Can we start the year again please?

Woody Allen once said, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.”  I recalled the quote last week as I was making my daily pilgrimage by train to the hospital.  This was not supposed to happen. 

Late last year Tony, who is trim and fit for his age, decided that he should take a cardiac stress test just to be on the safe side.  To our great surprise, he did indeed have a problem which required triple bypass surgery.  The operation was performed on 20 January and he made a remarkable recovery, returning home six days later on Australia Day.

Less than four days after his return he was rushed back to hospital by ambulance with a suspected heart attack.  Thankfully the heart was fine, but it took about three days to discover the real problem, as he had no typical symptoms.  It was a staphylococcal infection contracted during the bypass surgery.  To cap it off, the enormous amount of drugs administered during the time he was re-admitted all but shut down his kidneys. 

I'll spare you the details, but it has been a horrendous time for us all as Tony underwent more surgery on 3, 4, 6, 10 and 17 of this month.  Not what we had planned at all.  Our 44th Anniversary came and went on 3rd, and there were family birthdays on 15th, 16th and 18th.  This was supposed to be a fun month. 

I remember being with our daughters in the ICU after the first and most serious surgery on 3 February and the surgeon (after wishing me a happy anniversary) explained that there was only a 1 in 100 chance of this happening after bypass surgery.  We almost said in unison, "Noooo ... don't say it!"  You see, where percentages are concerned, Tony has a history of taking it for the team.  There was the time he had leg surgery which required him to be immobile for a couple of weeks.  That produced a blood clot which collapsed his lung. The odds of this happening were 1 in 300.  But by far his best effort was 15,000 to 1 that he would get hepatitis from a certain drug prescribed after a sinus operation - he is particularly proud of that one.

Today things are finally looking brighter.  Most of the tubes have been removed and he is looking a little less pale after the unit of blood he was given yesterday (and I don't want to hear the statistics on that procedure going wrong thank you).  They keep pushing his release date further along and it looks as though he will be in hospital for another couple of weeks.  

Thank goodness for our incredible family and friends who have kept us both sane throughout the whole process.  The medical staff are wonderful and I think Tony knows about 200 of them on a first name basis.  But now all I want to do is get him home and give him a good feed.  If you could see the hospital food (which is shipped in from an interstate destination once every three days) you would no doubt understand.  

2014 - can I please press the rewind button?

November celebration

November is a particularly happy month for us, as this is the month that our first-born arrived to show us what had been missing from our lives up to that point.  On Saturday the Sydney clan will gather at our favourite restaurant in the park to celebrate the occasion.  This song came out when our three children were babies, and it never fails to bring such nostalgic memories of the Seventies when we were all so young.  Happy birthday Maz.

August

It's the coldest month of the year in the Southern Hemisphere, but August is special in our family.  Three baby boys were born in this month.  In order of seniority they are my brother, my son-in-law, and my son.  Each in his own way has added so much to our lives.

Image: The Cook's Garden

The Spouse and I met up with my brother yesterday for a celebration lunch at a local restaurant.   We were blessed to have one of those crisp, clear, late winter days which added to the pleasure of the occasion.  It was through my brother that I met my husband when we were all teenagers, so there is a lot of history shared between us and we still delight in each other's company.

Our son's birthday was a few days ago, and it only seems like yesterday that he came into our lives - our only son after two girls.  And now he has his own beautiful boy, as well as three delightful daughters.

 
To complete our day, we helped our son-in-law celebrate his birthday last night.  As the father of our three remaining grandchildren he is, of course, perfect.  While he fired up the barbecue the rest of the clan eyed off the cake.

 The boys were so happy to help Dad celebrate his big day.

The weekend was special in so many ways.  The five-year-old grandson started it off brilliantly by leaving it to the last soccer game of the season to score his first goal.  And it was a real goal, not an accident.  Happy times and happy memories.

April

There are some months in the year which have happy connotations.  April for me is one of them.

It's the month of happy weddings; our son and his bride celebrated their tenth anniversary last week, while yesterday our daughter and her husband celebrated their ninth.

We also had two family birthdays; Mr Fudge on 9 April and one of our granddaughters five days later (but in different years).

Then there was Easter with all its celebrations.

And of course the Royal Easter Show.  We hadn't been in years, so there was the extra delight of going with our daughter and her family, experiencing it all through the eyes of our Sydney grandchildren.

Yes, we have so much to be grateful for and sometimes it's good for the soul to stop a while and reflect on it.

