T'internet

The three oldest children are on various social media sites. I monitor the boys but I tend to leave Eden to herself as she's nearly an adult, she was monitored when she was younger.
I've seen this doing the rounds on Facebook and thought it was hilarious.

Especially when I heard a conversation between Eden and Clark this morning.

Clark has been on twitter for a week and has "followed " Eden.

Eden to Clark....... Why are you on twitter? Could you not reply or favourite my tweets, they're private!

I'm not sure she fully understands how the internet works!!

Jack of all trades, master of none!

For about the last ten years I've used clippers on Malcs and the boys hair.
Callum has always kept his very short, usually a number two all over.
Recently Soloman and Cody have been growing theirs, I hate their hair long. So today I managed to convince them that it needed to be cut for the summer so by winter it would have grown again.
Before, ( excuse the dirt on Cody's face!)

After a number four all over

Unfortunately this didn't work on Clark, twelve years old and so disbelieving of his Mum!
He likes his long to so we're going to have to work out some kind of compromise.
I then clipped Tula, one of the dogs (different pair of clippers before you ask) she took just over an hour and I didn't think it was fair to ask her to pose for a picture after that ordeal.
We're going to bath her tonight to get rid of all the loose hair.
So that's hairdresser and dog groomer to add to the long list of other occupations I seem undertake nowadays!

Living in perfect harmony.

Callum does gardening for various neighbours, he does weeding and mows lawns to earn a bit of money.
One of our neighbours had a bad stroke recently and so Callum has started to help him.
This man was a fantastic gardener and with Cals help has managed to continue to garden.
A couple of weeks ago he asked Callum to move his tortoise from the garage to a little enclosure in the garden, this was a bit of a surprise to Cal as he didn't even know that he had a tortoise. In fact when the man first mentioned it, Cal thought he was joking!
Cal and Clark have been coming home from the house over the past couple of weeks talking of the antics of this tortoise.
The mans wife fell at the beginning of last week and broke her forearm in four places, so I said to the boys that we'd go round this weekend with a bunch of flowers. We also took a couple of cupcakes that were made yesterday.
I just had to have a look at "Tiny".
Clark lifted the roof of the hut and this is what we saw

It isn't the best picture but hopefully you can see a hedgehog curled up next to the tortoise.
The man said that the hedgehog comes and goes but quite often they can both be found together  in the house asleep.
Wildlife co-existing!

More hospital tales.

The neighbour that I help out went to have a cataract operation on one of her eyes on Thursday, she stayed in overnight and came out on Friday dinnertime. As her son would be at dialysis and she would be by herself until the district nurse called I kept a look out for her so we could settle her and make a cup of tea.
Her sight was really very bad, very blurry, she couldn't see photos, the pictures on TV, not a lot at all really.
So we settled her, made her a cuppa and to my surprise she mentioned how much gray I had in my hair!
She then said how good it was to see the TV, read the instructions on the packet of tablets that the hospital had sent home with her and also mentioned how dusty the cabinet was that the TV
 sits on!
As I'm her cleaner it looks like I'm going to have to up the ante! I don't think I'm going to be able to get away with much!
It is truly amazing how a little twenty minute procedure can completely change somebody's life.

Double Digits

Yesterday was Solomans tenth birthday, so we started with our ritual of going out to breakfast.
As it was still the Easter holidays for school they had some Easter Bunny face masks to colour in, so as Soloman and Cody coloured them in I could sit and chat with my Mum.

Soloman and Cody modeling them

After tea we brought in Solomans cake and he blew out the candles and cut it.
For some reason Clark thought it would be funny to pull a face or wave in each picture!
Every family has one don't they? Ours happens to be Clark!

Clark went to have a wound check this morning, he's got his bandage off and now has a waterproof dressing on. The hospital have given me a couple more and some more steristrips just in case they're needed.
I did take a picture but I'll spare the more sensitive among you as the wound was a bit "bloody". I'll show you a picture when it's a bit more healed and cleaner!

A promise is a promise!

When Callum was told nearly ten months ago he was going to have to have an operation on his back he was beside himself. It was his nightmare come true.
On the journey home I promised him he could have whatever he wanted if he had the op.
We are now several weeks the other side of the operation and he hasn't forgotten my promise.
His scar has gone from this at three days post op

To this after seven weeks

Now that type of scar earns you this

A whippet X Staffordshire Bull Terrier!
Callum has named her April as we picked her up on April 1st.
I've said that it earns you this but he actually paid half the price for her.
This was taken today on the way home from the vets after her first injection.

She was laid back on Cals lap in the minibus sleeping in the sunshine.
The dogs have been really good with her particularly the two Staffies, Tyxall adores her and this is the second time we've found them cuddled up like this.

This was how we found them on my bed last night, when I left the room to have a bath they were playing on the bed and I came back to this picture of cuteness.
Callum is totally besotted with her and has been brilliant doing literally everything and anything for her, including getting up in the middle of the night to let her out.
It's Solomans tenth birthday tomorrow so I'm now off to ice and decorate a cake!

The metalwork is out

Yesterday we turned up at our local hospital along with a packed waiting room of others for Clark to have the plate and six pins taken out of his arm, they were put in back in August when he broke both the bones in his left forearm.
He was in theatre within an hour of arriving, back up in the ward an hour and a half after being taken to theatre and home within four hours of stepping foot in the waiting room.
His nurse was an lovely older lady called Iris who took a bit of a shine to him so we had a bit of banter going back and forth.

In the second picture he's holding his bravery certificate which I will be colouring in and framing even if he thinks he's too old for one!
His hand is a bit swollen this morning and he hasn't got a lot of pain so all in all it was a lot nicer experience than when he had the metalwork put in.
Unfortunately not long after we'd got home the boys came running in to tell us that an older man had fallen over at the top of the road, it turned out to be a neighbours father-in-law.
Another neighbour rang an ambulance whilst Malc tried to keep the man on the floor and I pressed tissues to a deep cut above his eye.
Twenty-five minutes later an ambulance turned up with a paramedic that couldn't have been less interested if he tried. All the adults helping the man were appalled at his attitude. They did take him in as they said he would need stitches which is what I'd feared.
My neighbour is going to put a complaint in about the medic, luckily the man was a bit out of it to hear what was being said.
He was spending the night in hospital to be on the safe side.
Talking to his son last night I found out he was a Royal Marine for thirty years, I wonder if the medic would have treated him with a bit more respect if he'd known that?
After having such a lovely experience in the morning with the NHS, it was such a shame to have a negative one in the afternoon.
Luckily one man doesn't make the whole of the NHS and for every bad experience there must be hundreds of good ones!
After having Clark and Callum in their care I can only give them my admiration and gratitude.

Time to relax.

We had a lovely Easter, although we visited and had visitor's I still found time to knit these.

 They are vests for a knitting club, the last lot of these vests went to Israel.

That's number three and four, I'm going to try and do ten of them.









Clark has to go to hospital tomorrow to have an operation to take out the plate and pins that were put in his forearm last August when he broke both the bones.
So we have an early start but all being well we should be home by the afternoon.
I'm planning on taking some knitting for me to do whilst he's in surgery. There's always a positive!!
I'll let you all know he he gets on.

An oasis of calm.

We went to see my friend with lots of children on Good Friday, we'd been invited to tea.
Her house understandably is chaos but in a nice way.
There are children everywhere vying for attention all trying to show you everything at once and chatting away.
In a corner of the sofa Cody held the new baby, born three weeks ago.

Although she wasn't asleep in this picture she slept later, proof indeed that babies can sleep through anything!