Waiting

I obviously still need to learn patience! As we have yet another time of waiting. Chloe was told on Monday the Deanery that she would be in for her Foundation years. This was based on her first 3 years and an exam she sat in January. Unfortunatly they have now been told that some of January papers have been wrongly marked and so some of the allocations are wrong. They now have to wait another 10 or 11 days to find out whether they will be reallocated. It is so hard for them all as once told they then started to think about their lives whereever they had been placed and now it is all up in the air. It is so disappointing when things are not done correctly. So we hand it over again - and wait. All things in his hands - including future plans! For a controller like me it is a long learning curve to hand things over and trust. But you would have thought by now I would have got it! 

Today coffee with a friend and lunch with some other friends. A bit of birthday shopping and some tidying. Somehow my washing pile has grown and grown - how does that happen? I am trying to pace my week to give me energy for the weekend. I wish it worked like that ie. energy saved today could be used on Sunday! But it doesn't seem to.

Children's news

 

My very clever girlie today found out she has a place in South Thames Deanery for her foundation years as a Dr. This will probably mean she will spend a year in London and possibly a year outside. The London hospitals include Guys, St Thomas',  Kings and St Georges. The Deanery covers a huge area down to Brighton and over to Kent. So she now has to order a vast number of possible jobs in the deanery to eventually be offered the specific jobs at specific hospitals. It is so confusing! I am delighted as it keeps her near us! I think Ed is delighted as he doesn't have to think of moving to Scotland! 

This week is a busy one which ends with all my children being adults. Ben amazingly reaches 18 on Friday. We are quietly celebrating on Friday and then having a family party on Sunday. I can't quite believe where those 18 years have disappeared to.

Great Expectations!

My favourite view

This view above is one of my favourite views in all the world (well that I have been to!) It is the view from the Jubillee Bridge looking towards St Pauls. When I was very poorly and couldn't go to London it is the view I imagined and I hoped that I would be able to go again and see. It is on our walk back from Covent Garden and so is one I have seen many times but I never tire of it. Yesterday when Chloe, Ed and I were coming back to Waterloo we stood on the bridge as the lights were just appearing.

It was like a twinkling wonderland. I hope to cross that bridge many more times! 

Great Expectations was wonderful. Spooky and wierd just as it should be. The set and costumes are amazing. People appear and disaapear through holes in the walls, fireplaces and from under the very large table. The writer and producer have managed to condense the story into a 2 hour play very successfully - but you do need to know the story to follow it. The young Pip played by Taylor Jay-Davis was  brilliant . Miss Havisham played by Paula Wilcox could have been even more commanding and Estella was maybe a bit too nice. But we really enjoyed it. 
If you get the chnace to see it - do. We got very cheap tickets with lastminute.com.

The pictures are taken from publicity material.

Today a quiet day to recover!

Craft and Oncology

Craft table to chose from

  Yesterday Chloe, Kit, Joy and I had a craft day. It was so lovely. Chloe and I planned some activities and then made a craft table of everything to choose from. It worked really well. The projects they chose were -

•  Easter Bunny bunting (no photos as it is already up)

• Needle cases

• Flower brooches 

• Flower cards

Felt ready to be used

 It was such fun having a day making together - although we probably did less talking than usual!Maybe that was a good thing!

Chloe and I really loved planning the day and thought we could set up craft days as a living! So if you would like to come to a craft day let us know!

Kit with her flower brooch

Our finished projects except bunny bunting

My needle case

Today I have been for my oncology appointment. We chatted about how I had been feeling and being more sick and more tired recently. My Consultant felt that this is probably due to my change in blood pressure tablets but had a good look at me. And I am to have every blood test (well nearly) under the sun at the beginning of March to tie in with my renal blood tests. If anything shows up he will do some more investigations. If nothing shows up I will have to do some more juggling of my blood pressure tablets. I suppose this is all part of the problem of having 3 different diseases - juggling side effects against the need for the drugs.



Tomorrow Chloe and I are of to London to see the new production of Great Expectations. We have got tickets from Lastminute.com. which is brilliant. Just hope that we can see everything! It's my last day with Chloe which has been such a joy. We get on so well. I am so glad to have her as my daughter.
On Friday she takes her stuff to Portsmouth to begin her penultimate placement. She just has 4 weeks in obs and gynae and then 4 weeks on paeds and then its over. Wow! Where did those 5 years go?

On Saturday I am going to a conference in London - hoping I have enough energy to cope with this. Not sure what they would make of me having a snooze at lunchtime! I am looking forward to spending the day with lovely people.

Being loved

 “I want to be in a relationship where you telling me you love me is just a ceremonious validation of what you already show me.”
― Steve Maraboli


As a young girl I can remember really looking forward to getting married - to the wedding day. Wearing a stunning dress, carrying perfect flowers and walking down the aisle to beautiful music etc.... I had those rose coloured spectacles about a perfect wedding day and a perfect marriage! I read the books and magazines that told me what it was all about- I believed in all the romance. I needed cards and flowers to tell me that I was loved. My wedding day was beautiful and I loved it but our marriage has had its struggles. I didn't marry a romantic man who had read all the books and I definitely wasn't the perfect wife!

