A day in pictures...

Today our last ever guests left and we are breathing - not learning to, or trying to, it just happened - the air feels lighter and it's as if we've moved into a new house - the card was a thank you card from them - a lovely way to end this chapter.
Thank yous are relatively rare, which makes it extra special

this lily comes out in the same place every year, all alone, the only break in the overgrown hedge, and every year I miss photographing it because it's hedge cutting time and they get to it before I do...



A familiar scene that tells me I'm nearly home...reassuring, and always beautiful.

It's blowing an absolute hoolie outside and it would seem fair to assume that we have said goodbye to summer and are welcoming winter... first conkers are around and it's almost time for log fires...
The school term is well underway and the nightly struggle to get through three or four homeworks is becoming a part of life. Tonight's music theory was testing for all of us...and brought back long hidden memories - I'd forgotten how hard I found music...

Evenings are filled with football, dancing, night classes, meetings or other after school activities, despite our best efforts to keep them to a minimum...

So, when I have had time for me, I've been busy buying flowers for and spending time with friends, fiddling and getting more familiar with flickr, playing with the new office software for our mac...and my newest distraction...facebook, which is strangely compelling...

It's not that interesting, unless you're me of course... it's just life finding some kind of rhythm after all the change

" In wild places light illuminates beauty"

clouds on the way home

Forces at work, serendipity or something else....the silver lining, the balance of nature...
the right person with the right words, not often I grant you.... but sometimes...
the right book at the right time...

after a day like today which has centered around disappointing test results from the hospital - (not mine), and a whole host of feelings, emotions, criticisms, judgements, fear and pain being unleashed in my direction,
"Beauty ~ the invisible embrace" by John O'Donohue was exactly what I needed to be reading.

To read about beauty in such a way is to rekindle something within me, to reignite and strengthen a belief in the beauty that is around me at all times, and in the beauty, tenderness, care and kindness, that remains hidden from view...

in short, it made me feel so much better

thanks to Paul for the book recommendation

Reality bites..

Busy with work and meetings and after school activities and catching up with people, cooking and having friends round...

Trying to ignore the ear/throat/headache, which probably means I am brewing what half the population seem to have at the moment, and still getting frustrated by the number of avenues that have brick walls at the end of them. Waiting for e mails from people who promise they will, and trying hard to relax and know that it all works out in the end...
patience is hard to come by...

Knowing that money isn't everything, and hanging on to the reality that money isn't really what makes people rich, but still, not having it stops you from doing things you want to do and means we can't always join in with things we'd like to...

reshaping our lives, and creating more of a blank sheet to work with opens up more possibilities and feels right, but also leaves us vulnerable and temporarily without any specific direction...


Our final guests ever arrived into the chalet this afternoon, fitting that they were also one of the first ever guests here back in 1982 when the people who built the chalets still owned them...they brought photos too...
it is the end of an era...

and we're out tonight, to a moulin rouge themed party and need to liven myself up a little before getting into my red petticoated number for what is likely to be a trip down memory lane...

Time to dust off the cobwebs and see if perhaps I can do more than just the Can-Can!!

Tagged again...

this time by Dana about my reading habits... which vary hugely depending on what else is going on at any one time....

My Reading - Reading is a pleasure and sadly has become one of life's luxuries... a luxury because I disappear into my own world, and the times when I can do that now without causing disruption to the family are limited.
Holidays are precious, in part because I am free to read guilt free, and can read fiction as opposed to books relating to work. Over the years I have read in fits and starts, and as a student, my reading apart from the text books was fairly limited to the Nursing Times and Cosmopolitan magazine.... I was far too busy having fun most of the time to read and too exhausted the rest of the time...
That said, I think if you love reading it never leaves you.
I often have a list of books I want to read and more than one book in progress at any one time.




Total Number of Books Owned - I honestly haven't a clue - we have bookshelves full around the house and boxes of books in the garage and loft that have never been unpacked...
I keep hold of some that are important to me and others I give to charity in an attempt to keep on top of the space issue. I like the idea of books travelling to various places and being shared...I think I'd like that if I were a writer...

