27th July - Fantastic News!

The results are in and they’re ALL GOOD! Mum is now CANCER FREE! Over the moon to say the least. She has to take tablets for 5 years to reduce the risk of it returning in the other breast but apart from that she’s all clear. No sign of cancer in any of the lymph nodes. They did confirm that the lump was cancerous and also that the tissue around the lump was cancerous too so it was definitely a good move for her to have had the entire breast off.

26th July - "D' Day has arrived for Mum

Well today is the day that mum gets her results. I’m feeling as nervous as hell so I can only begin to imagine how she must be feeling. It’s the longest day ever too because I’ll have to wait until about 1am until I know how it went (this time difference sucks!).

I’m gonna give her a call in a minute and then I’ll update here I think. The update after that will be when we’ve had the results! Fingers crossed its good news.

25th July - Second week in TAFE

Well this week has been a bit up and down so far with TAFE. Yesterday I had a blinding headache all day and so the teachers just really pissed me off. Both Tuesday teachers are really boring so that wasn’t helping. Today has been better though thankfully and I feel as though I’ve learnt a lot (which is more than I can say for yesterday!).

Mum gets here results tomorrow so fingers crossed for that – not really much else I can say about that. Obviously I’m dreading it but also looking forward to knowing what the situation is.

Mum had some great news this week. Shes finally been accepted as a registered child minder. It was really all down to the doctor saying she was fit enough to work (this was before the cancer was diagnosed) which he obviously did. It’ll be a while before she gets some kids to look after but the great thing is that this will give her the ability to earn her own money and give her a bit of independence which is exactly what she needs.

We have a mortgage advisor come to the house last night. Its looking more and more likely that we will have to sell the UK house as we have no tenants still, so we wanted to check out our options. We were surprised to find that we are in a position to be able to buy an investment property if we wanted to (the rules are all different in Australia) so we’re seriously considering that. Needless to say as soon as the bloke left I was on the internet checking out properties. If I hadn’t have had to go to TAFE today I have no doubt in my mind that I would have been viewing a few too. I’m in TAFE again tomorrow but Friday I might give it a shot!

Grays back on days now – YAY! He did have Monday and Tuesday off though. Monday was just a recovery period – he hardly slept over the weekend as he was so used to doing nights. Tuesday he took off to take Danielle for an Xray. She fell off the horse on Monday night while doing her first proper jump, and the flaming horse stood on her arm bless her. Alls good though, its just swollen and bruised. She got to go to school with a sling today (just to rest it) which she was obviously very happy about!

22nd July - Grays finally finished nights!

Its Grays first official day off nights tonight and its nice I must admit (if not a little strange!).

I took Danielle swimming today with Sharon & Katie while Gray stayed at home and sorted the garden out (which desperately needed doing!). We then popped into town and picked up a couple of sweater (2 Puma Sweaters for $60 – bargain), and later on we went to Sharon & Noels for tea (and a few beers – very nice!).

I’m just updating this and then I’m heading to bed. Grays gonna throw a sicky tomorrow and hes promised to take Danielle to school in the morning so I can have a lie in (I cant see it happening myself but we’ll see!).

Bed time for me!

21st July - a quick catch up

Gray worked his last night shift last night – thank god! Its been driving me nuts – although I must admit that its gonna be weird having him here in the evenings again.

My first week in TAFE went well. Pretty boring because it was just orientation but I’m sure next week will be better when we start getting into the nitty gritty of it all. Initially I was going to be finishing at 2.45pm each day so that I could pick Danielle up but I’m a bit worried that I’m going to miss too much work. It would mean me missing over 7 hours per week of a 16 hour course – not good. I’ve managed to work around this a little bit though. Sharon is going to pick Danielle up from school on Wednesdays, take her home and then I’ll finish TAFE at 4.30pm, pick them all straight up and take them to gymnastics. That’s a big help. Also when I went to TAFE on Thursday I found out that that teacher teaches exactly the same class in the mornings, so hes said that I could go to that one if it makes it easier – excellent! So, the only day I have to finish at 2.45pm now is Monday and to be honest I don’t really like the bloke whos doing that lesson so its no real hardship!!

