What a Wonderful Weekend!

Thank you all for you good wishes and comments about mum's birthday, which are very much appreciated. I am mindful that, although my blog is primarily for me, I also need to make it enjoyable and interesting for all of you ;-)

Here are a few photos I really do want to share of the weekend. This is mum, with her pavlova ;-) on Friday when we went for her birthday lunch.

The view from our table - lovely isn't it.

And a few photos of yesterday.

A lovely photo of DD

And a rare photo of my three together, with my brother in the blue shirt in the background.

The lady in blue is my 97 year old aunt from Cheltenham, who mum lived with in Clapham during the War.

It was a wonderful day, which sadly like all special days, went far too quickly. I think that to get to 90 and still have seven sisters and two brothers is remarkable. And you know even my uncle who lives in Cyprus made a special journey to be with us. I love getting all my aunties and uncles togther.

Right - must go. I am of to London at lunchtime on the train - I am going to see Roger Waters at the O2 tonight, all on my own becuse no-one wanted to come with me, then back tomorrow for a meeting with the new company.

Hopefuly - you never know - I may even have some knitting to show you when I get back :-)

Happy Birthday Mum!

Today is mum's 90th birthday! She has survived the Blitz, having lived in Clapham during the WW2 where she worked as a clippie on the London buses, often leading them with a lamp during pea-soupers. She also had one of the "missing believed killed in action" letters, and believed herself to be a widow for some two years before eventually being notified that dad was a P.O.W. in Italy.

She has also survived two husbands, five heart attacks and diabetes, and although she has Alzheimers seems to be in a much more gentle decline than MIL, being able still to live in her own home albeit with support. Long may it continue.

What else can I tell you about her? She was from a large family ( 3 boys, 10 girls ) and on Sunday her seven surviving sisters and two brothers are all getting together for Sunday Lunch. Can you imagine seven sisters, all octogenarians, the tales they tell are amazing and I am so looking forward to being with them all.

She loves her garden. And she has absolutely no sense of humour whatsoever!!!!!

Here are a few photos over the years.

Mum and Dad September 29th 1938

With Grandad in the background, bridesmaid and best man. Auntie Betsy will be there Sunday.

Mum and I circa 1960 at Swallow Falls


Mum at our wedding in 1981

Mum and dad's Golden Wedding in 1988 with my brother and SIL, DD and DS1


Mum's second wedding in 1991. They were very happy together for five years.

Mum's 80th birthday

Mum wearing a Colinette Tagliatelle cardigan. We chose the pattern and yarn together on her 88th birthday at the Colinette Mill Shop.

And finally one of my favourite photos, mum with DD in her garden last September.

Mum loves her garden. My brother and I are taking her out quietly for lunch today, I do hope it stops raining soon. I just have flowers and balloon to collect before I leave.

Happy Birthday mum!

There Has Been Knitting Too :-)

You are all lovely :-) and Rob says thank you too.

There has been knitting too recently to keep me out of mischief. These are Razor Shell Socks by Miriam L. Felton. The pattern is a free pattern, and I love it to bits. They took me eight days, from May 1st to May 8th, which is pretty blooming good for me with socks.

Razor Shell Socks

Yarn: Bonny ( Yarn Yard Sock Yarn )

Shade: Bloom

Needles: 2.5mm Clover Takumi dpns

And yet more Cranford Mitts. First up is a pair made for Anni in a recent Spring Santa swap.

And the reverse pair, a birthday present for mum

And the reverse of my first pair, knitted for my friend Yvonne's mum. All knitted using Yarn Yard Hug yarn, which is a merino yarn and it's fabulous.

And finally - can you tell what it is yet .........................................

A Sense of Perspective

Warning: picture -heavy post! And I make no apologies for that. I'd like to start by saying thank you all for your support, which has helped me a lot. I am feeling better than I was earlier this week, I just needed a few clear days to regroup.

There's nothing like a family weekend to restore my equilibrium, and this has been a lovely one. Yesterday afternoon DS2 and I went to see a production of Blood Brothers at Malvern Theatres and very good it was too. I hadn't seen it before, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

This was followed by our first barbeque of the year. Do you know we were still sitting in the garden at 9:30 yesterday evening - wonderful.