These beautiful images are provided by the lovely Sara of Boutique Baby Photography and the dress is available here and here.

Hearts

January is rapidly coming to an end which means that Valentine's Day is not far away.

It's a busy birthday month in the Fudge clan, with three birthdays within four days of each other.

Is there someone in your life who you would love to surprise with a Valentine's Day heart garland?

Are you organising a February birthday party and need something to adorn the walls, windows or doorways?

Then hop over to here or here, or even here and your problems are solved.  They would also make great nursery wall hangings, so they would be ideal as a baby shower gift.

Am I ashamed of the blatant self-promotion?  Only for a nanosecond. 

Local Handmade Goodness

Have you ever had to scramble to buy a last-minute gift?  It's my own fault - I knew a celebration lunch was coming up for a good friend's 60th birthday, but I thought it was a week away instead of a day.  I was at a quilt meeting at our local library when the bombshell was dropped, but fortunately the library is situated in a shopping centre.  The bad news was that I didn't have a clue what to buy.

I slipped out early from the meeting and arrived wild-eyed at my favourite gift shop in the centre.  I should have known that all would be well.  There waiting patiently for me was the perfect gift.

Thea & Sami

This beautiful hand-printed linen tea towel by Brisbane designer Thea Samios of Thea & Sami simply jumped into my hands. The hardest part was gift wrapping it because I really wanted to keep it for myself. 

Thea and I had both participated in this exhibition organised by Melanie Gray Augustin back in April, so I knew first-hand what a wonderful designer she is and I knew my creative friend would really appreciate this gift.

Of course, in my haste I forgot all about wrapping paper and card, so that evening I hastily designed some paper and a card.

Not too subtle, do you think?

The lunch the next day was delightful and my friend loved her newly acquired tea towel, although I doubt it will ever dry a dish - too good for such a mundane chore.

I guess the moral is support our artisans - buy local and buy often!

Good Company

What do I have in common with these images from one of my favourite movies Spirited Away?  Did I model for the third picture?  Go to the back of the class.  No, its creator Hayao Miyazaki and I were both born in 1941, which makes me (shriek!) Seventy.  The Big Seven Oh.  Today.

I have to admit that I was dreading leaving the Swinging Sixties, but strangely enough I woke up this morning still feeling about thirty-eight - my preferred choice of age. I looked out the window and the sky hadn't fallen, the sun had risen, and when Mr Fudge laid on a champagne breakfast, I wondered why I hadn't thought of  putting my age forward a year last year.

Over the past month or so, with the impending new decade about to begin, it occurred to me that my brain would probably still function as it has done reasonably well over the last decade, and that there were so many of my contemporaries who were still out there achieving their goals.

They probably won't appreciate this, but some well known folk born in 1941 include Bob Dylan, cooking guru Delia Smith, Dick Cheney, Fay Dunaway, Jesse Jackson, singers Joan Baez and Helen Reddy

And let's not forget Neil Diamond.

If you remember when Hot August Night came out,
you too must be heading for the Twilight Zone.

Two women I admire greatly are even older than me.






















Judi Dench, my all-time favourite actress, is 77 this year and Rupert Murdoch's indomitable mother Elisabeth Murdoch is 102!  And both Dames.

My only worry is that I now find I am attracted to younger men.

Jeff Bridges is eight years younger than me, but when all is said and done, he's not a patch on Mr Fudge.

Birthdays

February is a big month in the Fudge household.  There are three birthdays and a wedding anniversary.  On Saturday evening we gathered at Chez Fudge for an early birthday celebration for our first grandchild, who will be eight in a couple of days.

He is at that wonderful stage of discovering the marvels of the universe.  Our gift to him was a telescope, for which we received a high five - the ultimate accolade.

The cake was a triumph with Birthday Boy and his three younger sisters.  For this I must thank my friend Bel of Enticing Icing who sent me an image of the incredible cake she created for her son's fourth birthday.  My version was a pale imitation of hers, with four layers of cake; vanilla, chocolate, green and pink.  The kinder were mightily impressed.

Birthday cake and ice cream ... brain freeze!

Ooooo ... that was sooooo good!

Can I have some more?

All that was left now was to hand out the party favours to take home.

In a younger life, Birthday Boy would only answer to the name Darth.  Our daughter in Sydney had sent us this YouTube which we showed the children on Saturday.  It was the icing on the cake.