Laura

There is no way I could blog about Jemma without mentioning her sister Laura. Laura is younger than Jemma and attending a Grammer school. Currently she is studying hard for her GCSE's. She's coming to stop with us at the end of February and has timed it so she can be here for Chloe's birthday. Chloe is gonna LOVE her being here. Its a surprise too, so I think Chloe will feel really special so thank you Lou!
I remember Laura as a baby was soooooo funny. She literally had NO fear and would chuck herself all over the place and laugh her head off. She became a gymnast at a young age and I was amazed the times that I watched her in competitions - she could flip and somersault and EVRYFING!! Not only is she clever she is also extremely beautiful - YES you are Laura :-P

 

 

 

Laura x

I think the world of these girls. Love you millions Jem and Lou xxxxx

Jemma

This blog is dedicated to my gorgeous niece Jemma. She has been living with us since September and in that time she has been dabbling in photography. She has a massive collection that I hope she will turn into a portfolio and possibly sell someday - they should be seen for sure. Here are a few of my favorites so far:

 

She's pretty talented don't you agree?? :-) 

She's starting a new job soon so GOOD LUCK Jem xxxxx Love you honey.

 

 

Weekend in Deal.

I'm off to Deal tomorrow night for the first time in over a year. My nephew is over from Oz and I am gonna see him for the first time in YEARS. I can't wait to see all the family, its been waaaaaay too long. 

My family in Deal - this isn't everyone but here we have: Me, Matt,Eden, Chloe, Peter, Mum, Laura, Shannon, Marg, Billy & Kt Emily, Jane, Jenny, William, Carolyn, Judy, Willy xxxxxxx

My sister has been through a rough time recently and I can't wait to see her and give her a hug. I'm at my Dad's at the moment and he has a lovely picture of me and my sister that was taken about 8 years ago so I took a picture of it to post here - 

 

Love you Judy xxx

While I am talking about my family in Deal I should mention my Mummy. She has been struggling to get around lately and over the last couple of years it has got much much worse. She has had a bad hip for many years due to an horrific accident she had when she was around 20. She also sufferes with a condition called Schlorederma. This condition is pretty rare and she has not really had any clear answers from the doctors as little is really known and each case is unique so they can't even properly advise my Mum on what she can expect. Very often if something is hurting she puts it down to this. Recently she had an x-ray on her knee and the doctors have put her on a waiting list for a replacement knee. We are hoping that this operation will give her a new lease of life. It may be her Quezacotl - bringing new life back to her, and she may even be able to manage stairs again!! It would be great to see my Mum up and about and not in so much pain all the time. So fingers, toes, legs, arms, everything are crossed that this operation is a success and that she wont have to wait too long. I'm picturing nice walks along Rhyl beach this summer with my Mum and my girls. 

Rhyl Promenade

 

On a completely different subject I saw the most bizarre sign in a Children's centre on Monday. Chloe's appointment was at 1.30 and I was there from 1.20. I spent half an hour staring at this bloody sign before being told I had been sent to the wrong department. I had been wondering why they would why want a defibrilator station in a children's department!

30 minutes of my life wasted staring at this sign.

Bad week!

Miniture disasters afoot in the Dawes household this week. Saturday morning we noticed the boiler wasn't firing. This house gets its gas through a bulk storage tank, and the tank was completely empty!
We placed an emergency order, but they still didnt get the gas out to us until this morning (yay). However, this morning when we woke up we had no electric! One of the cables has blown and not only that but the vehicles were blocking our private road so we were stuck in the house. They told us that they were unlikely to fix the broken cable before 8pm tonight, so we all got in the car and have come to my Dad's in Manchester :-)
Its so warm here! Bliss. 
At least we know when we go home we will have heating, hot water and I will be able to have a bath!! Its amazing the things you take for granted - just being warm and being able to wash, so basic, but when you don't have them it makes life miserable!

But, when you put it in perspective its nothing really. Yesterday I read about a woman who has lost all four of her children in a house fire. The eldest was a nine year old boy and the youngest a two year old girl. She also had another girl and boy. She managed to get out, then tried to get back in to save her children. Two died in the blaze and two were taken to hospital, but died that night. 

