Coasting

This week we have enjoyed a few days on the south coast, despite rather dreary weather. We drove down the Clyde on Tuesday in the rain, stopping as we now always do at Pooh Corner. When we drove down the Clyde before Christmas, Pooh Corner was a mess. The little cave had been trashed and was littered with empty bottles, a dumped computer, the toys a mess. I took this photo on that visit - it's the least distressing. There are various stories about how Pooh Corner came to be. One is that the cave stored explosives during World War II. Another is that the first Pooh was left there by the classmates of a little girl who died in a road accident. The net is remarkably lacking in information.

The good news is that, on this visit, Pooh was sitting in his cave with Tigger and other friends enjoying a jar of honey (yes, a real jar of honey). He had obviously given the cave a springclean, removing all the bottles and offering the computer to charity.

We are lucky - J's parents still have their house a couple of beaches south of Bateman's Bay and so we have all the amenities of home and a sea view. It takes about 3 minutes to walk down the hill, shed the towels and bucket and spade and be in the water. And then takes about 6 minutes to walk back up the hill (it's very steep, especially when you are three-years-old) to hose the sand off feet and hit the warm showers.

Mr M has been visiting the south coast on and off since he was three-months-old. Oddly enough, the weather on that occasion wasn't dissimilar to the weather this week. On this visit, Mr M wasn't feeling very brave, declaring the beach 'too beachy'. And it was. The weather and water were grey. The tides were very high. The sand was covered in seaweed. So somewhat surprisingly, because in the past he has loved jumping waves, Mr M decided he wouldn't even dabble a toe in the water but sat well back on the sand building sandcastles and making sand cakes. I must admit that I found the beach 'too beachy' too, my new scar making me a little hesitant about fully submerging. I was very glad, given Mr M's mood, that we hadn't invested a lot of money going somewhere tropical.

We did, though, have a very relaxed time. Mr M decided to reacquaint himself with the afternoon sleep (on Wednesday he slept for three hours!) thus allowing his parents the luxury of an afternoon sleep themselves or reading time. The days slipped into a slow routine - breakfast, beach, a visit to J's mother at the nursing home, lunch somewhere pleasant, Mr M falling asleep on the drive home, a quiet afternoon, the beach again, dinner. We ate fish and chips too many times - but it's hard to resist sitting at the Boathouse at the Bay or in a park near a beach - and the boys discovered great milkshakes at the Mogo Fudge and Ice Creamery, where Mr M conveniently left his hat on Friday, necessitating a third visit yesterday before we drove home to Canberra.

Home again and we are continuing the quiet, relaxed mood of our holidays. Mr M is watching Toy Story. J is reading on the bed. The washing has been washed, dried, folded and put away. A cake is in the oven and it's fish for dinner.

The Last Week of the First Month

I'm trying to do too many things at once this evening. On the DVD player is the Shakespeare Retold episode, Macbeth, starring James McAvoy and Keeley Hawkes. Unlike the retellings of Much Ado About Nothing and The Taming of the Shrew, which I loved, this new Macbeth isn't holding my attention (although turning the three witches into three garbage men was quite inspired). I've been browsing the internet instead. Very addictive and a complete timewaster. Suddenly 90 minutes have disappeared with little or nothing to show for it.

This week just passed, the last week of January, has been dominated by medical matters. On Thursday, my portacath was removed (it's the little port that was popped into my chest just below my collarbone to make giving me chemo easier - and it did make having chemo easier. I didn't have to suffer any of that horrid searching for veins that many people have to go through). Having it removed turned out to be pretty easy. My favourite anaesthetist was with me, knocked me out and brought me round without any ill effects. I took painkillers on Friday and had my last hit on Saturday night. Of course, I still have to remind Mr M that I have a sore chest when he jumps a bit too exuberantly. And I will have a scar but it will be a very thin, neat one - not the big clunky thing that was there previously.

I had thought that the removal of the portacath might bring a sense of completion (I'm not going to use that terrible word closure) to last year's experiences. I'm still waiting. Instead, my eyes have just lifted to the next goal on the horizon - my first post-surgery mammogram in March. After that, there will be the next checkup and then the next and before I know it years will have gone by. In the meantime, I have most of February off work, finally taking the rec leave I was intending to take last April, before I became ill. No trip to Shanghai because of last week's surgery but I hope we will get some nice days at the beach.