Taking the good with the bad

Well, the bad news is that my husband had a stroke on December 4.
The good news is that it was a mild one - he can walk and talk, just not as well as he used to be able to.
It was one of the more terrifying experiences of our lives, far worse for him of course because he's the one who's had to cope with the consequences of a rogue blood clot that decided it wanted to have a holiday in the left side of his brain.
At least, the doctors are assuming that's what it was. They won't know for sure until he has an MRI in Perth on Thursday but there's a family history of clots (in the blood sense, not the other one as far as I'm aware, although one of his uncles was a bit dim) and his grandma had a stroke when, like him, she was in her mid-50s.
Which is far too young but from what I've read on the internet (the equivalent of War and Peace, basically) not uncommon.
The whole thing was very sneaky.
There was no pain, no falling over and thrashing around.
He just felt dizzy and unwell and "weird" and went to lie down. And when he got up he couldn't talk or walk properly.
It's been a lousy couple of weeks punctuated by those incredibly uplifting moments when you're reminded how much you love each other, how lovely your friends and family are and how it's possible to still be attracted to someone who wears long white pressure socks to bed.
It certainly hasn't been all doom and gloom. We realise how incredibly lucky he was that it wasn't any worse and are amazed by the remarkable progress he's made in the last couple of weeks.
We've just got back from the OT (which stands for Occupational Therapy - think the OC but slower, with no bling, histrionics or bad acting and transplanted to outpatients at Albany Regional Hospital).
His right hand is now as strong and as his left, if still not as dextrous. Two weeks ago it had about one-fifth of the strength and he couldn't do basic things like cross his fingers or hold a pen.
We've also been walking the dog nearly every morning since he left hospital, and each day we're managing to go a bit further and a bit more quickly, which is brilliant.
Speaking of hospital, Albany Regional is as old and crappy facility-wise as everyone says it is but the staff are generally wonderful - God knows how they cope.
Another thing: if you have school-age children who are undecided about what they want to do when they grow up, I would strongly recommend you guide them towards becoming a Consulting Physician (sort of a super GP).
My husband had a visit from one on the last day he was in hospital. It lasted for five minutes precisely, during which time the physician and his registrar talked among themselves and the registrar did an echocardiogram. Then they both buggered off.
As I wasn't there at the time, my husband had to get out of bed and pursue the physician down the corridor in order to ask a couple of questions - not easy considering he was walking like My Little Pony on crack and couldn't string more than three words together when he was stressed.
We got the physician's bill a couple of days ago and learned that this tour de force of modern medicine cost $445.90.
If you factor in an additonal five minutes for the corridor pursuit, that works out to $44.59 per minute.
So, take my advice people. Get thee - or at least thy children - to the nearest med school. It's almost as good as winning Lotto.
I have to go now and try to get this house into some sort of Christmas order. The tree's up and the shopping's done but the bathroom is an absolute pit - ain't it always the way?
I hope you and yours have a very happy and safe Christmas.
If time permits, I'll be making La Nigella's horrifically kitsch Christmas Puddini Bonbons for the big day and will regale you with photos of same on my return.
Joy to the world...

I can't believe Callan's dead

We used to watch him religiously every week when we first lived here in Albany 35 years ago. This is what his death made me remember:
Changing into long, wrap-around Indian skirts and tight little tops after work (trackies hadn't been invented).
Thinking prawn cocktails were sophisticated.
Learning how to cook spaghetti bolognese and veal cordon bleu (very flash) from the Women's Weekly Cookbok.
Being given a waterbed by a friend. It was awful - always damp.
Building bookcases out of bricks and planks.
Being terrified of the bats in the garage under the house.
Smoking a joint while we were waiting for Monty Python, Callan and New Scotland Yard to come on the telly (yes, all on the same night).
Ditto, but listening to Poco's Crazy Eyes.
Being persona non grata with the old couple next door because we were living in sin.
My now husband buying a wedding ring with my first (and only) dole cheque. You could buy a band of 9 carat gold for $22 in 1974.
Becoming friendly with the couple next door after the nuptials. She showed me her doll collection and he told me he was so short because a tree fell on his head.
Taping council meetings (which were broadcast on the radio) for my husband, who was a reporter on the local paper. The only councillor I remember is Herb Wanke, for obvious reasons.
Watching The Winners on the ABC on Sunday nights and deciding I'd follow Carlton because they had the best uniforms.
Having a cat called Snooks whose tail later fell off due to an abscess.
Eating a liver and bacon counter lunch at the Premier hotel once a week (it was THE best).
Going to the Sunday session at the London Hotel and listening to Dot (I think that was her name) play the piano.
Above all, I remember feeling very happy and carefree.
We can only hope Callan's feeling the same way now he's shuffled off this mortal coil and is equipped with a halo as well as a gun.

