Happy New Year

I hope yours goes really well and you have a good time spending it however you want to with the people you want to x

Rain, rain and more rain!

It's getting a bit boring now isn't it?
Today has seen me get soaked twice, we waited for it to ease this morning and took out five of the dogs to a local park. Eden stayed at home to get some revision done as she's got her mocks in February and she's already starting to panic about them.
As it happened that was really handy as we were waiting for a parcel to be picked up and all the boys decided they wanted to come!
Two of our dogs are a bit unpredictable around other dogs so we left them at home with Eden to be lead walked later. We do take them altogether most of the time And keep those two on leads unless we're in the middle of the forest and we've got a good view of what's ahead. Luckily all the dogs have a good recall so most of the time there are no problems but I just felt like a stress free walk this morning!  The park was empty which was great, the younger boys splashed in the mud and puddles because after all that's what wellies are for aren't they?
We then dropped Clark off at Grandmas as he was taking down her Christmas cards and some of her decorations, she's got fed up of them!!
 Malc and I then took the two other dogs for a walk. We live very close to a holiday park so we walked up to it and strolled round looking at all the fabulous huge mobile homes discussing which one we're going to live in when Malc retires! Seeing as Malc is fifty-seven now and out youngest is only seven I really can't see that happening! Goodness only knows how old we'll be by the time they all leave home! But it was absolutely lovely to go out by ourselves and talk about dreams and the future instead of our usual conversations about money, kids and the more mundane things in life. We had to take shelter by a mobile home as there was a really heavy shower which was quite romantic! So you can see if that counts as romance just how mundane our life really is!
Off to make tea and hopefully pick up my knitting needles and have a snuggly night in front of the TV. Well I think I've earnt it!!

New Years Resolutions.

One of my friends put something on Facebook this morning about people posting the usual thing about losing weight and getting fitter in the New Year. She suggested making a New Years Resolution that could benefit somebody else. It shouldn't  be charity work or sending money to an organisation but something personal, something that requires a bit of effort, something with meaning. Maybe walking an elderly neighbours dog, making a cake for somebody every now and then. Mowing their garden, writing a letter to a friend and maintaining that contact. What do you think you could do?

This is my Mum and Step dad on Christmas Day, I think my Mum was taken by surprise by the look on her face! One of the things that happened in the last few months was that my Step dad had a stroke. He has made a marvelous recovery, he went into hospital totally paralyzed down one side and not being able to speak and as he had got into hospital so quickly they were able to administer a wonder drug which reverses the effects of the sthee within hours. He was back out within a couple of days and to look at him you just wouldn't know that he'd had a stroke at all.
One of the things this made us think about was that they lived a bit far away, only about 10 miles but with the unreliability of our minibus and my Mums disabilities it would be too far to walk or cycle, it would be a couple of buses each way so they decided to move closer to us which they did a couple of months ago. This has been brilliant because the boys have been able to walk down to them and help do things that they find hard to do which in turn means that some pressure has been taken off me because I know the boys can take some of the jobs off my hands.
For example yesterday my Mum came down with my cold ( I do like to share!) So today I took them up a roast dinner that I cooked yesterday and a trifle that I'd made so that Ed could spend time looking after Mum and himself as one of the after effects of the stroke is that he gets tired very quickly.
After we'd visited them I went to visit my friend who had baby number 11 on Christmas Day, today was also baby number 10's first birthday, so I got to hold a little newborn which is always a pleasure. It always leaves me feeling really broody though!
When we got home the boys took the dogs out and I did a mountain of ironing despite my dropping the heaviest of hints over the past couple of days that I should be in bed being pampered! We are bracing ourselves for another storm with heavy rain and strong winds tonight, so the rabbits have been covered and secured. We will all snuggle down and be grateful that we can stay indoors and don't have to go out anywhere.
Now I'm off to drink my lemsip! Sniff, sniff !!

Where have I been?

Well, the main computer broke then Clark's tablet broke, so I've had to wait until Christmas to keep my fingers crossed that Santa would bring me a tablet all for myself! Luckily he did!
So much has happened since my last post.
We have two new puppies, Tyxall and Chumleigh. They are brother and sister. This photo is of them at 7 weeks old, they are now 17 weeks old. They are Staffordshire Bull Terriers. My friends dog had 11 of them and she very kindly gave us two of them!

More pictures

This is how we had to carry them around for the first few weeks until they'd had both their jabs.

I will post some pictures of how big they are now over the next few days. 

We also have another teenager in the house, Callum has turned 13 at the end of September.

We also had Rememberence Parade where I was a very proud Mum with the youngest three boys taking part in their Beavers/Cubs uniform

Eden had her Youth Club Christmas Ball which gave her a chance to dress up!