This morning saw us all up and out by 8:15 heading for Tewkesbury and the Half Marathon. DS1 had come home for the weekend to run, it is one of several warm up races ahead of the Great North Run.

This is Tewkesbury Abbey, taken across the fields from the start of the race, not a view one normally has of the abbey.

Here is DS waiting to start. He wasn't as relaxed as he looks!

And here he is with DD

DD offers a bit of last minute advice!

And they're off! At 9:30 am it was already very warm and sunny.

We then left Tewkesbury and drove to the lovely village of Bredon ( a four mile drive for us, it was the 9 mile marker in the race )

Rob is the fourth one along in this group.

Not a good photo - he was reaching out for water!

From Bredon back to Tewkesbury for the end of the race. Rob is just to the right of the cross, you can just see Mr A and DD to the right of the photo.

Rob stopped his watch at 1 hour 27 minutes and 50 seconds, his chip time isn't available yet of course. It's hard to tell, but we reckon he was in the top 50. He had desperately wanted to achieve 1 hour 25 minutes but it was far too hot for that, and I think he did REALLY well.

Where was DS2 you might ask? Home revising for his GCSE's perhaps? He is in Birmingham with his girlfriend. His first exam is on Wednesday, RE, he revised the whole syllabus in 2 hours last weekend so he's fine then isnt he .......................

I AM feeling better - it's days like this that help to remind me that work is just work and my family is everything. I have my sense of perspective back!

Edited to add thet Rob's official position was 28th :-)

More Birthday Loveliness and Swaps too :-)

Another blog post that's taken a bit of doing! Still, here we are, so many lovely things to show you which only serve to remind me how fortunate I am.

First up - the lovely terri sent me a voucher to use with Socktopus and this is what I chose. From The Knittery, this yarn is a 20% cashmere, 20% nylon, and 60% merino blend, the colour is Passion Fruit. I already had skein of this stashed away and had been waiting for Alice to restock. I have PLANS for these two skeins!

My friend Yvonne made me this fabulous wall hanging. Yvonne's quilting skills never cease to amaze me, she is a very talented lady, and I love the attention to detail in this. Yvonne has a regular column called Wondering the Web in the British Patchwork and Quilting Magazine.

We have had a Spring Secret Santa Swap on CTNY recently and this was my wonderful gift from Farmgirl.

Isn't this a wonderful box.

Full of wonderful things :-)


And the yarn is Fyberspates - just lovely colours.

A simply stunning gift - thank you Farmgirl.

Normal service has been resumed! Well you haven't seen a FCS from me for some time now have you! This was part of Gilraen's present from me in the CTNY Spring Birthday Exchange. Knitted using Cashmere and Merino from The Knittery again, this one is # Water Lilies, and was bought from Socktopus at the I Knit London event last year. I used 5mm Pony Straight needles, and let me tell you this yarn is FAB!

And finally - as some of you are aware by now I am not feeling quite myself at the moment. Things are happening all round me over which I have no control, and this last weekend it's all caught up with me.

I WILL deal with it - but I hate uncertainty. I hinted a while ago at changes at work, but felt it inappropriate to share too much while the tender process was ongoing. However I now know that from July onward I will no longer be working for the NHS. Out of Hours provision was put out to tender last year and after one of the most drawn out and protracted processes it was finally announced last week that a Private Company had won the contract.

We have to wait until after May 14th to meet with our prospective new employers - cue more rumour mongering - but have been told the following :-

We can take our existing Terms and Conditions of service with us except for certain occupational pension rights.

When the transfer takes effect we will automatically become an employee of xxx and therefore our NHS service will stop.

We can’t take our pension with us, we could opt to freeze NHS pension/explore with new organisation how we can invest in their scheme.

I am currently liaising with the NHS pensions Agency. I am looking at all my options at the moment, including looking at other posts. Sadly opportunities for nurses with back problems are few and far between, but it will do me good to be "doing something" iyswim.

I don't feel at all sociable at the moment, so forgive me if I neglect blogland for a while. I really wanted to write this post though, because there are so many lovely people around who made sure I had a very special birthday and I wanted to show everyone just how lovely people are. My cyberfriends are just as real and important to me as "real" friends, indeed some of you have become "real" friends and your support and wise words recently have helped a great deal.

I will be back when I've sorted myself out.