Hmmm, it seems that 2 monthly suits the lifestyle here better, or is it just that as we grow older time passes more quickly? We are into the warmer weather and now sleep with our windows open to hear the birds in the bush behind both for the evening and dawn chorus. No more fires, the curtains are open all evening with the wonderful view of the lake to farmland in the day and city lights at night.
We had a few couchsurfers come and stay, one lot of them were really young and we found they just didn't have a good attitude to staying in someone elses house and it put us off a bit. One couple the guy had had testicular cancer and it was great to talk to someone who had been through the same journey as me and was out the other side and back into travel again. Gave me hope for doing the same again. My fatigue has made us decide not to offer our couch again for a while until things are more settled.
Everyone is still with us, Braden & Sarah who were only staying until the end of August still have work here and are looking to do some travel and camping in the summer. Le Wei heads back to China for a month over December/January and will be back to live with us until mid-year next year. Prashant downstairs has secured work experience at a local garage with my help (contacts from my time as MTA President years ago) and is planning to stay until he finishes his mechanical engineering training next year. So it is a happy household with everyone doing his own thing and coming together for a shared meal once a week. Molly has developed into the '100 mile an hour' cat. She runs everywhere joyfully :) she loves the expanses of the house and has conquered the cat door along with another neighbourhood cat we have to keep an eye out for... One day Sarah found her sitting on the ledge outside their window which is two stories high, gave us a bit of a fright but she is sure footed and skinny enough to get in and out the window with latches on so we will trust her judgement. She sleeps on our bed at night, talks to everyone constantly and has developed into a loving and great little friend.
Kent has been working on getting his Harley on the road again, it has been off for a few years now and needed a bit of a major overhaul. It is a 1979 Sporty, an old shovel, has a wonderful sound and needs repairing every time it's ridden because the vibration of the engine up through the frame (the engine sits right on the frame with no dampening) causing bolts to undo and bits to fly off etc. On the day he headed out to the rally site he got it warranted (in NZ vehicles need a Warrant of Fitness inspection every 6 months to say they are safe for the road) and registered. There's still more things to do, it has a single seat and he is making us a double and my pegs need a bit of adjustment to stop me burning the sole of my boots on the exhaust all the time.
Last weekend all of us except Prashant went to the Sulphur City Motorcycle Club 25th Anniversary Rally. It was a two day event held in the countryside about half an hour north of Rotorua. Unfortunately the weather was inclement but not bad enough to ruin the weekend. About 300 bikers turner up from all over the North Island and camped despite the constant drizzle and enjoyed the good music and the dyno and each others company. The dyno is a machine that you put your bike on on rollers and take it up to it's limit to see what it's top speed is. Kent has build the electronics for it and this year he added a printout which was very popular. As far as we know we are the only rally that has a dyno running. Because of the rain we didn't get to have any other games this year and the rally felt a little flat during the day.
I really enjoyed the bands at the rally especially the Friday night band called 'Holy Anus', two young guys one of whom is the son of one of our members. They play only their own music and fill the air even though there's only two of them with great sounds. Of course I wore myself out, Saturday is usually my 'tired' day, the drugs of chemo on the Thursday seem to carry me through Friday and on Saturday I sometimes completely crash but I ignored it and danced until the witching hour. Paid for it but, it has taken me all week to get over feeling absolutely shattered but you can't give up everything can you, you've got to keep on enjoying life. The good news is that this Thursday (yesterday) was my last chemo! Yeah! No more fatigue, no more blood nose (I hope), hair again. The bad new is that my Oncologist found a lump above my mastectomy scar so I had an ultrasound that was clear and on Wednesday had a C T scan just to check it out. I feel positive that all is ok but of course it is a worry and we will be glad when the results are out. There are too many things to be enjoying in life for us to be sunk by this. Going forward, all things being equal, I will now have a drug called Herceptin for the next 9 months once every three weeks. I have been on it for the last 3 months with my second lot of chemo. The powers that be also would like me to see a Radiation Oncologist about having radiation, we had been told I didn't need it but my new Oncologist has different thoughts. That's a blow since we thought it was all almost at an end.
The gardens here are just fabulous, mostly native plants and being spring lots of flowers and one beautiful dark red leafed tree. We wander around and weed as we go to keep on top of things. The vege garden is taking off and we have eaten from it already, plenty of rain has made sure it's well on track and now with the warmer weather it's bolting. The trees in the bush behind broke into white blossom all around at the beginning of spring then it was like snow when the blossom fell and the wind blew - beautiful. The neighbour gave us an old mower from under his house which Kent took apart and got going again, after a good clean out of the engine and a new blade it is like new and the lawns look lovely.
Kent has secured a new job working full time for a local company specialising in electronic weigh scales for the big logging trucks which ply the local forestry. He started this Monday and is enjoying it, he never applied for a job with them but somehow they ended up with his CV and gave him a ring and hired him that day. The longer he is there the more they will realise what talented worker they have I'm sure. Here in the house and with our friends he is known as the man who can fix anything. My job is still ticking along nicely, I haven't had to have any time off and on Thursday after my last chemo I got back to find flowers and a card on my desk from all my work mates, even got drinkees after work too :)
Yes life is good isn't it?
