Special Note: I had this Post finished and ready to publish on 21 December 2023. And then the tragic news of a mass shooting in Prague came through. I have therefore held back the story for a couple of weeks out of respect for the people who lost their life.
23 May – 4 June 2012
Wed, 30 May 2012 17:35:16 +0200
Hi Nance and Barb,
Hope all goes well with u both.
We have been in Prague … Read the rest ... “We’ll Always Have Prague – and the China Lady on the Wall”
By Greg
This story took me longer to write than perhaps any other, but it was a tale I wanted to tell.
Trenna’s birthday has recently passed so obviously I started thinking about her. One thing that came to mind was the time she spent with our neighbour Terry, near the end of Terry’s life.
Terry, her husband Neil, and their young son Jason moved into the house on the corner, two doors up from us … Read the rest ... “The Craft Group and Caring for Terry”
By Greg
You may have noticed that we have just passed the 50th anniversary of the birth of hip-hop.
It wasn’t an anniversary that was on my radar, in fact, neither Trenna or I were big fans of hip-hop. We didn’t dislike it, it was just that there was a lot of other music around. That is until hot one afternoon in December 2013.
Each year Perth has an international festival. And each year I … Read the rest ... “Trenna & Public Enemy – 50 years of hip-hop”
The name on the file was “Bronchitis” but it was so much more than that.
Trenna died nearly three years ago and, maybe as a coping mechanism, I have been enjoying telling people of her achievements and of events in her life. She did a lot.
But occasionally I remember something, or I see something that reminds me of what she went through, and how at times it was so, so hard for her.
I recently saw a file on … Read the rest ... “Chronic Illness – The Straws Accumulate”
By Greg
The FREE e-book I refer to is a copy of the autobiography Jack’s Luck by Jack Mahney (written with assistance from Trenna). There is a download link to it at the bottom of the page.
Some time around early 1997 my parents lived in a retirement village and on a weekend we would often visit them. It was nice place with plenty of gardens and lots of … Read the rest ... “Jack’s Luck (and a FREE e-book!)”
By Greg
I think Trenna’s Darwin letters to my parents convey a lot of the colour and light of our two year stay at the top of Australia. If you haven’t caught up with them I suggest you start them HERE.
There were a few stories from that period that weren’t covered by Trenna’s letters, so I thought I’d cobble together a bunch of them in this post.
We moved to Darwin so that I could … Read the rest ... “The Green Salad Sandwich Maker, and Other Darwin Stories”
Trenna loved reading, and she loved writing. She also loved, a lot, but for many years this was very often unrequited.
She tells in the Kitchen Tapes, HERE, of the dozens of love poems and letters she wrote to Murray Malski.
Trenna also kept a notebook during her high school years and wrote poetry in it.
Whilst Trenna was alive I was … Read the rest ... “Angsty Teenage Poetry #1”
by Greg
I can still remember it clearly, really clearly. I took Trenna’s hand and looked into those enormous brown eyes.
“Do you like me?” It sounds pretty stupid now but I had to find out what was happening inside that complex brain of hers. I couldn’t believe how well things seemed to be going between us.
She didn’t answer immediately. Instead she took a sip of her glass of Moondah Brook Chenin Blanc, her … Read the rest ... “The Earliest Days of Trenna AND Greg – Part 1”
Regular readers will know this, but…. although I mention several specific brands in this post I do NOT get any financial or other benefit from them. I name them just to help you understand what I’m talking about.
If you find this post useful or interesting you might want to check out three other posts: Marfan and Other Chronic Conditions – Things That Worked for Trenna; Things That Worked for … Read the rest ... “Marfan Weight Gain”
By Greg
As I hope you know, one goal of this website is to get you to know Trenna a little better. So, I thought I’d provide some insights into the things Trenna liked to drink.
It would have been 1986 or 1987 when I first met Trenna, and it was in a downstairs bar called Cine Cellars near the corner of Hay and Barrack Streets in Perth city. She would regularly go there … Read the rest ... ““Better than sex” – Earl Grey and Other Favourite Drinks”
4 March 2013
By Trenna, with an intro from Greg
I had always planned on including this story from Trenna’s iPad. As I read it I can tell that she has done a bit of a download of her brain to get it down in print whilst still fresh in her memory.
I feel sure that she hoped to come back to it in future and elaborate on some of the comments. She either never got around to it, … Read the rest ... “Soundwave Festival 2013”
Among the documents on Trenna’s iPad there are two called “Weekly Routine”. One is labelled “2016” and the other “2017”.
It is actually not quite as pernickety as it seems.
In this post I will reproduce both of them. In them Trenna goes into immense detail about times she intends doing things and what looks like a very strict routine.
It is actually not quite as pernickety as it … Read the rest ... “To Feel Able”
One of the heart warming aspects of putting this website together is to learn that there are a number of people who are reading everything that I put up. I’m also happy with the comments I am getting on individual posts.
One such person is Trenna’s only brother Colin Seckington, who for many years has lived in Europe. I received a message from him a couple of days ago, and I have … Read the rest ... ““Dead at 27 and Never To Marry””
Here is another pearl from Trenna’s iPad. It looks like she started it on 27 April 2016 (at 10:31 am) but then didn’t edit it again until 31 May 2017. (How nerdy is that detail I’ve given you?!)
PLEASE NOTE: It is a 3 page document from the iPad, if your browser is only showing one page you may need to click on the link or the Download button.
As I write this I … Read the rest ... “The Key to Happiness and Fulfilment”
By Greg
Here is a special bonus post, because it is Palm Sunday today. Neither Trenna nor I were religious, but there is a story related to this day that Trenna and I always remembered.
I got together with Trenna at the very start of 1988, so our relationship was very young. I’m pretty sure by that stage we hadn’t said the word LOVE in a sentence to each other.
The Cold … Read the rest ... “A Burger with a Peace Rally, and a Watch on the Side”
Looking through Trenna’s iPad I came across the document she wrote to review/record the Black Sabbath concert we went to along with a friend, Adrian. It was the first time I had read this piece since 2016.
It immediately brought back memories of a really fab night. I also found some of the turns of phase pretty entertaining.
I will put her writing below, in the main body of this post but also … Read the rest ... “Moshing With Black Sabbath!”
by Greg
This is a list of some of the strategies Trenna adopted to try to cope with life and her many medical issues. She didn’t have a specific list of these items. This is just the things I remember us trying.
I’m expecting (hoping?) that this post might be helpful to people living with chronic disease, and their carers. But of course everyone’s situation is different.
For most of her life she was … Read the rest ... “Marfan and Other Chronic Conditions – Things That Worked for Trenna”
In November 2016 my then employer, Advocare Inc, gave me the opportunity to go to a mediation conference in Wellington, New Zealand.
Travel was becoming increasingly difficult for Trenna. Her eyesight was very bad and her pain management was not going well. We knew that the long flight from Perth in Western Australia to Auckland and then down to Wellington would take its toll.
On the other hand it really … Read the rest ... “The Wellington Earthquake”
Trenna always liked to tell a story. She knew that her life story was interesting and that some people could find comfort in hearing how she coped with what life threw at her.
We had talked about it for a long time and in April 2018 Trenna asked if we could record her tales. We didn’t have a firm view on what we would do with them. A … Read the rest ... “The Kitchen Tapes”
This post is a simple one, but to Trenna and I the following was important.
In May 2017 Trenna wrote the PDF document that appears below. The formatting was as she wrote it on her iPad. The font size she used was large to help her read it.
The distinctive colour was to help her find it on her iPad when the document was minimised.
As far as I can … Read the rest ... “Living With Your Spouse”