Saturday 26th February 2011

I was just going to chronicle the things that have been happening in the last few months - like renovating the back yard, going to shows in The Fringe this year and news about Eion's prostate cancer, but..... we've just been to lunch with my brother and two of my sisters and a cousin (Joyce Pounsett nee Gibbons, daughter of Dad's older sister Lillian) and she started to talk about Nana Hale and how she wanted to divorce Grandpa Hale because she was in love with another man! It seems another of her daughters, Daisy (who died in 1962 from breast cancer) engaged a man to paint her house and Nana met him and it was "love at first sight" - when I think of how dour and stodgy Nana looks in the few photos I have of her (and my memories) I can't imagine this, but obviously love conquers all. The really sad part is, according to Joyce, that you were only granted a divorce back then ( late 1920's/early 1930's with adultery as the reason, if you had shown an attempt to reconcile, which Nana did by getting pregnant to Grandpa with their youngest child, Robert, and then saying, "so there's your proof - it didn't work and now I want my divorce".) No wonder Uncle Bob developed into such a strange personality.





Anyway I will add this to the family story - must get Joyce to send me all the written material she has collected about the Hale side of the family - it is clearly much more titillating than I had ever thought possible. I had thought all the dramas were in my generation or the next one! I must also see the chronicler of the Tindall side of things - Jenny Tindall, married to my cousin Colin (Mum's nephew), - I really would like more of the history of both sides of the family before it gets too late to hear and appreciate it all.





Back to present time - Eion has been diagnosed with prostate cancer, at this stage confined to the gland and he could choose various methods of treatment, but he has decided to be rid of it (hopefully once and for all) and is on the waiting list for a nerve sparing prostatectomy using the Da Vinci robot at the Royal Adelaide Hospital as a private patient of his urologist, Mr Peter Sutherland. He thought the other options - wait and see with biopsies every 6 months, or external radiotherapy, or implantation of radioactive seeds into the gland, were all a bit dubious and he might still require surgery anyway. So now we wait for the call up to go to hospital!





I know it sounds selfish but I do hope the surgery occurs well before I leave for Italy on May 19th - it will be so much easier for me to go away knowing that Eion is home and recovering. He says there is no way I am delaying the trip if he hasn't had the operation before I go.





We are having fun right now - The Fringe is in full swing and we have already been to a few shows with several more to come over the next few weeks. Last week to celebrate our 22nd wedding anniversary we spent two days in the city, staying in a hotel and eating and drinking well, if not wisely. It rained non stop on the Friday but we still went to the Zoo and saw the pandas - gorgeous - and waited for the Fringe Opening Parade at night - cancelled.

Eion is working on the pergola to prepare it for a new paint job, we
have had workmen in to start the new paving, all the trees and garden are gone to make way for the new double garage, and there are plans for decking under the pergola, and lawn (alas, artificial!!) between the clothesline and the decking. The yard is getting a major makeover - Backyard Blitz eat your heart out!!
As worrying as the news of Eion's cancer is, we have decided to keep enjoying life as much as possible.