Merry Xmas

Having been flooded by xmas cards this year, I am very touched. And frankly surprised so many of you have my address. I'm afraid no such offering from us, but instead an eco-friendly xmas mail to say Merry Christmas to everyone and best wishes for the new year ahead. And for those who I've not kept in regular contact with / don't read the blog / spam filter my mails on purpose, I've written a little bit about the year gone by. The rest of you can read it too - you might have forgotten most of it and there will be a quiz later.

I think 2009 was the "Empire Strikes Back" year for me; sure. it had some pretty tough parts and some low moments, but it also had some of the truly best and memorable moments too. But no AT-ATs.

The first part of my year was dominated by recovery from the bowel cancer I was diagnosed with back in Aug 2008. I had a lull in treatment at the start of the year, which I used to get a few cheeky days snowboarding in. Then Chemotherapy started again until March, when I had a month off before the surgery in April. This surgery successfully removed the bad parts of my liver, and after a month's rest, I resumed the last few cycles of chemo to ensure "gold standard" treatment. This ended at the start of July, in time for me to gather more energy for both my good friends' wedding as well as my cousin's wedding, both in Scotland, both wonderful events and both great excuses to wear man-skirts (kilts).

These really acted as my initial celebration for treatment being over. There were still a few checkups ahead which externally and internally showed that all looked well and as expected. I think I was just glad it was over, and happy to be able to get on with my life again. So I was truly blown away by a surprise drinks party that Mimi organized for me later in the year, which helped me draw that final line behind me from what had happened.

So the first step in getting on with my life, of course, was to get the ring and ask my sweetheart to marry me. An elaborate setup of hotels and treats over two days in Melbourne whilst visiting Mimi's family and friends allowed me to spoil my sweetie with food and champagne and then get down on one knee. Not actually with a ring - we had determined she'd like to pick her own (which she later did, a classic, elegant, beautiful and, all importantly, reasonably priced item) - but with a charm bracelet I had taken time to choose before flying out. I am pleased to say she kindly said yes, and made me a very happy man indeed !

I also got to attend the christening of my new nephew Luca, Mimi's brother's baby boy with exceptionally cute cheeks ! Along with my wonderful, gorgeous nieces, Liv and Izzy, who I got to spend lots of time with whilst recovering (a totally awesome silver lining from my period of illness) I am a blessed uncle indeed. Almost enough to consider returning the favor someday to my brother and future brother-in-law. But first our thoughts are concerned with wedding bells, as we try and put together a plan and set a date for the upcoming wedding. Late 2010 would be ideal, early 2011 probably the latest we'd like it.

We are decided on Australia as a venue, but will try and celebrate with friends and family on both sides of the globe. This is set to tie in with a move to Australia, continuing our lives together down under. It will be sad to move away from / great to move closer to you (delete as applicable) but certainly it doesn't mark an end of anything, but more heralds a new chapter for us. A new chapter on the forest moon of Endor. By which I mean Australia.

So I intend to spend this xmas and new year continuing to celebrate the great people I've met so far in life, and even try and visit a few out of towners I didn't get to see much whilst I wasn't so well. But first I've got this next week off to spend some quality time with my family and get some good food, booze and presents, which has got to be the true spirit of xmas for me.

Xmas love and best wishes to all,
Ben (and Mimi)

Okay it looks like...

Okay it looks like the dial2do service is very good with translating words. But only gives you 30 seconds to make a blog post. So whilst the service is quite impressive I think only short comments will ever get safe on it.
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Okay looks like work...

Okay looks like work smashed and blocked any access to Blogger which is fair enough. So I'm gonna try and record this post using my fantastic voice to text translaty thing off the internet. Let's see how many words it spells wrong. Just wanted to do a quick blog post to say.
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Surprise - it's not my birthday !

Last night marked a point of awesomeness. Long booked in my calendar as a mystery night out, it turned out to be a nice dinner followed by a surprise party at a local pub.

As I type this with a slightly fuzzy head, I want to thank everyone who came down, esp. those from such far climbs as Swindon, Sheffield and Amsterdam :) It was really nice to see so many people, drink so many beers and not only celebrate the end of my treatment properly, but to openly say "wow, that was quite a hard year" and I guess get what the American's call "closure".

I also got some nice biscuits and waffles, which are helping me on this most hungover of days ! I also, confusingly, got 2 or 3 birthday cards... thanks guys - actual birthday is start of Feb though. Mimi must of been keeping the reasoning behind the party secret too ;)

Thanks to all who came - I tried to spend time chatting my everyone, but it got a bit blurry toward the end, so not entirely sure I made it. I remember lots of hugs though - yay !!! - and much love in the room :)

Took a while to rotate them all 180 degrees...

Photos of our australia trip now on my smugmug site including my favourite shot of me...

Back to the treadmill

Treatment is over ! Had final scans (all clear) and told to go out and enjoy life. So not much more coming from me about the treatment now - there will be follow up scans every 4 months for a year, every 6 months in the following year, and then annually for another 8 years. But these are merely precautionary, so it's time to get back to...

Health ! I was doing pretty well, pulling my weight down to around 17 stone before all of this started. And after the surgery (dropping to 14 stone) and the chemo (keeping my weight level as it burned up caloires) I've now got back to a healthy state but a less healthy size again (over 18 stone). On top of this, been getting an inflamed back, probably from the lack of exercise, and not assisted by my tummy muscles recovering from 2 bought with the surgical knife.

So back to weekend running, weekday cycling to work and yoga for me ! And the dreaded Monday weigh ins - you should see a little graph on the right hand side now, nothing like a bit of public shame to kick start a good habit. On top of which, I feel a little winter snowboarding might be in order this season - one trip booked so far on Feb (to St Anton in Austria), but I feel another trip either State-side or Euro, would top that off nicely ! Anyone interested ?