My Pear Tree House

Bunkroom Redo

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 21:43:00 +0000

I finally got round to taking photos of our bunk room. It takes a long time to fix up these rooms when you are only doing it on the weekends, with lots of breaks for rest. It also took weeks for this wallpaper to arrive from the UK, as they had to do a new print run *.

(Ralph Lauren Great Harbour from the Family Places Collection)

Remember when we bought the house this room looked like this:

Because I don't know what I am doing I didn't use a proper undercoat so ended up painting the walls about 5 times. But that was good because it gave me enough time to spot the gaps where the insects and spiders come in (there are many cracks unfortunately, and because it is kind of a basement room the creepies love to come in and sleep. Not mentioning that to the children.)

You may recall the many problems this room has: very low ceiling, funny shape, structural pole in middle of one side, and that triangle window.

They had painted the wall around it to look like Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon cover, so I felt a bit bad painting over it but needs must.

I got some great advice for this window, including a square blind and plantation shutters. Here is what I have done.

(Curtains come from Pottery Barn, they are a lovely sage green)

That's right, nothing. The reason for this decision is that once I had painted the room and wallpapered this wall I thought it would just be better to leave it as is, with clean lines. It is not a room which gets used all the time, and the light is not an issue.

There was also a financial reason. Because of the shape the plantation shutter would need to be custom made (the window is 1 metre each side). The quote I got was $1650. For one shutter. (I sent it to my husband to give him a nice fright and he emailed me back 'No. For the avoidance of doubt, no.' I love that expression.)

So it is just going to be a nudie window for now.

(this rug is from Freedom Furniture)

Here is a detail of one corner, note gaps, and corrugated iron ceiling which I love, it is very Australian).

At the other end of the room I have put in a 'low line' 3 bed bunk. Here is my son demonstrating the top level. The bunks work pretty well, although you can see it is a slightly awkward fit. I found some green ticking linen from Provincial Home.

Here is the other end of the room. So far no furniture, I need a side table or something here.

The chairs are temporary.

And in case you are wondering, this is the view from triangle window. The driveway, some gumtrees, and a bit of ocean.

This is actually the very first room I have painted and redecorated from scratch! It felt good.

Happy Australia Day!

* if you live in Australia you will know that a lot of websites will say 'Cannot be shipped to Australia' or some such, because the supplier has some tie up with a business in Australia. This wallpaper had the same prohibition but I thought I would order it anyway. And it must have slipped through their systems because it did eventually arrive!

Home Remedies

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 00:24:00 +0000

I have been a most neglectful poster so far this year. But I have had a wonderful holiday down at the beach, so much so that when I returned to work I forgot my main computer password and even what day it was. One of those fantastic sandy salty beach holidays where the children tumble exhausted into bed each night, and we watch no television and read books and gaze at the sea for hours on end. Just perfect.

I promise to post pictures of our bunk room, and some of the house next time round, I just have to remember to take my camera down with me.

Real non holiday life has been a bit of a shock this year, because the Herceptin which is infused into me every three weeks has been giving me some trouble. You may recall Herceptin is the wonder drug with no side effects, which I am on until April (a year in total).

I have such a minimal kitchen. Every now and then I hanker for a kitchen like my gran's. Like this.

I don't get angry about much these days, at least I try not to, but I was unreasonably enraged at my dashed expectations. Particularly because I have been on Herceptin for 6 months now with very little impact, so I really thought I was coming to the end of the pain and discomfort.If there is anything worse than a cancer drug with lots of scary well publicised side effects, it is a cancer drug which you are assured has No Side Effects but in fact does. Each weird ache and pain convinced me I had something unspeakable like secondary bone cancer. BUT 30 seconds of Internet research demonstrated I am not crazy, and that Herceptin does have some well known side effects. It is just that those side effects are still denied by many nurses and doctors.

Pink fridge courtesy of an automotive painter

The side effects vary, and obviously not everyone gets them but mine are constantly runny nose, thin nails, and terrible joint pain. The first two I can live with but the joint pain, which also featured when I was on Taxol, is stabby and painful, severe enough to wake me at night and particularly bad in my left shoulder and collarbone and wrists and ankles and in my feet when I first wake up. My joints crack when I move them. It is like being 90 years old. It is technically arthralgia, not arthritis because there is no swelling.

The last thing I want to do is take more pain killers. So I thought that before I resorted to Panadol I would try some home remedies. And whilst I was researching this, it occurred to me that there are a few bits and pieces from my pantry which I now use regularly which have really helped me. I use these in conjunction with good old nuclear grade conventional medicine. And exercise. Being a recent convert to exercise, I feel a bit preachy going on about this, but strenuous weight bearing exercise has really helped me over the last year, and definitely helps with joint pain.

All I need now is for my grandmothers to come back to life so I can chat to them about what they cooked up in their kitchens.

Apple Cider Vinegar. ACV is meant to be a cure all for many things, but particularly good for joint pain (arthritis, gout and all others). Sounds too good to be true doesn't it? You take it as 2 teaspoonsful in a standard glass of water, I think warm is the best. What I am about to tell you will amaze you. I have been taking ACV this way twice a day for a week now, and my joint pain has almost completely gone. I love you ACV. If you are interested in the claims for ACV, check out Earth Clinic, which is an all round fascinating site, but you may need to take a big pinch of salt because in my view some of the posters are clearly nutters.
I use this one:

It is also apparently great for hair, you use it as a pre or post shampoo rinse, it gets rid of gunky build up. Haven't tried this yet.

Turmeric and cayenne (ie chilli powder) great for sinus and easy to use a lot if you do lots of Indian cooking as I do. Turmeric is a blood purifier and an immune system booster. You can make a turmeric tea if you can be bothered, like this: a teaspoon in warm milk, or alternatively, simmer a teaspoon plus some cardamom in water, then add same amount of milk. You can sweeten with honey.   An Ayurvedic would also suggest you add a couple of spoonfuls of almond oil.   You can also steep ginger, honey and lemon juice in hot water, then add some turmeric powder and a dash of cayenne. Very good for colds.

Lemon in hot water. When I can remember, which I confess is less often than it should be, I take this first thing in the morning, as a nice way to cleanse the body before the rigours of the day. And on the days I remember I definitely feel better inside.

Green smoothies. I have talked about these here. Unfortunately kale is out of season at the moment in Melbourne. I have asked my mother who has a green thumb and a fantastic veg garden to try to grow some so I have a ready supply. In the meantime I am using lots and lots of spinach as a substitute.

Tea tree oil. I dab this on chemo related spots.  I also use this in my home made anti lice conditioner (one bottle of cheap conditioner, half empty out, put in small bottle of tea tree oil, small bottle of eucalyptus oil and small bottle of lavender oil. Mix and use weekly in place of conditioner. My daughter has not had lice for 5 years now!).

Coconut oil. I use this on really dry foot bits. And also use lots in cooking. And on my cereal when roasting it to make it a bit crunchier.

And finally, whilst not a home remedy, here is some Eyelash help.   Another nasty surprise from Herceptin was my eyelashes falling out 4 months after I finished chemo. For the second time. But just in one eye. My eyelashes have always been rather pale, and not much to brag about, but this really annoyed me so I went off to Mecca Cosmetica and bought this, by French brand Talika:

So far it has really helped, my lashes are definitely thicker and longer. Do you have a cure all from your pantry?

(Images (1), (2), (4) Country Living, (3) House and Hem (5) Eva Kylland)

Surviving

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 22:51:00 +0000

Before we had children we used to eat, literally every week, at a restaurant called the Bengal Tiger, which kicked off my obsession with Indian food. Once we had children we cut back on the endless restaurant dining and so I had no choice but to cook Indian at home, which I have done, almost every week, ever since.

There is something very life affirming about Indian food. The orange chilli powder, the musky clove and cinamon smells, the saffron yellow turmeric, the grinding of spices, the slow slow braising of chicken, the snowy fluffy rice, all those pulses and grains, the little dishes filled with yoghurty condiments and spicy salads. And of course there is no such thing as 'Indian' food just as there is no such thing as 'Chinese' food. So you can endlessly discover new dishes.

(some of my Indian cookbooks)

Which is why all I really want for Christmas is this book by Christine Manfield:

And then one day, off to Agra I will go, to do something like this:

(courtesy Brandon Van Slyke *)

On Saturday it will be a year exactly since my cancer diagnosis. On that day I will be heading off to my hairdresser to address my unsatisfactory way too short mousey brown boofy hair. As much as my hair is driving me berko, as I keep saying to myself, at least I am not dead. My Oncologist Who Doesn't Believe in Remission** (and who also told me that cancer is just the wrong form of energy, which is why I love him) doesn't want me to dwell on this awful anniversary, and I think that makes sense.

Last year, unusually, I had bought all my presents and even set the table for our twenty person Christmas lunch a good 10 days before Christmas, unheard of for me. And then the next day I had the diagnosis. It was as if on a subconscious level my body knew what was about to happen. If nothing else, this year has completely convinced of the powerful mind-body connection. Not that you can cure yourself by positive thinking, no not at all. Those who read this blog will know I do not believe in that at all. Rather that there are so many things our bodies know, we just have to listen.

This is our Star Wars Advent Calendar. I know. Unbelievable isn't it. Who would have thought that Star Wars was so Christian. But my goodness the children love it.

So to the point, which is that last night we went on our once every 9 years trip to the opera. It was La Traviata, by Verdi. You know, the One with the courtesan (ie prostitute) Violetta who sacrifices her love for her penniless young man Alfredo only to be reunited with him and then dramatically drop dead from consumption. That one.

And I sat there and thought, really, so much of last year has just been about surviving. Getting out of bed and making it from one day to the next. Dreading the little twinges. Over Googling recurrent secondary breast cancer. Lying in bed at night, sleepless, convincing myself that I am fine, and just a very lucky person. Wondering if I will even be alive to see my already slightly moody daughter become a teenager. Hoping I will be around to teach my son the correct way to treat women and to make sure he doesn't break his neck playing football.

Next year, I hope, will be more about living.