Not long now until mum gets her results – Thursday 26th is the big day. I’m fairly positive that things will go well – haven’t got a clue how I’ll react if they don’t but the chances are I’d be on a plane as soon as I could to ferry her back and forth the hospital and to give her the support she’ll need.

Danielles swimming is going well still. After Tuesdays squads she asked if she could go back down the Sharks because it was such hard work. Thankfully she stuck with it and did really well Thursday – she did an entire hour without using her flippers (very hard work!). She also got to try out her new hand paddles which she was very impressed with.

Gray slept until 1pm today and then we all went for a quick bike ride at Penrith Lakes. That’s where Steve Redgrave won his gold medal in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Its lovely there – very peaceful.

Had UK visitors at the weekend

Well we had a lovely weekend this weekend. Paul Lounds and his girlfriend Paula are travelling around Australia and so they stayed with us for a couple of nights. It was really nice to catch up with someone from home. I showed them a few sights - not much though as its pretty cold here right now plus they werent here for long.

I heard yesterday that I didnt get the job I applied for. Probably a blessing in disguise really because the hours just werent suitable. I've decided to remain focused on my TAFE course now (which I started today). Web design is the way I want to go to try and make some decent money so thats what I'm going to do. Hopefully I'll be able to get a bit of freelance work while I'm doing the course plus my websites will hopefully benefit throughout the course too and start brining a bit more cash in.

We were hoping to get mums results through today but unfortunately they're not ready. We've got to wait until next week now which is horrible. Not much more I can say about that really - its just a case of waiting and seeing. Mum seems to be coping pretty well with it all though and appears to be positive. I hope thats not just a front though.

The cold has really set in very quickly here. We now have the fire in the living room on pretty much all the time that we're in the house, plus I've just started to put the oil burner heaters on in the bedrooms too. Grays still on nights at the moment and he struggles to get to sleep when he gets in in the mornings because it is so cold. It was minus 3 this morning and is due to reach minus 7 tomorrow apparently! Not looking forward to that at all I can tell you.

A busy week in the Font Household

Grays been on nights again this week (which is a right pain!), and Danielles on school holidays still (even more of a pain with Gray on nights) so I've been trying to keep us busy outside of the house.

Saturday I took her to watch horse jumping in Castlereagh which is just down the road from us. It was really nice - only trouble was that I spent the entire time there (about 1 1/2 hours) waiting for our burgers - it was shocking! One woman actually threatened to sue them because they'd given her some pasta dish with mushrooms in after she told them she was allergic to mushrooms! Not good. We took Danielle swimming later to practice her turns and then it was a lazy night doing nothing.

Sunday we literally didnt do anything. Gray spent most of the time sleeping and we just hung around the house.

Monday I had an interview at Windsor. It was advertised as part time admin work (office all rounder) so I thought it sounded ideal. I was interviewed by two people (a bit daunting) but they were both really nice. They had over 100 applicants for the position and they cut it down to 9 which I'm really pleased about as it means my resume must be effective. The only problem is that the hours are actually 1-5pm not 10-2pm which would have been ideal for me. Having said that though, if I was offered the job I think I would try and work around the time issue because it sounds great. They're going to cut it down to 4 next, then it'll be another interview with another man, and then a decision will made. While I was there Danielle went to Hayleys for a few hours which she was obviously very happy with.

We have also finally sacked our Estate Agents in the UK. Since Gemma left there (the girl who was managing our property) things had just gone down hill. They didnt reply to emails and when they did it was like talking to a child. The boss (Darren) would email in text talk and it would like as though he was pissed - not good - definitely not professional. I was on the phone to them at 10pm Monday evening telling them to hand over the keys to a friend of mine who was collecting them (who was actually going to hand them over to Gemma (the girl who used to work there) as she has now set up her own Rental business. Fingers crossed we'll get someone in soon because we desperately need the money. We struggle to survive on Grays wage here as it is, having to pay a UK mortgage too is just a nightmare. We havent had any rent in for the house for months. Not good.

