Please may we see your bottom?

Felt compelled to to share my experience at A & E yesterday. I woke up during the night Sunday/Monday with excruciating abdominal pains and was unable to stand by about 06.30am when the kids decided to wake us up. I have suffered from Irritable Bowel Syndrome in the past but my husband decided that the last time he'd seen me in this much pain was around about the time of my ectopic pregnancy and we both remembered how badly that ended, so he insisted on taking me to A & E despite my pleading not to. (I hadn't heard great things about the local hospital)


We arrived at about 8.30am at  A & E and were seen fairly promptly by a nurse who took some details and then sent us back into the waiting room. I suppose that I imagine that if you come to A & E it must be really serious, so I was a bit surprised to see people in the waiting room eating crisps etc and reading their Kindles and generally looking quite jolly. 

I could barely stand the pain and was really trying hard not to laugh at my husband's comments about the other people in the waiting room. (like the limpers who didn't limp the same way everytime they got up to the crisps machine, and the little old lady who came out grinning at one point - he quipped "Look at her, she was 29 when she arrived here!" you can imagine the rest) Eventually a lovely nurse came and took blood and asked for a urine sample (darling husband - "she is just taking the piss now") and who kindly gave me some Tramadol for the pain I was in. Unfortunatley after about 45 mins of waiting in a cubicle they sent us back out to the waiting room again!! To wait for another hour or so. By this time the place was absolutely toppers so we were very relieved to have arrived so promptly!!!


The upshot of the four hour visit was that it was most probably  IBS related so they injected a big long needle of something into one of my buttocks  and after an x-ray sent me home with some drugs for the pain. Husband told the kids about mummy's buttock injection on the way home from school so they were insisting on seeing where the needle went in and seemed to find the whole idea of "mummy having a needle in her butt" hysterical.......little monsters!!!!!

Am now having a day of rest as my darling husband has turned house elf today and is looking after all the domestic stuff and the school run which is a relief I can tell you! I feel like I've been run over.

Meanwhile my mum is in agony due to the most recent bout of Chemotherapy and I wonder how long it can go on. She told me she is weary of it all. I'm so sad and frustrated that there is nothing I can do for her and my father on a practical level. They drift from day to day wondering what horror awaits them tomorrow. This cancer is the most horrific thing I think you can watch someone suffer from.... it's unbearable. 

On a happier note, the Guinea pigs we aquired during our last visit to Boden Hill Farm are thriving beautifully!!! Fat little things, and they seem quite unfazed by the constant handling and being dressed up in capes and hats and held like babies/upside down!!!! Felicity's little black pig is a biting monster right enough and has had several nips at me whilst I've been petting her, and Cecilie's just wants to run off all the time, it's priceless. Meanwhile Lola is on a mission to catch one!!!!!!

Fliss in her element - petting animals!!!

Who could resist???

I'm SOOOO having one of them for lunch - where are they????

Return of the Bag Lady……

Me with my friend Amanda where we are both looking glamorous and have no children attached to us!!!!!

This morning I’m off shopping with two of my Christian friends in Reading. I’m so excited to be let loose in the world without any children attached to my person. I’ve had an interesting week and I’m quite happy that it’s almost at an end………

Friday saw the beginning of the Alpha Course at Church and I’m delighted to say that there were several people who had decided to come along and “explore Christianity” at our Church. People from very different walks of life gathering to talk about Jesus is pretty exciting in my book. the frustrating thing for me is the fact that not everyone shares my love and passion for Jesus Christ though, but we can hope and pray!!!

I’ve decided to start sewing again in earnest next week as I’m fed up not actually making anything at the moment. Yes, it would be nice to have a job and earn money, however at the moment it’s not really an option as my girls are still so young and I need to be around for them.  It would also be nice to have enough money to have a “lady who does” coming in once a week again, as I’m not really the houseworky type.

I complained to my friend Sarah that my husband married this woman who liked fancy shoes, nice clothes, drinking wine and looking a bit glamourous now and again, and who worked in Financial Services, and he seems surprised now that I’m not very good at keeping the house tidy!!!  I was ranting about feeling like I’m supposed to be some sort of hybrid creature incorporating Dobby the House Elf and Mary (bloody) Poppins!!!!  She replied dryly that I’d just summed up “housewifery” in a nutshell!!!! Can you believe it?