So it needs to be more about swimming and sunshine:

(Byron Bay - courtesy Adrian McGruther*)

and pointless beautiful things:

And whilst we are enjoying Christmas I want you to think, as I have been, quite a lot, probably too much, about the three amazing ladies, Lisa, Ellie and Sophie, who are listed under the C-word at the right (see Alright Tit, Written Off and Sophie Feels Better), who, all three, have this year had devastating news in varying degress of terribleness. Every day they amaze me with their guts and spirit. And every day I curse (just a little bit) the horrible random nature of life.

* these images were in a Christmas Ecard sent to me by this law firm. Taken by their lawyers on various travel trips. And who said lawyers were boring.

** this is kind of a long story so I might leave it for another post. Suffice it to say he is more about curable\incurable than statistics. And I might note I have never shown any cancer spread, so there is nothing really to be in remission from.

The Hair Question Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 23:50:00 +0000

I have never considered myself particularly vain. No more than the next person. Not straining to catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Reasonably happy with my laugh lines. Not a face full of makeup person. I have always believed that what lies within is so much more important than the exterior. That is what I try to teach my children (who are taught otherwise by so many fairy tales - ugly people are bad, beautiful people are good).

But I have to say, losing my hair was a challenge almost as great as being diagnosed with cancer in the first place.

And it was not just because I didn't look that great without hair.   Let's face it, who does? I don't have a round face so I concede I may have looked a tiny bit better than some others, but still.

It was just that I missed feeling like myself. I have always had longish (shoulder length) hair.    I felt colder with no hair. I had nothing to run my fingers through, nothing to fuss with. Nothing to wash and blow dry (well I admit that part was good). Nothing to tie back, or clip up.

When I wrote this post I was full of ideas for head scarves. In reality, I never wore a head scarf. Not once. I did wear hats, and I was given some lovely ones. And I wore my trusty wig.   I have been wondering why, and I think the answer to the question is quite simple. I didn't want people to know I had cancer. You might think that is strange given this blog.   It's not that my cancer was a secret. I just really didn't want the flash of pity I would see in people's eyes when they saw my hairless state.

So I went with the Big Con of the wig.   And really it is amazing how many people did not realise it was a wig. Even now, people who have seen me regularly all year find out and can't believe it.

(My Wig Disclosure Policy was as follows: if someone who didn't know about the cancer (some clients, cafe people, school people) commented on my hair more than once (including comments like please tell me the name of your hairdresser), I would tell them it was a wig. I felt mean about this because I could see the surprise in their eyes but I think if someone has commented twice on how nice your hair is you can't keep up the charade of pretending it's yours. This situation happened to me just last week with the divine girls who run the before school program for my son. I could see them thinking: WTF? This woman we have seen three times a week all year has had chemo for cancer and wears a wig?!)

In fact as it turns out I never lost all my hair. Just about 90% though. And in the mire of chemo treatment you tend to lose track. But I never shaved it off. I just couldn't bring myself to do it. And it is true it does grow back very quickly. But the inbetween stage from pixie and cute to normal is just interminable.

I always said I could cope with hair loss if I kept my eyebrows. Then when I lost them I said I could cope with that if I kept my eyelashes. But they went too.

And do you know when that happened?   In a cruel twist, my brows and lashes went, almost overnight, about 2 weeks after chemo ended. I had read that might happen but thought I would escape that fate.

I have learned that you really need eyebrows you know. They add definition and structure.    I appreciate them more than ever now.   Anyway they did grow back quickly. And eyebrow pencil works wonders although I am pretty sure you don't kid anyone with it.

So what now? Well, slowly slowly it grows back. I looked like Jean Seberg in the photo above for about a week. And now it is tufty, sticking outy, boofy and not that nice to look at. Or as my mother said, in that inimitable tactless way mothers have 'Why your hair looks just like your little brother's.' Who wants to look like their brother? I don't.

And so I still cover it up.   Cowardly, I know. But my son still prefers me to have a wig on when we go out. And the least I can do is bow to his wishes for the moment.

For any of you reading who may be going through the hair thing, here are somethings I have learned.

1. Get your wig cut by your hairdresser. This is really important and they probably won't charge you for it (mine didn't). They can just make it a bit more uneven, a bit choppy. Much more realistic than the bowl shape most wigs come in.

2. Do not wash your wig. I haven't washed mine once. You may think that is disgusting but bear in mind I don't wear it to exercise, and it is thoroughly aired every night. If you wash it is gets that way too clean look.

3. Do not believe the hairdresser who sells you expensive 'post chemo' conditioner and shampoo. You don't need it. You hair will come back strong and thick and new.     But do take colloidal silica. I have and it helps. It also helped my nails.

4. Don't listen to others about when and how to wear wig \ scarf etc. Do what you feel like doing. It's all about confidence after all.

And one day I hope that all chemo will not involve hair loss. And that will be so much better for all of us.

(Images Pinterest - but sorry have not saved pinners).

Raw

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 20:05:00 +0000

A couple of years back I did a 5 day raw food retreat at this place in northern Bali. I am useless at these kinds of disciplines. I dreamed of charcoal-y beef steaks and oven baked potatoes every night, and convinced myself that white wine was a raw food stuff because surely fermentation is not the same as cooking.

And if you can't do raw food looking at this all day then one has no hope back in Melbourne.

(Massage hut at Puri Ganesha)

I do like the pristine clean feeling uncooked food gives me. And if you like salads it is relatively easy to do quite often.

Sunday night is raw food night. It used to be omelette night. Or noodles night.

I recently bought this book by Kimberley Snyder. She of the Green Smoothie I have mentioned before.

Her eating plan is about beauty and skin health. I am interested in it for overall health reasons. Her eating plan is also vegan, which I struggle with. I did vegan once, and lasted about 10 hours. I know. Hopeless, right?

However, as bizarre as it sounds, her raw cold cauliflower soup is divine.

I won't show you the finished soup because frankly it's not that appetising looking. But here are the ingredients and they look pretty nice before they are pureed.

Put in a vitamiser the following:

juice of a lemon
half or quarter of a cauliflower, chopped
half an avocado
good splash of tamari
teaspoon of turmeric
large pinch of sea salt
a cup of water

Blend until smooth. You can adjust the wateriness if you like. Her recipe involves a teaspoon of miso but I don't have that so I left it out. I also put in heaps of tamari. You could also put in some dried chilli flakes.

This makes a generous bowl for one or small bowls for two. It's not enough food for me so I also have some of her 'burritos' which consist of celery marinated in lemon juice, mustard and savoury yeast, avocado, sprouts and spinach wrapped in a nori sheet.

Do you have any raw food treats I can try? White wine counts as raw food. So does red wine.

Bunk

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 20:09:00 +0000

We bought a beach house a couple of months back. (Kept that quiet, didn't I?).

I will post some pictures at some point.

The house is at Fairhaven, on the west coast of Victoria. An English friend described this area to me as like Cornwall, and the northern beaches of Sydney as like the Mediterranean. I think this is quite apt. We have certainly had some blustery grey blue weekends down there.

The house doesn't need really any renovation, which was one of my pre-conditions. I have hung some new curtains and that is it.

However there is one room which needed a lot of work. It is the downstairs bunk room, which was used by the old owners as storage. We need it as occasional accommodation so that we have enough room for the children plus guests.

I mentioned in a previous post that I love the Scandinavian grey and white and wood beach shack style. Of course not all of that is really suited to the Australian summer, which does get hot, even down here. And I think pure white walls are can be an issue when you have lots of sun glare.

So, here is the plan for the bunk room. If I could do a mood board then I would, but I can't, so I am laying it out old style.

One wall to be wallpapered in this:

(Ralph Lauren from the Family Places range)

Other walls painted in Chalk USA:

(thanks A-M - I found this on your blog!)

Bunks along one wall maybe like this:

Curtains like this:

(from Pottery Barn)

Floor coverings like this:

(from Freedom Furniture)

Other furniture is completely undecided. Although I have bought this lamp from Ikea because I liked the colour:

And I would like some ticking stripe linen like this:

(via Toast)

I love stripes in children's rooms.

Oh, and here is a shot of the room itself just before we bought the house. This room has a Few Issues. It has a very very low ceiling, less than 190 cm. And a triangle window! And a strangely positioned woodenly pole. And the tiled floor is not ideal but I can cover that. Arrggh...

So far it has taken me four coats to paint out that blue stripe. I am by no means an expert painter so that might be why.

The wall to be wallpapered is the black one. And what oh what could I do to cover that triangle window? The best I have come up with is a plantation shutter, but it would have to be custom made.

This is where I have got to.

Wish me luck!

(Images (1) and (5) from My Scandinavian Retreat (3), (10) and (11) Pinterest.)

A New Blog for Jane

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 08:01:00 +0000

It has been pretty serious around My Pear Tree House this year, what with the cancer, and all that.

(Kaleidoscope Dolls House, dating from 2002, now in the V&A in London)

I wanted to do something a bit light and childlike.

So have created a new blog, about Dolls Houses. Something my daughter can read. And something to remind us all of being a carefree little child.

Sadly my little blog has no followers.

If you are interested in Dolls Houses, please feel free to visit, and follow or subscribe. (The link is to the left.)

Correction: the link is to the right. I still don't know my left and right!

xox

Good Things Spring 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 03:40:00 +0000

(pearl barley and aduki bean salad with char grilled asparagus and salsa verde dressing)

This salad, adapted from the book pictured below. This book is so amazing, I feel like stopping people in the street to tell them. Brilliant warm salads, lots of wonderful baked vegetable dishes and everything in between. You do not need to be a vegetarian (I am not). But if you want to reduce the amount of meat in your life (I do) and need decent interesting recipes this is the book for you.

For example, quinoa with parsley pesto, cranberries, toasted hazelnuts and mushrooms, a divine raw vegetable and avocado soup, parsnip and rosemary rolls, baked red onions stuffed with toasted, spiced couscous and oven baked pea, barley and broad bean frittata. She also has instructions for making your own sprouts from any seed (sprouts are a great super food), labne, yoghurt and tofu. Buy it!