Tuesday I did a Market Research group in Kellyville for 2 hours. Basically there are a group of you sitting around a table, they are recording the meeting and we discuss the product they're proposing to market. In this case it was BBQ Sauces. I'd definitely do it again as I got $70 for just talking!!

Today I've woken up with a head full of cold and a cough - its been lingering for a while but has really kicked in this morning. I was awake at 4.30am so got up and watched a bit of TV on the settee - managed to fall asleep for two hours there which made me feel better. I think I'm gonna have a lazy day on the settee in front of the TV all day today - probably take Dan swimming at 4pm but that'll be about it.

Mums still in hospital. She'll hopefully be leaving today if her drip comes out. Its taken a little while longer than normal for it to come out - not sure of the reason behind it - just one of those things I guess. Shes also been on anti-biotics and pain killers because shes got a bit of an infection where the drain goes in. When I spoke to her yesterday she said the pain killers seem to have kicked in as she was feeling a lot more comfortable. She cant wait to get home now which is understandable. I'd be happier with her going home too because with her being so far away (in Port Talbot - about 1 hour 20 mins from home) shes not getting any visitors (well actually Tony & Gill visited her on Sunday but they've been the only ones). When she gets home she'll hopefully have lots of people rallying around her. Dave will be due back on Sunday too so thats good. She seems to be dealing with the fact that shes lost her breast quite well I think. At the end of the day she just has to remember that with the breast gone, so too has the cancer (hopefully for good!). She has to go to Bridgend Princess of Wales Hospital (where Danielle was born funnily enough) on Tuesday to get the results. The signs are looking good so far as they only removed 4 lymph nodes during the op so fingers crossed its good news.

Back to my lazy day in front of the TV now! :)

Danielles such a clever girl :)

Forgot to mention that on Saturday Danielle had her gymnastics grading (while I was getting ready to go into Sydney for a hen night!!!). She did really well and came away with the gold (again!). Very proud of her.

Last night she also went to Squads and was put up into the next group - its full on traning now bless her - an hour of flat out swimming - thats a lot for anyone let alone a 7 year old! She did really well though bless her.

Mums just phoned!

Mums not long phoned - great to hear from her. She sounded really well. Apparently they only took 4 lymph nodes (which is a good sign!) and only has one drain. Others on the ward have had far more removed - one poor woman actually had all of hers removed.

I'm a little concerned that they've told her she might be able to leave tomorrow or Saturday - thats only 2/3 days post op. I wouldnt mind if someone was gonna be there with her at home but Dave has gone on holiday and wont be back for another 10 days. She does have lots of friends to keep an eye out for her but I just wish I could be there to take care of her (mind you my cooking probably wouldnt help!! haha)

Mums just text

Well after sending 8 texts to mum while she was out of it she finally replied today :)

The op went as well as they expected which is great. Hopefully I'll get to speak to her later on.

Mums up and about!

I phoned the hospital again this morning (6.30am our time - 9.30pm UK time) but couldnt get an answer. Thankfully my Auntie Carol managed to get through to them and text me to tell me she was doing fine and had just gotten up to go to the toilet :)

The next two weeks are going to be pretty difficult waiting for the results. God only knows what I'll do if it comes back to see its in the lymph nodes - I cant even think about it. For now I'm just happy that she had those horrible cells cut off her! :D

Managed to get through to the Hospital

I phoned the hospital again at 9.30pm Aus time (12.30 UK time) and mum was sleeping off the anaesthetic in the Ward. I didnt ask any more than that as I assumed that they wouldnt really know anything - plus I want to speak to mum first. It was nice to hear that she was back though.:)

The Big Day has Arrived for Mum!

Today is the day. Mum is currently in surgery having her breast removed. I've just phoned the hospital to see how shes got on but shes still in surgery. They trying out a new procedure with mum regarding the lymph nodes and injecting dye into them the night before. Apparently this then gives an indication of those which may need to be removed and tested. As its a new procedure theres also a professor from Cardiff there checking it out which is why they believe it may be taking a little longer than normal.

