I am alive...just

I've had the lurgies all week, caught from Isobel via the childminder, so have been pretty miserable. I've started being sick today too. Isn't morning sickness supposed to stop at twelve weeks? I'm fifteen weeks on Sunday...no fair!


I did a trip to Leeds Castle with my work a few weeks ago at short notice, one of my colleagues was meant to do it but couldn't. Thankfully we had a few spare seats on the coach so the whole family, minus Ryan who no longer ventures out in daylight(seriously-why do teenage boys do that?), came out for the day.
I'd been here about 12 years ago with my Dad, and I remembered they had the greatest maze, so I dragged everyone in there. Forty minutes later and we were still wandering round getting vexed. We found the entrance again and poor pregnant me escaped to the loo, before we braved it again, and finally cracked it after about 10 minutes. We stood on the mound in the middle directing other poor lost souls for a while too.


You have no idea how gutted I was that this Chicken of the Woods was too high to reach. Pete had to drag me away from the tree kicking and screaming. I even tried knocking it off with a stick, but even my 6ft frame was no match.


Isobel looking very small at the base of a gigantic tree



I ended up at the hospital a week or so ago as I was bleeding, but after making me wait all weekend for a scan, worrying about what we were going to find out, I finally got seen on Monday. Everything looks good in there;



Pete's football team have recently split into two halves, he's now playing for the old farts side, Landsdowne Vets. They organised a charity match against each other in aid of St Luke's Hospice so I volunteered to help out and do face painting. I'll let you guess which side won! The face painting kept me busy while Pete played football and the kids pretended they were at the Olympics by running round the athletics track. Isobel ran round it twice...she's nuts!

Not much to say

I'm having a blog slump, don't really have much to say, and am feeling a bit under the weather. Boo. :(

I am mental...it's official.

I sent off the application to start studying for a degree with the Open University yesterday. It starts in October, when I'll be 20 weeks pregnant. Fun times.
I'm actually really excited. I love learning and researching anyway, I do it in my spare time for fun, so doing it with a goal in mind will be great. I hope I can find the 16 hours a week needed for study. The boys are going to seriously have to start pulling their weight around here. It's an honours degree in Health & Social care, and my wonderful employer is paying for it.

I have a pretty action packed week this week. I have a lovely new sofa being delivered on Thursday(well, not strictly new, but it is new to us), then Pete's Mum is coming to stay for a few days on Friday. I have a trip to Leeds Castle on Saturday, Sam's birthday meal that evening, then a charity football event on Sunday with Pete's team. The kids are also back to school over the next few days so we need to get back into some kind of routine, well, one that doesn't involve staying up until 1am watching Family Guy anyway.

Mutant Veg

Eeek...I don't fancy taking a bite out of this!

Zombie

Sorry about the picture, but I thought Zombie Cat was quite cute. We've been back for two weeks now and I am just so tired and drained that I feel like a zombie. I don't even think it's the fact that I'm 11 weeks pregnant, I actually think it's the malaria tablets. They've just made us feel grim. I just can't be bothered to do anything at all.

So, what have we been up to? It was our anniversary on the 14th, we were so tired we almost forgot, but managed to drag our arses out of the house and went out to celebrate. It was also my late Nan's Birthday on the 16th August. I still miss her like crazy, I can't believe she won't be here to see the new baby. I secretly got Pete and I tickets to see Lee Evans last Sunday, he was so pleased and we had a really good time. My sides hurt from laughing so much.

I've taken the younger children out twice in the last week, trying to squeeze it all in before they go back to school. We went to a butterfly farm last week;




Then we went on the rides at Southend yesterday;

Funniest clip EVER

This Olympics video has had us all crying and screaming with laughter. It doesn't matter how many times I watch it, it still tickles me.