This Phillip Treacy hat worn by Dita Von Teese to Derby Day, in defiance of the black and white rule of Derby Day. I like Dita, but I have to ask: why do we Australians persist in importing celebrities from 'overseas' to the Spring Racing Carnival? Are we so insecure that we need validation by a non-Australian? Or does it make it a truly international day? The imported guests over the years have ranged from a charming Rex Harrison to a very bored Paris Hilton. The celebritizing of the races generally is part of the reason I gave up our Victorian Racing Club membership this year. Read Francesca Cumani's take on it here.

This house at 58 Millswyn Street, South Yarra. I played in this house as a little girl when family friends owned it. It is now renovated and on the market for (no doubt) A Bomb.

Beetroot cheek and lip tint from Ere Perez. Yes beetroot. Better on the cheeks than inside the tummy, raw, I think! Great organic Australian makeup. I also have their mascara.

This fondue set. Doesn't ship to Australia, sadly.

(from Jenna at Etsy)

This artist. I love her. She makes me feel like a little girl again. And who wouldn't like a tame fox sleeping on their head?

(Marisol Spoon on Etsy)

I think I am officially the last person on the planet to get Etsy. I have browsed many times of course but never bought. In a possibly fruitless attempt to de-plasticise my life I have bought some non plastic lunch bags for the children. And sandwich bags. And snack bags. Coming from all around the globe, and all really good value. I will show you when they arrive.

Oh, one more thing. The children are obsessed with Star Wars at the moment and in a moment of idle googling I came across many people with a similar obsession. To wit:

(sorry couldn't find source)

At that moment, TK-788 and TR-114 made a pact to never speak of this day again to anyone (from legomyday.wordpress.com)

Cancer FAQs

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 03:15:00 +0000

Hi there - here's hoping you are all well on this blustery Melbourne day.

I have posted a new page, called cancer FAQs, which will hopefully answer some or many of the questions I have had from you wonderful readers. It's over on the right.

Go ahead, read. There is happiness even in cancer, I promise you.

xoxo happy weekend!

Radish

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 07:00:00 +0000

Yesterday was a lovely day. We had breakfast here (a place I highly recommend, and I am not the only one who is a fan - there was a queue out the door when we left) whilst the sun shined. We went to the food market at my daughter's school, whilst the wind was cold and icy. I came home and cooked lunch and watched a hailstorm begin outside. The hailstorm then cleared and the the sky was blue. Later on daughter went to a Halloween themed birthday party and it rained a bit. And then a bit later the sky cleared up again. Just a typical Spring day in Melbourne.

I bought these radishes at the market. Something new for me, I have never bought them before. Ever. I think I am scarred by memories of the crudites plus dips my mother served at her glamourous parties in the 1970s. Or something. But they have a wonderful crispness.

I have been dipping into the new Sophie Dahl cookbook and she has a very simple recipe for radishes. I had no truffle salt so I improvised with truffle oil.

You take the radishes and slice them very thinly (I used a mandoline). Layer them in a dish, allowing their ruby rims to show through. In a little bowl mix up a tablespoon or so of truffle oil, some sea salt and some very finely chopped mint. Pour over the radishes and let them sit a bit. Completely divine. I had eaten most of them by the time lunch was ready!

I know I have been in some weird places this year, medically, but these radishes reminded me of a brain MRI.

I highly recommend the Sophie Dahl book. If not just for the chipped Granny's bowl and lace tablecloth photography, and lots of shots of Sophie in flowery tea dresses. Seriously though, she likes my kind of food - soups, salads, hardly any sugar, chicken and lovely picky things to eat. I feel that she would be a great laugh to have a drink with.

Here's to another cancer free week.

Green Sugar Free Breakfast

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 03:54:00 +0000

Breakfast time for me:

(home made sugar free granola with Greek yoghurt* and rhubarb and a green smoothie)

In Mid July 2011 I gave up sugar. Specifically fructose. Why? Well not for weight reasons, and not for anti cancer reasons, although I have read that cancer feeds on sugar. Really it was for I Wish I Could Stop Falling Asleep At My Desk In the Afternoon reasons. And I have found that giving up sugar is not one of those annoying life changes where you only feel marginally better, or a diet change where it takes months and months to kick in. No not at all. I found within literally days that I felt so much better.

This is how I got there.

First, I have been reading Sarah Wilson's blog for a while. If you don't know it go there now. It is informative, and inspiring, in a world where the word 'inspiring' is overused. She gave up sugar for medical reasons, and is about to issue an e-book on her journey.

Second, I became very tired of the sugar highs and lows I was getting from my sugary cereal with fruit juice breakfast, little bun or muffin at morning tea, more juice at lunch time and then chocolate and more in the afternoon and then maybe a chocolate biscuit after dinner. Or ice-cream. Or, on weekends, lots of ANZAC biscuit mixture on a Sunday afternoon. The sweet things are not great but the real culprit is fructose. Read here about David Gillespie, author of Sweet Poison, and his take on sugar.

Third, I thought how much I would love to have the same level of energy throughout the day. So I made a plan. Did some more reading. Thought a bit more. The real challenge is breakfast because it is so sugar dependent. So I knew I had to find something for breakfast which is quick and sugar free.

Fourth, I made my cereal, based on a Nigella Lawson recipe. It is very easy. Turn oven onto 180, spread two cups of oats over a lined baking sheet. Get two cups of raw nuts and pulse in a food processor until you have half crushed and almost powdery but with some large nutty chunks. Put them on the tray too, along with a cup of sunflower seeds. You can also add coconut (but note it will be brown within about 10 minutes so you will need to take it out first), pumpkin seeds, or really any other seed which can be roasted. No fried fruit (this is a fructose heavy as fruit juice). Put in the oven for about half an hour turning regularly until the oats and nuts are all toasty and light brown.

Fifth, I found pretty quickly that I got sick of coconut water for breakfast. I didn't realise how much I relied on the quenching nature of fruit juice. I really needed that in morning. Then I found Kimberley Snyder's glowing green smoothie. I love this so much. And she is such a relentlessly 'up' person that I feel just that little bit more perky every time I read her blog. This drink gives me a complete energy boost until lunchtime and it really doesn't even taste very vegetable-y. Try it - you will not regret it.

(looks like a science experiment...)

Do I miss chocolate? Yes oh yes. And I am still seriously considering excluding chocolate from my list of sugary foods. However, on the few instances I have lapsed, I find I get a sugar rush from a tiny bit of cake or biscuit and after my mouth feels weird and sugary. I have filled the hole with sugar free chocolate which is surprisingly nice. I am not going all crazy about this. If I want a piece of cake I will have one. However the removal of my staple endless fruit juices and sweet lollies has made such a difference to how I feel that I don't think I will ever be able to go back.

And to be clear, this is not deprivation territory. You can still have coffee (lactose is okay), beer (maltose is okay), wine (not sure what sugar is in there but it is apparently okay) and fruit (but whole only maximum two pieces a day).

Go on y'all. Give it a try.

xo

* beware of low fat yoghurt - it is loaded with sugar. I love this Greek yoghurt which is available in all supermarkets - almost no sugar and just like the yoghurt you get in Istanbul which is where I first fell in love with yoghurt for breakfast.

Change

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 20:53:00 +0000

Lately I have been wondering whether the last 8 months have changed me. Objectively I would expect that a diagnosis of cancer at 42 would change me significantly.

There is no point dwelling on the nasty changes like increased neuroses or bitterness or resentment. (Mind you sadly there has been a bit of that floating around the house this year). No, I am thinking more about positive behavioural and personality changes.

And yet I am still not sure really if I am that much changed inside. I continue to surprise myself - first, on diagnosis I didn't cry and scream for a week in manner of Bronte style heroine with heart broken by cruel man. Second, I feel so different physically (much better, in fact) that it is a bit odd that on the outside I appear to be the same person (albeit with some Hair Issues).

When I finished chemo I got a lot of little booklets from the hospital about how to cope with this new period with no treatment (excluding Herceptin, which continues till next April).

If all the pundits are correct, this is a hard time, where you feel empty and a bit directionless, and even depressed. The treatment provides structure and something to think (or even complain and moan) about. Life with no routine treatment means that a large gap opens up, which is there to be filled with horrible thoughts of the future and possible recurrences of cancer. Every little twinge makes one think 'arggh shoulder cancer, or stomach cancer or foot cancer or lung cancer or mouth cancer or eyelash cancer..........' My surgeon calls this hypervigilence and it is very common in post chemo patients.

In the manner of a controlling lawyer I have developed a 6 point action plan to try to get me through the next little period. I have implemented most of the steps, and it is really helping. I will post on that next.

But even then I still have moments when I despair just a tiny little bit, and think why on earth has this happened to me? But those moments then go, and I look at the blue sky, and think that things are probably okay.

These are the areas where I think that I may have changed.

1. I smell the flowers.

The absence of picking flowers in my garden has been annoying me for sometime. But if there is one thing my garden can produce in spades it is Daphne. Here it is looking flush and smelling lemony.

My husband occasionally said to me during chemo 'please don't rush around' and I would say 'you have no idea how completely incapable I am of rushing around.' And now I am still in a rush free zone. Yes I am busy busy of course isn't everyone, but I am deleting things madly, walking slowly, and smelling the world outside.

2. I feel more empathy.

I think I have always been a reasonably caring person, but now I can feel others' pain more tellingly. If you have been pregnant you will recall how the tears start to flow when you see images of famine in Africa or lost puppy dogs on TV. Well I am like that the whole time now. This of course is the true meaning of compassion - that feeling of sharing the pain, of connectedness. I still feel raw to the touch, I think, and that makes me feel things really intensely.

I was given quite a nice camera for Christmas. I have barely used it but am now starting to experiment with super close ups of flowers.

3. I am more aware of how I spend my time.

I am aware every day of how many books I still have to read. The pile on my bedside table is towering, and that doesn't even include books on my Kindle.

As an aside, can I recommend another book to you all? If you read one book this year please make it this one. In Anti Cancer, Dr David Servan Schreiber talks of his brush with cancer and what he has learned since about leading a life which repels cancer in all ways. This is not just about diet, although that is important (he mentions specifically green tea and turmeric and many more), but about ensuring despair and helplessness (not necessarily stress) have no place in your life.

