T + 609. This one's like Bertie Bassett at the STD clinic.

This first story is a Facebook repost from earlier in the week - apologies if you've already seen it, please feel free to apply for a full refund on your way out.

Milo calls to me from the bathroom;

'Daddy  - I think we're going to need some more shampoo because I've just washed my bottom.' Curiosity compels me to check. It appears to have taken entire large bottle of Johnson and Johnson No More Tears Formula baby shampoo to get his arse clean and the bath is luminous yellow with the stuff, maybe he self administered an enema with it - I don't bloody know, I'm beyond incredulous. When I eventually get him out of the bath - he's slicker than fricking otter shit due to the 50/50 concentration of shampoo to bathwater, the only way I can think of to get him cleaned up is to slide him into the shower cubicle and keep him there until he stops foaming. The other apartments must have thought I was trying to cram him into the microwave for all the bloody racket he made - anyway now to face the rest of the day with the shiny arsed little critter.

Time to get out now Milo

About time I wrote a bit about MDS, recovery etc etc which is supposed to be the point of the blog in the first place. I am (thanks to the big fella) currently enjoying an extended hassle free spell of relatively rude health. Mouth GVHD is at manageable levels and does not impact on my eating, the eye GVHD if not significantly better, is still no worse and I can spend a part of each day out of sunglasses even in full sunlight. That said, my eyesight is not good and it looks like all the effects of the Lasik I had in 2006 have now been negated by meds  and even though I hate wearing them, I may have to be Mr Speccy Twat again in the near future.

However whilst I'm enjoying this spurt of good health, I'd like to give a mention and pass on my best wishes to two of my Facebook buddies who are currently having less than glorious times at the hands of MDS - Tammy in Canada and Sam in the UK. I hope that you can both look at what Jeannette and I have done in the teeth of my illness and cast forward to a time when there is much soppy fun to be had and many stupid arsed things to do - post transplant. My thoughts are with you both.
I'm not due back at the Hospital until 18th November and no blood tests due until 14th or so, meantime I just have to sit tight and steer clear of antipodean lurgies. Good name for a band.

In an effort to demonstrate that I wish to educate and inform and not just sit here brain farting, I'm going to lay some of my newly acquired local knowledge on you. For example, bedding such as sheets, pillow cases etc over here is known by the generic name of Manchester. This apparently is because that in them there olden days all of it was imported from the UK in crates marked up with the the place of manufacture hence "Where do you want me to stack this shitload of Manchester" caused the word to enter common parlance - shops and supermarkets actually have "Manchester" signed above the relevant aisles Apparently the same is true for crockery becoming "China" and now I'm just off to relax with a nice bit of Colombian (no - the coffee).

Next, a RORT is Australian for a con, scam or rip off. I was most disappointed to learn that hardly anybody says "Bonza" anymore it has slipped out of the idiom over here in the same way that "Jolly good show" has in the UK. Another thing is that for sheer uncaring, unresponsive, arrogant and just plain shitey unprofessionalism Australian Estate Agents leave the UK guys in the starting blocks. Demand in the housing market here is such that the lazy buggers just have to turn up at the the house they are showing, unlock the door and then just sit back and wait to be hosed down with cash. Absolute shiny faced money grabbing fuckers to last so far in my experience.

In the interests of keeping Milo occupied and unmurdered, I took him for a couple of rounds of what I used to call Crazy Golf at a place called Ermington Putt Putt about 30 minutes drive from our apartment. It was nudging 30 deg when we got there at 11am and the course was pretty much deserted apart from - well I'll get to that bit in due course. There is a choice of three different courses Water, Jungle and Crazy and we elected for two rounds starting with the Water course. Now saying that Milo is hard-headed, stubborn and opinionated is like saying the sun is hot and big and difficult to lift. They just both are.