This week I have been thinking about what it means to be loved and I think that you really know you are loved in the hardest of times. I have had the privilege of knowing how much I am loved because we have been through such hard times. I wear a ring on my finger that Paul bought for me the week I was diagnosed with breast cancer - it reminds me of all that he has had to go through over the last 3 1/2 years. His life too has changed so much and so has his future. He patiently cares for me despite my moaning and groaning. He picks up the pieces of our lives when I can't cope. He has shown me every day what love is and it isn't in the cards and flowers but it is in the every day actions and the sacrificial giving. It is in the holding of the bucket and the hearing of bad news, it is in the cooking and the cleaning, it is in the holding in the night - time and the listening to the moans, it is in the not turning from the scars and the reading when sleep won't come. Who could have guessed that when he promised to love me 'in sickness and in health' there would be so much sickness (sometimes literally) ? I am so thankful to be loved like this and I know that I am so, so fortunate. Thank you Paul for loving me.

Feeling better

Thankful for new days and for time passing. I am feeling better - hurrah! Ben is now poorly - so I think it was a bug of some sort. I tend to assume that it is connected to all my ailments and forget that I can still get usual bugs! However the usual bugs appear different in me as it always means my kidneys get poorlier too. Whatever it was I am glad its gone. 

Chloe is using me to practice her hand examinations on! It looks like I have osteoarthritis in my top joints of my fingers. They are developing nodules on the joints. My poor hands are going to look very strange by the end of this with both rheumatoid damage and osteo. Thankfully I have very little pain - mostly stiffness. It does encourage me to use them now while I can for sewing, knitting etc... as probably later I won't be able to do those things.

It is lovely to have Chloe home for a week. I am making the most of it as once she is a proper Dr our time together will be limited, especially with the silly hours they have to do. Next week she hears what deanery she will be in and so will be closer to knowing where she will be working.

This weekend we are shopping for our girlie craft day on Monday, cooking together, Church and Paul's concert. A great weekend.

Happy Half-Term to all my school friends.

Plans - what plans!

Papageno resing up on the little fluttering creatures he tries to catch in the garden.

My week is not quite going to plan! I have picked up a bug of some sort, I think. I have been sick and am achy. So I have retreated to my bed and moaned a lot. Poor Paul is having to put up with a lot of whining and poor me ing!  Cancer, autoimmune disease and renal crisis I can deal with - little bug and I become a moaning minny!

I have put some random photos on today as I haven't much news!

Chinese New Year

Apart from the wonderful news that Paul's job is safe again. I didn't bother you with the details as I thought you are probably fed up with hearing about redundancy threats. But about 2 weeks ago Paul heard that they were making more people redundant and that 4 people would be going from his section. The usual round of telephone conference calls were made explaining what would happen and then the awful waiting to hear if your life would be turned upside down.

Yummy Cheese and onion flan

 It is definitely harder for Paul as he has to go through it all. It is very hard to work with that in the background and all your colleagues also worried. 

Thankfully he was told yesterday that his job is safe. But 4 people will have had their lives tipped upside down.

We have resigned ourselves to this being a regular occurrence now, along with many other families who face this on a regular basis.

Spring is coming!

It is especially hard still having a dependent child. We can manage with so much less but it is hard to think that we wouldn't be able to provide for Ben as we have for the other 2. Thankfully that is not the case and we continue on. 

It is yet another reminder that we have to trust that all things are in His hands.

All of my life in every season You are still God

All of my life in every season You are still God

I have a reason to sing I have a reason to worship (Hillsong)

 What a wonderful promise for a Monday morning -  what ever circumstance we are in He is still God - unchanging, the same - yesterday, today and forever. That is something to sing about. His promises are true today as they were true for Gideon all those years ago (we are studying Judges at church). He is the God who rescues us and holds onto to us even when we doubt and fear, even when we are not brave and need reassurance. In every season of our lives - whatever is happening to us He is God dependable and trustworthy.

Snow - mmmm not my plan for a Monday morning! Hopefully it will dissappear soon, we have done snow for this year! Last week before half-term, I think my boy is ready for a break. Chloe is also ready for a break. She finishes on Thursday for a week and I am really looking forward to spending some time with her. 

We had a lovely Chinese New Year lunch on Saturday  complete with Chinese lantern and plenty of warm fires over the weekend.

This week - Cameo, cooking for weekend, day out with a friend, tutoring, flowers, lunch with friends, bible study, visit to garden centre for seed buying, family history writing, and home stuff of course. Hoping for a visit to school  - its been too long since I saw them.

No milk!