So with all these books to read I am trying to rationalise wasted time. And sadly that does mean less time on the Internet. I just can't justify it anymore. I am still visiting you all, just not commenting as much. I hope you all forgive me.

4. I am less interested in controlling my children's behaviour.

I still have some way to go on this one, but I am learning to pick my battles a bit more. I have a very strong willed son, and it is exhausting trying to get him to conform all the time. And what's more, I think it is bad for me and causes me anxiety.

So now, if they want ice cream for dessert when they haven't eaten 100% of their dinner, then frankly, that is fine by me.

(son having roll into ball tantrum in the street. One of his specialities)

Do you know what happens when two stubborn strong willed impatient and argumentative people live together? It is fireworks and that has long been the way for me and my son. But now, I am trying to learn new ways to manage him. I am still disciplining him, but trying to be so much calmer in doing so.

As an aside this is how I get the children to eat meat. Slit open some little pork or beef sausage and fry gently with some butter and chopped garlic, pressing down with a fork to create smaller bits. Add half a tin of chopped tomatoes and cook for 15 minutes. Serve with spaghetti and Parmesan.

5. I want to make the most of things

During chemo I bought a new car. I suspect some people thought that was a bit strange, but once it happens to you, you realise that life doesn't stop just because you have cancer. You still have to live, work and love. You can't say 'oh I might die so I had better not do that'. In fact it is the opposite.

Next on the list is a little shack with a sea view, something we have always wanted to do but avoided for reasons to do with debt. Do you know what I say to debt now? I spit on it. Or laugh at it. Conservatively and with a fair interest rate of course.

In an ideal world my beach house would be Scandinavian, a bit grey and brooding, salty but with clean lines. Here is something to really live for:

6. I don't feel as sorry for myself as I used to.

Someone left a comment here about the 'downward social comparator', which is about realising that no matter what you are living with, there is always always someone going through something worse than you. Like the young woman in my meditation class with three small children who has been told her cancer has spread and that there is no hope for her. She is on chemo and a drug trial indefinitely, which is of course code for as long as she lives. Or the woman I met at a dinner with a slipped disc and such chronic back pain resulting from a failed operation that not only can she not lift or hug her children but she cannot even get out of bed without taking 7 painkillers.

To me, these situations make my recent life look reasonably okay in comparison. And they certainly make my regular Sunday Afternoon Folding And Putting Away 10 Loads Of Washing (something I was a bit apt to complain about) a walk in the park.

What about you? Have you been changed by an event?

(Images (1) Pinterest (6)(7)(8) My Scandinavian Retreat)

Olley

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 04:14:00 +0000

Vale Margaret Olley, Australian artist who died on 26 July 2011 this week at the age of 88

(Cyclamens and Apples 2005)

(daisies and pears 1978)

She recently sat for a portrait by Ben Quilty, which won this year's Archibald Prize, here it is.

Olley was a figurative painter of great skill, who produced wonderful still lifes, which seem so old fashioned these days and yet full of life and light and substance. What, really, could be more wonderful than a perfect bunch of flowers and a bowl of fruit sitting in the sunshine.

(Poppies 2004)

(spare bedroom, 1970, which is at the Lismore Art Gallery)

She always struck me as a very determined person, not at all a flighty scatty artist. And I love her food \ flower combinations. Others include cornflowers and pomegranates, cliveas and mandarins and ranunculas and watermelon).

(Quinces and Marigolds 2005)

The older you get of course the more you can get away with saying what you want. I love this quote of Olley's:

'I’ve never liked housework. I get by doing little chores when I feel like them, in between paintings. Who wants to chase dust all their life? You can spend your whole lifetime cleaning the house. I like watching the patina grow. If the house looks dirty, buy another bunch of flowers, is my advice.'

(from the biography by Meg Stewart you can read a review of this here).

She certainly took her own advice because here she is in her studio:

The Sydney Morning Herald's obit is here.

One of my ambitions in life, if you could call it that, is to reach such a ripe age, say what I want, paint what I want, and clean when I want (or not).

(all still life images from Eva Breuer)

Rainforest

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 21:22:00 +0000

Location: rainforest north west of Mosman, in tropical far north Queensland.

Weather conditions: warm and dry. A bit of tropical rain at night, but what could be nicer.

Lazy act of self indulgence: being woken up at 6.45 every morning by shouty son, putting him in front of ABC Kids on TV and going back to bed.

Assignment: lots of swimming, eating and sleeping. And standing on rocks. And running up and down the grass rather pointlessly.

Participants: two small wet children, one happy husband, one very happy me.

Local natives: Beware of screeching tropical birds in the night. And green tree frogs hopping from pond to deck. And feral pigs, although the gunshots we heard early most mornings I suspect may have put paid to those piggies. And watch out for koalas and bright parrots. Oh, and the large black spiders which crawled into our luggage whilst we were there. Luckily most of the local crocodiles seem to be quickly caught and sent to the nearby croc farm. I have had this question a lot though 'Can crocodiles eat people? Why? Will they eat me? Why not?'.

(little bird at our house)

(A koala doing what koalas do best: snoozing)

(this is the only breeding pair of jabirus in the world. They spent 2 years courting and another 2 looking for the right place to nest. Just like human beings.)

Sustenance: I only have one rule about holidays, and that is, I do not want to cook breakfast lunch and dinner. Much as I love cooking, that is just too much standing around in the kitchen for me. For this holiday, we had lunch every day in Port Douglas (mostly here and here).

Crazy self discipline idea: do you go on holidays full of good intentions like exercising in inappropriate locations, or not drinking alcohol, or going fat free? I do. And that usually lasts about 3 days. As I have spent most of the last 6 months feeling hungover from the lovely chemo side effects, drinking has not been high on the agenda. How nice it was on this holiday to enjoy wine. Oh, and should I mention we had dessert every single day for lunch? With no guilt, no regrets and no second thoughts. Otherwise what is the point?

(pistachio kulfi with silver leaf and watermelon salad)

(dragonfruit ice cream (how amazing is the colour) and creme caramel. Very 1970's!)

(at our fourth meal at this restaurant they supplied the children's honeycomb ice cream in an ice and rose petal bowl instead of a 'normal' bowl. )

Outcome: for some reason it seems as if the children always take some great step on holidays. Is that just because I am paying more attention, or because they relax into it? The guilty mother in me would say this is because I am around the whole time, not working and not distracted with life. But I think it is more that they have time to work on things with lots of pushy parental encouragement. This time round, our son became independent in the water (with a foam noodle of course) and our daughter finally got the hang of diving (as opposed to belly flopping).

Now it's back to the real world.

43 Books

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 21:46:00 +0000

Following my last post where I mentioned the books I read during surgery and chemo, a number of people asked me (a) what I read and (b) how I found the time.

The answer to (b) is that when you spend months hooked up to intravenous poison every Monday morning for 4 or so hours, you suddenly have quite a lot of time for reading.

(a bit of our library)

And the answer to (a) is below where I list my 43 books.

As I have said before, I found reading a bit challenging this year. I did not want to read anything life changing which would later remind me of where I was when I read it.

I also found it quite helpful to read about people battling life and death in an escapist sense because it made me feel that they were in more trouble than me (the same reason I have watched a lot of House this year. They have what disease? Just made me feel better that I had simple straightforward cancer).

And also I did occasionally feel pretty brain dead and something simple and soft was just the answer.

I have to mention the role of my Kindle in all this. Whilst I love to hold a real book in my hot little hands, the Kindle has so many advantages. Two in particular I mention: the first is that if you are stuck somewhere and don't feel like reading what you have, you can in 30 seconds download another book. The second is cost. On Kindle, most paperbacks are $5 to $7, old classics are free, and even new ones are about $11. Compared to a shop price of $29 for a new paperback that is a major saving and explains why I could do crazy things like read the balance of the Lee Child oeuvre. ( I bet not many people put 'Lee Child' and 'oeuvre' in the same sentence).

So, fully categorised and colour coded, here is the list.

This post is dedicated to Anton, the lovely silver haired man from the country I met in the oncology suite who reads military history and was always interested in what I was reading. I hope you are doing okay.

A mixed bag of fiction

Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
One Day by David Nicholls
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
The Flaneur by Edmund White
When God was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman (thanks Simone xo)

US loner ex military cop adventures

Gone Tomorrow by Lee Child
The Visitor by Lee Child
Without Fail by Lee Child
Tripwire by Lee Child
Bad Luck and Trouble by Lee Child
Persuader by Lee Child

I am addicted to Jack Reacher and his slightly improbable but impeccably plotted adventures in the US heartland.

Self Help and Cancer

The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle (first and last self help book I will ever try to read)
C: Because Cowards get Cancer too by John Diamond
Crazy Sexy Cancer by Kris Carr
The C Word by Lisa Lynch

A classic fast paced WW2 thriller

Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett
(I also read 'A Dangerous Fortune', epic banking family revenge saga set in late 1800s London).

Soppy and Likely to Make You Lose Respect for Me

A Special Relationship by Douglas Kennedy
Temptation by Douglas Kennedy
State of the Union by Douglas Kennedy
The Moment by Douglas Kennedy (this is his latest book about a doomed romance set in a 1980s separated Berlin. I don't know about you but I fully loathed the main character by the end of this story - whatever you do don't read this book)
A Change in Altitude by Anita Shreve (always love her work although her earlier stuff is superior I think)

Venetian Detective

Wilful Behaviour by Donna Leon

2 new US legal thrillers

Innocent by Scott Turow (this is a sequel to Presumed Innocent and is quite brilliant. His writing is so calm and powerful, and this is a marvellous depiction of a marriage in decay as well).
The Confession by John Grisham

Adventure for 12 year old girls (and me)

What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge
Night birds on Nantucket by Joan Aiken
The Witch of Clatteringshaws by Joan Aiken
Midwinter Nightingale by Joan Aiken
Mandy by Julie Andrews (actually I read this to my daughter but it still counts)

You may think this is a bit odd but proper children's literature can be read by adults, I think. And I may have been regressing just a bit in hospital, so I went on a bit of a Joan Aiken splurge. These books are amazing, they feature a little Cockney adventuress, Dido Twite and are set in an alternate history in the 1600s and feature a range of kinds (Good King James III and in Midwinter Nightingale a dying King Richard and a baron-werewolf bent on taking over the throne). You can read about Joan Aiken here.

