Looking back on 2011

Our plan to have a grown-up intermittent "gap year" traveling when both children left home ended abruptly when Steve was diagnosed...

Flames of Hope and Courage

T he Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO) invites you to be part of the “Light a Candle” community.  As we honor our loved ones fi...

a family Christmas

It started with just two of us, dressing the tree, decorating the house and wrapping presents to get ready for Steve's third Christmas s...

The Christmas get together

Although Steve was born in Bristol, the Wride family moved around a lot as he was growing up. When his parents decided to move back to Brist...

Two and a half years on and we're still celebrating.....

It's two and a half years since Steve was diagnosed with mesothelioma and if you read yesterday's blog you will understand why we ar...

Christmas comes early!

I won't beat about the bush - just want to share the good news....No sign of any change in Steve's condition; disease still stable! ...

Countdown: 1

After getting well and truly wound up about Steve's assessment this time round, support from friends and the Meso Warriors things have h...

Countdown: 2

I am a wuss.  I've been getting more and more stressed as the week goes on, worrying about something that hasn't happened yet. Then ...

Countdown: 4.....3.......

Sunday morning saw us folding and writing  more Christmas cards , ready for posting today and sorting out some more presents online. Sunday ...

Countdown: 5

If you have dropped by the blog for the first time in a week or two, you may think I've gone into a parallel universe where Christmas is...

Countdown: 6

With six days to go to Steve's next hospital assessment, retail therapy really came into its own today as a way of distracting ourselves...

Countdown 7

This time next week, we will know the outcome of Steve's next hospital assessment, so we will either be celebrating or gearing ourselves...

Countdown 8

The continuing story of the kitchen sink drama has provided today's distraction from Steve's impending hospital assessment in eight ...

Countdown 9

To distract himself from getting stressed about his next hospital assessment in nine days time, Steve spent most of the day in the kitchen. ...

Countdown - 10

It's 10 days to go until Steve's next hospital assessment. We are in countdown mode, trying to keep ourselves busy and not get too s...

Recipes for an unsilent night and a chatty day

Recipe for an Unsilent Night Ingredients:  100 + strangers with ghetto blasters, i-pads, laptops, mobile phones, MP3 players and such like, ...

Progress and a retrospective

At last - progress on our festive preparations! Steve has designed this year's Christmas card and we have printed the first batch, ready...

And so it begins.....

The Advent Christmas tree is on the mantlepiece in the front room, with a chocolate tucked away in every little drawer (apart from No 1 whic...

a day London and our first Christmas card

As we have been working hard on home-front, yesterday we treated ourselves to a day out in London on the back of our first ever meeting with...

and a step forward!

After the hiccups of last week, Steve is on a roll!  Not only is the new bathroom light still firmly holding on to the ceiling, he's als...

One step forwards and two steps back

Back in the summer we bought some replacement fittings for the kitchen sink, including a snazzy new tap with a spray, and a printer/scanner/...

Torn to pieces

Today we have been mainly shredding.  Paper.  Lots of it. So much paperwork, that the shredder keeps overheating and turning itself off.  Su...

In Steve's own words: It's good to talk (and listen)

It's my turn to blog again, and as the title says, it's good to talk. That's what I did on Saturday, talked and listened. Firstl...

Two years and five months.......

It's two years and five months to the day since Steve was diagnosed with mesothelioma...... and he's still here.......still going st...

Bonjour - we are back from Paris!

Last year, I was given Eurostar vouchers for  Christmas  by our children, but life has been so full in 2011 that we didn't have the oppo...

For Anita, with love

On 25 October 2010, just over a year ago, I came across Anita Steiner's story and added a link to her blog under " We are not alone...

Life goes on, with barely a pause for breath

I have found it difficult to pick up again where I left the blog in mid-October, after the sad news of Ronny's death from mesothelioma. ...