Oh look! It's April.

Hello people. You join me on a beautiful autumnal Sydney day a mere five days before we head off to the UK for three and a half weeks and you will be not at all surprised to hear, dear readers, that I have done absolutely no preparation in any way whatsoever. Well, that's not entirely true: I have bought some new shoes, frankly what more do I need? Do not answer that question.

Preparation has been thwarted by two things: work (that's a good thing, work is good) and a rather sudden (or so it feels) change in Keith's condition. Following a scan last week we discovered the tumours in his body have started growing; this is the first time growth has been observed since we found out he has cancer and it came as something of a shock to both of us, and not a very nice one. I suppose we have become so accustomed to the different routines of life I didn't really expect anything to change. Well, I did, but I also didn't, does that make sense? Anyway, the medical professionals do not think the growth is related to the cessation of the chemo: the likelihood is it would have happened anyway. No one wants to tell us what this means, there is as of now no altered prognosis. However everyone seems to now be talking in a much more short term kind of way which is quite unnerving and they are asking questions that neither of us have thought about before, about things like having hospital beds in our house and what to do if Keith gets ill in London. It's important for you to understand that physically Keith this week feels no different to Keith last week, but when people are sitting in my living room (wonderful people, wonderful palliative care people) asking me directly if I have a plan of action for our trip away I am a little dumbstruck and it makes me feel weird and uncomfortable and all those sorts of things. He feels well enough to go and so for now, that's good enough for me.

Last week was not a very fun week, but as ever with our circumstances good things are emerging from the bad. Keith has almost finished his book of life and experiences and opinions that he will give to the girls. Palliative care offer the service and he now has Julie, his own rather wonderful biographer. Imagine if you can how much fun Keith has had talking about himself and then looking at pictures of himself and then talking about himself a bit more. I am very very happy he has done this. And that's a good thing. 

As a result of all this we are determined to take our trip back to the UK very easily indeed. Still the focus is on showing the girls some of the cool stuff we love about London, the place where they were both born. Also don't ask me about quite how excited I am about going to John Lewis (I am very excited). But this trip is also centrally about Keith. Without putting too finer point on it this is likely to be for him the last trip back to the UK. So therefore it is front and centre about seeing who he wants to see and doing what he wants to do (I keep telling him he really wants to go to John Lewis). But it is also about having FUN. Standby blog fans for how it goes, you can rest assured I will let you know.

I am off to avoid packing for a bit longer. Peace out friends xxxxxx