Cornish and Scottish Bohemia

Wild Mountain Thyme by Rosamund Pilcher
Coming Home by Rosamund Pilcher
Day of the Storm by Rosamund Pilcher
September by Rosamund Pilcher
Winter Solstice by Rosamund Pilcher

I read The Shell Seekers 20 years ago and it is one of my favourite books ever. I bought lots of her lesser works on Kindle, some of which are okay, especially Coming Home which is an absorbing story set in Cornwall and London and Malaysia over the 1930s and in WW2.

Mixture of Non Fiction

At Home by Bill Bryson
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
The Big Short by Michael Lewis
Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua
Love Wisdom and Motherhood by Jessica Rowe
Is there a Nutmeg in the House? by Elizabeth David
Smile or Die by Barbara Ehrenreich

Two Rock and Roll Tales

Just Kids by Patti Smith
Life by Keith Richards (still reading this one)

Code
One of my favourite books - have read several times now
Not their best work
Unfinished
Need to be in the right mood for this
If you want to read something completely different...?

Finally, a very big thank you to Simone from Bottom of the Ironing Basket. You see, I won her incredibly generous 500th post giveaway of 16 yes 16 books and they have been arriving in my office in twos and threes over the last couple of weeks. Here are some of them. Thank you very much lovely S. xo

End of Chemo Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 21:10:00 +0000

I finished chemo last Monday.

When the nurses pointed this out to me, I frowned and said, yes but it is not my last intravenous infusion, because I will be turning up here every 3 weeks for 9 months to have Herceptin.

It was then I realised that my practical side was overwhelming the side of me that should have been saying HOORAY and THANK GOD that I have, six months to the day since my surgery, finished this nightmare experience. Of course I realise that it is never really over. But 'active treatment' as they call it, is now at an end.

In the last half year I have:

gained a new and deep respect for the medical professionals in Melbourne.
thought a lot about life and death.
lost all my hair, most of my eyebrows and some of my eyelashes and gained my freckles back.
read 43 books.
confronted head on my very worst fear: getting cancer young.
spent a lot of time watching the children play and realised how much I still have to teach them.
continued to work at about half capacity which has been frustrating but well worth it.
felt so much gratitude for the support and wishes of family, friends, strangers, blog friends, acquaintances, the guy in the coffee shop, the stray business person I meet with who remarks on my 'lovely haircut', the mail man, the lovely girl in our local toyshop, the woman at Mecca Cosmetica, people in the oncology suite, the carpark man, the friend I haven't seen for 7 years who lives in Hong Kong who sent me the sweetest email last week and on it goes.

So this weekend I:

* Baked a cake to celebrate:

Recipe from Delicious, a magazine which has really grown on me. So much more down to earth than Gourmet Traveller or Donna Hay. It has cornflour in it and so is very very light and fluffy.

* Bought this book online (really cannot believe how cheap Book Depository is):

I wrote about Nigel Slater's memoir here. I have a small crush on this man. I would love to cook for him.

* Made a 6 point plan for the next 6 months (more on that soon).

* Bought a painting. Yes it's dark and moody and that is why I love it. By the Tasmanian Turner. (It is of Bass Strait).

* Picked some of these for floating in vases. It really annoys me the way camellias don't survive in vases on their own. We don't have as many picking flowers in our garden as I would like.

This to me looks very like the Chanel camellia...

* Ate some macaroons which I buy at La Belle Miette

In case you were wondering these flavours are strawberry and vanilla and violet and blueberry. He also does an amazing Pimms and pomegranate version.

Isn't life fantastic? So much to enjoy.

Escaping Cancer Island

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 21:07:00 +0000

I have had some unusual dreams this year. It is amazing how one's subconscious takes what is going on in the conscious world and twists and twirls a dream around it.

So, at the risk of turning into a boring dinner party guest who bangs on about her dreams, I am going to share a couple here.

(extremely overpriced lily which graced the table last week. I know they are funereal but I love them)

I have always thought recurrent dreams are the most interesting. They must speak of something deep deep inside.

My most frequent recurrent dreams since about the age of 20 have been: (1) waking up on the morning of a university exam and realising I have not done any study or preparation for it at all (actually that part was true in the case of Ancient French) or (2) running really hard but getting nowhere (often with not enough clothes on).

(frangipani lifted from a tree in the street on our last holiday in central New South Wales)

My new recurrent dreams are (1) giving some very dry legal presentation but I have forgotten my wig so I am with my 'No Hair' as my son calls it in front of 50 unimpressed strangers (2) dreams where I think I am wearing my wig at a meeting but realise at the end that I wasn't and everyone was being very polite and not saying anything (3) the Dr Suess Wig Dream where I think I am wearing a wig but it's the wrong wig and I take it off, then another, then another and underneath them all is the 'right' wig.

And I had a very memorable epic dream which seemed to go for hours and hours where I was on an island and all the power went out and people were desperately trying to get off because they knew if they got stuck on the island that they would die and all the boats had left and all that was available were charter planes and they were all taken by the old people with brown leathery skins wearing lots of gold jewelry and pastel nylon tracksuits and I was crying at the airline desk saying I don't care what it costs, I will pay anything and do anything to get off this island. (I can interpret this - the money reference is the fact that this cancer thing is costing a fortune and the older people thing I think relates to the fact that with a couple of exceptions, when I have my chemo I am the youngest person in the oncology suite by at least 15 years. And I would be lying if I said I didn't feel trapped, if not by the diagnosis then definitely by the endless treatment.)

(my mother's herb pots. And she didn't need Martha Stewart to tell her to do it this way).

And so it is that I don't want anything to remind me of this time. When it is all over I don't want to listen to a song and think 'Oh yes that is what I listened to when I was having chemo'. Kind of doesn't have the same nostalgic ring to it as 'Oh yes that was the song I listened to a lot when I first fell in love'. Which means that I have stayed away from music largely except classical.

And equally, with books, I don't want to think 'Oh that is the book I read when I was in hospital', or 'that is the book I used to read whilst waiting in the oncology suite'. So I am reading books I have read before, or books which involve such a sheer form of escapism I will never remember them. More on those another time.

(last year's daphne. This year's lot is just coming into bud.)

It surprises me that some friends of mine who have been through cancer and chemotherapy can't remember the names of the particular chemo they had. The detail obsessive in me thinks 'how can they possibly not remember something that important?'. But then I realise that they have forced it out of their mind. They don't want to remember. They don't want that recall.

I can't blank out my recall. And in the typical manner of a lawyer, I need to read as much as I can about new experiences. I have already mentioned that the Internet can be dangerous. And books too. But I have done a bit of cancer book reading. Some has been upsetting, some badly written, others moving beyond words. I am a bit picky with my cancer books. Any book that recommends that I 'find my special place' and 'sit there quietly' gets thrown across the room pretty quick smart.

Here are the three of the best writings which I have dipped into whilst on Cancer Island. And you may say: how are they relevant to me? But I say - they are all well written, and - ultimately - about life, not death. Because that is what these experiences do teach us - to respect and value life and not to worry about its end.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. My oncologist suggested it to me, as he worked at the Royal Marsden in London when John Diamond was being treated there. Believe it or not, on Cancer Island there are good cancers and bad cancers. I think John Diamond had a bad one: throat cancer which had spread to his tongue and lymph nodes.

John Diamond was a journalist and broadcaster, perhaps better known for being married to Nigella Lawson. His 'cancer journey' was pretty horrendous from start to finish but he kept his perspective, and writes so clearly about his experience that it moved me deeply.

Diamond (like me) hated being described as fighting a 'battle' or being 'brave' and writes of his desire to whinge, moan and just give up. He also writes hilariously of the policy of 'partial disclosure' most oncologists follow, meaning that they just give you enough information progressively to be going on with, not the whole box and dice (because that would be just too overwhelming).

This book only peripherally touches on cancer in one chapter when it looks at the 'positive thinking' mantra which plagues so many with serious illness (as in, if you think positive you will be cured, when in fact that has not been proved to be the case) but otherwise reviews the history of positive thinking in the US and forensically dissects the downside of such an approach. I am all for being optimistic but to me the idea that thinking positively can bring me money, fame or good health for ever is ludicrous. She also writes scathingly of the infantilisation of breast cancer, and in reference to the teddy bear she was given as part of a support group care package asks if men with prostate cancer are given Matchbox toy cars?

And finally, I have been avidly reading this man's series of articles published by Vanity Fair:

Like or loathe Christopher Hitchens you would not wish Stage IV oesophagal cancer on your worst enemy. And he has finally lost his voice, and writes brilliantly and movingly of the pain this causes him, and the importance of being able to voice one's thoughts here.

I read just a day or so ago that Hitchens has won an award for his cancer writings. Very well deserved. I so feel for him.

Weird chemo side effect no 467: bye bye big toe nails, baby bye bye. Yes it's true. I can cope with this I think as I lost one when I dropped a tray on my toe on New Year's Day 2000. But I wasn't expecting it. Isn't life unpredictable?

Ice Palaces and Nicoise Salad

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Tue, 31 May 2011 10:38:00 +0000

Whilst I loathe any family member being away from me, I have to confess that if my husband is away for work, I get just a tiny bit excited about a night at home alone. It is not that I can't do what I want with him around but I do love the pottering around in silence. Eating by candlelight by myself. Listening to the sound of the rain if it comes. Watching a little bit of rubbish television whilst cooking dinner. Curling up on the couch with Pepper the cat purring happily on my lap.

He is a non tuna or salmon eater (unless raw), so as if spiting him, I always cook myself some salmon or tuna for dinner.

Tonight, here it is, a tuna nicoise salady thing.

This is very easy. So easy it does not even require a recipe but know this: for perfectly cooked tuna and salmon, put a bit of oil on, pop on a tray, put in a cold oven and turn to 120 degrees. It will be cooked to perfectly medium rare in 25 minutes.

Tomorrow night will be a salmony rice thing.