Last Book Bought - Beauty The invisible embrace by John O'Donohue

Last Book Read - Mother's milk by Edward St Aubyn

Currently reading - Love in the time of cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, A perfect life by Raffaella Barker, and Anna and the black knight by Fynn

Five Meaningful Books - It's hard because the more I think the more spring to mind, so first thoughts will have to do.... The magic faraway tree was a favourite when I was young and then I remember being especially enthralled by The secret garden

Skallagrigg by William Horwood made an impression somewhere in between the text books and nursing times and is one book I wish I had never lent to anyone...

Rosie Thomas and Maeve Binchy were comforting easy to read fiction authors I would retreat to when life was stressful and I returned home to the safe haven of my childhood bedroom when I was at college.

Then as a parent, so many books have been meaningful - Dr Seuss stands out and is well loved - again several of his have wandered off and had to be reordered... any books that can inspire and nurture the desire for children to read just have to be classed as meaningful...

The Mercy of thin air By Ronlyn Domingue, The lovely bones by Alice Sebold and The five people you meet in heaven by Mitch Albom are books I haven't been able to put down once I picked them up, though I detect a theme running through them there...

Recently I discovered Mister God this is Anna and wish I had picked it off the shelf earlier.
I have also enjoyed reading Anne Lamott for the first time, sometimes touching raw nerves and stopping me in my tracks... tears can catch you unawares at the most unexpected moments...

Interspersed with the informative and meaningful I like to have the light hearted and easy to read, a rest from thinking and an escape. I think they are valuable too.


I'm not sure who I'm tagging..... it's late and I'm off to bed... if I can make a decision tomorrow I will, but if you'd like to be tagged please consider yourself 'it' :)

Better late than never... it's been a busy few days...
I'm finally tagging

Still one pedestrian Caroline
Journey through grace Jayne
Jeff at Sharp yellow pencil
and Niki

though of course it's only voluntary but I'd love to read your thoughts

Bedtime earlier tonight...

It made my heart beat slower and deeper, and my soul want to reach out and hold him ~ hold them both ~ close to me...

an overwhelming knowing, a rare glimpse of the unquestionable love that just is, total and complete for ever, a moment of transparency, of luminescence....
sat cuddling my son, draped, long limbed, over my lap, even though he is now as tall as me and his feet are way bigger than mine, just before bedtime, on the sofa... the same sofa I would sit and nurse him as a baby in my arms...

sometimes in the chaos there are perfect moments that are beyond my comprehension, I can only wonder at them and where they come from, and be thankful....

The middle name game

I've been tagged by Jayne at Journey Through Grace to play the middle name game. The name of the game is to:

List one fact that is somehow relevant to your life for each letter of your middle name. If you don't have a middle name, use the name you would have liked to have had. When you are tagged you need to write your own blog post containing your middle name game facts. At the end of your blog post you need to choose one person for each letter of your middle name to tag. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog.


I couldn't find anything fancy to decorate my letters with like Jayne, so it'll stay plain and simple...

J could be for jewellery, the girly side of me who likes to make and create and decorate myself, or it could be for juggling everything that needs to be done or attended to every day.

A for Africa, a dream I have had since I was about six to work there, and the reason I wanted to nurse in the first place, or for animals that seem to find us, or that I get roped into looking after whether or not I want to...

N for nosey, curious, always wanting to know more... a quest to fill gaps in my knowledge... or it could be for Nurse... a nosey nurse :)

E for energy, without it I am hopeless, and of which I now have greater reserves thanks to the summer, or extraordinary, ordinary events...the unexpected little things that make every day interesting or exciting and that make me sit up and take notice of the beauty that is around me every day




Ok, so now I'll tag:

Beth at Grace every day

The lovely Mr Tumnus

Rollercoaster Caroline

and Shaz at dare to dream

my wicked side...

dark, dingy, smoky, buzzing, noisy bars, loud music, snakebite, cider and black, ale... whisky and beer, real, earthy, let it all out, life is for living atmosphere....

pubs and bars I remember from a few years ago now...
real "what if my mother could see me now" moments.... yet being so far away she couldn't - and thank god for that.... but hey, life was fun.

it still is, it's just different...

