Family matters

Today was yet another beautiful day in South East London.  I started off relatively comfortably in the garden having breakfast from my newest Emma Bridgewater mug and plate combo (Great Britain sponge design - it is fabulous!) and with a bit of fuel inside me had the most difficult conversation of my life.  I told my Mum I had cancer.  Now it may come as a surprise to some that neither of my parents knew before today, but there is a very good reason for this;  they have been on holiday for the last three weeks, and I was not going to call them from the other side of the planet to impart what is for them, very shocking news, and ruin their holiday.  They knew I had been unwell and had had a minor procedure to investigate but there was nothing to be gained from generating excessive worry by disclosing later developments and there would have been nothing they could do about it from far, far away.

But, now they know.  And the conversation went exactly as I had expected. If there was a fifth preference ranking under Myers-Briggs for optimism and pessimism, then lets just say my preference and that of my parents would be somewhat different.  As it is Mum is an ISFP with Please others and Try hard drivers, as compared to my ESTJ with Be Strong, Be Perfect as drivers. For anyone involved in any field of behavioural science, that would tell you all you need to know to form a pretty fair assessment of the outcome of the conversation. So, as any good daughter with an insight into how my parents behave in certain situations, I encouraged them to come to see us for the afternoon, so they could see with their own eyes how well I am doing, and see that I am fighting this thing head on in a very positive way, so the best thing that they can do for me is be positive as well. And so far, I think they get it.

The rest of the day was not without its own highs and lows.  Two of our very lovely neighbours, Doug and Christine, took the time to knock on the door at around 1pm to let us know, in case we had not yet seen it,  that some hooligans had smashed the wing mirror off our car. The nice one. Ouch.  Mr Man has been cross about that all day, and an element of Mr Grumpy has shone through.  We also had a BBQ and given I am steering clear of red meat at present, I bought some quorn sausages to try.  Bil was a little concerned there were no real sausages but luckily Mr Man had also bought some regular Cumberland's - if it is not meat, its not a proper meal has long been a slogan in any house containing a Smithies,  However the Quorn ones were quite nice. And this evening  Mr Man and I were very pleasantly surprised to see our road and surrounding area featured on Spooks.  In fact Dimitri works in Bushells Estate Agent at the end of our road, and there was a lot of surveillance near one of our local parks. I've always thought some of those joggers looked a bit dodgey.

So despite, the mindless thuggery of some delinquents overnight, the positives are that it seems MI5 are on the doorstep and ready to act in an emergency so surely there will be no more trouble. Vegetarian sausages are actually alright, and I have lost a weight off my mind with regard to breaking my latest news to my parents.  And best of all, I have two special new blog followers to add to the green list in my Happy Book making a total of 100 to date. Now we still just need a project team name.....