And then, it is important to watch something he wouldn't be interested in watching for the millionth time. Tonight it is:

I would love to have wallpaper in this image - I love the combination of yellow with the birch trees. It still looks modern all these years later. The truth is I will not get through the whole film in one night. I am a bit tired at the moment for that. But even half is better than nothing.

And of course it has one of my all time favourite scenes:

Did you know this ice covered house was filmed in the heat in Spain? It is not snow at all but white marble dust.

It's pretty cold here at the moment, and in fact I have a fur hat just like Julie Christie's. It is made of possum fur though (I bought it in New Zealand where the enlightened government allows the use of possum fur in clothes) not mink or whatever hers is and so is more ethically acceptable.

And of course, I pyjama up, with face mask on. At the moment, it is this:

This stuff is brilliant. 6 sachets for $30, and I use only half a sachet at a time. Such great value and it gives my skin that tingling feeling which is compulsory if you want to feel it is doing any good.

Weird Chemo Side Effect No 5: my hair is growing back. Again. This time, am not counting on it. I just ignore the way it looks and tell myself I will worry about it in July. Oh and I have little pins and needles in my fingertips. This is called neuropathy and is quite normal. In fact my oncologist said it is good if I have it it means I am responding to chemo. Sometimes I think he says things just to cheer me up. I dread to think what he must say to his really sad patients. Mostly we seem to shoot the breeze about books and the latest Herceptin research coming out of New York. I find it hard to talk about myself all the time. Side effects and symptoms. So boring and repetitive. I feel like I am complaining. Weird but there you have it.

Good Things Autumn 2011: Burmese Statues and Gwyneth Paltrow

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Mon, 16 May 2011 07:17:00 +0000

The little things are infinitely the most important (Arthur Conan Doyle).

In the face of bone aching fatigue last week, I have found lots of pleasure in tiny achievements.

Like this embroidered cushion I found at Safari. In the background is my fiddle leaf fig tree, which almost died when I was in hospital in January because no one thought to give it the thimble full of water it needs to survive each week. I am slowly nursing it back to health but it is still too straggly. Such a shame because it had a beautiful full shape when I first bought it.

Pepper the Burmese cat managed to knock over this (Burmese!) statue we have in the front hall. Of course the Burmese army had already taken care of her head, feet and arms (the statue I mean not the cat). But her leg broke in two. I fixed it with Kwik Grip or something equally unmentionable. I know that is not the correct way to mend supposedly ancient Asian artefacts but there you have it. You can barely see the mend line.

I don't mind being called Princess Jane by my daughter. Note the little copyright symbol. It is not easy to explain the concept of copyright to an 8 year old but I think we got there. And now her intellectual property is protected!

Oh Scanlan & Theodore how I love thee. And your grey cardigans. No I don't need another to add to the collection. But it called my name and its siren song was answered.

Australian candle with Liberty-esque wrapping. It's true I bought it mostly for the presentation. Very superficial I know. It smells nice but I still think Americans (think Tocca, Voluspa) make the best candles.

Can we talk about Gwyneth? I almost felt a bit ashamed buying this book and my husband teased me for a good five minutes. I am completely absolutely anti celebrity chefs. I don't even watch Master Chef which is practically a crime in Australia. I have no celebrity chef books. I loathe Gordon Ramsay. I liked Nigella when she was thin and wrote for UK Vogue in the early 1990s. I still love her books but only because I was an early adopter and she writes so well.

And Gwyneth herself is so multi talented, with her unusually named children, not very good interior design taste (at least that is what I think - check out these pics of her NY apartment), very nice Hampton's kitchen, okay singing voice, macrobiotic passions, kind of saccharine website and wardrobe to die for. She's so earnest.   And that can be annoying.

But this book really resonated with me.    There are a few reasons for this.

First, she speaks authentically of her love for her father (who died several years ago from complications of throat cancer) and her naive belief that he could be cured if he changed his diet. (As an aside I have thought many times since my diagnosis whether my diet could be a cause. I think I eat ~~pretty~~ really well but according to the evil Internet breast cancer can be caused by all kinds of things ranging from milk to coffee. It is of course so natural to blame yourself for these things (was it stress? was it the pollution from the street? what about deodorant? Could that be the cause?) and diet is always high up the list.) Her father taught her to love to cook and eat.  He loved American foods: burgers, pancakes, hotdogs et al, and some of his recipes find their way into the book.

Second, she really wants her children to eat well, cook with her, and to share magical times around the table. This too is what I want for my children. And I am at the stage where my son won't eat green or slightly green tinged things and my daughter won't eat most butter or dairy products. So I am desperate to cook them things they will eat with enthusiasm. And this notion of hiding the good items in what you cook for children is weird.   I want them to know what they are eating and come to love it naturally.

Third, this book made me want to cook and eat.   Surely there can be no higher recommendation? These days of course we can get any recipe we want for free. So why buy a cookbook? I look for a way of viewing cooking which I can relate to. Presumably if you enjoy cooking one or two of a favourite cookbook writer's recipes, you will enjoy cooking more. That is why our Marcella Hazan cookbooks are falling apart through overuse.

Over the weekend I cooked the following from this book: kale crisps, cheesy stuffed burgers, duck burgers, macaroni cheese (which she makes with mascarpone and Parmesan), oatmeal and raisin cookies (no butter and no eggs), white bean soup with cheesey croutons, zucchini with pasta and berries with caramelised cream. All the recipes worked well, and the children loved them all.

This is not a macrobiotic book by any means. There is a lot of cheese and dairy and eggs and pancakes. There are also some nice zen meals like soba noodles and savoury rice bowl.

Finally, I have ticked a few book purchases off the to-do list.

Two books for my husband's birthday which always must be history although unfortunately Mr Fitzsimons is a journalist which may make the history a bit 'chatty and accessible' which my husband does not like at all. Oh well.

And the new Geraldine Brooks book set in Martha's Vineyard in the 1660s. If you have not already, please read her earlier books - Year of Wonders (set in plague torn England) and March (Dr March from Little Women's experiences in the Civil War) are both completely brilliant.

And truly finally, some toast with avocado, fetta, mint and olive oil has been giving me much comfort lately.

I am so boring that I realise as typing this that I have already done an avocado on toast post. But I love it so much.

In fact I think I could easily find enough posts to run a 'Things on Toast' blog for a good couple of years (other ideas for alternative blogs - Dollshouses (but that might attract some weirdos) or Celebrities with No Interior Design Taste).

Weird Chemo Side Effect No 4: my eyebrows are definitely thinning out. I hope to hold on to them for the next 6 weeks. I have probably in the past said something stupid like I will stay in my bedroom for the duration if I lose my eyebrows. However, now it is potentially happening, I just don't care. On the bright side, it makes me look just that little bit more like Gwyneth.

Accidental Bedhead

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Fri, 06 May 2011 06:01:00 +0000

Apparently mattresses only last 10 years... so this week we bought another, as ours was 13 years old.

And something odd happened yesterday when it was delivered. We received a lovely mattress which is truly like sleeping in a very fluffy cloud. But in addition, we received a large bed base, made of deep mocha suede, which is made to fit with the mattress.

The invoice is confusing, our order is confusing, the extremely surly delivery man didn't want to talk about it, and the website of the multinational 6 star hotel which also sells beds did not explain exactly what it is we ordered or didn't order.

So we truly cannot work out whether our new bed base is a mistake, or a kind gift. I am inclined to the latter, as I sort of deserve a kind gift. (And it is nice to know there are people out there looking out for me even if it is a global corporation)

What it does mean is that we need to decommission our bed, and find a bed head.

As much as I like the drama of the padding, or the shaping, the truth is that I will end up with something plain and simple and dark blue, just like the rest of the room:

Now I know you can DIY headboards, there are a million little step by steps out there on this. But I have a confession. My DIY stuff looks like crap. So I think I will get a professional to do it. I have found this place who makes them up to order. Does anyone know of anywhere else which can do bedheads?

Weird Chemo Side Effect No 3 - as if I didn't have enough ethico-legal dilemmas to deal with along the lines of should we return the accidentally delivered bed base, I have now discovered that my hair is falling out again, after a short respite where it grew a bit. There is only one response to this: arrgggghhhh. My new approach is to not look at my hair at all until this ludicrous and ocassionally surreal experience is over (on 20 June).

(Images: (1) Pinterest (2) Pinterest (3) Elle Decor (4) Samantha Pymm (5) Canadian House and Home)

Royal Wedding Menu Australian style and a White Jacket Rant

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 01:53:00 +0000

Like most of the planet it would seem I will be watching the Royal Wedding tonight.

The Wedding will be telecast in the evening here which makes it ideal timing to watch with an English style meal. I have been a bit slack and instead of inventing dishes or looking through cookbooks, I just trawled the Internet for some Royal Wedding inspired dishes which are not too hard to cook.

First up is a chilled cucumber soup with garlic prawns, in a nod to the very English tradition of cucumber sandwiches. It is not exactly the weather here for cold soup, but needs must.

To me there is nothing more English than lamb and peas. Which suits me because it is also a quintessentially Australian dish. I have been eating lots of lamb lately in a probably forlorn attempt to boost my red blood cells. My favourite way to have lamb is as
cutlets or possibly a rib eye. To go with this, the pea dish below, possibly some asparagus (also very English) and some boiled new potatoes with lots of butter and Malden salt.

This is a dish of peas, mint and salted yogurt (which can be substituted with goats cheese).

Dessert is a bit tricky. I have found a lovely recipe by naughty Sophie Dahl for rice pudding with plum compote but I fear rice pudding may just be a bit English boarding school. Perhaps summer pudding with lots of beautiful berries would be better. I think the most traditional dessert would be Eton Mess but I am not in the meringue making mode today.

Finally, to drink. I don't drink spirits but this is my metaphorical tipple today - elderflower and gin sherbert.

**************************

Julia Gillard, the Australian Prime Minister, is invited to the wedding. Ms Gillard is very very fond of distracting, unflattering, flappy white jackets. It may seem to a casual observer that she just wears the same one all the time, but in fact she has 9 (yes 9) different ones. Here are two of them. I think that sometime in the past someone told her she looks great in that white jacket, and she has taken the message to heart.