At the gym tonight I scrolled through music to really work out to...

as I turned up the volume on some old guns n' roses I was taken back to those times - it was a tough work out... and it felt good.

tuned into my slightly wicked side... and with R on board too, I am now sporting newly dyed and highlighted hair (helped by R as I couldn't manage the highlights alone) and a temporary painted tattoo... :) if I hit on a design I like then maybe it'll become permanent ~ till then, which is the far more likely option, I'll keep on experimenting.

sometimes I miss those days.. and nights...

oh and I always wonder what other people are listening to on their ipods at the gym... and what their wicked side is...

Hope you like the new decor - just fancied a change...

bit busy here, will return soon, x

Wish I knew why...

I woke up feeling out of sorts,
nothing terrible wrong in my world,
just not quite right
the stomach ache that stopped me getting to to the gym,
the invite we can't afford to accept,
the friends birthday I'll miss,
feeling sensitive and knowing I shouldn't,
shut out and alone, misunderstood, observing,
seeing the sun shining and not knowing how to join in
losing my direction and not knowing what to do

thinking logically and then dismissing logic
because I don't feel like being logical.
logic makes no sense,
only feelings make sense
and then I don't understand
how a feeling can be blue
but it is...

please don't worry, there's nothing wrong,
not when there are so many other big issues in the world,
even I can see that,
it's just the moon and stars aren't quite aligned today,
severe talkings to, kicks up the bum, shaking myself, not sure any of them would do any good...

some days there's just no accounting for feelings....

I have never been a football supporter as such, but in this house it would be hard to ignore a young lad's passion and enthusiasm for the mighty Liverpool, and so we follow their ups and downs, and cheer and console at appropriate times and strangely I do get drawn in by it all...

So when we heard that Liverpool legends such as Bruce Grobbelaar, John Barnes, Jason McAteer, Ian Rush, Michael Thomas and Gary McAllister and others were coming over to play a local team it was too good an opportunity to miss. Names I do recall from not so long ago...

The date was set for last night and they wanted mascots and people to take part in a penalty competition at half time
I managed to secure tickets, and R was offered the chance both to be a mascot, and to take a penalty...




He came home with a stack of memories and a signed ball from sportsmen who were approachable and fun, who appeared to enjoy their game and last night at least didn't take it too seriously... if Grobbelaar monkeying around on the bars and walking on his hands was anything to go by!

And if and when my attention wandered from the game it was lovely to observe how fit and toned these men still are...

It's that time of year - we've exhausted the plums and the damsons and now we're onto the Bramley apples...or rather the children are...

scrumping from my parents orchard to sell on our hedge - an easy way of supplementing pocket money and having fun too.

I remember planting it with my Dad, along with many other trees when I was about their age, and we would spend many evenings walking round, chatting and looking after them as they grew. Now it's wonderful to see my children playing in their garden, my old playground... and climbing trees that were only a few feet high when we planted them...

now that does kind of make me feel older than I really am....

I was sad to see though, that something seems to be attacking many of the fruit trees and making them very sick, all apart from the bramley that is, which seems to be ok at the moment......
not sure what it is - and my parents are away. I'm sure they know.... just hope it's treatable, it would be very, very, sad to lose the orchard.

A gift

It is so rare, amidst the chaos and bustle of life, I have been granted time to myself.. to do...whatever... whatever I want...

R is at work, the children are at school, I have cleaning and washing and ironing and shopping, oh and then there is gardening and, if I fancied it, decorating to do..and the list goes on and on...

but it seems foolish ( or you could read selfish!) to not use this time, so precious and valuable, so rare, to be still, to please me, to listen to what I want to do... because in a few hours this bubble of tranquility will be shattered when they all come home...

