an interlude of a self indulgent kind

The past year, particularly the 2010/11 financial year (July to June) has been the most eventful I can remember.

It's hard not to reflect when a whole pile of things happen to you in a short period of time. Ahh! there's the first slip. When I write that these things "happened to me" I mean that most of them affected me and actually happened to other people.

June 2010 was looking OK! I was working on a project at Australia Post as a Training Manager, and only having stand-up fights with a couple of people a week. It was stressful, but at least I as in Melbourne. I was home one day checking emails, when I received a phone call. The caller was from Virgin Gyms. I had won a six month free membership to their brand new state-of-the-art gym that was coincidentally located across the road from work. I felt great! I started emailing a few people to tell them about it, when my phone rang again. "What have I won this time?" I muttered to myself, grinning like an idiot.

It was a woman's voice, vaguely familiar, then it hit me! My best mate's older sister. It was great to hear from her as I hadn't seen her in a long time, but through the dopey grinning afterglow of winning, I didn't immediately hear that something was very wrong.

smoking makes you smell bad! oh, and it kills you, too!

On 7th May 2011 my mum died of lung cancer caused by nearly 40 years of smoking. She was four weeks shy of her 59th birthday, which is way too young in my opinion. She is survived by her mother and five children. She was one of five kids herself but she is the the third to succumb to smoking related lung cancer. Yes, the remaining two siblings still smoke. Why? What a great question, but it's not a question a sane and rational person can answer, because any sane and rational person who has seen just what we have seen in our family would throw their smokes in the bin and "man up" to