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!