We girls do coffee

Once a day, my daughter is determined to get out of the apartment and go somewhere to do something. So ... she walked across and down to the park at Rushcutters Bay and I walked down. We live about equidistant. In the middle of the park, just up from the yachts bobbing at the marina, is situated the most gorgeous of cafes. It is always awash with young families and the middle of a Wednesday was no different. I note, too, that the council has now installed a large play ground at the rear of the cafe.

We both had a Burgundy beef pie which was filled with ... wait for it ... meat! And washed that down with a flat white. Come to think of it, Kirsten did not ask for a soy latte so her skin complaint is faring well under this new anatomical order!

Alannah slept the entire time, rousing briefly for a feed, but that was more so that Kirsten could get over the self-conscious feeling of breast-feeding in public for the first time. After a cuddle/jiggle from Ma, and a nappy change, it was back into the stroller for the push back up the hill to home. How wonderful to see this young woman blossoming so! And she is totally in control of her own body shape, too, as you can see. She has even been to her first Mother's Club meeting.

I think she is trying to organise an evening restaurant meal for the three of them this weekend, and then, next Tuesday, she and I and Alannah hope to choof of into the Art Gallery for a wander. Between now and then she hopes to master loading everything into the car and tootling around unaided. I am finding it a challenge to express my pride without appearing condescending. But, ooo, I am chuffed!

Fourteen weeks

On Thursday she flies to Colorado to spend ten days with a friend.

Further to Diane's comment in the previous post. She noted that when she and Bill become grandparents later this year, Bill has chosen iPop which would make her iMa.

Two things.

Should our generation of grandparents become the e-ma and e-pa?

Is there a link between titles and can this only be fractured at our peril? I mean, should Grandpa always go with Grandma? Should Nana always partner Pop? Should Pa always partner Ma? Why does Grandad partner Nana, shouldn't it be Grandad and Grandmum?

Pillar to post

It is not Multiple Sclerosis, although it has symptoms of MS. Is is not Meniere's, although it has symptoms of Meniere's. It is not Parkinsonsm although it has symptoms of Parkinsons. It is most definitely Peripheral Neuropathy, of both the motor and sensory variety.

In the fall that I took on October 7th I lost consciousness. This does not happen when an MS sufferer falls nor when a Meniere's attack occurs. I did have vertigo and I did spend the evening dry retching. I spent the next two days at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital (RPA) having both cardiac and neurologic assessments. The raised troponin levels (CPK) were symptomatic of an impending heart attack. But they are also raised when a seisure has occurred. All the muscles at the base of the buttock and down the back of both legs were frozen and took about 24 hours to relax back to normal. Prior to the fall I had the whirling and the flashing in the top RH quadrant which are indicative of vertigo which is a massive aspect of Meniere's.

I returned to work for another 8 days and then the second episode occurred. My son, who was with me organised the ambulance and I was in RPA for four days. I underwent two cardiac procedures: an Angiogram and an Electro-psysiology Study (EPS). The EPS found a wayward electrical beat in my heart and cauterized it. Not too unusual, occurring in about 10% of the population. Extraneous to the other symptoms. The Angiogram indicated that I had a strong heart with minimal heart disease. All this was good. But why was my blood pressure measured in the ambulance at 60/40 and why did it consistently read low during the hospital stay? And if my BP was low, why was I taking 20mg of Coversyl each morning!



Yesterday, I saw the cardiologist again. He is convinced it is not cardiac. But he is leading the holistic team that is nibbling around the symptoms and the test results to try to make sense of the data. With the balance, the gait and the vision problems, he has now suggested an opthalmologist join the team. I have diplopia in the left eye extensively and a little in the right. He could not see nystagmus but the week prior both the neurologists could see this in both eyes.

The extensive testing from the Brain and Mind Institute (BMI) that I underwent during 2008 is available to this new team. This includes many nerve induction tests, a complete body x-ray (13 in all) and a number of MRIs of the head and chest.