We've also...

...been going to Perth a lot.
I took this pic of a bloke in a cowboy hat while my husband nipped into the Kojonup bakery to buy some lunch.
What follows is the sort of photo you can take out of the car window when your husband's driving at 110kmh, eating a pie and steering with his knees.

In case you're wondering, it's of canola fields.

Feet of Clay

It's a good thing I'm not a war correspondent - the hostilities would be well and truly over before I'd filed the first report.
The trouble with writing to deadlines for 25 years is that when it stops, so do you (at least, I did).
For those who are still around besides my Mum and Boothy and Halfpint this is what's been happening for the past couple of months: house stuff.
To be honest, it's been bliss. It's almost two years since we bought this house and for some reason - the moon being in the seventh house, Jupiter aligning with Mars or whatever - shit, as they say, has finally started to happen.
It started with Garry Butler, the landscaping Eric Close look-alike, who along with Luke the Magic Concreter got the paths sorted out and turned the top garden from a miniature version of the Somme into somewhere you actually wanted to be.
We've got two types of clay in this garden: clay that looks like little turds when you dig into it (brown clay) and clay that looks and SMELLS like little turds when you dig into it (yellow clay).
The gumboots were useless in the face of it, mainly because I couldn't find a pair small enough to fit my feet and every time I took a step the boot would get stuck and my whole leg would pop out.
Crocs and socks were much better so I've spent much of Spring wandering around the garden looking like a menopausal Minnie Mouse with filthy shoes.

Anyway, to give you an idea of all the work involved, here's a pic of me in the top garden when we first looked at the house in September 2007:

Here's one when we had the ground terraced in July 2008 (that's my husband taking a picture of me taking a picture of him). The entire fence fell over in a storm shortly afterwards - what a barrel of laughs that was.

And here's what it looks like now. All that's left to do is put a grey wash on the pine terracing and add some more plants.

Since we last spoke, I also got a new clothesline. This was a really big deal because I'd been without one for 9 months. I celebrated with a new pinny - not tailor-made but it could've been.

We've also got stuck into the "lower 40": Removed some crappy old colorbond fencing and this concrete block wall (that stylish orange stuff is to keep the dog in - only 20 bucks a roll at Bunnings)...

...and built a picket fence to match the existing one up the top.

OK, that's a pic of the pickets being delivered. The fence was actually finished yesterday but still needs to be painted, which I can't do until next week, and I'm waiting until then to take another photo.
The bloke to the left of the pic is Saint Laurie, builder and carpenter extraordinaire, if I could bottle him I'd make a fortune. He's brilliant.
We've also had a driveway removed (we had three) so that the three lower levels of the block will be linked by gardens (one of them for veggies - yay!).
Unsurprisingly, we're knackered and a lot poorer, but over the moon about what has been achieved in just a couple of months.

Bugger

Well, we lost and - worse - St Christopher has been suspended for the first three games of next season for playing dirty.
My husband, who's really on a roll this week, has suggested we spend the next few days deciding on the AFL's Dimmest and Toughest Awards.
It sounds a lot more fun than picking Best and Fairest, so I'd like to start the ball rolling by nominating Barry Hall, Jonathon Brown and Stephen Milne.