All was going well until I found out we had no milk! The day had started well - beautiful sunshine, only waking twice last night, the weekend to look forward to ................ but then no milk! First I poured out my cereal ... no milk... then I thought OK I will just have coffee......BUT NO MILK! Why do we not have a cow?  Oh dear this is not a good start - hopefully the day will improve form here.

This weekend - Chloe and Ed home, Chinese New Year lunch, bookstall at church, lovely.

I hope you all have lovely weekend plans.

Transformers

In bible study we have been looking at being a changed people. And my mind keeps returning to it. We are to be changed - transformed to be like Jesus. Just like a transformer toy changes from being a car into a man we are to be transformed day by day to be like Jesus.At times  I think I get stuck in the process of transforming! Bits of me don't want to transform - I want to stay as I am. My selfishness, pride and laziness gets in the way. So I become part car part man! Thats not a good look.

But look what happens if we are transformed - we will be able to know God's will for us and become mature. Transformed from the inside out.

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. ² Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12 v1-2 NIV

 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. Romans 12v1-2 The Message

Long lost Niste

 I thought I would give you a bit of a glimpse into the detective work i have been doing in my family tree. This last week I have had 2 breakthroughs! 

The first was a lost little girl called Niste. She is the tiny girl on this photo of bridesmaids at my Grandparents wedding. 

Sadly I don't remember my grandfather,Tom, speaking about his family very much. 

 We don't have very many photos from his side of the family. But I did know about 2 sisters - Amy who went to live in Australia and Niste who lived to be in her nineties. Through the census and birth certifictaes I had managed to trace 5 brothers and sisters but no- one who could be called Niste. Thankfully I found my dads old address book and Niste was there married to an Arthur Hankin. Much rejoicing! I could then trace a marriage of Arthur Hankin in Kent to a ................ Lilian Whitehead! Not something you could guess! Along the way I also found 2 more borothers. So I think he was one of 9 children - not 3 as I had originally thought! It looks like their mum died when Niste was only 11 - worn out from all those children!
The first photo is the bridesmaids and the second Grace and Tom's wedding photo - Tom's hands are very similar to my boys hands.

This third photo was Tom's dad Albert.

My second breakthrough was a chap called Frank who had written to my dad on the death of Grace. Again he was lost because of a name. My greatgrandfather was one of 10 children and one of his sisters was Rogina on a census. I thought this was strange and in the process of going back found they had a family name of Rosina. I tried tracing her birth certificate under both names and found it had been mispelt and she was Rosina. On finding her I found Frank as one of her children - not lost but hidden! Sadly she also had a child called Cyril who died when he was 6.

You can see how being a detective is important in family history - so important that this week it helped identify a King!

I so wish my mum and dad were here to tell me their stories - so much is lost because I didn't ask. So many questions that will never be answered but only guessed.

Manet and Onegin

Sorry for my absence - it has been caused by a busy weekend and by living in the 1830s! 

On Saturday we went to the Manet exhibition at the RA with Josh.  It was great to catch up with Josh and lovely to see the paintings - although very busy. Using the headphones helps to tell you so much about Manet and his paintings. He was quite a weird fellow and some of his paintings are quite strange. I love this one on the right - especially because of all the detail which you can't see on this small copy. I wish I could paint. 

We then went onto the Royal Opera House to see the ballet  Onegin. The end scene is where two people who love each other but can't be together dance. It is so beautiful and shows their struggle perfectly, with no words. The ballerina was so supple getting her body nto shapes that I have never been able to get mine - even when well!

We also managed to meet up with Ed and Chloe after the ballet and went for a chinese meal - in China Town. It is all ready for the Chinese New Year next weekend and was decorated with beautiful chinese lanterns. Chloe had spent a long day at a revision course and Ed had cycled 6 times up Box Hill and then walked from Wimbledon to Piccadilly to meet us.

Our family history is coming on well. I have now got back in some cases to the 1800. I have been researching the 1830s to give the facts some life and just realising how hard life was for most people, without all our modern day conveniences and without modern medicine. It is so sad to be tracing a family using the census and to find a child in a family and for that child not to be there 10 years later and then you find the death certificate and they have died at 1 or 6 years old. I would love to go back and have a glimpse of their lives. 



I am glad to see the sun shining again this morning. I used to hate February with its cold, dark days but recently I have been more observant and see the promises of life appearing in the gardens. Buds on trees and bulbs appearing. We have some beautiful purpley, pink Christmas roses shyly showing their faces. The promise of spring is just around the corner.

This week - the usual house cleaning stuff, coffee with friends, housegroup, some shopping for trousers(mmm my spare tyre in case of more chemo is still growing oh dear), tutoring, cooking, bible study, flowers and of course family treeing. I am hoping to work out how to scan the pictures in this week. So look out for old family pictures later in the week! We have some very beautiful people in our family tree and some characters! As I am sure most familys do!