Category:

Macedonia

Makedonium is 50 today!

By Nick Nasev

August 2, 2024

min read

One of the world's most distinct monuments, the Ilinden Monument, otherwise known as Makedonium (and during the 2020-22 pandemic as "Covid") was opened 50 years ago today in Krushevo, Macedonia!

Hi, zdravo, bok, zdravei, g'day! I’m Nick Nasev, an Aussie of Balkan background living in the UK. I’ve been a translator and editor for 20+ years. If you have an interest in languages and all things Balkan, Eastern European, Australian and beyond, along with a dash of corny and irony, then stick with me as I rant about my experiences and stories.

Your text deserves to be taken seriously; have it translated and edited with confidence.

info@nicknasev.com

Contact me with the details of your text at info@nicknasev.com

Continue reading

December 17, 2024

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My new personalised stamp!

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December 11, 2024

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Australian English: peanut butter or peanut paste?

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December 8, 2024

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Australian English: deffo, devo, defo...

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December 1, 2024

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What not to wear for Christmas in Australia...

Christmas stuff has been on sale for weeks now. But sometimes things get a little messed up... like these Christmas jumpers/sweaters.

November 29, 2024

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Serbo-Croatian? Yes, I still work from it.

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November 26, 2024

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Macquarie Dictionary's 2024 word of the year is...

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November 24, 2024

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I'm now a full member of the Chartered Institute of Linguists of the UK!

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November 19, 2024

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Indian and Australian English... the links between them

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November 7, 2024

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What's the name of this famous Australian natural landmark?

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November 4, 2024

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Australians... easy-going and laid-back?

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Australian English: one for the Petrolheads!

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Australia and trick-or-treating... a minefield

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Can the "world's most accurate translator" do Australian English?

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October 6, 2024

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Trileche, the not-so-traditional Balkan dish

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December 11, 2024

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Australian English: peanut butter or peanut paste?

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November 7, 2024

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What's the name of this famous Australian natural landmark?

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November 4, 2024

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Australians... easy-going and laid-back?

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Australian English: one for the Petrolheads!

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Australia and trick-or-treating... a minefield

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Australian English: is it email and/or e-mail?

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Australian English: scull/skull, stinker, flow-on effect, rock up, slippery dip...

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August 3, 2024

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Jumping Jai Taurima, Australian Olympic Legend...

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July 31, 2024

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Australian (Olympics) English: battered sav, hello boys, crazy date, flat bags, goose...

How a comedy routine during the 2000 Sydney Olympics provided Australia with its own, very naughty, gymnastics lexicon!

July 28, 2024

min read

Why are Aussies so good at swimming?

To get away from the sharks! Nah, it's more than that.

July 25, 2024

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The [enter place name] Olympics are going to be a disaster...

Or perhaps not. It wouldn't be an Olympics if there wasn't impending doom. But how has it actually turned out?

July 4, 2024

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Who's gonna win: Sunderland or Newcastle? Fancy a Democracy Sausage? Or take a ride on the "Bulgarian Train"

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June 30, 2024

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Accadacca at 50!

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June 30, 2024

min read

Pets on public transport: yes or no? 👍👎

Australians adore pets... but not on public transport. How come?

June 21, 2024

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Australian English: "We're de factos!"

Many Australians are in "de facto relationships". What are these and how do they differ from marriage?

May 23, 2024

min read

Burger King vs Hungry Jacks. Is there a difference?

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May 22, 2024

min read

Poor Gina...

The lady doth protest too much, methinks. Australia's richest woman, mining magnate Gina Rinehart got more than what she bargained for when she wanted a portrait of her taken down. And how does wine figure into this too?

April 6, 2024

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Homonyms maketh the sentence…

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June 1, 2023

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Happy 50th anniversary to the Adelaide Festival Centre!

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May 25, 2023

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May 11, 2023

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How come Australia is at Eurovision? It’s actually a perfect marketing opportunity…

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March 28, 2023

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Hand gestures, i.e. the time when George Bush Senior figuratively told the Aussies where to go…

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March 8, 2023

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min read

Australian English: peanut butter or peanut paste?

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min read

Australian English: deffo, devo, defo...

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min read

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min read

What's the name of this famous Australian natural landmark?

One of Australia's most visited tourist sites has two official names, but Aussies almost exclusively use one of them. Do you know which one?

November 1, 2024

min read

Australian English: one for the Petrolheads!

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October 23, 2024

min read

Can the "world's most accurate translator" do Australian English?