I'll update as soon as I know anything.

Busy Day Today

Grays still on nights this week (and will be next week too) so I've been busy on the website. Decided to register for an ABN today (Australian Business Number) - been meaning to do it for a while but I finally got around to it. Only took about 10 mins and didnt cos anything so I dont know why I havent done it sooner. I also realised that the Shops in Oz website I've set up is set up using a US server and is .com rather than .com.au - not ideal when you're trying to hit the Australian market. Anyway to combat this I decided to sign up for the domain name shopsinoz.com.au and completely re-do the site - well that was my plan! The web hosts advertised as having a great Site Builder but I was soon to find out that it wasnt that great - not for someone like me with very little website building knowledge. I thought that I actually knew more than I did. Needless to say I'm going to get my money back from the Web Hosts but that means that I now have a .com.au URL but dont know what to do with it! Queue my next bit of info!

I enrolled at TAFE (college) today for Cert 4 Web Design. Its classed as full time (16 hours per week) but I'll only actually spend 10 hours there because it runs over after pick up time for Danielle. They've said it'll be fine for me to finish early each day though and work on what we've learnt at home - that works well for me. Hopefully I'll pick it up quickly and be able to do something with my new domain! Initially I want to just redirect the URL but I'm not even sure how to go about that! Its all fun eh?!

Danielles been off school the last two days too. Just had a bit of a temperature - nothing much but all her class have been having time off ill so I thought it best to keep her off. Its also her gymnastics grading on Saturday and I really want her to be well enough for that because she was ill last time and missed out. Chances are she'll be moving up a grade this time - the down side to this is that it'll probably mean me sitting around for 2 hours on a Wednesday while shes training rather than the 1 hour I have to do now!

That'll do for now anyway!

Danielles had her first sleepover party!

Mums op is scheduled for 3rd July so until then (the wait is awful obviously) I'm trying to get on with life as normally as possible. She seems to be pretty upbeat whenever I speak to her, and she tells me shes fine, but I know that deep down she must be in turmoil (as we all are). All we can do is hope that things all turn out good.

Danielle was invited to a sleep over party a few weeks ago and got upset at the fact that she couldnt bring herself to go (shes very clingy to me at night time) so as a way of making her feel a little better I told her we'd have a sleep over party here. Initially she had 5 friends coming but due to two of them not feeling too well yesterday it ended up with just 3 of them. This actually worked out better because they all fit in the one room.

It wasnt as chaotic as I'd imagined it would be which was good. They pretty much entertained themselves all the time. I told them they had Danielles room and the spare room to do with as they liked - this left the TV and living room all to me - I'm not stupid! Gray managed to get himself rostered onto nights - hes not stupid either!

The girls went home at 10am this morning and 2 hours later Danielle is already bored! Gray is still sleeping so theres not really a lot we can do so I think I'll do a bit more work on my website. Things have been going pretty well for both sites. The Expat Store is looking really good and there is a lot of interest in the Australia Online Shopping Directory which I'm very pleased about. It is very very time consuming though which I didnt expect at all.

Off to take my laptop and sit in front of the TV while doing a bit of online work.

The fun never ends here!

Hangover from Hell Today!

Well to try and keep myself busy last night (rather than sitting in brooding) I decided to go out for a few drinks with the girls! Needless to say I didnt know when enough was enough and ended up getting pretty slaughtered (which I havent done for a long long time!). As I was drinking I knew I was gonna feel rough the next day but I really didnt give a damn - I managed to have a laugh at the same time which was very much needed.

I was right anyway - shocking hangover today - I'll be glad when today is over so that I can hopefully wake up tomorrow feeling better!

Feeling really weird about the 'mum' thing. Dont really know what to feel at all. She tells me that shes dealing with it OK and as I only have her word for it I just have to believe her - nothing I can do about it from over here anyway.

The next 3 weeks are gonna be a very anxious time for all of us. Waiting for the Op to be over and done with and then waiting for the results.

Off to watch a bit of TV now I think.

