My darling girl is with me today.  She arrived yesterday afternoon and we talked 90 miles an hour to catch up on lots of things while picking up a few grocery items and going to the PO.  And then we talked some more! We decided that a nice dinner at the Noodle House on Mitchell street was what we ‘needed’.  Allison said she hadn’t come from winter in Alice Springs to see me in the Tropics and sit in air conditioning, and so we sat at a table near the footpath outside, enjoying the evening air and light breeze.  We ordered one of our all time favourite meals in the world, whole fried fish with sweet Thai chilli sauce, stir fried bok choy and mushrooms and steamed rice.  It is a VERY impressive meal, and as we were sitting in prime ‘ogling’ real estate, the passers by nearly all had to stop and have a look.  Finally, Allison said, “For someone who doesn’t particularly like attention, I picked the wrong seat for this meal!”  We had a good laugh, the first of many, and enjoyed our spectacular meal.

Today we rode in the rental car to treatment and it was such bliss for me to be able to walk in, have my treatment, and walk out to get in a car and ride away again.  It was much less tiring than the usual bus ride, and we could spend the precious gift of time any way we wanted to later on!  Allison wanted to watch the treatment and the technicians explained the basics of what they were doing and she was very interested in it all.  It is certainly not something I knew anything about before having it myself, despite the fact that my father had undergone 25 radiotherapy treatments more than 20 years ago.  It was a wonderful opportunity for us both to share another part of this journey. I’m trying to remember, this is not just my journey alone, it is a journey for everyone who is close to me and I want to bring them along to my eventual destination as much as possible.

Anxious to adhere to my stringent program of balancing the ‘job of treatment’ with a good measure of ‘fun’ we did a superb job of hitting the shops, and buying a few lovely items, in between a delicious lunch from Simply Foods in the Star Village, followed by a mid-afternoon dessert (or two) from Parap Fine Foods!  Oh, so much to enjoy, and so few hours in the day!