Happy (belated) Australia Day

I hope you all enjoyed Australia Day on the 26th January



I didn't quite spend it how I would have liked to. The perfect way to celebrate would have been with family and friends with a barbie, beer and the beach. But hopefully, there will be plenty of them to come in the future.

Instead I spent the day in the office. I wore my Aussie boardies (which, no I didn't take a photo of) my aussie footy shirt and my newly purchased Australia Hat



I then journeyed down Harborne High Street to hand out some flyers. How cold it was!

It's now 2 sleeps until the Aussie Barbie. I've been dissapointed with the take up of tickets in advance, although I'm not too surprised. But it does mean that I'm incredibly stressed that we'll have 100 burgers and 100 sausages but no one to devour them on Saturday. So if you're in Birmingham or Harborne on Saturday, please stop by and say hi.

All in all, I'm very tired lately. I haven't really had chance to digest everything that has happened over the last 2 weeks, and my way of dealing with these things in this situation is to put it to the side in a nice little box and open it when I have time. But as I haven't had time that box is starting to get bigger and bigger.

I managed an 11 mile bike ride on Monday night. My first proper night ride, it was quiet and cold and my fingers nearly froze off again. I enjoyed the peace and quiet, but knowing I had this week to deal with it was hard to truly let go.

The office has been quite a happy place lately. Various items have arrived for the barbie, including the 2 Kangaroo costumes, there's debates about how much they actually look like Kangaroos, but hey, beggars can't be chosers.

Next week will be a week to look forward, beyond the next month an hopefully start planning.



x

Decisions

The blog has been highly depressing since Christmas, for obvious reasons. I now have the decision to make; do I keep on blogging through the dark times and try and be light hearted and witty, should I empty my head and my heart of the aches and pains that I’ve suffered or should I lock all that away and keep it locked. After all, are people here to read my thoughts on all aspects of my life or my professional expertise (which I’m yet to figure what it is)

Personally, I find it hard to hide feelings. I come across as grumpy and overly sarcastic the majority of times anyway, some people I hit it off with, they understand that. Other people find it very off putting .But what I despise doing is being fake. It was hard to come in to work last week, even for that one day, because I knew everyone would be lovely and kind and say ‘sorry to hear about your news/mum’. I still have no idea how to respond to that. I didn’t and still don’t feel ok, I’ve barely had chance to think about it since it happened, yet I felt a pressure to put on a smile and ‘act’ ok with it.

Truth be told I want to hibernate for at least a month and try my best to think of the good times that I had with my mum. Yet, this fast paced life we have doesn’t allow for that. This morning I had an hour to myself. It was bliss. And I’m looking forward to tomorrow. I have a hospital appointment at 9.30, and I hope I’m not there all day and after that I want to just come home and be me.

I should apologise, I started this entry with the intention of being more positive and talking about the exciting things happening in life, instead I have droned on again. So, for that I say sorry.

The major event happening is work related. The Aussie Barbie (http://focusbirmingham.org.uk/events/australia_day_bbq) is getting ever closer and whilst everything is booked and ready, I desperately need to sell tickets. This kind of event is not my forte, yet it has been me driving it. I hoped it would capture the imagination of locals, but under 2 weeks out and I haven’t heard a peep out of anyone which is a little disappointing. Friends and family will support it, but that’s not enough.

I hope later in the week to write a more inspiring blog about why I set up the event, and that will be the re-start of this blog.

Update on Mum K

All I seem to blog about is mum lately, but I think you'll agree that's understandable.

Mum has a high temperature and low blood pressure. Physically she is very weak and feeling sick alot. There seems to be little we can do anymore. Her body will either accept the medication and it'll work or it won't. The plan yesterdy was to transfer her to St. Mary's Hospice where she would at least have some peace and the family could be with her.

Unfortunately due to us Brit's beign completely weak, there is not enough staff at the hospice to accept her today. Rather than wait until Monday we are now trying to get everything set up to have Mum at home so we can care for her. At least at home she will get some rest and hopefully have some dignity.

Thank you for all the love, support and prayers. It's been a good fight, we've fought our corner well, now let's rest.

2010 A new start? Or the remains of 2009?

I've never been a big fan of New Years resolutions or the "It's a new year, I need to radically change everything about me for a month and then give up". No, the start of a new year for mehas never been anything drastically special. I guess that's because I can be quite implusive, when I want to change something, I'll do it straight away, I'm also a bit rebelious, I like to do things before other people and if other people have got there first, then I'm not so interested.

I did however intend to be more positive this year. Over the past few years I've been very negative. Ok, at school I was called Mr Grumpy. But, that's part of me, my sarcastic nature sometimes goes on overdrive.

But so far 2010 is proving very tricky. I obviously knew it would be with mum in hospital and quite seriously ill, but I also wanted to be positive in that. Anyway, my new positive blogging nature has just proven useful...a text from my Dad, Mum is priority for admission to St Mary's Hospice tomorrow providing staff are in place and there's no more snow.

That is fantastic news. It will give Dad the opportunity to spend as much time with mum as he can and hopefully ease her panic attacks. Whether it's the beginning of the end I don't know, but there's nothing more difficult than seeing someone you love in such distress and not being able to grant their wishes. I had even started coming down on the side of Dad yesterday that even though having mum at home would be difficult it might be preferential than having her at the hospital.

I shall go visit this afternoon and see how the old dear is doing...positive thinking her we come.

x

P.S. Snow day yesterday was great, will load some photos later. Although, I do think it is quite ridiculous that we 'give in' to the snow...instead, just take it as a holiday and embrace! Well, for a day.