I havent been here for so long!Part of the reason is a nasty dvt which I had in my leg.My doctor who is the most glorious young Russian woman really worried about me and her early intervention and treatment saved me from possible hospitalisation - but I felt FAR more crappy for several weeks than I ever have been with the MS.Today is the anniversary of my Dad's death and sadly my best friends dad passed away on wednesday.In memory of Dad I've written a little piece. The Serendipitious Mango ChutneyThirty seven years ago my parents bought a beautiful old house in Grafton. In the garden were three enormous mango trees which each year produced a staggering number of mangoes. No matter how many mangoes the fruit bats chomped their way through there always seemed to be hundreds more. Even a large family was incapable of eating them all. We gave boxes full away to grateful friends and the rest inevitably ended up down the well at the bottom of the garden. The well mysteriously subsided a few feet a day so there was always room for another wheelbarrow full of 'dead' mangoes.Then one year Dad decided to try his hand at making mango chutney.He would spend hours peeling and chopping the mangoes to produce the pulp. Of course there was always more than he needed so many many kilos of mango pulp was frozen so production of the chutney could continue year round. The chutney was a great success. Dad pedalled it around town it to cafes, restaurants and the tourist information office. One of his best customers was a lady called Frances who worked as a midwife with my mother,at the local hospital. She loved 'Dad's Mango Chutney'.Many many years later and a thousand kilometres away I was doing some casual teaching at a local highschool and met a young teacher called Sarah. We got chatting and discovered our mutual connection to Grafton. Sarah turned out to be Frances's daughter so she knew all about 'Dad's Mango Chutney'.Sarah eventually returned to Grafton to teach and ended up sharing a staffroom with my sister, who was also a teacher.Dad passed away two years ago and as Mum wasn't able to live alone, the house was sold. In the process of clearing the house my sister discovered many bags of mango pulp in the freezer. She passed these on, together with Dad's recipe for mango chutney, to Sarah and her mother Frances.Yesterday I was visiting my sister and with great delight she gave me a jar of mango chutney - made by Frances and Sarah.