Overflow bookings.

Very good friends of ours, Ken & Jenny, have a B&B here called Ford House, actually that is where Walter and I were married, so named because there used to be a ford across the Blackwood River there before they built the bridge.

Well last week they broke all booking records.... and this is what they had to do to accommodate one of their more vocal customers,a motorbike frog.

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About 10 months ago Ken went to Perth for a routine procedure and ended up the next day minus a kidney, and 27 tumors being discovered in his lungs. He has never smoked or drank, and worked outside keeping the grounds of Ford House looking immaculate, as well as being the chef. Ken grows and preserves all the fruit and vegetables they use, so you could say they have lead a pretty healthy lifestyle. But it seems cancer does not discriminate.

The doctors gave him no chance of living past a few weeks. He had always wanted to go for a Hot Air Balloon ride over Bath in England. So as soon as had recovered enough from the surgery of they went. Most of us here not expecting him to come back, and I'm sure Ken felt the same way.

While driving in the English countryside, they saw a sign pointing to a Gypsy Fortune Teller, and just for the excercise they visited her. They did not reveal that Ken was ill until after she had made her predictions. When they told her Ken was terminally ill, she said that nothing was going to happen in at least the next 12 months.

In her predictions she had mentoned some other things that were quite astute, like the name of someone who had been a great help to them. Well it completely changed the way Ken viewed his future, it went from being at the tip of his nose to somewhere in the distance, and that is how he has coped in these ensuing months. He is still very ill, and gets extremely tired, but he gets up every day and just gets on with the things he can manage.

Then a couple of months ago Jenny, was at first diagonised with Acute Lymphoma. As Ken said when I was talking to him, "Jenny is so competitive that she had to have something worse." Well thank goodness it turned out not to be Lymphoma, but some other very serious and life threatning condidion, that needs constant monitoring, and heaps of medication. But they are both still with us and continuing to run Ford House in their inimitable style, and with their wonderful sense of humour.
As Merle said in her post just recently, any day above ground is a good thing.

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Courage is not being able to see the bottom of the deep end, but jumping in anyway.