A catch up Blog

And so to yet another catch up blog…

Last week I went up to Starship hospital in Auckland for a WOF from my cardiologist. (WOF stands for warrant of fitness, in my case every 18 months or so) and she said I was very well. She also told me about a new procedure they have started doing on an experimental basis, they can now install an artificial valve by catheter. So, instead of having a massive open heart surgery procedure, they put a catheter up an artery from your groin, blow up a balloon and install a new pulmonary valve that way. I’m a good candidate apparently, so in time I will have an MRI scan and they can do some measurements. Then, maybe, give me a new pulmonary valve which will solve the stenosis and the leakage into the heart forever. She said it could, conceivably, give me another 20 to 25 years of life. Imagine me at 78!

Then I went to a meeting with the Literature advisor for Creative New Zealand. Lovely lady and a kindred spirit. We went over the application for funding which I have been putting together for the last few weeks. She tweaked it a little and we discussed the path for funding and where I should go as the year progresses. I polished it and couriered it off Wednesday, so now I wait…until March 15th.

The next novel is going well, the direction is very clear in my head and the characters are beginning to take on lives and speech patterns of their own. The first few chapters are the ones I find the hardest because I’m making decisions that set the course, once the characters take over they make the decisions and things become more obvious because you know them and you know what they would do and say.

Mum is eating and drinking. She has weetbix and a cup of tea for breakfast and then lunch is the main meal, usually sausage meat, pureed veges and gravy. Pudding is custard and apple, or jelly and ice-cream, sometimes Pavlova and once a lump of cake (how is that pureed food?) that she quite happily ate. I bring in dinner because I like what I cook better. I don’t like her having mashed potato with tinned spaghetti on it or a pureed tuna sandwich. And I am stretching my culinary imagination!!!

Last night she had seafood mousse (crab and prawn, fried in a little butter and pureed with coconut cream and a squeeze of lemon juice), four big fat juicy prawns and half an avocado…followed by a little key lime pie and lime jelly. She had smoked blue warohu (fish) in white sauce the other day and a tiny chocolate fondant. And Monday night was a lovely two egg omelette and fresh fruit salad. So it isn’t really pureed food as she can chew very well, she loves fresh watermelon and she had a whole marshmallow yesterday. She has a fruit bowl in her room and a secret box of chocolate finger biscuits. At home last Sunday I made her a smoothie of a fresh banana, coconut cream, vanilla ice-cream and lemonade. She had two glasses.

She doesn’t remember the PEG feeding and as far as she’s concerned the tube in her stomach is for water flushes. It may sound like she eats a lot but the plates are still bread and butter plates and the puddings are little ramekins, so she is enjoying taste as much as volume. Still, it is a huge step forward and she has more energy and enjoys her meal time.

A doyen of New Zealand broadcasting died last week. Sir Paul Holmes was 62 and had been on radio and TV in New Zealand for forty years. We knew he was dying, but it was still a shock. Many of us have memories of the way he helped us over the years, he was particularly good at making you laugh when the task ahead of you seemed overwhelming. He was a man of great compassion and empathy and yet, still a devil with an earthy sense of humour. He was unique and he will be missed.

Well, time for me to get a move on and get ready for my twice daily trek into Resthaven. People tell me I’m a ‘wonderful daughter’ and that she wouldn’t be where she is if I hadn’t put in the work. My feelings on the matter, which I largely keep to myself, is that if I do this every day for the next four years, I will still be very firmly in the debt side of the ledger. The hard months are over, she makes me laugh every day.

 

 

 

Cat Lady

Will be back as soon as time permits with interesting news, in the meantime someone knows me too well….

 

Just for Julie

As the clock ticks

Fifty minutes to go and it will be 2013. Another New Year’s Eve and as I look back on 2012 I can’t help but wonder. What a year it’s been! My book is picked up by a major US publisher, one of the ‘big six’ no less, the dream of a lifetime….and Mum has a major stroke and ends up living in a resthome.

It has been a year of challenges and lessons and I haven’t finished learning yet. At least I can’t say life is boring.

Last night Mum had a drink from a glass and this morning she had a cup of tea in a mug. She held it, sipped it and swallowed it. Progress. All the time, steps towards normality, tiny improvements and pieces in the jigsaw that is our reality.

And the day before Christmas I got a box of advanced copies of The Keeper of Secrets. It is a galley proof, not proof-read and not final production standard, but it is the story and it has a great cover and lovely letter inside by my editor and it is MY book. Some people have read it already and said lovely things about it. I have set up a fan page for me and the book, as requested by my publisher, and so far 26 people have ‘liked’ it. If you haven’t yet, may I invite you to pop over and have a look and a ‘like’? It will grow as June 1st 2013 approaches and it will be a marketing tool.

http://www.facebook.com/julie.thomas.writer

So a glorious and frustrating and overwhelming and strengthening year comes to a close, in twenty minutes now. Here’s to 2013, may she bring more laughter than tears and more promise than disappointment.