Her name was LOLA, she was a Snow Girl!!

Well as you can imagine, the best laid plans were totally sideswiped by the massive snow dump we had in the South of England here yesterday…… I am still here and should be in Glasgow visiting my ill mother and poor exhausted father. However the thought of driving 400 miles in those conditions yesterday or today don’t fill me with a lot of joy! I am so glad we made the decision to stay put.

Last night my friend Jacqueline and her husband Paul arrived with their son and two dogs after a marathon nine and a half hour car journey from just up the road in Bedfordshire! I knew they were making a journey to Watford yesterday and I casually suggested they might want to drop in here afterwards and have dinner and stay the night. So they shoved the dogs in the car with everyone else and we are all jolly glad they did. When they finally arrive last night after their journey they were exhausted and starving!!  Just in time for the Strictly Come Dancing Final……(can’t believe Pamela Stevenson didn’t win…..) and some dinner that had been sitting in the Hostess Trolley (yes I do own one of them, and they are the best thing ever, so don’t knock it till you’ve tried it as they say) for a couple of hours……

Why do we always lose the plot in the UK when the weather gets bad? It happens every year and we always get caught out?  Well at least it’s the holidays and I don’t have to wrestle the kids into weather appropriate clothing for the walk to school tomorrow. Fliss was really upset yesterday when I told her she couldn’t go out and make a snowman in her Tinkerbell costume and clippy cloppy sandals….. Seriously, you should have seen her. She agreed to make a concession by putting a t-shirt on underneath the Tinkerbell outfit at one point and I was getting so annoyed that we were getting danger close to me actually letting leave the house like that, just to see her face as she ran back into the house after about 30 seconds when she realised just how blooming cold it was!!!!!!!!

When she eventually did leave the house, the snow was so deep that it was coming in over the top of her wellies and she stood in the middle of the street and screamed her head off while I was frantically trying to scrape enormous clods of snow from Lola who resembled a small Yeti and was having difficulty moving as the frozen snow had rendered her little legs useless!!!!!!

After that I went back into the house and opened a bottle of wine………….

Testing Testing………

This is one of the funniest things……. Andy has been saying for years that we  should own a lap top and I have resisted, resisted, resisted and now here I am, on my delicious new red laptop, testing out the photo thingy bobbery and really wishing I’d bought one sooner!!!

This is Fliss on her 4th birthday trying out her Minnie ears!!! I have a daughter who is bizarrely addicted to the whole Disney phenomenon where my eldest daughter Cecilie, was never really interested. I might have been that whilst poor wee Cecilie was going through these formative years, we lived in Germany and Cyprus (yes Cyprus, and you know who you are!!) and only had two tv channels with the BFBS (British Forces Broadcasting Services) system and has therefore been ridiculously deprived……..poor baby!

My darling husband has just asked me how my day was and I’ve just been keeping him abreast of the days events, you know how it goes…….. fight with kids to get them into clothes, clean breakfast from clothes, fight with children to make them brush hair and teeth, school run with insane dog who wants to chase squirrels but keeps strangling herself on her lead, forgetting handmade bloody Christmas presents for the teacher and teaching assistant and having to go home for them as 6 year old is heart-broken and won’t accept them arriving at home time…….. aaaaaaaaagh!!!

However one thing I didn’t expect today was my H & M experience when the twenty-something father in front of me in the queue decided to give me and the woman behind me the biggest (and hairiest) flash of builders bum I’ve ever had the misfortune to see………… I actually felt a bit violated………..I didn’t know where to look!!!!!!!!!! And I’m pretty broad-minded let me tell you….. and not averse to the odd flash of attractive male flesh!!

I’m fine now, I find that “a glass of wine solves everything”!!!!!!!!

Cloudy with a Chance of Rolling Pin!

Last year's Christmas Beach view!!

Well, I thought I'd never actualy get the time or the inclination to add to this blog ever again last week. What a horrible week. I was under the "Black Cloud" last week (some of you ladies will understand what I'm referring to....) and I just hated everybody!!!! The kids came in for some serious verbal sparring and  I had the overwhelming desire to bludgeon my hubbie with a rolling pin!