Olympic Accidents

Back to reality

Well, going back to work sucked. We've been having problems with the bosses higher up in the Council, and the Councillors, since April. I was hoping it would be back to normal by now, but it's not. We are more successful than the other two local centres, and they've just spent loads of money rebuilding one of them and we are still more successful, and they are not happy about it. The boss of the new centre hates doing trips, doesn't want the extra voluntary work, and us continuing to do them makes this boss look lazy. People shouldn't be doing a job in the Community if they aren't prepared to go the extra mile. Our centre has been one of the most successful in the whole country for 25 years, but because of politics they are trying to break us. But instead of just being honest and telling us they want us gone, they are being sneaky, and throwing problems at us, like "You need insurance to do the trips"(Fine, we got some), or "Staff can't do the trips on Council time"(Fine, we volunteer anyway, we'll just do them on our days off). Each time we come up with a solution, there is another problem. They want our very elderly Committee members to take over all cash handling, which they refuse to do, as it's a full time job and we handle about £2000 a week. I can see us being shut down and the staff all moved elsewhere, and I will be gutted. I'm trying to push my boss into looking into us going independent, surviving on funds and grants. I hope it's possible. I don't understand why a venture that is so successful and gets the Council so much good publicity, is being stamped on. We have 1200 elderly members that come to us for food, company, advice, support, and mental stimulation, and we just want to be left alone. It's not good. :(

Back on rainy English soil

We got home yesterday at about 10am, but the last 24 hours have been a haze of feeling like a zombie and getting washing done. The house is a pigsty, we are back to work tomorrow, and I feel firmly like I am living someone else's life. I am completely institutionalised to living in a Caribbean hotel, surrounded by sunshine and heat. Having to cook and clean is foreign to me. Oh how I wish it could carry on forever!
I realise that other peoples holiday photos are boring, so I'll save you from the 500 I took and only post a few.

The take off and landing on the way out were awful. Landing in Punta Cana scarred me for life and I now have a fear of flying. We banked round and flew parallel with a mountain at one point, the wings tipping from side to side. I was hoping for a calm one on the way home, but sadly it was worse. We had turbulence all across the Atlantic, and had to land in a thunderstorm. Quite a few people threw up. The kids all thought it was hilarious, of course. I never want to fly again, but I'm sure I'll change my mind. :)

Isobel with her girls:

Our house:

Paragliding:

Isobel and Taylor with some feral puppies:

Sleeping by the pool:

The holiday was great, there was 19 of us so there was always someone around to have fun with. The three teenage girls we had with us all adored Isobel, and she thought she was one of them. We thought we'd booked four star, but when we got there we'd been upgraded to five, bonus! It was the longest holiday of my life, by the end I was bored, and loving every minute of it. Boring isn't something that happens at home. The scenery was beautiful, and I'm really missing the beach and the pool being back home.

Jetting off to paradise

We leave in about 45 minutes for the airport, so this is goodbye for two weeks, unless I managed to sneak on. We fly at 11am and land in the Dominican at about 8pm. See you on the other side!

Bats in the belfry

We've always watched the bats in the garden at dusk. It's my favourite time of day anyway, especially at this time of year when the swifts are up there calling too, it's so relaxing, as long as you don't get bitten by gnats. Some neighbors had a tree cut down a few years ago, and the bat numbers seemed to have dropped. I noticed some out there a few weeks ago, so tonight as the sun set Taylor and I sat ourselves down. The little blighters are living in our roof, hundreds of them! We saw the first one come out, and pretty soon we'd lost count. It's not strictly my roof, as I'm a ground floor maisonette. Some poor bugger up there has hundreds of critters scratching around next to their bedroom window. We could hear their squeaking and clicking down on the ground, so they must be able to hear it. It was a marvellous sight. Anyone know what kind they are likely to be?

On a slightly weird note, for the last 3 or 4 days I've been able to smell my Nan around me. She had a really distinctive smell, a mixture of vintage perfume, dry skin and stale smoke. I never really noticed it when she was alive, but often over the two years since she's been gone we've dug out some of her stuff that we moved here, like photos, and we've all remarked how much the smell coming off her belongings reminds us of her. It's a dusty smell, but not unpleasant. Anyway, out in the garden twice this week I've been surrounded by the smell. I know a pregnant woman has a sensitive sense of smell, but this is so strong. I called Taylor out to see if he could find it, but he couldn't. Then today I smelt it walking up to the school. It must be her. It makes me feel very happy and protected.

