Rupert and I just celebrated our first Anniversary together. As is the custom for a first Anniversary, my gift to Rupert was Paper. Toilet Paper in fact. Bought a dozen rolls of each and as you’d expect, Prankster Ainsley insists on using both rolls in alternating squares! She particularly likes the image of The Trumpet puckering up to kiss Rupert’s arse. Such a well brought up girl!🥰
The phone call from my GP confirming the serious spike in my PSA came on June 30th last year. I was being driven to Melbourne to celebrate “Christmas In July” with the extended family when I took the call. Since then it’s been all systems go to give that duplicitous bastard Rupert, at least as much discomfort as he was giving me. Hopefully we’ve slowed the prick down. All the following are steps to slow his progression down. The Oncologist has this sadistic habit of reminding me every visit that the cancer can’t be cured and the aim is simply to extend my life. Happy with his “aim”, not so happy with his bedside manner😀.
I had my Blood Test this morning and my PSA level has dropped to 0.6 which suggests the spread might have stopped/slowed down for a while. It was 34 at its peak so it’s a massive drop – get your PSA checked gentlemen. My last session of Chemotherapy is at 1.00pm tomorrow (thank bloody goodness) and Thursday afternoon I have CT Scan and Radiology meeting in preparation for my Radiation Treatment. After the scan, I have my pelvis tattooed to give them a target for the Ray Machine. I’m in discussions with them now about what form the tattoo will take. Apparently the tattooist thinks my idea of “horses heads” to mark the spots is beyond her level of expertise but I’m still holding out hope for little baseballs instead of boring “X marks the spot” decorations. And no Megan, they will not be tattooing my balls! They will advise me at this meeting when my 5 days per week treatments will commence and whether they will be for 6 or 9 weeks. Hoping for 6 obviously, but as I’ve done since June 30 last year, I will do exactly what the experts advise. Not much point owning a dog and barking yourself, so I’ll continue to do precisely what I’m told. I owe that to the people I love.❤️
And now (I promise) for my last Golf anecdotes. With the trots being held at the Showgrounds and then Moonee Valley back in the day, plenty of Punters, Bookmakers and even a number of Trainers were based around Essendon, Ascot Vale way. The easy access to Yarra Bend Public made that the golf course of choice for the trotting fraternity for midweek 18’s. These accounts of what occurred on the 13th, 14th and 15th Holes (or as I like to call them The Trotting Bermuda Triangle) at Yarra Bend are verifiably true. I was there for the events on the Par 3, 112 metre 14th and the Par 4, 341 metre 15th and a person I would trust with my life was there for what happened on the Par 4, sharp dogleg to the left, 308 metre 13th. I believe the Hole numbers may have subsequently changed with some course alterations, but they were Holes 13, 14 & 15 when these incidents took place. Enjoy.
IVAN AND THE GOLD ROLEX: Everyone who has ever played a round of golf knows someone who is a friend of someone’s brother who knows someone who threw their clubs and golf bag into the drink after a particularly demoralising series of miss hits only to have to retrieve their bag because their car keys were in one of the pockets. Only problem is, I suspect most these tales are “urban myths” but his one isn’t. Jim Hynes, the person I would absolutely trust with my life, was a member of the regular Wednesday Foursome that played in the 70’s for the grand total of a Red Lobster each with settling after the 18th. In fact, Jimmy is the common denominator, in each of the 3 tales.🤔 Another regular in the Foursome was Ivan Ribot, a massive Trots punter in the 70’s who never obtained his Driver’s Licence. There was a green side bunker on the Yarra River side of the 13th green that Ivan managed to land in this infamous day and with each of his unsuccessful 10 bunker shots being hit with more venom than the previous one, he was lining up for his 11th attempt when he exploded “Fuck It, I’m never playing golf again”. His 11th out of the bunker was never hit but next instant his sand iron was hitting the murky waters of the Yarra River followed by his pitching wedge, 9,8,7,6,5,4 and 3 Irons, his Driver, his 3 wood, his 5 wood, his putter and finally his now empty, Golf Bag. Ivan was a little bloke and apparently by the time his bag was flung into the river he was more than a little exhausted and whilst his sand iron nearly made it to the opposite river bank, his bag barely made it to the water. With that he handed over $20 to each of his playing partners, spun on his heel and headed of towards the Pro Shop to call a Taxi (no Uber in those days) to go home. He’d only gone about 40 metres when a dreadful thought occurred to him and he sheepishly returned to the river bank. He needed to retrieve his golf bag, not because he had keys in a bag pocket, but because his Gold Rolex was safely tucked away in a bag compartment and the bag and Rolex were now floating off towards Ivanhoe. By sheer good luck, a rower from Studley Park Boathouse was passing the scene of the crime at that exact time and for the cost to Ivan of a Pineapple, he retrieved the Golf Bag, Ivan salvaged his Rolex and this time, his energy levels restored, the bag made it safely into the middle of the river and sunk to the bottom. I suspect it lays there to this day. As for Ivan, I understand, true to his word, he never played golf again.⛳️