I have difficulty determining if the information coming from my eyes to my brain is correct and have to think through crossing the road. It is a bit like a mirage down the other end of the street. I have trouble determining depth when I take a step and am hesitant to put my foot down too firmly. Know when you step off only to realise that there was no further step to negotiate. Imagine that with every other step you take. My balance on the LHS is wonky and I diverge to that side and sometimes have difficulty bringing myself upright again. My friends have convinced my to purchase a walking stick to have with me in my backpack - for rough ground. I now always accept the proffered arm.

The rules are: reduce stress; no driving; stairs with balaustrades only; more sleep; better nutrition; reduce alcohol; wear a hat and reduce heat; and, the hardest one, don't live by myself.

I am staying with my daughter for three weeks. Although I only moved into a new cottage two months ago, I am breaking the lease and moving to another place which is 5 minutes drive from Kirsten and has no internal stairs. It is also on a bus line (the 389) and about 100m from my father's nursing home. Living with Kirsten I am developing better patterns of sleeping, eating and drinking that I will be able to take to the new place with me. Kirsten has both the car and the car keys (for a while I had known that when I stopped the car and opened the door to get out, the bitumen was still moving).

Tomorrow, Friday 6th November, I retire from my job at the university after two weeks sick leave. The job was an experiment which to me did not work. The reports and systems that I created were not used by any of the academics they were created for. I was doing work that was not appreciated and there was never enough of it. This is immensely stressful. Both my children suggested that I stop even though my retirement age (as calculated by the government) was 64. One of my tasks this week is to set up a flexi-pension from my superannuation fund.

I will post this and reread it as the day progresses, adding anything that I think rounds the story out.

How do I feel? Nervous. Apprehensive. Pleased. Positive, perhaps.

My daughter sent me an article called "Diversify Yourself" by Peter Bregman.

Collecting: Family letters (3)

Written by my grandmother - Sylvia Irene Veronica - to her younger sister - Vera - on the death of Vera's infant son, Laurie Boots. Both Sylvia and Vera married men named Willl. Written in November 1922 when Sylvia was nearly 27 (with a 3 year old son, Gordon and a 1 year old son, also named Laurie) and Vera 25. Grandma was living out in Wetherill Park with just a horse (Dick) and sulky to get around. To come in to Drummoyne where her parents lived took most of the day.

The extreme religiosity of this letter takes me back: Sylvia was not a church-going woman in all the time that I knew her (1948 to 1984). She was obviously distraught about the death so early of her sister's son. In 1956 she lost her own 30 year old youngest son; and, in 1972 she lost her only daughter at the age of 43. This is but a photocopy, but it is interesting to compare the handwriting of Sylvia aged 15 in the previous Collecting post and this but a short 12 years later.

Taken in 1926 at Wetherill Park, Sylvia aged 31 jiggles her third son, Athol Reginald who was to die on a curb in London in 1956. Excerpts from Athol's diary (14 Dec 1949 to 17 March 1951)will take us on an altogether different journey. If Sylvia was 27 when this letter was written, and 31 when holding Athol, then her husband, Will (William George) aged from 44 to 48 over the same period. She was a workaholic; he a lazybones.

Collecting: Family letters (2)

The handwriting is very carefully formed, the manner deferential and self-effacing and the range of interests constrained and homely. We move on nearly fifteen years from the first "letter" announcing the birth of my grandmother, this next offering was written by her: Sylvia Irene Veronica Cole. This gem of a collectable was written in 1910 when SIVC was a whisker past 14 years of age; written from Tamworth, a small country town in the northern tablelands of NSW; written to HER grandparents. The watercolour gives me a thrill each time I study it. My older brother, who saw it for the first time this past weekend, was mesmerised.

Sylvia's mother was Sarah-Annie and HER mother married three times (Evans, Finch, Faull) all of whom were road-workers and Australian. Ma Cole was not highly educated and I surmise that her own mother was even less so. My guess is that in this letter, Sylvia is writing to her paternal Grandmother, Hannah Wilkins Cole, who remained in England and to whom her husband Steven, returned after a brief sojourn in the Antipodes.