So my message is: Please do not wear a white jacket to the Royal Wedding. Please. It seems that this issue is of major concern to many bloggers, perhaps we need to get a life?! See Mrs Woog's take on it here.

And before I am accused of being sexist for commenting on a female politician's clothes when I wouldn't on a man's clothes, let me say this: any professional person should dress in a way which does not distract from the message they are delivering. That applies in all spheres. Yes, it is easy for men to wear suits, but it is equally easy for women to wear simply stylish non distracting clothes which fit (case in point: Senator Penny Wong). I am not criticising our PM's taste (although it is dubious), I am criticising the way her clothes don't fit her, and distract from what she does. And if a male PM wore bell bottoms, a brown suit and a plaid tie with a mullet haircut (which I think is the male equivalent of some of Ms Gillard's outfits), then that person would be equally criticised.

Enjoy the wedding......

(Images: (1) BBC Food (2) Taste.com (3) Notebook (4) BBC Food (5) Jamie Oliver))

Copycatting Sequins and Frills

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 23:11:00 +0000

Although I do ~~a lot~~ most of my clothes shopping online, I still would like to support local designers. And I do, as much as possible. And I, like anyone, love the convenience of visiting a local boutique and picking up a lovely knitted top or some such. (My husband jokes that I have enough 'little knitted tops' to stock a whole store and that lots of $79 tops do add up to quite a sum over the years)

I popped into Witchery yesterday to be confronted by a sea of biscuit, buff, beige, dark caramel, mushroom, sand, taupe, umber, ochre and khaki. It was really quite frightening.

In fact I think what has happened is that Witchery and Country Road have hired a colour consultant from the Australian Defence Force, who has bulk dipped all the new seasons range of clothes into big vats of their uniform dyes. Who wants to get around looking like an army off cast? Or as if you have stepped off the set of a Bruce Willis action thriller set in Iraq? I don't.

The only people who can wear these kinds of clothes are lithe olive skinned Eve Mendes types. Not me.

But the fact that Witchery looks like an army disposals store wasn't the most alarming thing about my visit. The most alarming thing was this:

(Witchery new season)

(J Crew last season and also still available in slightly new design new season)

(J Crew Last season - Witchery also have something like this but I have no image for it)

Then I went into the new Kids section and found these:

(Witchery new season girls tulle skirt)

(J Crew girls tulle skirt)

(Witchery girls zip through top)

(J Crew girls wave cardigan)

Let me be clear: I know that there are very few new ideas in fashion. I am sure it is a hard slog churning out a range four or five times a year, and these hard working designers need to source their inspiration in lots of different places. And that may include a High Street retailer from the US. I also know very well there is no copyright in an idea, and ideas are everywhere, just waiting to be adapted and changed. And people ripping off J Crew is not a new controversy - see here for example.

And of course no doubt the original idea for a sequiny T shirt came not from J Crew but from the Lanvin catwalk or some such. I guess I just feel oh so slightly affronted. I want to support these Australian businesses. But when there is no longer any style differentiation between these brands and the cheaper (often better made) US ones then the decision kind of makes itself doesn't it?

It may just be me. I could blame the chemo for making my brain really annoyed by obvious creativity bypasses. Or do you agree?

Weird Chemo Side Effect no 2: my hair has started growing back!! Only half way through chemo too. It may yet fall out again, but it is kind of exciting.

A Morning in The Life Of...

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 04:58:00 +0000

6.45 am - Small Ironman son runs into our bedroom shouting 'Is it morning is it morning is it morning?' My usual response: 'It isn't morning until mummy says it is' doesn't cut the mustard anymore. Small Ironman climbs into our bed for a cuddle. Lies on his back wide awake asking questions about his day and telling us about Tom and Alex and other little friends in a loud non-morning voice.

6.50 am - Run to Pharmaceutical Cornucopia (PC) on kitchen bench and take one tablet of PSK (which is otherwise known as Trammune or Trametes Versicolor (a kind of common mushroom) and must be eaten 30 mins before food).

6.52 am - Have shower. Showers are quite fun at moment, with almost no hair. I don't have to worry about getting it too wet. Or washing it hardly ever. And the water feels lovely on my head. Son sits and talks to me in non-morning voice whilst I shower. Son has no volume knob, it seems, so I have given up asking him to use inside voice.

7.00 am - Get dressed into clothes laid out night before. Son very concerned I am dressed before him. 'Are you going to work today?' I tell him going to hospital to have more bad medicine. 'Oh' he says, losing interest immediately. 'Can I watch some TV now?'

7.05 am - Return to PC and take 3 tablets of Reishi, another kind of mushroom. This is in tablet form because fresh Reishi not cleared to come from Japan yet due to earthquake. Get son milk to drink whilst the Avengers is on.

7.08 am - Make peanut butter on toast for son. Present toast to son. Son cries because toast not in exact square shape. Cut crusts off to make squarer. Present for second time. Son says he has changed mind and now wants Vegemite and 'yellow butter' on an exact square toast shape. I ask 'are you serious?' Son laughs demonically, his little kiss curl hanging over his forehead in manner of nursery rhymne boy.

7.12 am - Gargle with some Maldon salt dissolved in water. This is to prevent ulcers.

7.14 am - Go into daughter's bedroom. Daughter sound asleep and spread out across bed with bed coverings all askew, university student style. Daughter is only 8 though. Tell her time to get up. Bribe her with toast and raspberry and vanilla jam. Daughter moans and says not hungry and really really tired. Wonder what daughter will be like as 13 year old. Or 18 year old.

7.16 am - Take one tablet of green conifer needle oil. I take these three times a day. They prevent thrush and so far have worked really well.

7.18 am - Give Pepper the cat breakfast. Pepper smells his breakfast disdainfully (it's too cold) and walks away, tail held high.

7.20 am - Ask son why he has not eaten second breakfast. He says he has changed mind again and doesn't want his square toast. I say 'I am not a restaurant. Or a cafe. Or even a greasy spoon type place desperate for customers. No more breakfasts'. Son's bottom lip starts to stick out. I offer him Greek yogurt with passion fruit. Son smiles and says 'Yummy yes please'.

7.22 am Take Codonopsis. This is a Chinese herb known as poor man's ginseng, which can strengthen the immune system and help white and red blood cell counts. I take it as an extract dripped into a glass of water.

7.25 am - Re-enter teenage style daughter's room and turn light up really bright and tell her it is definitely absolutely time to get up.   And breakfast is on table and getting cold.

7.27 am - Eat cereal, half heartedly because it doesn't taste of much, just a cardboardy texture. Drink beetroot and carrot juice. Appreciate again the magic of the pointless huge juicer my mother gave me 4 years ago which now gets lots of use.

7.30 am - Take little homeopathic ball thing. Suck slowly. Not sure what this is for, to be perfectly honest. Stare a little resentfully at husband sitting in relaxed fashion at kitchen bench reading IPad.

7.32 am - Do makeup. Cover freckles with lots of Nars foundation. Use really excellent Chantecaille magical skin creams for chemo skin. Think again how much I love Mecca Cosmetica and the lady who has sold me all this great stuff.
7.40 am - Hear husband asking daughter to get out of bed.   Hear husband forcing her to get dressed. Hear husband spending lots of time picking correct cream socks for her, and getting the seams around the right way and the shoe buckles done up tight enough (otherwise they 'hurt').

7.45 am - Put wig on, ruffle it and smile.

7.50 am - Dress son. Persuade son that he can't wear Batman, Spiderman, Soldier or Superman costume to kindergarten. Son says loudly 'I am NOT wearing long sleeves ever. I am NEVER cold'. Allow son to wear shorts and short sleeved T shirt even though quite cold outside.  Grab small backpack shove in lunchbox and dump at door.    Grab daughter's lunch box shove in school bag and dump at door.

7.52 am - Drink lovely coffee made by husband. Think about how looking forward to sitting down for three hours during chemo. Notice daughter has not touched her breakfast.

7.55 am - Assemble handbag must haves including Kindle, IPhone, wallet, book with cancer notes, cards, invoices, receipts, referrals etc. Put nail polish in bag. Take nail polish out again, concerned doing nails during chemo might appear flippant. Decide do not care because never otherwise sit still for long enough to do nails.

7.57 am - Go into daughter's bedroom to check she is ready to go. She is sitting on the floor counting her pocket money. 'Mummy will the shops accept pence? What about Bali money?  What about Singapore money? Where can we exchange it?' Then she shows me the rearrangement of her wardrobe, with lined up shoes in rainbow order.  Then shows me her redecoration of the dolls house, with a new piano room, and an outdoor camping area. Then remember we have forgotten PE bag and Library bag and cello and piano books.  Feel pleased am not dragging all that to school. Wonder about possible deterioration of daughter's back when she is older.

8.00 am - Gently heat up one cup of Chinese herbal drink, painstakingly made by me every three days. This needs to be drunk half an hour after food. My Chinese doctor has told me the ingredients but as he just wrote out the Chinese names they don't mean much to me.   Helps my digestion no end, however. Drink it quickly because doesn't taste very nice. Feel pleased taste buds not very effective at the moment.

8.01 am - Kiss all and sundry good bye and drive to East Melbourne for chemo.

(This morning was brought to you by my homeopath and Chinese Doctor and Percy, Imogen and Martin.)

A Blackbird for Birthday Week

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 07:16:00 +0000

We have celebrated two birthdays this week. Mine (age undisclosed) and the very next day, my son's (four).

(bionicles in disarray, half cloned and cross bred)

I could uncharitably point out here that my son, by being born three days later than anticipated, rather manages to steal my birthday thunder every year , but the truth is that he makes the week more thrilling, excited as he is about his new age. In fact, he has talked of little else for months - his new age, how big he will be, how he may one day be bigger than his sister, and so on and so on.

And having birthdays so close allows for some handy comparisons between our two birthdays.

This was my gift from my husband.

Blackbird by Dean Bowen

Look familiar? I have a Dean Bowen painting on the sidebar of this blog. If my husband read my blog, which he claims not to, he would know how much I love Dean Bowen's work. But he doesn't and yet he still picked this painting for me, which makes my heart sing just a little.