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min read

Australian English: is it email and/or e-mail?

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Australian English: scull/skull, stinker, flow-on effect, rock up, slippery dip...

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Australian English, Olympics edition: "Boomers croak in medal tilt"

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July 31, 2024

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Australian (Olympics) English: battered sav, hello boys, crazy date, flat bags, goose...

How a comedy routine during the 2000 Sydney Olympics provided Australia with its own, very naughty, gymnastics lexicon!

July 28, 2024

min read

Why are Aussies so good at swimming?

To get away from the sharks! Nah, it's more than that.

June 21, 2024

min read

Australian English: "We're de factos!"

Many Australians are in "de facto relationships". What are these and how do they differ from marriage?

May 23, 2024

min read

Burger King vs Hungry Jacks. Is there a difference?

May 22, 2024

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Poor Gina...

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Australian etiquette: the Outback Driving Wave

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Ask what’s most unique about Australian English 🪃, the answers usually are our accent and slang✔️. However, there are also a number of uniquely Australian English words in regular use, even in formal situations, that Australians are surprised to find are not used everywhere else in the English-speaking world (OK, sometimes also in New Zealand🥝, […]

June 30, 2023

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Watch out, here comes the Aussie version of The Office…

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May 29, 2023

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What’s a “bank holiday”? Do Aussies say that too?

Today (Monday), 29 May 2023 is a “bank holiday” in the United Kingdom, our third this month! 📆Now this term “bank holiday” often confuses many people not from the UK or Ireland. Does this mean that it’s a holiday for banks only? 🧐

April 11, 2023

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Eshays and Adlays: Australia’s answer to London’s Roadmen

Eshays and Adlays: the latest bunch of Pig-Latin-speaking, Nike-wearing young bogans (vilified poor working-class people) to cause massive moral panic in Australia 🇦🇺

April 7, 2023

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Move over Easter Bunny 🐇 … make way for the Easter Bilby! 🪃

Bunnies are considered cute and loveable… except in Australia 🇦🇺, where they’re a major scourge🤬.

March 28, 2023

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Hand gestures, i.e. the time when George Bush Senior figuratively told the Aussies where to go…

Have you unwittingly done a hand gesture that meant something completely different in another country? Here’s a true story…

March 10, 2023

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Calisthenics: body strength training or a performance art for girls?

💪🏼 Calisthenics (US English) or Callisthenics (UK English), one the biggest crazes in fitness worldwide, is a form of strength training using bodyweight exercises and minimal equipment…

January 24, 2023

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Seachange, Treechange, E-change

Something Australian (but no way uniquely) today…Do you fancy an escape from the rat race and going for a seachange 🌊, treechange 🌳 or e-change 💻?

November 29, 2024

min read

Serbo-Croatian? Yes, I still work from it.

3 decades have passed since it officially ceased to exist but I still get requests to translate from Serbo-Croatian. How come?

November 24, 2024

min read

I'm now a full member of the Chartered Institute of Linguists of the UK!

Yet another accreditation...

November 22, 2024

min read

Hindi/Urdu and Balkan languages... the links between them

There are words that are the same in Hindi and Urdu as in Croatian and Romanian?! How can this be? Find out here...

October 23, 2024

min read

Can the "world's most accurate translator" do Australian English?

Does DeepL live up to its claim of being "the world's most accurate translator" when it comes to Aussie English? Get ready for some zingers!

October 20, 2024

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Why are there so many Turkish words in Balkan languages?

Let's see how Turkish has influenced the languages of the Balkans and further afield. Bujrum!

October 17, 2024

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False Friend Friday! Time for some Latin-based words

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August 25, 2023

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Луд купон, the “crazy coupon” Bulgarian party

So who’s having a “crazy coupon” this weekend? 🎉 Wait!✋ A crazy coupon?🎟️😲 What’s that?

August 22, 2023

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Oldtajmer, evergrin, rekorder, golman… the world of Balkan pseudo-anglicisms

Did you hear about the man who collects “old-timers”? 👴🏽 Or that Frank Sinatra has many “evergreens”? 🌲

June 26, 2023

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Homonyms maketh the sentence…

How do you say in Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin or Serbian this: “Up there, the mountains burn worse”?👉 Gore gore gore gore.

March 29, 2023

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Naš jezik at Munich Airport

I’m about to fly off to Australia transiting through Munich Airport 🇩🇪 … so I’m preparing myself to be ready to speak in “naš jezik” (“our language”).