Generally any given social scenario involving trying something new with my son plays out like this. I start off all good intentions and 'let me show you the wonders of my world mini-me' he digs his heels in and tells me in his sweet 4 y/o way to go poke it. I get stroppy - he gets stroppy, one of us storms off muttering 'Fuck this' and the other one starts crying - I'll leave you to you work out who's who. So to try and ensure that our day at the golf lasted longer than 3 minutes, I soon gave up on showing him how to hold a club or take a shot and kept my neck resolutely wound in whilst he held the club one handed, arse backwards and merrily divoted his way round the astro-greens - after all he was enjoying himself scoring about par 12 per hole.

As we were playing I was vaguely aware of a guy a few holes ahead of us who was setting up various bits of video and photographic equipment on tripods and taking loads of what I assumed were publicity shots. Milo and I carried on playing and eventually bickered our way round to the hole where this guy (let's call him Trevor) was set up. He stepped to one side as I teed up my first shot on the famed Bart Simpson  - the13th hole back nine at the Ermington Putt Putt Water Course. Just as I shaped to putt he piped up sagely;

'You want a tip for this green mate?'
I looked up at him unbelievingly, my face a mixture of confusion and dumb amazement - this is a 20ft long crazy golf astro green after all.
'Got a top tip for this - guarantee you a hole in one'
A cold creeping realisation went through me - this is the type of man who considers himself to be the Crazy Golf Course Resident Professional. This is the absolute definition of 'too much time on your hands'. Writ large. In granite. Mount Rushmore style. And floodlit.

Well lets get this over with then.

'Er - OK'

To save you non-pros from all the technical jargon, I had to cannon off the kerb to the left of the Bart and Lisa Simpson house sat in the middle of the green (I base this assumption on the fact that they were both small and rendered in yellow paint - they may as well have been dialysis munchkins as far as resemblance went. Oh and there's also a kind of melty Garfield who looks like the bastard offspring of Buddha and Tigger). The rest of the shot was then blind, but Trevor assured me that if I pitched it just right and cannoned at the point he'd indicated - well it'd be a no brainer.

And bollocks - he was right. To further improve the situation Milo decided that he also wanted to do a hole in one as well and went through the whole bloody course of instruction again before totally disregarding everything he'd just been shown and then getting a bloody hole in one via some kind of St. Vitus dance/hockey shot.

This was sufficient to convince said resident pro that we needed his advice on the lay and technical aspects of the next few holes. During this time I learnt that he is Captain of the Ermington Putt Putt Golf Team (pro tip - never call it crazy golf, it's like calling archery 'bow and arrowing shooty') and was in the process of making a video of himself scoring three consecutive 'holes in one' at each green on the Water course, shot in real time unedited to show there was no trickery to this feat. This done he was then going to replicate the whole process on the Jungle course. Stupidly, sucked in by the scope of his ambition, I said ' - and then the same on the Crazy course?'. I received a look  'Serious Team members don't play that one'.

Over the next few greens although there were no further holes in one, I learnt that Trev had filmed more than 200 videos of himself playing at Ermington which are uploaded to his Youtube channel puttputtdownunder. Monies raised from the channel and team activities all go to charity - so who am I to mock this man's magnificent obsession.

Our time together ended on a poignant note as I was telling him about where we live in the UK, which is in East Sussex not far from Hastings.

'Jeez mate! That's where they just played the World Championships - have you been?'

'Well not to the World Championships, but I have played Crazy Golf on the seafront'
'Putt Putt'
'Er - yeah'

He's gone a bit misty eyed and is looking at me as though I'm Neil Armstrong or Sir Edmund Hilary  - for I have set foot upon the hallowed ground about which he can only dream from afar.

T + 602 Landfall, Australia and Dead Ben

Seven days to go.

Turns out that we wont have to put anything into storage as our shipping allowance is 45 cubic metres which is enough to handle anything we want to take with us. The packers are coming on the 26th, 29th and 30th September - apparently they descend on the house like a horde of soldier ants. the shipping container is being dropped outside on the 30th for 3 to 4 hours during which time the entire contents of our house will be transhipped.

...which is exactly what happened. Fast forward 3 weeks - we are now ensconced in our temporary apartment in Baulkham Hills and settling in nicely. Huge amount to catch up on.