Word of the Week: Strappado

I haven't done one of these for ages so I thought I'd share "strappado", which I came across in the Oxford English Reference Dictionary when I was doing the Jumble Word puzzle in the paper this morning.
(Not cheating, just looking. Honest.)
I thought strappado might be the name of a Greek stew or some sort of fancy flamenco move but it turns out it's "a form of torture in which the victim is secured to a rope and made to fall from a height almost to the ground, then stopped with a jerk" (the dictionary doesn't say if the jerk should be someone you know but I'd be happy to share Mr Nasty Garden-Path Man if you can't find anyone).
The interesting thing is that strappado must be the forerunner of this:

As in, one day, torture; the next day...well, still torture if you ask me. Let's hope waterboarding doesn't catch on with the extreme sports set.
My word of the week was actually going to be "balls" in honour of my husband, who not only has them but used them to great advantage at Bunnings yesterday.
We both went to Bunnings a couple of weekends ago to buy one of those big patio heaters for our deck because the temperature out there hovers between "brass monkey" and "nithered" (now there's a good Yorkshire word) for all but four months of the year.
It was a bargain, this heater - reduced from $269 to $169.
Then my husband went back to Bunnings on Saturday to buy some phone cable and found that in the space of a week this patio heater had been marked down again, to $99.
He was spitting chips when he got home but seeing as the patio heater was still in its box, convinced me to help him Hunt for the Receipt.
I've used capital letters there because such is the chaos of our in-house filing system, it took three days to find the docket (it was on top of a stack of bricks in the shed - obvious really).
Anyway, long story short, my husband returned the patio heater to Bunnings and got a $169 refund from the lady at checkout number 1. Then he went and picked up another heater - exactly the same - took it through checkout number 2 and paid $99 for it.
I would never have had the guts to try this on and am still positively breathless with admiration. What a guy.

Go Blue Boys

It might be an idea to skip over this post if you're not into AFL or if you're an overly sensitive Dockers supporter.
But first, apologies for the absence - I didn't realise how long it had been until I looked at the date of my last post just then.
There's been lots keeping me busy on the house front, mainly painting, but we've also found a new garden-path bloke (a landscaper) who is smart and friendly and thorough, as in he's spent ages measuring things and chasing up tradesmen. He also bears more than a passing resemblance to this bloke.

Now, I don't know about you, but I'd be more than happy to mortgage the dog to have a smart and friendly Eric Close look-alike wandering around the place for a few days. Hopefully we won't have to - we'll find out when we get his quote today.
But back to footy. The pic at the top of this post is of the thoughful home-made trophy given to me by my nephew, a West Coast supporter, when Carlton first won the wooden spoon back in 2002.
It took him ages to colour it in with blue texta, which tells you all you need to know about West Coast supporters if you ask me.
Since then, despite another wooden spoon, the Blues have clawed their way back and
on Saturday night, for the first time in 8 years, will be playing finals footy.
A sad but true fact: I'm nearly wetting myself with excitement. It's one of the highlights of my year.
My friend, Dennis, on the other hand, is spewing. This is because Dennis is a Dockers supporter and, let's face it, has a lot to spew about.
Which brings me to another highlight of this year.
Considering I've been abused, ridiculed and generally dumped on for years for following Carlton, you'd think I'd empathise with the plight of Freo fans.
Unfortunately, life's not like that.
It all started innocently enough when the Dockers got a hiding at the hands of the Bombers back in Round 2. I thought it might be fun for Dennis to find in his mailbox an application for Bombers membership sent by Mr Matthew Lloyd himself.
The accompanying note read, "Mate, You know you want to do it, love from Mattie."
As it turned out, it was more than fun, it was addictive.
Every week since then, barring when he was overseas on holiday, Dennis has found a letter in his mailbox from people as diverse as Mr B. Fevola, Mr C. Cornes (who sent a lovely birthday card), Mr L.Jurrah, Mr S. Freud and Mr J.H. Christ ("Mate, Would you like me to ask Dad to smite Nick Riewoldt for you?").
The final letter, last weekend, was from Mr F. Sinatra on behalf of Mr M. Pavlich and the boys.
It went like this:

OUR WAY
And now, the end is here,
We stuffed it up, we blew the season.
My friend, I'll say it clear,
We came 14th, and with good reason.

We dropped so many kicks,
So many games, we played the Power way.
We're just a bunch of hicks,
Who did it our way.

Regrets, we've had a lot,
We wish we'd never started playing.
Each time we hit the road,
We knew we'd usually get a flaying.

We know we played like girls,
We'd like to say, not in a sour way,
We wish we'd never tried,
To do it our way.

Yes, there were times, I'm sure you knew,
When we bit off more than we could chew.
The Saints, the Magpies and the Crows,
The Dogs, the Cats, yes, heaven knows,
We lost them all, we hit the wall,
WE DID IT OUR WAY.

PS: Thanks for being such a good sport Dennis. Up the mighty Blues.