Terrible News

I got a phone call from mum this morning. Her annual mammogram has shown up a small cancerous lump - breast cancer. I struggle to even type those words in the same sentence as 'my mum'. At the moment I'm just in shock I think - really cant get my head around it. This is the news that every Expat dreads and I thought I was gonna be lucky enough not to get a call like this for a very long time.

Apparently the lump is only very small. She is having it removed on 2nd July and hopefully will only need radio therapy afterwards. The horrible thing though is that any dealings I (or rather those close to me) have had with Cancer have never had good outcomings. I know too much about this horrible disease and I just wish I didnt.

My mum sounded ok on the phone and kept telling me not to worry - but how can I not worry?? Its my mum, its cancer.......and I'm living on the other side of the world.

Life f***ing sucks!

The rain has finally ended!

The weather has been absolutely awful here the last few days. Unfortunately 9 people lost their lives in total. Very very sad.

Thankfully it seems the worst is now over and the sun has come back out.

Yesterday was a very lazy day. We couldnt go anywhere because the rain was so bad and so we spent the day in front of the TV and PC! It actually worked out quite well because I got a lot of work done on my websites.

There has now been a store added to the Expat Forum (http://www.expatforum.com/expatstore/) which links to products from my site. Its looking really good and I'm really pleased with it. Its great for Expats too because it saves them having to try and find UK Shops which deliver overseas - I've done all the hard work for them (and trust me it has taken a looooooonnnnggggg time!!).

We went out for a meal this afternoon and our friends son Jordon came with us. A couple who moved out to Australia from the UK 2 years ago are returning to the UK so it was a farewell to them. I've got a feeling they'll be back in time but they're quite young and miss family which is fair enough.

Jordon is here for a sleep over tonight which has made Danielle very happy. As yet shes not managed a sleepover at anyones house but we're hoping she'll try to stay at Jordons sometime soon - shes pretty clingy to me in the evenings (cant blame her though I suppose!! haha).

No work for Gray tomorrow and no school for Dan. They've got a Queens Birthday Day off!! Not sure what we're gonna do but I'm in the mood for spending money (that we dont have!!).

Well as we havent done much over the last few days I dont really have much more to say.

Bye for now :-)

Its been raining for 2 days solid :(

Firstly........sorry.........I forgot about the photos again!! My memory is shocking!

Well its been raining very heavily for the last two days.......non-stop!! This wasnt in the brochure! Whenever it rains every Aussie says 'Oh we need it though dont we?'!! This may be true (well its very true actually) but I DONT LIKE RAIN!

I've been keeping myself busy this last few days setting up a new website. Its still in the very early stages at the moment and I'm really just playing about with it - feel free to check it out though www.shopsinoz.com - its a directory of Aussie online shops. Its taking quite a long time just to get everything on there at the moment - then it'll be time to work on getting traffic to it! its all good fun though :)

I applied for a job today - it was advertised in TAFE so I thought I'd give it a go. Just part time casual (as needed) during school hours - admin work in an accountants I think (dont really know too much about it to be honest). The only problem is that Aussies arent generally in any rush to let you know if you've been successful or not so it could be a few weeks before I get the 'thanks but no thanks' reply! :) You never know though.

Gray and Dan went to see Shrek 3 last night at the flicks. Said it was good but not as good as the first two apparently? I wouldnt have minded going but they never get any time on their own together so its nice for them to have that for themselves.

Grays been working loads of overtime lately. I dont complain when the money comes in but I wish he didnt HAVE to. Thats why I'm working on the websites and trying to get a part time job. That little bit of extra money would make such a bit difference to us.

We still dont have any tenants in our UK house. For some reason our agents were slow getting it all cleaned out but they've said it should be ready by 9th (which is tomorrow) so hopefully we'll get someone in soon. If we dont then our money worries are going to become a lot more serious. Dont even go there!!

Right its time for the school run now.

Cya!

Another thing

A lot of people have been asking me for photos - rather than email individually I thought I'd post here - I'm going to have a good look through my photos sometimes this week and starting posting a few.

Be patient - they're worth waiting for - honest gov!