Jubilee

It is now time to share one of the longest running sagas of my Myeloma. A long running dispute which has only been partially resolved at the very end of our time in Tanzania.

Free

I'm free. I have no scheduled appointments at hospital for many weeks ahead. 😃 Today I met with my consultant who does not need to see me again until October, after my Stem Cell transplantation has taken place. That leaves only my scheduled stem cell harvesting in late August and the transplantation in early October.  [...]

Umbilical

It's just about a week now until the family leave Mwanza. I'm looking forward to seeing them back in the UK - it's over three months since I bid my wife and daughter farewell on that twilit Kenyan Easter Monday Morning. Yet at the same time as I am excited to see them - there [...]

Change

Recently in Mwanza a group of expats and Tanzanian nationals have started up a group called Mwanza Storytellers. The aim is to allow people to share their stories on a chosen theme. So approximately once a month they have  gathered at the Yacht Club. Anita was asked to talk at the most recent (and her [...]

Summer Holiday

As life changes for me this post reflects on the places I have visited and the memories we have I made.

Overbooked

The practice of overbooking flights and the consequences for those affected i.e. us

Mwanza

A post about the place I lived for almost three years on the day my son flies out to visit.

A Strange Father’s Day

For the first time in living memory I am a Father alone on Father's Day. I know it's a commercial thing (unlike Mothering Sunday) but even so it has amplified the absence of family. My own Father died in 2006 of Motor Nueron Disease a rapidly developing disease which took him from an active man [...]

Weekly Photo Challenge: Focus (Venus, Mars and a later Moon)

A submission to this week's photo challenge : Focus. Taking photos of the night sky is difficult - my Canon EOS 70D needed a lot of tweaking to get something and in truth my inexperience got less than focused shots of the sky on that occasion. It was however, too good an opportunity to miss [...]

Work Day

Today has been a day of work. Its been a bit strange but nice to do something purposeful. It seems strange to me at least to be enjoying the fact of doing work. I generally prefer time off to work. However, after seven weeks in which most of the time I have been doing nothing [...]

Missing Mwanza

It's been seven weeks since I arrived in the UK and almost nine weeks since I left Mwanza. This town in north western Tanzania was my home for the past two and a half years and my departure from the town was both unplanned and unexpected. My family are still there and will not be [...]

Weekly Photo Challenge: Coffee Friends

A submission to this week's photo challenge: Friend. Taken outside the Fish Market in Mwanza last November. We were on a walk around the lakeside peninsular with Fiona, a walking friend, when we came across these guys drinking Kahawa (coffee) - they invited us to join us in a brew and we enjoyed several steaming [...]

Weekly Photo Challenge: Feathered Friends

A submission to this week's photo challenge on the theme of  Friend One thing I really miss about Tanzania is the bird life. The wide variety of birdlife in our garden there cannot be matched in the UK - the vast majority of photos were taken in our garden in Mwanza. You can find many [...]

Twenty Two Years

Today is our twenty second wedding anniversary. We are spending it over 4000 miles apart. The toughest part for both of us has been the trans-continental split in the family. We have been apart for over almost six weeks and will be for almost two months more. The challenge of the Myeloma and its treatments [...]

Better by Far

As I am in the middle of my second bout of Chemotherapy it's time to reflect on where things are. I expected that the chemotherapy would be making me ill. You here scare stories of hair loss and sickness. Maybe that will come, though I am assured hair loss is unlikely with Valcade.  In truth [...]