Countdown to Michael's 60th Birthday.

Today is the first day of Spring.This is quite amusing as it has been bitterly cold and doesn't look much better tomorrow. We are crossing our fingers that the temperatures thaw before Friday. This will be the beginning of the most important social extravaganza of the century (at least until Andrew and Gina's Steampunk Wedding later in the month) and if the weather is kind, we can spend most of the weekend outside.Given we live in a tiny house, we will be much more comfortable if we can entertain visitors in the great outdoors.

Michael's birthday began unofficially yesterday. In spite of the fact he loathes the Big Smoke, he offered to drive me around in order to buy enough supplies to feed the Fifth Battalion, pick up Barfy Burgers and a myriad other errands that could only be done in Perth.

So, I thought it was more than fair that we pick up Michael's main present. He doesn't turn sixty every day and our wonderful family have all offered to throw in money for a wide angle lens. Michael's camera gives him such pleasure that this lens was an absolute priority. We actually spent a tad more as we also bought a new camera bag and two filters for the lens. Even if we had been on the bones of our bums, I would have moved heaven and earth to provide Michael with this gift.

He doesn't ask for much. And the fact he is alive is great cause for celebration. In the last sixteen months, he has had five admissions to hospital for chest complaints. The most serious was in April last year when he nearly died due to bilateral pneumonia. After forty years of smoking, his lungs are scarred by structural lung disease. This means that if he catches a respiratory virus, it inevitably becomes bacterial and takes weeks to recover. He has just finished two months of antibiotics, including four days on IV antibiotics in Joondalup Hospital. I hope that the cold weather recedes as fast as possible, so the respiratory bugs flying around disappear until next winter.

So we are preparing for an influx of family and friends to celebrate Michael's birthday. We have his sister, brother and cousins, his Mum and Dad, Vanessa and lots of local and Perth friends descending on the House that Rocks. This weekend will be a rip-roaring, joyous, probably badly behaved forty-eight-hour tribute of Michael's continued survival in the face of adversity.

I have one final wish. Michael's children are cordially invited to this party. Due to long hurts and misunderstandings, they have chosen not to have a relationship with their Dad. I would ask them all - please reconsider and join us. The past is the past, the present is to be cherished because the future is unknown.

A kaleidoscope of Michael - 2009 - 2015