The the weekend came and it improved somewhat.......well sort of. It was actually quite good fun but involved lots of drinking and partying and staying up late in general........ it's not quite so easy at my age I'm afraid!! There was some rolling pin action, but it was only for rolling out the pastry for the mince pies!

On Saturday my friend Jacqueline came with her family for an overnight and we got the raclette grill out which was fun. We hadn't done raclette since Germany  but it's such a sociable way to eat and it's such an easy way to entertain - just get your guests to cook their own dinner!!!  What a winner!! The only problem with Raclette though is the amount of wine you absent-mindedly consume whilst chatting and cooking your dinner!!!

We took the kids to the Christingle service at church on Sunday and it was beautiful.....and it's always amusing to watch the little kids trying to hold their Christingles and not set anyone alight!!!  Bless.  Afterwards we all went back to my neighbours house for Gluwein and curry and it was a lovely way to finish off the weekend................. that and the results show for Strictly Come Dancing which I'm actually quite addicted to. I have no idea who'll win, but I do like Matt from Countryfile. He's very easy on the eye!!!

Today I sewed Christmas stockings and baked cupcakes for Cecilie's Christmas party. It felt very festive and the kids loved it! We personalised some of them with the embroidery machine and Cecilie sewed a little one for the Classroom Bear with his name on it! His name  is Fuzz and the kids take it in turns to take him home for the night and photograph him doing stuff at their houses and they all have to write in the diary about what he did. I used to dread it as I always ended up doing it myself, however Cecilie does it all herself now and it's comical, so I don't mind now when Fuzz appears in her schoolbag!!!

We are supposed to be driving North on Saturday to see my mum in Glasgow but we will have to watch this space as far as the weather is concerned. It's supposed to snow etc..... At least the black cloud over me this week will just be snow or rain!!!!

Country Living

Just hanging out with the ponies!

We had such a lovely time with our friends in Gloucestershire a few weeks ago. Caroline and Jon have just moved back from Cyprus after FOUR years of living out there with the Army and they have moved back into their lovely farmhouse at Baden Hill Farm. I keep wanting to call in Boden Hill Farm right enough...... can't think why.
One of their daughters Maddie (in the photos with my two) was Cecilie's bestest friend at school in Episkopi so it was lovely to see them all playing again together. They have four kids so it was utter chaos as you can imagine. Despite that the grown ups found time for quaffing wine and lots of catching up on all of the gossip!! Andy used to belong to Jon's Regiment so they know some of the same personalities which is always interesting!!

Hair Raising Stuff!!

Andy's comedy facial hair!

Well the hubbie went back to work at the beginning of the week. Mixed emotions about that one all round I guess. He'd got used to being at home and I'd got used to having him despite the fact that he was refusing to shave off the ridiculous Village People moustache that he'd cultivated during 6 weeks of not having to shave. So that was the only good thing about him going back to work, the clean shaven look that I fell in love with!!!  That and not having to look busy while the kids are at school!! 

However as ever the best laid plans are fatally flawed. As Andy was putting his dark combats back on for the first time in months, Felicity was coughing like a seal and is currently at home under my feet with a chest infection dressed as Minnie Mouse. Seriously, you can't make this sort of thing up you know! I got her an appointment with the doctor at our Med Centre and she gave her an anti-biotic that turned her into that child from the Exorcist..... well the vomiting parts anyway. She spat the first lot out at me as it was truly vile and when I did eventually get her to swallow the next lot, it didn't even touch her oesophagus but she was projectile vomiting the contents of her stomach up over my new velvet sofa........... Nice.......

So between the vomiting kids and the incontinent Cyprus Poodle, it's all go in this house right now! And this is the week I've given up wine for two weeks while I attempt to shift some of the Cyprus/post Cyprus weight I've managed to allow to attach itself to my middle!!!!!  The weather here is just not as attractive for running in I'm afraid......... I have to wear too many layers of clothing for a start and getting all that Lycra stuff on is a work out in itself! By the time I've negotiated my way into the sports bra I'm shattered!!!!

All I want to do is get the sewing machine out and make stuff. What?? Dunno, I'll think of something.  I feel a quilt project coming on................. and possibly a Gin and Tonic!