Willy Wonka

‘Strike that; reverse it’ as Willy Wonka would say. I reported that Joan had few side effects from her latest round of Chemo. The steroids which are part of the infusion wore off and yesterday the nasties kicked in and she was in pain with stomach cramps, severe nausea and overwhelming tiredness. As another little kick in the guts, handfuls of her hair are falling out. Just what she needs to keep her spirits up!

Our daughter and her hubby are thinking of selling their (her) unit and buying a house with a yard so that their dog can wreck the yard instead of the furniture. We are going to help with a large (for us) sum of money when they eventually decide to buy. We have been looking at adverts for housing in this area and yesterday drove past some houses in different socio-economic areas. I rang Helen to tell her that we had seen a nice house in a good area, Beeliar, at an asking price of $500,000. As you will see, housing is expensive in Western Australia.

‘Beeliar? We don’t want to live there. It’s miles from anywhere!’ That made me sit back and I thought about it a bit and of course they are still young and want to be near entertainment, restaurants, friends and the city. We have in fact been house hunting for 60-70 year-olds, so we will leave it to them to choose where to buy.

The financial help we will give them will come from Joan’s superannuation and will be a tax free gift if it is given before her death.