Our Story

This is just a short entry to mark our one year anniversary
of living with cancer. It’s been a pretty traumatic year to say the least.
However, right at the moment I am enjoying myself immensely.

As you know I left my job at Framlingham College at the end
of the summer. At first it felt quite strange knowing that I did not have to go
to work and I felt a bit lost as to what to do with myself. That feeling didn’t
last long at all! We have discovered a new found interest in going away on exotic
holidays and I am finding that I have time to do many of the things I never
have been able to. It really is a sense of freedom that I don’t think I have ever
experienced before.

Mental health is in the news quite a bit at the moment and
the combined stress of a cancer diagnosis and treatment, combined with trying
to hold down a full time job cannot be underestimated. It is this time in your
life that you need to rely on support from your friends, family and employer to
help you through a most difficult period. I would like to say thank you to
everyone who has helped us both get through the last year. So thank you!

I have been thinking about what to do as a part time job and
have come up with a few ideas. So far these have been.

·
Local handyman for the village.

·
Set up a monthly cake and old fashioned pudding
club.

·
Bed & breakfast, (Nicky’s suggestion). First
booking in May I think Nicky?

·
Volunteer worker at a lunch club.

·
Catering consultant for local schools.

·
Relief chef in local care homes.

I was keen to try out the catering consultant role and have
set up a website offering management support to local independent schools. Have
a look here if you are interested. I really enjoyed putting a simple website
together. I started to send this to a few schools, but I then realised that I
am not sure if I really want to follow this through. Sounds a bit too much like
hard work!

I have spoken to a couple of local care homes to see if they
could offer me some casual chef work, covering for holidays or sickness. I have
had a very positive response and have been taken on by two different companies
to cover five homes. I have my first shift next Thursday. I am really looking
forward to it and if I am honest, just a little bit nervous. Will I remember how
to cook? I will let you know how it goes.

We are going to ‘celebrate’ our anniversary tonight with a gin or two. I think we may have a reputation as we are now up to 13 different gin varieties in our fridge. It is a real problem trying to decide which one to try next. It’s a hard life!

I think that’s all I have to say for today. Thank you for
following our blog, it’s great to see how many people read it, right across the
world.

Cheers Everyone!

Well it’s time for a bit of a holiday blog update.

We had intended to write a blog while we were in the
Maldives, but we just couldn’t find the time to write it. There were so many
cocktails to sample and delicious food to eat that we ran out of time!

We originally started writing this blog as a way of keeping
everyone updated about my cancer diagnosis, so I will just mention that I am
feeling as well as I ever have. I have no symptoms and am enjoying my spare
time to the full, especially now that I have left my job at Framlingham College. I won’t
see my consultant until next year, so for the time being I am keen to
forget that I even have cancer.

Anyway, back to the holiday. I am going to post this as a
trip advisor report as well as a blog, so forgive me if it sounds like a
holiday report, because that is what it is.

Basically, we had an amazing time! I could leave it at that, but that would mean
I wouldn’t be able to tell you all about the island paradise we visited.

We stayed at Hakuraa Huraa which is a six acre
island with individual chalets built out over the lagoon, arriving after dark following a long flight from Heathrow, via Colombo in Sri Lanka. We had an
amazing seaplane flight to take us to the island. Even though we were tired at
the end of our journey this was great fun. We were welcomed with a cold beer in
reception while we were given our room keys and details about our stay which
was a perfect way to start relaxing.

The whole holiday was a perfect mix of peace and quiet,
excellent food, sun, snorkelling, a little bit of exploring with a visit to a
residential island, and, of course – Cocktails. We even both had a one hour
Balinese massage, which was the first massage I have ever had. I was unsure
about it beforehand, but I really enjoyed it. I felt totally serene afterwards.

We stayed in a water bungalow, built on stilts above the
lagoon with steps straight into the water. This meant we could go snorkeling
directly from our room which was a bit of a novelty.

A good proportion of our time on the island was spent just sitting on the
beach reading. It feels such a luxury to have the time to just sit. We quickly developed
a holiday routine of relaxing with a book during the morning then wandering off
to the bar for a cold beer or cocktail followed by a leisurely lunch. The food
was one of the high points for us. Plenty of fish and lots of really tasty spicy
dishes. I renewed my acquaintance with chilli omelettes for breakfast which was
something we first discovered 27 years ago on our last visit to the Maldives
for our honeymoon. The most memorable dish we had was fresh grilled reef crab.
It was messy and difficult to eat, but it was so soft and sweet. Just delicious
and unlike any crab we have had before. It would be worth going back just for
that. (More about that later!)

We did know when we booked that we were going in the rainy
season, so we were not surprised to have some rain and they were serious downpours.
The hotel supplies all the rooms with long waterproof coats and life jackets
which we have not seen before. Presumably the life jackets are in case of
tsunami which is reassuring, until you see the tsunami assembly point is only
about 30m from the beach. But the island is tiny and that is about as far from
the sea that you can get. Anyway, we did use the waterproofs, but luckily did
not have call to use the lifejackets! Interestingly the temperature stays at
about the same 29 – 31c the whole time, whether it is day or night, sun or rain.

We had great service from all the staff for the whole 9
nights. Some of them are more friendly than others, but it seemed like they all
genuinely want to make your stay as good as possible. Having been in catering
all my career I do know there is such a thing as a professional catering smile,
but they all carried it off very convincingly. It all added to being able to
completely relax. One of the bar staff was very friendly and seemed keen to
walk along with his arm around me as he showed me to the bar. I was slightly
taken aback, but oh well, I can’t blame him really!

We had great fun snorkeling. This was either straight from
our water bungalow, from the beach or on one of the twice a day free snorkeling
trips. There are so many colourful fish to see. They don’t seem worried about
you being there and just swim around you. We bought a Gopro waterproof camera before
we went and had fun trying to film underwater with it. I think our best
achievement (for a couple of oldies) was an underwater snorkeling selfie
video.

Did I mention we enjoyed the cocktails?
There was a long list of cocktails to choose from and we tried most of them! We
both enjoyed the Hakuraa Island Iced Tea, but Bim’s favourite was a Zombie,
which is a rum based drink and I loved the dry Martinis. Lots to choose from
and we had great fun trying them.

One last thing to tell you about was our trip to a
neighbouring residential island. This was a boat ride away, and gave you an
idea of what it is like to live and work in the Maldives. We had a good walking
tour around the whole island and were shown in the local hospital, saw the
school, visited a couple of local shops and a fish market, although it had
closed when we got there. As soon as Bim saw the fish market, she started
looking behind the scenes, taking photos of the equipment and even the staff
loos! She just needed her white coat and hat on to be completely at home.

One of
the unexpected highlights of the trip was seeing all the different beautiful
flowers that grow there. We feel inspired to try and grow some here.

I could go on, but that’s all I am going to tell you about our fantastic trip to
Hakuraa Huraa, other than we are now planning a return visit to the Maldives,
hopefully in April next year.