March 22, 2023

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Ramadan or Ramazan?

The Muslim holy month of Ramadan starts today ☪️

December 4, 2024

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Professor, Doctor, Docent, Magister... let's get into academic titles!

Some societies take them very seriously, some not so much. Find out more here...

October 20, 2024

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Why are there so many Turkish words in Balkan languages?

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October 6, 2024

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Trileche, the not-so-traditional Balkan dish

How thanks to the Albanians, a Latin American cake conquered the Balkans.

September 6, 2024

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"Can you identify the text here?"

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July 30, 2024

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25 years since the death of Bulgarian chalga star Rumyana

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July 4, 2024

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Who's gonna win: Sunderland or Newcastle? Fancy a Democracy Sausage? Or take a ride on the "Bulgarian Train"

August 25, 2023

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Луд купон, the “crazy coupon” Bulgarian party

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August 22, 2023

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March 22, 2023

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March 8, 2023

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March 6, 2023

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Hugging and cheek-kissing in southeast Europe. The does and don’ts

Do you know what to do with hugging and cheek-kissing in southeast Europe? Do you know which countries kiss twice and others three times?

February 1, 2023

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Out today! Elixir, In the Valley at the End of Time

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November 22, 2024

min read

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September 6, 2024

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August 23, 2023

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December 17, 2024

min read

My new personalised stamp!

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December 4, 2024

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November 29, 2024

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3 decades have passed since it officially ceased to exist but I still get requests to translate from Serbo-Croatian. How come?

November 24, 2024

min read

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Yet another accreditation...

November 22, 2024

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October 23, 2024

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Can the "world's most accurate translator" do Australian English?

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October 15, 2024

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The time US military officials used a computer to predict the outcome of the Vietnam War...

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September 29, 2024

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International Translation Day and the Dragomans

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August 21, 2024

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Meyk lov - not vor

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June 26, 2023

min read

Any place, any time…

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April 26, 2023

min read

English language translation tips: use of long forms of country names

Republic of Serbia 🇷🇸, Republic of Croatia 🇭🇷, Kingdom of Norway 🇳🇴, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland 🇬🇧, Oriental Republic of Uruguay 🇺🇾, Plurinational State of Bolivia 🇧🇴 …

November 19, 2024

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Indian and Australian English... the links between them

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October 15, 2024

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The time US military officials used a computer to predict the outcome of the Vietnam War...

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October 14, 2024

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September 6, 2024

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"Can you identify the text here?"

Did you know that people regularly contact me to identify text they can't decipher. That's what happens when I know a number of languages.

October 23, 2023

min read

You know that time when Madonna was interviewed by a Hungarian tabloid? Or when translation goes hilariously bad…

We all know how some translations can be so bad that they’re unintentionally hilarious, like the viral examples from Engrish.com...

September 14, 2023

min read

Working in IT? What do you call yourself? An IT-ian, a Hitechist…?

Working in IT? 👩🏻‍💻 Would you call yourself an IT-ian, Hitechist or Startupist?

August 28, 2023

min read

Watch out for the killer squirrels! It’s “silly season”… or is that “cucumber season”?

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August 26, 2023

min read

Tina Turner… Australian cultural icon!

Did you know that Tina Turner has been one of the biggest contributors to Australian culture? 🦘 Honestly, her impact has been huge! Here’s how…

August 24, 2023

min read

You do Montenegrin and Bosnian, right?

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August 23, 2023

min read

Generic or specific? The issue stopping the free-trade agreement between the EU and Australia

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August 21, 2023

min read

Smoker’s remorse… or how false friends can be deeply expressive

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June 22, 2023

min read

So what are Fantales?

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May 30, 2023

min read

The personal touch

Translation can often be a very sedentary existence, plugging away in front of a laptop, with little or no face-to-face contact with clients👨🏻‍💻

April 12, 2023

min read

“You can find the Doonas in Manchester”

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September 15, 2024

min read

15 years cancer-free!!!

And I know because of an annual procedure a work colleague advised me to do...

June 14, 2024

min read

It's Men's Health Week... and I'm 15 years cancer-free!!!

The story of how I found out by chance that I no longer had cancer

February 3, 2023

min read

Cancer and gallows humour: Thank you for the flowers 💐; I hope they die before I do! 😏

WARNING: potentially triggering material. Very, very dark humour about cancer ahead. 4 February is World Cancer Day and… erm… conveniently, the day after is the anniversary (15 years now) of being given the oh so exciting news that I had testicular cancer…