Wednesday 28 April 2010

The first training session at the hospital went well and tomorrow I will meet the consultant. He deals with skin cancers and I was warned that it can be quite 'heavy'.
I still feel happy to be given this chance and look forward to the challenge.
I have had a lovely few days with Em after school, Hannah has been revising for exams and riding her bike with her friends, so not so bothered about having mum to hang out with. Although she does like to know when I will be at home she says!
I miss not being here when the girls come home and the only regret about leaping into full time work again is the time one has to forfeit with family and home.
Tonight Celia came over and she kindly pinned the hem on my new trousers for me to sew up. How many years has it been since any of you have stood on a chair while someone pinned a hem? I felt like a child!
Emily finished a scarf for her grandfather who will be 80 next month and Celia helped her make a tassel for each end. She was thrilled and it looks brilliant.
John is coming home tomorrow and I will be glad to have him here. I am great on my own and have had years of practise, but it is nice to be part of a team.

Sunday 25 April 2010

The Fates have their own agenda

At lunch time on Friday, just after posting the last entry, I received a phone call from the hospital asking me to take up a full time position as a Medical Secretary to one of the plastic surgery consultants on MONDAY!! It is full time for 4 months but may go on!!!
Talk about not seeing that one coming. I have agreed but managed to get a week's breathing space and to arrange some training beforehand...another sharp learning curve looms.

Work ended as usual with no fanfare, thankfully, and just after arriving home Francois and Zoe arrived.
We have been having a great time, yesterday we went to Dorking to see The Quilt Room and to potter. There are some good antique shops in the town and we enjoyed roaming around in the sun. Then we came home via Haskins garden center, where we spent hours (really) looking at and for plants, had a coffee break and I stocked up on compost! These two are heading back to Belgium with a car load of plants...
We had a great meal, prepared by John, when we got home then headed to a pub for a drink and a yarn. It was a good night!

Today it is Lewes and the Firle Garden Show. More later!

Friday 23 April 2010

On Hold

I am afraid that the blog/crochet etc has been neglected as the drama of the sale of the office twists and turns before our eyes. Many, many tears all week.(Not mine...I am smiling). The place is fraught with tensions as we sit and wait to see if it will actually happen. It was supposed to take place today (Friday) but has been postponed. This is my last day in the office, my other colleagues have gone and I am very happy to be leaving.
There is so much to do and so much to look forward to.

Francoise and Zoe arrive from Belgium tonight for three days of garden shopping!! Yippee, excuses to go to garden shows, garden centres and even the church plant fair.

We had a visit from the PA to the Head of Rikkyo School yesterday to see if we are the right sort of people to take some of their students in the May hols and YES, we are! Very pleased about it. But it could be a challenge for John having four Japanese teenage girls in the house.

I am now Company Secretary of John Rutherford Consulting Ltd...and we exchange on the flat in Whitley Bay today so, lots and lots of good things.

To top it off we have had sunshine for weeks. The cherry tree is in full bloom, and England is beautiful.

Sunday 18 April 2010

A Little Pilgrimage




One of my long time dreams was to show Hannah and Emily where I grew up. Not easy as that included Nigeria and PNG, but we did have a house in Ireland and I did go to school there, and as that is where I come from, it was a thrill to be able to do that part of it.
When my parents were in Nigeria they came home in the UK summer every year and the holiday was timed in such a way that we were often sent to the local primary school for a few weeks. It was a two classroom school with grade 1 to 4 in one room and 5 and 6 in another! The playground was tarmac and it over looked the sea at the front and a golf course at the back.
I loved it. Once we all peered over the wall to see a seal wallowing in the shallows. Another time a classmate rode his horse to school, but was turned away at the gate by horrified teachers! He rode it home then walked all the way back.....
To see this little Mecca of mine, we drove from Newcastle to Portaferry and caught the boat over to Strangford. We then drove up the outside of the Strangford Peninsula to Cloughey...home of seals and small girls and small schools! It was in some ways so unchanged it was a shock. But once that had sunk in it was just such a happy reunion. We walked in the dunes and hid from John in the long grass! Went down to the beach and threw stones into the water and it was pure joy to find that some things stay the same. And even better that I could share it with the ones I love.

Monday 12 April 2010

Ireland

It was wonderful. It is without doubt a beautiful country. We were lucky in that we were in the Kingdom of Mourne, where the Mourne mountians rise from the sea. My aunt let us use her bungalow in Newcastle and from there we did a lot.

The trip took 14 hours. We left home at about 6:00 and drove to Holyhead in Wales, caught the ferry to Dublin and drove from there to Kilkeel, right at the foot of the Mournes. We dropped in to see my aunt and uncle, it has been many years since I have seen them and of course a first for John and the girls. The house they live in is lovely and they have been there nearly 50 years, so it is a house I have known all my life.
They are very kind, energetic, generous and enthusiatic people and John and the girls were wowed by the reception. Then my cousin and her husband arrived and they all swept us up to Newcastle along with a pot of hot vegetable soup. The bungalow they lent us was really beautifully fitted out with a working fireplace and a view up the mountains behind.