why. Dave is finally feeling…

Another Bingo quote – “All the sevens – seventy-seven” Its been a big week already, and it’s only Tuesday. First of all the absolutely fantastic, unreal, fabulous, terrific, delightful and hugely relieving news that the PET scan results show Dave is CANCER FREE!!!!! Dave saw his Hematologist yesterday afternoon and received this news. He was pretty…

When life gives you lemons… make lemonade. A famous saying that is very fitting in our circumstances,  and I was especially reminded of it today as I made three recipes with lemons for tomorrows radio segment. Some may say, that life gave Dave lemons when he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphomas, now over 4 months ago….

I was up at 5:45 this morning and after a shower and a quick snack (the banana I had stashed in my bag before leaving home yesterday), I walked from the hotel to the airport. It was good to get 3000 steps up before 7am! Victoria and I are having a ‘work week hustle’ 5…

This is probably one of my shortest posts yet! I might not have blogged today but for an interesting fact that I wanted to share. I have an app on my iPhone that counts down the days till an upcoming event. This morning I opened up the app and discovered that there were 72 days…

What a hectic couple of days. But no amount of busy-ness can take away the ache in my heart. I wish I had been able to be in Canberra with Dave today for his last chemotherapy session. He says he was fine and he has gone to treatment on his own before … but I still wanted…

Day 70 – That’s 10 weeks since treatment began. Tomorrow Dave will have treatment number 6 – yee haa, his last Chemotherapy session 🙂 Next week will no doubt be a shocker for him, considering the decline each time he has treatment. We are both dreading that. Its especially hard knowing its coming and also knowing there…

We have just arrived back in Canberra and it’s been a busy day already, so I’m going to keep this simple. Sweet and Simple. Last night I made six gift jars of SCS (short for Salted Caramel Spread). You may hear me talk about it on ABC radio on Monday but, dear readers of this blog, you get a…