So I have granted myself permission to let myself be - too often we are juggling to fit things in, we make sure all the essentials are done and then there is never time for the extras... today is my day for those extras.. but it still feels like I need permission, a let out clause from the every day chores...

however, with permission granted to myself... I am free to visit a friend, free to browse through the shops and now free to sit and read and catch up with a cup of Earl Grey. Then I have a book I'm wanting to start and some exceedingly nice wine to search out - we borrowed a bottle from my parents yesterday while they are away and I now have a desire to stock up our wine rack and replace their bottle at the same time...

The house is peaceful, it's a gorgeously sunny day, the windows are open and I'm soaking up beautiful music from Sarah Masen "Magic that works" as I type, that arrived a few days ago.

Perhaps it all seems sweeter for the trauma of the past week, I don't know.

A day of grounding, of being still before launching off into life again...

Am thinking that this is what it feels like to stop the world for a while... you wouldn't want it every day, well perhaps just for a while each day... but I do know that I've LOVED every moment of doing and being and choosing exactly how I've spent my precious time today, and I have absolutely no idea when I'll get a chance like this again!

Today brought good news... huge relief but also reeling from the past couple of days and processing where we've been...
bodies change and grow and this was part of it, part of the process...

so we're almost back on the planet again... and steadying ourselves and saying thank you a million times over...

and thank you for your thoughts and prayers...

in other news we also welcome the latest addition to our household...

Houdini the hamster...

the children's present to their Dad for his birthday....nothing quite like buying a present you want yourself for someone else and then sharing it :)

First impressions are that he is a slightly off the wall kind of guy, a bit kamikaze as he flew off the kitchen table at great speed, fortunately landing on the chair - and an expert at escaping - he demolished the carrier box they gave us by the time we arrived home and is very active and busy... with a glint in his eye that spells trouble ahead..

oh and ever so slightly, just a tiny bit, cute...

the adventure starts here...

what a night!

Thanks Jayne for your comment, sorry I had to take the last post down for a need to try and focus on more positive thoughts...

Guess this is just the way life goes....
I was busy typing up a post about R junior's first proper day at school, how well it had gone, how much fun he had had and how he was welcomed by some of the year above as R 'the legend'... I hadn't realised that, although of course we think that highly of him , he had earned such respect, albeit only on the playing field, from his peers and those in the year above him, but I am sure it will make the transition from one school to the next far easier, and for that I am incredibly grateful...
the latin lesson hadn't come to pass thankfully, though we wait for it next week.... the very words amo, amas, amat, or dominus, domine, dominum... bring a certain trepidation with them.....the romans and sextus slaying goodness knows who...
I thought I had escaped the lion's den the first time when I was finally allowed to give it up... now it's time to face it again and I have no reason to suspect that R or S will find it any easier than I did, though admittedly they may...

Most of the day I have spent in distraction mode waiting to find out how the day had been....

and then in the middle of me typing..... the unthinkable........ one of the children reports they have a lump somewhere they shouldn't, we check, it's there... and however hard we try the fear keeps rising...

possibly the worst fear I have ever felt... no, make that certainly...

I have never been so completely and utterly terrified in my life... whilst keeping a calm exterior and being totally logical...

we reassure, we make plans for doctors appointments... with anxiety from the kids because they don't want to ruin their Dad's birthday tomorrow with going to the doctor ( birthday's feature higher on the scale than doctor's appointments in my children's lives..!)
....and I do what I need to... I phone my Dad...

not sure how much sense I make...but I know he's always there...
my Mum is too... but my Dad has the relevant medical knowledge...a blessing and a curse...but that's another story to be written in the history books of our family...

Tonight it is indeed a blessing... the phrase 'rare as hen's teeth' makes an appearance...I sure as hell never want to see any hen's teeth...
but we'll get it checked any way...
words can't take me through tonight really...

am so relieved and yet still so shaken...

it always happens to other people....and then you realise it can happen to you...and it makes me feel so small and scared....

and what is really truly important is right here in front of me...
It's been a tough night...

and tomorrow we will hopefully get the reassurance we need...
not forgetting how good today had been until then...