“HOLD THE PHONE, THAT’S ANOTHER IRON HEAD GOING FURTHER THAN THE BALL”: In the early 90’s I must have been having a dirty run on the punt and I needed to replace my old set of Clubs (or Sticks as 🐢 would call them🤣) and rather than stump up for a new set of Callaway Irons, I went the “iron head knock off” route and had them fitted with decent shafts by a Club Builder in Sydney. Saved a few hundred bucks and the irons were terrific. As you do, I boasted to Jimmy Hynes about my bargain purchase and he followed suit ordering the same set of irons from the same builder. This day at Yarra Bend his new clubs made their debut. By the time we reached the Par 3, 14th hole only 2 of Jimmy’s new irons were still intact. The other 7 had all snapped clean off where the iron head was attached to the shaft. Now to his credit, Jimmy was an above average snooker player, but as he’s reminded me once or twice over the years, he had more than enough Snooker cues and didn’t need another 9 short graphite ones. Perhaps the shafts snapping was God’s way of telling Jimmy to stick to snooker and to forget about golf. On the one occasion when Jimmy got down on his hands and knees on the green and used one of the newly acquired snooker cues to putt, he sunk possibly the longest putt I’ve ever seen him make – had to be all of 4 feet! I made him take a 2 shot penalty for that of course! So as Jimmy is teeing off, with his at this stage, his still undamaged 9 Iron, I was on the mobile to the Sydney Golf Club Builder letting him know that 7 of the new clubs he’d sent down had snapped. He was in the process of telling me that he must have connected them too tightly and he’d replace them free of charge when I interrupted him mid sentence with a chorus of Queen’s classic “Another One Bites The Dust” as the head of Jimmy’s 9 iron disappeared into the distance as his ball failed to reach the Ladies Tee. The laughs shared that day and repeated over countless lunches and rounds of golf since, always at my expense I might add, made the Club Replacement exercise well and truly worthwhile. Jimmy usually embellishes the story by saying I pocketed a 50% sling from the Builder for recommending his services, but in truth, my commission on the sale was actually 60%.😀
SWEARING WAYNE AND THE RUNAWAY GOLF BUGGY: The 15th hole ran alongside the Yarra and sloped pretty steeply towards the river. This day, Wayne Pollock joined us for the round, and it was Jimmy’s introduction to Swearing Wayne. If Lefty hit a good drive he swore, if he hit a bad drive he swore, if he made a putt he swore and if he missed a putt he swore even more. In fact, I would estimate about 15% of the phrases uttered by Wayne during his “introduction to Jimmy” round included the word FUCK! From that day on, Jimmy always referred to him as Swearing Wayne. Both Jimmy and myself usually enjoy the chat more than the golf when we play and this day we were chewing the fat as Jimmy prepared to hit his third when Jimmy’s buggy took off down the incline headed towards the river just down stream from where Ivan’s bag settled in it’s watery grave. Jimmy probably had me covered for speed that day but he was a million to one about catching his buggy before it plummeted into the murky water and this time his car and house keys were tucked into a bag pocket so he faced getting very, very wet when he went in to recover them. Then enter Stage Left, running at close to the speed of sound, Swearing Wayne to catch Jimmy’s buggy just as it was going into the drink. Once again, we nearly needed an ambulance for a paramedic to examine us all for suspected heart attacks we were laughing that much. Just another memorable day in Trotting’s Bermuda Triangle.🤣
I apologise for taking so long to Post an update but I simply haven’t felt up to it. I think it’s the knowledge that my last EVER chemo session is on tomorrow that has provided the adrenaline boost I needed to get back on line. Ill try to do better going forward. Here’s to no more chemo. Cheers.
And finally, my binging recommendation for this Post is a French crime show called Spiral. There are 8 seasons available on SBS On Demand and they are all rippers.
Stay safe. Love Russ.❌⭕️❤️
Living With Rupert 