The mother has been in the back of my mind since I read about this. To stop a mother from going and trying to save her babies is not the most humane thing to do - I know in that situation that I would want to be trying to get them and if I died trying so be it. I can't imagine what the mother of these poor kids is living through, it must the closet to hell that you can get. So being cold, having no telly, no bath, its nothing because right now my girls are well and happy and we're together. That means I am as happy as can be xxxxx

Moving On.

Petamy

The above picture is the bungalow we have been living in since April last year. We love this bungalow, despite the fact that it has given us nothing but trouble since the day we moved in! First was the problem of turning the water on and subsequently having gallons of water pouring down the walls and through the ceiling in the hallway, bathroom and Chloe's bedroom. Second, the boiler had not been saftey checked before we moved in and we had no heating or hot water for the first two weeks. We then thought that we would still be able to shower as the shower was electric, but no. The shower had not been wired in. Since then we have had leaks in the roof and mould coming up through the floor in the backroom due to lack of damp proofing. On top of that I had the lovely discovery in the middle of a very hot summer of a giant pile of raw sewage in our back garden! The drainage here is a septic tank and as the tank had not been maintained at all it was competely useless and the sewage just backed up until it spilled out into the garden - nice.

So, last week we had an e-mail informing us that the landlady wants to sell up. We would be given two months notice if there was an offer on the house - as if any fool would buy this money pit! So we thought we would take our fate into our own hands and find somewhere else to live, so we did!

Welcome to our new humble abode! This is a very big Victorian house in Rhyl. Its not the most modern of houses, but we can live with a bit of retro decor, I actually think its really cosy :-)

Its going to be odd going from a bungalow to a house, with stairs. Eden loves stairs. They are going to be a novelty to her for a while and I am having visions of her using a tray to bobsleigh down them :/

The rooms are all a decent size and we have a front room with an archway through to a back room, and then towards the back of the house is another room which we will use as the dining room:

The location is great. We will no longer be in the middle of nowhere and will be living amongst civilisation once again. We will be a two minutes walk from the beach and the town. There is a fair and indoor play area for the kids and it is just down the road from one of Chloe's favorite places -Rhyl Sun Centre.

For Jemma - our niece who lives with us, it is a 20 mintues walk from the place she is just about to start working at, and she will be walking past a skate park twice a day! We are hoping it won't take long for her to make friends :-)

For Matt there is a Bargin Madness within walking distance - all his Christmasses have come at once! 

For me, I am gonna love living by the sea again. The particular area we are in reminds me a lot of the North End of Deal and that is a very sweet thing for me. Being able to walk along the beach whenever I feel like it is something that is going to bring back so many memories of my home town :-D

So we have a busy time ahead. I have to sort out my car first - MOT is due and it is making a horrible screeching noise lately - not good. I am gonna have to change doctors asap as I am in need of a gynacoloy appointment very soon - it dawned on me today that I haven't had a erm, check up (lol) for a looong time - before Chloe was born and she is 8 soon! naughty me!! But there is a well woman clinic very close by, so thats not too much of a problem. We are gonna have to change our address at the banks and all the tedious, boring form filling and phone calls that come with moving, as well as all the packing and actual moving - and I am going to be back at uni soon so the timing is pretty bad. oh. joy.

But I am looking forward to it and am feeling very postive about the whole thing. I hope we are happy there, and have a sneaking feeling we will be there for a long time - I hope so anyway because moving is a pain in the backside!!!!

Happy Days

I had the sweetest half hour this evening. Matt and I were laying on the bed chilling, we had just bathed the girls and got them scrubbed and in their PJs and they were playing together in our room. Chloe is the most fantastic big sister, she lays on the floor and lets Eden climb on her and then gives her a horsey ride around the room. Eden then fell off Chloe and gave her a hug and said 'Eden's happy!'. 

In other news, I have been attempting to give up smoking this week. Its odd because all the while I am at work I can go all day and not even think about it, let alone be bothered by it. Soon as I get home, I want a ciggerette! Anyway, I have gone from smoking 15 a day to about 2 and I don't use any patches, gums, tabs, inhalors or a nicotine buttplug to ease the craving, so thats not bad going.

I got my final grade back from uni yesterday. I passed all my modules!!!