10 more sleeps

So we only have ten more sleeps until we go to the Dominican Republic. I'm so excited now. Our new passports finally arrived this week, which meant I could start looking forward to it. I was so worried they wouldn't come. I've half packed, and we need to buy a few bits next weekend too.

It's been pretty busy here, we've been to the doctors for holiday vaccinations, which I was so sad I couldn't have, thanks to the ever-growing fraggle in my belly(note the sarcasm - I hate needles). We've also been to a fun-day at the school, I took a trip at work to see Joseph, Isobel had her first ever sports day today, and the boys have both recently had football presentations.
Ryan collecting his trophy;

Taylor showing off his trophy;


On a pregnancy note, no morning sickness yet, but I'm not complaining. You just know it's going to start the exact day we fly. Name negotiations have already started. This could take some time(thankfully we still have 34 weeks to argue about it).

On a not so cheerful note, we lost one of our close friends last week. We had a call at about 5pm to say he'd been rushed in with liver and pancreas failure and wouldn't make it through the night, and sadly he passed away later that night. We've since found out that he'd been to see his doctor with dizziness and blood sugar issues a few times recently and been ignored. Unfortunately the doctors made a huge mistake, because he had advanced Type II Diabetes, and his body went into ketoacidosis and shut down. Pete was only playing football with him on tour in Spain a few weeks ago.



Rest in peace Jamie. :(

*gulp*

I seem to have found myself knocked up, with child, bun in the oven etc. Of course we are mega excited, can't wait to do it all again, but four children? FOUR CHILDREN?

I feel fantastic at the moment, not being sick yet, of course that's bound to start the minute we set foot in Gatwick airport in 19 days time. I'm extremely tired, and keep dropping off like a narcoleptic at inopportune moments. Which will be fun at work. I daren't tell my boss yet, but I'll tell the girlies in the office. I'm sure they'll guess anyway.

I called my Dad last night to tell him and he was so chuffed. My Mum is dead impressed too as it's due around her birthday. The 13th March is my current due date.
All we need to do now is make sure we move house like we promised before the new year, otherwise we are going to be seriously squeezed.

Party in the middle of the sea

I’ve had such a busy week this week, it’s been mad. Every day has been appointments and birthday parties, and appointments to get the car MOT’d. I haven’t sat down and chilled out once this week.
We went to an amazing clubbing venue at the weekend, in Portsmouth. It was on Spitbank Fort, and some friends of ours were DJing. We travelled over on the boat to the fort, and being an architecture nut I was in my element wandering round the building. It was pretty cool.

Pete and his friend Rob, who he hasn't seen for 10 years. The joys of Facebook!

Me & Mike.




Louisa DJing.



Me & Fiona.









I finally got our passport renewals sent off this week, with only 27 days to go. I hope they come back in time. Can you believe my name change cost £72? Unbelievable! I’ve sorted out a pet sitter for the cat too, as the young girl next door who looks after her gets funny about cleaning out litter trays, and after two weeks it’ll be pretty disgusting. As it’s a very local pet sitter they’ve given me a discount and are only charging £30 for 14 days, instead of the normal £50. I suppose they are saving on petrol, and could probably walk here.

I’ve applied to do a BA/BSc (Honours) in Health and Social Care, sponsored through my work. I heard yesterday from the chief executives secretary and she said he’d signed it off with some very positive and supportive comments, saying that he supports my application and he agrees that it will be beneficial to the future of the Council for someone to gain this degree. I should hear from the training department in the next few weeks to give me the expenditure code to book and pay for it. Keep your fingers crossed for me; I hope that I get accepted. I’m so excited about it. My long term plan is to train in Social Work in ten years time, and this degree will not only get me promoted at work in the near future, but will mean I can do a shorter Social Work course in the future, once the kids have grown up.