A wee slip of a girl who was to bear four children to a man 17 years her senior; to lose the two younger children whilst continuing to live to 88 years of age. A grandmother who told me about her astonishment on her wedding night; who poo-pooed her garulous older spinster sister's pontifications about married life: "what would she know!" I adored her.

SIVC in 1916, aged 21; and, in 1942 aged 47, with two sons serving in the AIF in New Guinea.

Collecting: Family letters (1)

All the collectable documents I have are from the paternal line.

Taken in the late-1880s, the first photograph shows Great-grandfather, Charles Wilkins Cole - seated with the beard - with his first two sons at his knee. My Great-aunt Olive was born in 1889 and she is not present. This was taken at Jamieson in Victoria and I have the original. In the back row, the older gentleman is Steven Cole who is Charles Wilkins' father. He migrated to Australia from England on 19th January 1860 aged 25 for the princely sum of 32 pounds.


This note passes for a birth registration/notice. It is written by Charles Wilkins Cole and announces the birth of my grandmother. Gilgunnia is a very small town in the centre of the state of New South Wales. Once again, I have the original.


This final photograph - I don't have the original - shows Charles Wilkins Cole (Pa) and his family in 1924. He died in 1934 aged not quite 80. His wife - Sarah Annie (Ma) is still seated next to him - and they are surrounded by their seven surviving children, two having died not long after birth. Overlooking the young girl in the background, my grandmother is standing second from the right.

Tough love

Parenthood is one of the toughest career moves one can make - courageous even, Minister.

I imagine that the term originated in the Americas somewhere: I have no intention of researching it. I simply do not want to know any more: tough love is letting your children fend for themselves until they see the light and come around to doing things (living their life) your way. What sort of love is that? You withhold affection, discussion, consultation to show you love them. You insist that it is your way or the highway to show you love them. Huh? This is not tough love; this is self obsession.

I get given this advice frequently: don't help him move - he lost his licence and must learn the consequences of his actions. Don't subsidise his rent - he can still afford to go to raves. Don't take him trolley shopping - he still smokes and drinks, and the choice is his. He needs to get a decent job with a future rather than rattling around hotels as a barman until the early hours. There is a lot of talk here and not much listening.

I go back to when my children were growing up. I guess they were always different from each other in their reactions and personality - but not their character. Personality is nature; character is nurture. One is a rule follower; one is a rule bender. Breaker even. One is a pillar of the community; one is a rebel, moreso than that. One takes after her father; the other takes after his mother.


My daughter is in a stable relationship (married even), has three degrees and works in the management of one of our top law firms. She owns her own apartment in a swish suburb. She has a cat and tries to grow herbs and fails miserably. She is taking evening classes to realise her desire to write: last week I was asked to look at a draft of a children's story.

My son goes through relationships quickly: there have been two of substance. He is currently in his third attempt at a degree. Having excelled at Maths, Physics and Chemistry at High School he is currently enrolled in Psychology and Religion. It is this latter that he actually enjoys. That is what he is looking for: things he enjoys. He shares a two storey terrace in Glebe. He has a cat. On Saturday I was asked for assistance with a photographic issue which resulted in me lending him my camera. He was down near the Fish Markets under the old tram viaducts with a bunch of friends doing a clothing shoot. I could hear the doof doof doof as I pulled into the cul-de-sac.

As I drove back up Ross Street, I wondered what on earth I had done - and WHY?? I was sick to the stomach. He is forever losing things: he places little value on possessions. He is very aboriginal in that sense. He shares everything. It is like when he told me a couple of weeks ago that he had been fired and accused of stealing all in the same conversation. I did not ask whether it was true. I knew it wasn't true. I had no need to ask. We sat on the floor of the stairwell in the student union. He talked and I listened. So on Saturday. He had a problem; I had a means to solve that problem.

I did not notice the text come in whilst I was at Shirley's for dinner on Saturday evening. I did not notice it until Sunday morning. It had been sent at 9:19 Saturday night: "Your camera is home and we're just getting the photos off :) Thanks".

I forgot to add, that as I handed it to him under the viaduct, I looked him in the eyes and asked: "Al, do you value your balls?"