This is one of my son's presents. Yes, Woody talks. All the time. He has 60 sayings in fact. And no, it is not annoying in the least.

And finally, birthday food. This image captures both types:

I made the robot cake from the new Women's Weekly Classic Children's Birthday Cake Book which has just been reprinted. (If you would like to see an example of the special place this book has in many Australians' hearts, see Melbourne Gastronome's post on this book).

The robot needs a bit of back support, but apart from that my son deemed him sufficiently robot like. They are quite a lot of effort to ice aren't they? I felt as if I had completed a particularly difficult test when I finished him up.

In the background, grown up birthday food: Riesling and chocolate gingerbread.

I had mixed feelings about this birthday. I didn't feel a glorious rushing gratitude to be alive, but I did have a quiet and calm day, and thought about how lucky I am.

My allegedly so called bad chemo has now ended after 9 weeks and I have survived it apart from an endless cold \ throat thing almost certainly brought on by an in hindsight possibly foolish decision to fly to Sydney for the day for work last week.

Next week I start 12 weeks of weekly Taxol and Herceptin, both delivered intravenously. This is a disheartening thought, but apparently Taxol is largely bearable.

Weird Chemo Side Effect No 1: my freckles have come back. It is no exaggeration to say that I have not put my face in the sun for 25 years. Two weeks ago something must have happened to my skin pigmentation, and all those little freckles popped back onto my face. I guess they were always there, and must have just faded. Makes me look a bit like Anne of Green Gables. Or Tom Sawyer....

Interesting Chemo Fact No 1: Taxol is not chemical at all. It derives from the Pacific Yew tree. Now who thought to see if that tree had medical benefits?

xoxo

No Lucite or Nigella just Chemo

noreply@blogger.com (Jane) — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 00:13:00 +0000

I am definitely not turning this blog into a Cancer Blog. If I was going to do that then I would post every day and make a book out of it, like this lady (thanks for the tip Lou I have now read her book and 'enjoyed' it, if that is a word that one can use given the subject matter!). But I don't feel the need to document every single up \ down, needle in\ out, drugs-Chinese herbs-homeopathic remedies taken \ swallowed.

Having said that, this blog is about both stuff I like and stuff that happens to me, and BC is certainly part of the latter . And it is sure taking up quite a lot of time at the moment.

I have had quite a few questions about it so I thought it might be interesting to explain chemotherapy and how it works for me. To make it more palatable I have interspersed some current garden and around the house pictures. (Every garden in Melbourne is lush and verdant at the moment. This has been the wettest and coldest summer ever, with almost half our yearly rainfall in three months. Good for the plants, and great for our water storage).

We planted lavender here to fill up a dead spot in the front garden and it is thriving

As someone has said to me, chemotherapy is like using a tank to kill an ant. For me, it is overkill in every sense of the word because no further cancer has been found in me. There may however be microscopic rogue cells floating around which are too small to detect, and that is what the chemotherapy nukes. And as far as I am concerned, the stronger and the more powerful the chemo, the better. And that was my specific request to the oncologist. I keep asking him if the chemo is strong enough. He just laughs and says 'yes'.

This is the smallest of our three grass trees - again these are doing well. Note they are in a built up hill, which lowers the risk of them developing a dislike for the soil environment

Here are four things about chemo I have learned in my crash course :

1. Contrary to many people's opinions, the chemo chemicals do not 'build up' in your system over months, making the symptoms worse and worse. In fact, the chemo itself is gone from your system in the first few days. What lingers are the side effects which are caused by those chemicals. These may lengthen a bit. The other old wives tale is that 'it gets worse'. In most cases, it doesn't get worse. In fact the first chemo can be the worst because one is so nervous about it.

2. Everyone's chemo experience is different. I think pregnancy is a good analogy. We all know people who had the worst pregnancy ever - constant vomiting or nausea or reflux or insomnia etc. Sometimes that pain is real, other times one person will feel the same pain so much more strongly than another. I believe childbirth and raising children give one a resilience and strength which we don't even know we have until we need to call on it. I for one have always suspected I have a reasonably high pain threshold. I say this because breaking my big toe 10 years ago was more painful than two drug free labours. So whilst talking to others is useful in a general sense you have to bear in mind that they may be bedridden whilst you may be feeling off but able to be up and about. To repeat: everyone is different.

3. Never ever ever read the Internet. A lot of the information out there is from the US and UK where the treatment protocols are different. Also, there are many posts on side effects felt by people. This can be very scary. See 2 above. So now my first phase of chemo is going okay I have something new to worry about - the second round (Taxol) which according to many American women can give wrenching bone aches. But really, I am me, and they are them. It shouldn't really be relevant to me if Ann from Annapolis in Maryland has a terrible time with her chemo. I may not have the same experience.

4. Forget your memory of the uncle who did chemo 15 years ago and spent 7 months vomiting. The nurses have explained to me that whilst the chemo drugs are largely the same from that time, what has changed is management of the side effects and the effectiveness of the anti-nausea drugs. 10 years ago my hospital would have to admit many people two days after chemo suffering from dehydration and mouth ulcers. They now tell you to drink at least 2 litres of water the day of chemo and following and the admission rate is much much lower.

These are those autumn coloured hydrangeas. I would prefer the blue and white but these are looking pretty good at the moment.

So, to the chemotherapy itself. I do this at an oncology suite in my hospital in East Melbourne. It is a large sunny room with padded recliner style armchairs arranged around the wall. There is a waiting area, where you check in and wait to be called through for a blood test and to take your anti nausea pill no 1. The blood test checks for white blood cell count. If it is too low, you cannot do chemo that day. If it is at an okay level, chemo can proceed.

I am doing 'dose dense' chemo which means I have chemo every two weeks instead of three or four weeks. Not because I am in any kind of hurry but this has had good results on 'young' people like me in New York and other locations, and it means the first phase is done and dusted in 8 weeks.

the maple tree leaves are very multiplicitous this year.

The only way my body can take the dose timing is for me to have an injection of something called Neulastin every two weeks. This amazing drug gets into your bone marrow and builds up your white blood cell count. This does cause bone aches but I haven't found them to be that bad so far.

There are two interesting aspects to this injection. First, I decided to do it myself (as it has to be done the day after chemo and I couldn't be bothered going back to a hospital or to a local doctor). I thought it would be a good skill to learn. You have to inject it into your stomach (into a little pinch of fat - OF COURSE that was hard for me to find!). If you are diabetic or have done IVF, none of this will be new to you. Not such a big deal really.

The second aspect worth mentioning is the cost of this injection. This is the first and last time you will ever see a price tag here:

Yes, you read it correctly. $1971, not $19.71. I believe the price might come down if it was more widely able to be used by cancer patients - the PBS is covering mine but (this is for anyone of influence in the Federal Government who may be reading) it should be automatically available to all who want it without having to wait.

(As an aside, my second chemo session started with a bang. Just outside the hospital I managed to drive straight through a red light in front of 3 manned police cars. I slowed down waiting for them to catch me and fine me. My mother said 'Okay - I will burst into tears and you tell them you are having chemo'. But they either didn't see me or didn't care so I missed perhaps my best Cancer Excuse Opportunity so far.)

Once you are cleared in blood count terms, you pick a lovely armchair and they hook you up to an IV with saline and anti nausea drugs no 2. And then they drip drip drip the chemo into you. The first, Andramyacin is bright red. This is the bad stuff. The nurse has to stand over you whilst it is going in to make sure it is going into the vein and not the surrounding tissue.

Then comes Cyclophosphamide, which takes a bit longer as the bag is bigger.

All up, done in two to three hours. I spend my time talking to whoever has come with me, or reading my Kindle, or looking (not too obtrusively I hope) at the others around me, trying to imagine their lives and what they did and thought about and loved before this happened to them.

It goes without saying that cancer does not play favourites.  A wide range of people are here - the burly tattooed man who sits quietly with his aged mother, the elegant silver haired cashmere wearing lady, men sitting with their wives, doing the crossword or staring wordlessly into space, a young girl who appeared one week with her tiny baby and husband, looking tired and drawn (the next time I saw her she looked fantastic), youngish and older men, in suits and shorts, and women in suits, wigs, scarves, high heels, trainers and everything in between. On Monday a women receiving chemo mentioned that her husband had lymphoma. I thought: how much bad luck can one person have?

Aren't these beautiful? I bought them this morning and instead of the usual round bowl thought I would use a tall vase.

Having said all that, it is not a depressing place. The nurses are incredible, and laugh and joke but are always super professional. Almost all the other patients look completely normal and healthy, like me.

Then come the side effects. For me they have been mostly just nausea and towards the end of the week, tiredness. I fall asleep on the couch at 8.30 pm, and am going to bed early. Not sleeping that well but that is another matter. And I seem to have become a bit anaemic this week so I am eating lots of red meat and beetroot and dried peaches. Oh and my hair of course is still falling out. Not planning to mention that again.

This fireplace is still looking a bit too zen - one day that large gilt mirror will appear from the sky, I hope

It is not unbearable, have to go to bed pain. For me, it is manageable pain, which definitely fades if you are distracted. And of course there are so many anti-nausea pills and other things to take. I have gone from being someone who, in deference to my Scottish Protestant heritage, never even took a Panadol for a headache, to popping literally dozens of different pills a week, sometimes, because of the homeopathic stuff, it is more than 15 per day!

My biggest fear, as a lawyer, was what is called 'chemo brain'. I was told that this can last for months and months and the thought of having difficulty processing my thoughts was quite horrifying. Whilst I have had some fogginess, it seems to come and go. It is a bit reminiscent of a red wine hangover, without the headache and the memory of a fun time the night before. At this stage, to my great relief, this part of it does not seem to be permanent.

Current bedside reading, many half finished alas. I am looking forward to the Amy Chua book about Chinese mothers. I would like to be a Chinese mother in some ways.

I do hope this has demystified some of the chemo fables. I was quite terrified going into this treatment stage, and for any of you unfortunate enough to do it too, it will hopefully not be as bad as your imagination might make out.

xoxo