Travelling light

It's Mother's day here in Australia and Melbourne airport is surprisingly quiet, evidently not many people travel away on Mother's day. I'm here at the start of the long haul to London.

I'm staying for nearly two weeks on this trip, but travelling light with only one piece of hand luggage. This caused the Cathay Pacific guy at the check in desk to have a pleasant but possibly security triggered conversation with me. When I said I was travelling for family reasons he asked if it was to see my mother (it being mother's day), when I said 'yes' he said I was a good son to surprise my mother. Feeling that I might be getting too much praise, I explained that it wasn't quite a surprise and that she hadn't been too well recently. To which his reply was, "still a good son". Nice touch.

My mother is still at home being looked after by my dad, which is a great achievement by both of them. As we were warned, the steroids used to control the swelling from the tumour growth come with side effects that become increasingly apparent over time. In my mother's case it has significantly weakened her and caused swelling, but she is understandably proud to have regrown her hair. My father has put in a stair lift, a special bed, chair, grab rails around the house and they now have a wheel chair. As a finishing flourish, he's also installed a fish tank, with fish!

My sister will take a few days of her work while I'm over and apparently we aim to visit the site of the London Olympics. Maybe I should take a look at the velodrome... Been doing quite a few kilometres recently, but I don't think I'm quite ready... :)

Here in Australia we are only a couple of days away from our new government's budget. It's expected to be severe and no one is expecting grants for medical research, or even medical care, to increase. This means that funds from events like the ride to conquer cancer are ever more important to institutions such as the Peter Mac.

In my last mail out communication on my journey to the ride to conquer cancer, I mentioned that Sandra had asked the guests of her Great Gatsby themed 50th to donate money to my ride rather than buy presents. The generosity of our guests, and others who have donated separately, has seen me reach over 1/3 of the way to my target - but there is still a way to go.

Every little counts.

Til the next time,

John