I wasn't too ecstatic with my Literature Review mark, but considering I struggled with it so much that I almost took a chainsaw to the computer while I was writing it, I'm just glad to have passed at all! So I need to buckle down and work my butt off next semester! Wish me luck people!! :-)

Finally for today, I would like to wish my wonderful and amazing and beautiful Mummy a very happy birthday!!! Love you millions Mum and see you very soon xxxxxxxx

Nanna Peggy

Since I only started blogging today, I missed the opportunity to mark the anniversary of my Nanna Peggy's death. She died almost a year ago today, on the 11th January 2010. I didn't get to see her before she died. It happened very quickly. My sister and Mum both called me to tell me that they thought I should come down to Kent and I was planning on going down the next day, but by that morning she had gone.
Of all the times I have ever wished to be at home, this was the worst. I didn't get to say Goodbye, I didn't get to be there when everyone went through her belongings and cried and grieved together. But I know that my Nanna knew that I loved her and that is all that matters at the end of the day. 
By the time she died she wasnt the same Nanna I knew and loved. She didn't really know who I was the last time I saw her, but she was happy to see me and the girls. Eden was still only 6 months old then and she sat by Nanna and kept putting her hand in Nanna's mouth and Nanna was pretending to bite her. 
She would call my Mum her 'very special friend' and this must have been so bitter sweet for Mum. She didn't remember she was her daughter, but she knew she was very special.

Throughout my childhood, Sunday mornings were dedicated to family get-togethers at Nanna's house. She was completely the heart of the family, and I have always understood that our family were special. We always put that time aside to be together and those memories of growing up around my cousins and aunts and uncles are precious. The thing I used to love the most was Nanna's coconut cakes and she told me on more than one occasion that she made them especially for me. 
She was the best hugger. I would love nothing more than snuggling up with her and having her arm around me. She would pat me and stroke my hair and hum and hum and most times I would end up asleep. I remember that she would tell me stories of when she was younger, but when I was a teenager, I didn't apprieciate how precious those stories were. I remember bits, but had I known how much I regret not paying attention, I would have hung on to her every word.

My Nanna and Grandad are an inspiration to me in my marriage. They fought like cat and dog, but they stayed together through thick and thin :-) 
Nothing meant more to my Nanna than family. We all meant the world to her, and she knows that she meant the world to us too. I know that she is missed everyday by a lot of people.

I love you Nanna xxxxx

Loulan, Elan, Busty LaRue, Beb, Bebington, Garb or otherwise known as Leanne.

So, this post is dedicated to my sister-in-law, best friend and the closet thing I have ever had to a soul mate in my life - Leanne. It was Leanne who convinced me to start blogging and thinking about it this is not the first time Leanne has talked me into trying something I have ended up loving. If it wasn't for Leanne I wouldn't have so many amazing penpals, and I wouldn't have even heard of Lush :-O The thought!!

Leanne was right there with me through the hardest time of my life and she offered me the kind of support that I imagine very few people recieve. Leanne and her other half Dan lived with us for around 5 years and the memories of that time will always make me smile, and very often laugh - SEVEN!!!!!!!

We're lucky to have had that time Leanne and I know you miss me as much as I miss you. I promise there are many more good memories to come. It sometimes seems as though that connection we had is hard to keep, but when your as close as you and I are, no distance can change it.

So thank you Leanne for introducing me to so many fantastics things. Thanks for being there for me so unconditionally and for being my rock when I needed it most. Thanks for being such a fantastic aunt (and of course Dan who is the best uncle in the world) to my girls. You are beautiful and funny and loving and just generally AWESOME and I am lucky to have you in my life hunny. 

Love you Leanne xxxx

 

Haunting images

I'll use the homepage here for randoms thoughts and things that happen or occur to me and at the moment something that is in my thoughts a lot is the 2004 Tsumani. I watched a documentary last night which was made up of home video footage of people who survived.
It spooked me so much as my husband I were in Thailand less than a month before it happened.
We were married out there and we had two choices of time and two choices of location - my birthday in November or Christmas; and Ko Samui and Phuket. We went for my birthday and Ko Samui and had no idea at the time that these choices would possibly save our lives! How bizarre that a choice that seems so simple can have such massive implications and thank god we went for the choices that we did!

 The above picture is the Thailand memorial of the Tsunami. One of the survivors in the docmentary, who lost his 5 year old daughter, said that it has made him understand the fragility of life and how it can be snuffed out in a second. So to all who read this, just take a moment and look at the person or people you share your life with. Just give them a little kiss and tell them they mean the world to you. xxxx Ok, where's my husband.....