Whatever happens I can always practice my speeches and read my work-in-progress to the cat:

My biggest fan

 

Christmas truffles, books and quizzes

Well 2012 is nearly at an end and the world didn’t explode on December 21st. The Mayans run out of rock and we all panic…maybe it would have made more sense to trust the predictions of a society that hung around a little longer themselves.

Hope you had a lovely Christmas, mine was very simple but very enjoyable. I went to a lovely church service at my local church and then in to Resthaven to see Mum. We spent the afternoon listening to carols and I gave her a manicure and a pedicure and we went for a walk, read some of Miranda Hart’s book (present from my very clever sister-in-law) and had a sleep. The next day I brought her home and my brother Geoff, and my niece Katie and nephew Paul, called in on their way to the lake to see us and have lunch. It was great fun.

Have I told you I have taken up the ukulele? A little blue uke. I can play the chords and strum and some basic songs.

My truffle Christmas project worked very well. I made around 650 truffles in nine different flavours and I decorated some gorgeous boxes. Family and friends and all the staff at Resthaven who look after Mum. The ‘after-8′ one (peppermint and chocolate) was exceptionally delicious and the ‘brandy and ginger’ was pretty special too. Everyone seemed to enjoy them.

Christmas Eve I received a box of Advanced Readers Edition of my book. The Keeper of Secrets! It will be published by HarperCollins USA as a William Morrow trade paperback on June 1st 2013 and this is the cover…

My book

 So 2013 will be an exciting year and a challenging one. I look forward to it with a mixture of joy and trepidation. I’m currently writing the next one and so far, so good.

One thing I love about life is its ability to amuse, in the middle of school shootings and car crashes and fiscal cliffs and coping with stroke victims, something tickles you. I was listening to a trivia radio quiz this morning:

  Announcer: It’s Dame Maggie Smith’s birthday today, what nationality is she, where was she born?

Listener: Oh, I know this one! Downton Abbey!!

Pictorial Blog Two

And page two of some of my favourite photos…just because…

Seriously cool dress

Sit down, shut up, do up your setbelt and stow your f-ing tray table!!

Take a moment from the pre-Christmas maddness and have a laugh. It will make you feel better.

Pictorial Blog One

Today I am posting two pictorial blogs with some of my favourite 2012 pics….. you need to look at some of them carefully.

A very beautiful and clever landscape

Something is wrong here, Mr Bond

We had one so we could decorate it…

Crank calls, royal babies, cricket and truffles

I was genuinely shocked this morning to read of the death by suicide of the nurse who was the victim of the crank call made to the hospital where Princess Katherine was being treated. What a tragic twist in a tale that has been blown out of all proportion by the media. Crank calls are a fact of life in radio, I thought this one was relatively harmless. Nothing like as damaging as the ones made by Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand to Andrew Sachs. What the Australian DJs should have done was own up and make a gracious exist when it became obvious that they’d fooled some hard-working and exhausted nurses. But is it something most people would kill themselves over? Wouldn’t have thought so. Mind you, I don’t live where the pressure of UK media is part of my every day life.

Good on William and Kate for being pregnant! I guess it’s as much a part of their job as opening and closing things and representing the Queen in foreign countries. And because the law will change, the child will inherit the throne even if it’s a girl who has a (pissed off) younger brother. Will we see a Queen Diana? I doubt it, I think many people might have something to say about that, more likely Elizabeth Victoria etc etc. George for a boy? James, Harold, Edward, John, Richard..Elton.

I’ve started the next book and it’s an interesting exercise, creating these characters and waiting for them to take over and start telling their story. It feels as if it’s the right story to be writing, I’ll know for sure at about 30,000 words.

My God New Zealand Cricket know how to shoot themselves in the foot, don’t they? Make sure the highest scoring batsman and match saver makes himself unavailable, that’s a clever move. It has always been a very divided game, I remember back in the late 1980s and early 1990s when I was shocked to discover how many of the players actively disliked each other. But…this is the cricket own goal of them all.

Christmas truffles are made and in the deep freeze, as are the fudge, rocky road and chocolates. Boxes are painted, decorated and waiting. All that remains is to thaw the truffles and roll them or dip them in their coatings and fill the boxes. All the other presents are bought but not yet wrapped. It will be the first Christmas Day I have ever woken up in a house by myself. I’ll go to church and then to Resthaven to be with Mum.

And Mum is doing very well. She’s singing, talking, walking and has started to eat a little bit. Last Thursday she had some pana cotta on a teaspoon. It is the right consistency, not too wet and set enough to move it to the back of her throat and swallow it. Little by little she will have more juice from the eye-dropper and more food.

Chloe is such good company, she talks far more than her predecessor did and is truly a cat that loves cuddles…and sleeping. She finds cat jokes tiresome.