Cody had his 7th birthday, we went to a place I think I've mentioned before where two children eat free with every paying adult so it works out really cheap for us, not even £3 each! For a few Sundays in December Father Christmas was there too, luckily Cody's birthday fell on one of those Sundays.

We've made things for Christmas

Well that sort of brings you up to date !

I'm sure with future posts I'll be talking about past happenings.

So pop back when you have time. More to follow!

Thank Goodness It's Cooler!

Cooler weather was promised and it has arrived. Hurrah!
It poured with rain in the night and I looked out my bedroom window watching it, it was a glorious sight. I imagine it was the same feeling Noah had when the rain eventually stopped!
Today we went into town as I had to buy Callum and Clark some new wellies as we had a trying on session yesterday and found that they had both grown out of theirs. Callum is now a size 7 at just twelve years old so we had to get his from the mens section. the size 6 in the childrens section was £5 cheaper!
Anyway they are done, we do get a lot of wear out of our wellies and they are usually passed down too.
We are gearing up for all the autumn walks we are going to take with the dogs. I do love Autumn, it's my favourite time of year.
There's nothing nicer than walking through the leaves with a chill in the air and coming home and making hot chocolate with whipped cream and marshmallows. It's became a bit of a custom last year and also helps when little legs are flagging, the thought of that hot chocolate spurs them on a bit!
Malc is picking up the new universal joint on Monday afternoon and the bus is being fixed on Tuesday morning.
I'm really hoping that's the last of garage visits for a while.
The boys also wanted to spend some of their pocket money this morning so Cody bought a battery operated car and Soloman bought a gun (He's gun mad, I hate them!) Callum bought some treats and toys for his rabbit and gerbil and Clark bought these.

He already has two which are nearly a year old and really wanted some more, Clark does love his little furries!
We've just had a lovely hours walk over the fields near us again tonight and it was beautiful, very busy with other dog walkers and children playing on the swings but lovely nonetheless.
I'm now going to sit down with some strawberry and lime cider that I have discovered.
It simply has to be cider being a Dorset girl and all !

In the garage again!

Before I start on my tale of woe I"d like to thank Karen and simplesuffolksmallholder for their comments yesterday. Don"t ask me what happened yesterday with my replies! I replied to simplesuffolk and the reply came up about 5 times, so I had to go through deleting them, it looks a real mess I can tell you.
I also forgot to tell you how my day started off , goodness knows how because it was quite significant!
Our minibus was booked into the garage apparently the donut!!  (yes that's what the garage called it! ) that's attached to the prop shaft had worn and it wasn't half making a noise.
Anyway Malc went to take it down to be fixed, a couple of hours work we were assured. He arrived only to be told one of their ramps had broken so they couldn't do the car today and they rebooked it on for the next day (today) I was a bit miffed and wondered why they hadn't rung us before Malc had driven down there. Anyway he took it back this morning and it's fixed. Unfortunately the reason it was wearing is because the universal joint has broken! I know it may sound like I know what I'm on about  but believe me I don't!
So we've got to get one of them and the garage will sort put fixing that. So no positive vibes for anyone for the next 7 - 10 days I'm afraid!

One of my lovely neighbours has taken up cross stitch again and did this as a practice piece and then she gave it to us. I really don't know what she means!
I thought it was lovely and I have framed and hung it.
Beavers starts back up again tonight , Eden has school rehearsals for " Guys and Dolls"  and she also goes to Youth Club later on so Fridays are back to being extremely busy.
I'm now off to supervise cleaning of rabbit hutches.

How often can I title a post "Busy"?

Run off my feet would be more appropriate! Malcolm has had a rush job on so it"s been all hands on deck. A lot of walking and delivering to houses on foot.
I really don't understand how I'm not 8 stone!
Here is Eden upon her return 2 weeks ago now. Wow! Where did that time go?

She has got two legs honest! It looks like she's only got 1 1/2 in this picture!

This was taken before she threw the contents of her suitcase all over the floor to be washed!!

She's come home with over 500 photos which I'm sure will appear on this blog over the next few posts.

In between working we have been walking dogs in the evening in this beautiful sunshine. By the evening it's just about bearable for me!

Eden went back to school today and home school started. I'm amazed at how competant a reader Cody has become over the holidays by just spending time reading books by himself. We have school books which are just for schoolwork and they we have about 5 bookcases full of books they can read anytime. 

We were also given this a few days ago

I cut the end off before I thought to take a picture, we've had some steamed for tea but I've seen a recipe on another blog for marrow and ginger chutney so I'm thinking  giving that a go.

We have had so much cardboard left over from one of Malcs jobs that the boys had a bonfire on my dug over veg patch, they also burnt some wood we've had hanging around the garden. I thought I could dig it all in and it might put something good back into the soil!

Well that's a very quick update, I could go on but I've now got to sort some tea out! Then onto another dog walk. I sometimes wonder why I have a bed and wish I could sleep standing up!!