quick update

Margaret is over her Op for Kidney cancer - they didn't do the 'key hole 'surgery they had thought they would do as they kidney was worse than they thought! So the poor girl has a scar all round her side and back. things didn't go as planned either - she got a chest infection nad had fluid on the lung so was put back into intensive care after being on the ward for a couple of days.
She therefor spent more time in hospital than expected. She has been home now about 5 days and is doing well - she is very upbeat about things and is coping well while her sister is with her.

Jim's funeral is planned for Friday and after that she will be on her own.......we will see how she copes - but her friends are all around and she only has to call and one of us will be with her....

I came home from Birmingham Ok but have since gone down with a cough - nothing else just a debilitating cough! and therefore am very tired (think I must be allergic to Bracknell or perhaps all the Birch trees round here!). Don't feel like doing anything much but I did manage to sandwich Jackies quilt yesterday - took me all day doing it in short bursts.........good job I bought another 100 pins as I have used them and the 200 I already have!

I bought one or two things at the show but have not taken photos - yet....perhaps I will tomorrow........then you can see whats new in my cupboard.

Sad News

Jim, my friend Margaret's husband has lost his battle with Lukemia - he was only ill for a short time and died yesterday afternoon. Margaret had her son and her sister with her at the hospital. They are such a small family, just the one son, one sister and no grandchildren. Margaret has decided that she will go ahead with the planned operation to remove her cancerous kidney tomorrow, while her son makes all the funeral arrangements. She should be in hospital about four days and should be Ok in about a week. I just feel so sad.........we have known them about 50 years and they were such a close couple, she is going to feel very lost for some time to come..........

gifts - or flower sitting!

A little while ago a friend of my eldest daughter asked me to 'baby sit' some orchids for her.

She has a house in France that she only lives in part of the year, other wise she lives with her sister or my Jackie or her boy friend.

She works for a florist (when she is not being an animal aunt and living with them) in Windsor. She 'rescued' 5 orchids from being put in the skip after they had been collected from a display in a 'prestigeous' place. There were no flowers on these plants and the florist didn't want them any more. So into the bin they were going! Sue asked me if I would mind looking after them for her - I had 3 while her sister had 2 - when she came with Jackie the other day to see the quilt top I am making, I showed her the orchids - she couldn't believe how beautiful they were and how many blooms.... she said she may bring me more as they are always throwing them out when they have finished flowering and that she doesn't want the plants back because she is sure she would kill them.

Catching up

We have now collected the caravan from the New Forest and brought the family home! they had a dreadfully wet week and the new site they chose to go on was so waterlogged they had a job not to walk the wet and mud into the van - oh my was it dirty! I think that they still managed to have a good time - crabbing on Mudiford quay, feeding the swans down at Christchurch and generally 'going to the seaside'. Stuart, Leslie and Charlotte would do it all again but the other two teenagers were not so keen!

When we got home with the van the first thing was to remove all the wet dirty rugs - they were so bad that we laid them on the patio and hosed them down with the jet washer! The same went for the awning groundsheet! and I set too on Saturday and cleaned the inside of the van so that we have a clean van to take away next week. 007 cleaned the outside of the van to get rid of all the animals (flies mostly) that we picked up on the way home



These are the first of the tomatoes to ripen - they are not the biggest in the greenhouse! they are from the Alicante plant - the flower pot is there to try and support another stem of the plant (someone was supposed to pinching out the side shoots......but this one was over looked and now is full of fruit!) I think a lot of the toms will ripen while we are away in Birmingham - so who ever comes in to water them will be allowed to take some as a thank you. It may well be Aimee as she is borrowing my car while we are away but it may be Jackie bringing her little charges in to play in the garden if the weather is nice.

Here are the pictures of Joshua and Emily's swimming lesson I said I would show you. As you can tell by the way Joshua is standing the day was not warm and neither was the water!

Emily really enjoys the water and was not behaving her self - she kept ducking herself under the water as though she was diving, so she couldn't hear what the instructor was saying to her half the time! The children were being taught how to float with our sinking as well as how to use their arms and legs in the water. Both of them are going to make good swimmers eventually.

The guy who was teaching Emily's little group finally made them all line up behind each other and they had those rolly things round their tummies and the one behind had to hold on to the one in front - he then took hold of the hands of the leader and pulled them round the pool like a train......great fun!

On Thursday I took my friend Margaret to Wexham Park hosp in Slough for her pre-op tests......... everything went OK and we were only there an hour. Her husband Jim, in the meantime, had to go to the Royal Berks in Reading for some more tests and to discuss what they wanted to do for his Lukemia. Over the weekend I heard that Jim is back in hospital - he took ill over the weekend and an ambulance was called....I am waiting to hear from Margaret - I have volunteered to drive her to the hosp anytime she wants.

Oh NO!

This morning about 9am I phoned Stuart to see if they had been OK over night........well I wasn't expecting the answer! As they were waking up one of the wardens came and asked them to move the van as we had put into a 'tents' only area! Stuart does not have a tow bracket on his firms car so we have been back to the New Forest today and moved it for them! when we arrived they had already taken the awning down and everthing was ready to move - but they were no where to be seen! they hadn't expected us so soon and had gone for a bike ride!

Everything done, and we were home again by 4:30pm but now I am absolutly shattered! I shall be in bed before 9pm I think!

Busy Weekend

Gosh what a busy weekend!! it really started on Friday when we were asked by younger daughter Sarah to take her two children to their swimming lesson - she had booked them into a lesson a day for a week and this was the last one. They went to the local school that has a prefabricated open air pool on their premises. The children had great fun, lots of little ones were haveing lessons - two teachers taking different abilities - and our two were in the pool at the same time, one with one teacher and one with the other. (I have photos and will do them later).
We took them home to our house and gave them lunch and while we did so our eldest son Kevin came in for lunch too.....we had barely finished when eldest daughter Jackie came in with her friend Sue, to see the quilt top I had made. Then of course eventually MummySarah came in from work to pick up the children.....she had a headache so after some asprin she went and had a laydown in the guest room. They all went eventually around 4pm..........we were shattered.....but I had to go and get ready to go out with ex work collegues - we were celebrating one of the girls 70th birthday.

Saturday for me was a lot calmer - I had a day of lace making with friends - lots of chat and laughter - but poor ole 007 had to pack the car and caravan to take away on Sunday.....5 chairs and a table, tent, camp beds, duvets, pillows, 5 bikes, 5 bags of clothes etc etc........

Thank goodness Sunday was a lovely bright sunny day - a good start to a holiday for three teenagers and their Mummy and my youngest son Stuart.......we took the caravan to the New Forest for them and between us we parked it and put up the awning in record time.....erected a small tent inside the awning for the two girls (Ashley and our Charlotte) to sleep in and I watched while they made up the camp beds - what a performance! the legs are sprung and they kept coming out of the holes they fitted into...but their 'little room' was ready - finally! - the lad (Tom)was sleeping inside (behind the curtain!) and was very possesive of 'his bed'. We left them about 5pm and trundled home - we decided to eat somewhere on the way home and came off the motor way and went through Chandlers Ford to find a pub.......finally found one we liked the look of when we got to Otterbourne. Then we stayed on the A roads the rest of the way home going through Winchester and Basingstoke. We saw quite a display of the 'Balloons over Basingstoke' festival as we drove through - lots of beautiful balloons still flying in a clear evening sky........lovley end to our day.