Slow start

I planned to throw myself into my new unemployed status with gusto. There is so much to do:

- Blitz the house from top to bottom and in the process cull more things. (The dining room is looking so streamlined now that the dresser I painted is finished....jugs and vases missing to hold my flowers!). 

- Some sewing, gardening and lots of exercise on top of running the house like a domestic goddess and having meals frozen for those busy evenings when there is no time to cook. HA!
- Finish the ripple blanket - literally a row and a half on the border to go...
- Finish little Tom's blanket before I go to Australia... but 
since Friday when I had my shattered tooth extracted and then went out to celebrate, (the dentist told me that this would be fine, and it was at the time), I have been in constant pain and cannot eat. 
The rest of the family have been struck by a tummy bug and have taken to their beds on and off over the last 48 hours. Fortunately they have rallied this evening and we are all starving.....good sign! 

Em goes off to Keele Uni tomorrow to do a short course in environmental sciences - so today we I have been ironing and itemising her stuff. She is nervous and needs lots of support. She is also excited. Big J and I are driving her up there and then pinging off into Yorkshire to have a poke around. We will collect her on our way back on Thursday. 
Hannah is pet-sitting and readying for her trip to Japan next weekend to see her dad and grandparents....
The cobwebs in the stair-well will just have to dangle there a little longer. 

Carry on Matron

The wonderful girls from the hospital have given me a stethoscope in a lovely teal colour!! My favourite. In a noisy pub where we gathered last night I tried it out. No one had a heartbeat, at least not in my ears... the pub was noisy with all of us and the football on to be fair! (Luckily Hannah has healthy heart which I clearly heard this morning). They had it engraved with the words 'Carry on Matron'....bet no other student will have one like it. 
Very excited and proud. 

Burrito? ripple blanket - semi Ta Dah!

Here is Hannah modelling(?) burrito style her ripple blanket. On the 12th May it looked like this and today, 12th of June it looks like this:

It is done, at least in terms of rows and now comes the sewing in of ends and the border. It strikes me that borders on ripple blankets just make them look so much better, but all the ripples I have known did not have one....

This is the first day of not being at work. The window cleaner has been, I have been deadheading geraniums, (I have gone totally granny McClintock (maternal granny) about geraniums. They are potted up all around the patio and Nancy gave me some lovely dark leaved pink ones to add to the collection). Lots of admin done too and dinner defrosting. 

It was a lovely send off, loads of flowers....and some tears (from me).

Can you see the dresser behind these lovely lillies?...all painted and fresh and FINISHED with some Polish pottery on it. 
Feeling good. x

Little catch up

A sunny Sunday and the washing has been on the line since six am!! Today is for the garden, the house, a barbie with family and a friend.

Yesterday we walked on Ashdown Forest with the dog and Nancy and followed that with a fantastic meal at the Coach and Horses in their sunny garden. 

I was looking over photos of last weekend and have these to show you. 

Dolphins were seen just off the lighthouse on the day this was taken. It is such a lovely area. We walk on the beach every day when we are up north. We met friends in the Rendez Vous cafe beside the beach for tea one afternoon. One, in his 70s, used to line up at the window of the cafe for icecream when he was a small boy...nothing has changed, kids still line up at the window now. 

Hannah's ripple is HUGE and only about 20 cm off its final length. Then there will be the sewing in of ends and the border. But I am so very happy with the CONSTANCY of my work. When I charge up the camera batteries I will post a photo. 

Latest works

My Artist Sister has been hobbled by surgery, literally, for weeks. Unable to walk she has been working. I get such a thrill when I see her work. Please have a look. 

Transnational families

We are a transnational family. I left home at the age of 9 to go to boarding school. My parents were in Nigeria, I went to Belfast. It was at the beginning of the troubles. We heard bombs go off at night from our beds and were evacuated twice. But that is another story. Home for me has always been the place my parents live. They moved around in Nigeria and then went to Belfast, New Guinea, (just have to mention that at the hospital in SUSSEX, I work with the former Head Girl of Sogeri National High School - how small is the world really??), the Arnhem Land, Batchelor and finally Darwin in Australia. At the age of 12 I was in boarding school in Toowoomba. We flew home to PNG for the big holidays and spent the short ones with friends and their families. 
When I left 'home' (Australia) to go to Japan, where my parents were/are, remained home to me. I had a family of my own and we had our own house, but the definitions are different. In Japanese they have a word, furusato, the place where one originates from. It actually means a geographic location, but mine is where my parents are. 
Big J tells me I am at home now, he is right, this is my home, but in my heart there is also another one. 
They are not mutually exclusive.
Today Princess Hannah and I participated in a formal talk about transitional families and how they maintain contact with those left behind. With us was Imre, a lovely Hungarian. Hannah left her Dad and grandparents. It was not her choice. It was in parts a painful discussion for her. It distresses me to think MY decisions hurt my girls, but NOT deciding what we did would have also
hurt Adam and Big J. 
Transnational families are on the increase and we are lucky now that we have the web, Skype, Face time and Facebook. It means we can keep in closer, more frequent contact. It might also mean that we take for granted more our distant families if they are so easily contactable. 
It is not easy at times being transnational, but then it is not easy at times being any sort of family.....

Life is for living

My mother in law is 81. This weekend she jumped out of a plane for charity. She raised about £6000.

It was a tandem jump...

this is the Top Gun moment as they head towards the plane...

After about 15 minutes of climbing into the sky, they jumped. 

Nancy waves at her anxious but proud family and friends. Note the man carrying all the 'chutes!

Nancy and her two young jumping partners chew the fat on the way back. Veterans and very brave women.