We are house hunting and are currently waiting to hear back on a lovely house in a suburb called Beecroft. There is huge demand for decent rental properties and the north western burbs (Pymble, St Ives, Beecroft, Turramurra) where we are looking attract quite literally dozens of viewers on open days. If we wanted to live around here (Baulkham Hills) you could get a dirty big new 5 bedroom, 3 bathroom place probably with a pool for about $650 pw - but I'd contrast it as choosing to live in Milton Keynes rather than Tunbridge Wells.

So what with me being the house bitch and all, I have wasted no time in getting the low down on the supermarket situation here. There's alot less competition here than in the UK, - I've only come across three different places so far Coles, Woolworths and Aldi. Woolies is the winner- Aldi is just as pikey as in the UK and Coles is more expensive than Woolies but the quality is about the same. Bit more expensive over here as well, but a canny house bitch is always on the lookout for bargains.

Milo reduced nearly a whole aisle of people to tears of laughter the other day - we were walking past the deli counter next to a partially used wheel of Swiss cheese when he piped up incredibly loudly 'Look Daddy they've got holes with cheese in it!'. He's also made a new friend - as we walk through the park to meet Jeannette for lunch or to go to the shops we see an incredible range of wildlife. There are eels and giant carp in the pond, weird birds and ducks, loads of wild rabbits and reptiles. In particular there is a very large very dead lizard by the side of the path that we have been seeing everyday for the past two weeks. Milo has decided that he's called 'Dead Ben' and I get an update on how things are progressing as Milo shoots off ahead to cop a look and then jogs back to report. It started off as 'Dead Ben has got flies on him daddy' then 'Dead Ben has got really fat' to more recently 'Dead Ben has exploded' and 'Dead Ben doesn't have a head anymore'. After we've stopped looking and move away he sometimes signs off with 'Bye Dead Ben  - see you tomorrow'

Just heard we didn't get the house. Bollocks. Jeannette isn't so pissed off because she didn't get to see the place, so she doesn't know what we've missed out on. I think I need to grow a pair and not get so invested in these places when we view them. I've been trying to see about 6 properties a day so far this week and its boiling down to great house  - shit location or vice versa. luckily Jeannette's work aren't going to pressure us out of the apartment but it would be nice to get it sorted as living here has a definite tinge of transience or weirdly being in limbo. once you find one you like (we now know) things get dirty, there are instances of people offering above the quoted weekly rental to secure a property or offering x number of months rent up front. We've checked the finances and we can afford to put up a bung of about 3 months rent to help secure a place if necessary - but it fucks me off massively to have to do it.

Have seen doc and had blood tests - all seems OK at the moment, no recurrence of CMV yet but as long as I'm on such high levels of immuno-suppression, it's really just a matter of time before something kicks off.
I had to take Milo in with me for the consultation as we haven't got child care or school sorted yet and the first thing the Doc said was 'Milo eh? My dog's called Milo'.

Jeannette's had me in stitches with tales of her recent business trip to Perth. On her flight was a large group of what I am going to term 'God's Special People' who I suppose due to vagaries of airline ticket booking, were salted generously among the general pop rather than seated altogether with their carers and medics.. Jeannette had reserved a window seat and as she approached her allocated seat she noticed that it was already occupied by a middle aged lady.

It's my window seat I tells ya!

She later told me that the general background cacophony of yelps, howls and gibbers should have alerted her to the fact that this was no ordinary flight - but she pressed on and asked the woman if she would mind moving as she was in the wrong seat. Big mistake - the woman started barking and howling at her bug eyed- and just as Jeannette was thinking no-fucking-way-aye-ay am I sitting next to this fruit loop for the next five hours, a woman from a couple of rows back came forward and announced that she was the carer and would happily swap seats - job done. It was apparently one of the funniest flights ever, with any passenger who wanted to use the loo having to bob and weave running the gamut of random flying arms and legs or being barked at - a bit like Indiana Jones trying to get out of the Temple of Doom. At one point the plane hit some turbulence which triggered a noise like the entire occupancy of an ape-house being electrocuted.