Traveling

I arrived here Friday

What a long day

It began at 5.15 am, an easy airport run but with an hour delay in the plane arriving
 Flight was a bit bumpy but fine
Next problem was the train connection
Trainline stated I had to get to Clapham junction and change but after collecting my tickets they were calling for all Reading passengers so I joined the group
We were taken to a waiting coach  for a 75 minute trip
Unfortunately all the major routes were  grid locked M25, A3 M3 M4 so we were taken cross country
With so many other motorists having the same idea it was  chaotic
I did enjoy the ride through the country side, passing through and remembering old haunts. But the tiny villages were struggling to cope with the volume
After nearly two and a half hours we finally reached a tiny station outside Guildford
Whilst it had it mod cons it was reminiscent of a traditional old station
At least it was warm inside as we had a 45 minute wait for the one train shuttling between Reading and Ashvale

Another 35 minutes on the train brought me to my destination  at 5.30pm
Luckily Rebecca and Antoni were able to collect me
My goodness what a long day traveling
Apparently both line and bridge works were to blame
However it was so lovely to see Rebecca and collect the first of many hugs

I accompanied her on Saturday for her midwife appointment, where everything was fine.
It's such a shame though, when I left her in November she was glowing happy, and looking great, but now you could see the toll the blood infection, medication and stress the treatment has caused her.
Being in mother hen mode it makes me really cross that through incompetence they have robbed her of her last week's enjoyment and stress free before bubba arrives

What's done is done so we have been pottering along making baby's room cozy, defrosting the freezer, cleaning the fridge and all the little jobs that will make the next few weeks easier.

I think we shall have a nice meal at home tonight, whether we stay up remains to be seen, but what ever you are doing, enjoy and I wish you a Happy New Year
Take care
Xcx

Bunny ready to go

What a beautiful day

We sat in the Naya for a few hours

23C, bright blue sky, no wind, lovely.

Reminds me of our first Christmas here with similar weather, having dinner in the Naya with all the family, it was rather surreal, although it did remind Chris of his years in NZ and Christmas in the summer.

I took up my bunny to finish

I always find the features the hardest to get just right, but I was quite pleased with the result

His dungarees fitted, two little buttons to sew on and he is ready to be wrapped and taken on his travels

We have altered the settings on my phone so I might even be able to catch up with you all after Christmas

Finally to wish every one a very Merry Christmas and Happy new year

take care

xcx

Crafty

It was Chris´s birthday on Saturday, which was a nice day and then we had some friends round in the evening for drinks and nibbles.

He didn´t want a fuss, but I think he was quite pleased with the little touches he found when he came down in the morning

I bought him a little birthday badge as a bit of fun, and he wore it all day!

I sent Rebecca a photo of our tree but she noticed something was missing

There wasn´t a topper

So out came the fabric and a bit of bling from a broken brooch

Much better

I have been making a little project too

Just needs to be made up and the features added, then it will be a cute little rabbit

He has some knitted dungarees too

The pattern is from Little Cotton Rabbits, she makes such delightful creatures, bears, sheep, elephants and more, here is the link if you want to have a look 

https://littlecottonrabbits.typepad.co.uk/

Only a few days left before I´m off again, so I had better get a wriggle on and get things finished

take care

xcx

Been busy

Rebecca was allowed home for 3 hours on Sunday, the cultures are looking much better and they are trying to arrange daily outpatients for her meds through the IV.
Unfortunately the catalogue of errors has continued, losing blood samples because her name wasn´t written on them and someone had taken off one of the antibiotics she needs for 2 days before it was noticed, which now means she has to start that one again. If baby arrives before the course is finished he will have to be given antibiotics too.  The staff are all encouraging her to make a formal complaint as they say they pass incidents through their systems but it´s not until a patient formally complains that much notice is taken.

I do rather enjoy Kirsties handmade Christmas program, the Crafters have to be admired with their inspiration and creations
I used to make special occasion cakes years ago, but the choice of equipment, edible pigments, glitters, gold/silver leaf etc is so extensive these days and their beautiful designs are awesome.
Who would have thought of making figs from profiteroles and marzipan, and dusting with colour, you couldn´t tell the difference between the real thing.
  

One I thought was fun was a simple large paper shape, i.e. a star, decorated, edges glued and filled with your own paper confetti and a gift, then glued tight

Upon opening everything falls out showering you with the confetti, bit messy but hey its christmas

It reminded me when the kids were young and we had birthday parties with traditional games

At the time I couldn´t afford to keep up with the other Mummy´s who seemed to try to outdo the last party with expensive entertainers etc, one time a little girl (madam) flounsed in demanding to know the theme then sulked when told games, however it didn´t take her long to join in 

Swinging marshmellows, apple bobbing, seek the hidden buttons, pass the parcel (the secret with that one was to place a tiny gift between some of the layers to keep their interest) but their favourite was pricking the balloons that were strung along a line using a stick with a smooth pin at the end. Being smooth it both prolonged the bursting point and was safer, but the end result was being showered with confetti, ok it took a long time but you can see where I was going with this...

I think if I was to do this these days I would use dried flower petals, easier to clean up outside and biodegradable 

I said I have been busy in the garden these past 3 days, its been really nice to enjoy the warm sun and fresh air. The wilderness needs taming before it sets again like concrete. I only went out to pick some springs of Rosemary and got side tracked. I have been concentrating on one area and ignoring the rest that are screaming out, Me next!
This is where I started, you can just see the bench peeping out

So much better, although the poor bench is in need of some TLC

Months ago I started to clear the dry stone wall that was being strangled by a rampant plant but we had to treat it as it was so intertwined it was impossible to remove it. It worked!

Although the soil has dislodged a lot of the stone, another thing on the to do list.

Ivy nightmare, you tug and it fights back

At this stage I had to admit defeat, I enjoy Garden Rescue but I certainly wish I had the young men they have to do the hard work!
take care
xcx

Another day

Again thank you for your support and comments

I´m still here! Finger gradually edging off the panic button

Rebecca is slowly responding to the meds, they gave her a scan of the heart to ensure the infection hadn´t caused damaged to the valves - what! really, (it was fine)

Then they decided to put a Picc line in the top of her other arm which goes through the vein into the chest and can stay there for up to two years!! this was to prevent further cannulas being fitted, especially as they couldn´t find decent veins. (so now she has both arms restricted)

After fitting it she was told the midwives couldn´t administer meds or do extractions through it as they weren´t trained, Oh it just gets better....

They found someone who could extract for blood cultures but not to administer

Told you it gets better

At last someone was found, they suggested a schedule be drawn up to allow her a few hours respite at home between meds. 

This is why we decided to wait for me to go as she wanted to spend some time with Antoni at home and I respect that, also the tingly feelings you get that says you might be going down with something happened

Yep, a head cold.

Being responsible, I really couldn´t go and inflict that on her.

Talking with her, she does sound better, but then was sooo disappointed when, because her blood pressure rose slightly, they wouldn´t let her home for 4 hours, 

Now she is feeling extremely ´teed off´

Oh and when a friend tried to visit her they wouldn´t let her in the ward even though she is in her own room

Policy on this ward - which is next stop after delivery, so normally people only stay for a few hours or overnight - only partners had all day access with siblings allowed at visiting times

so that would mean I wouldn´t be allowed to visit her

Good thing for mobile phones as Rebecca went and let her friend in and they spent a nice 3 hours together.

Anyway Rebecca asked about it and the midwife said yes she would bend the rules for me but the others might not, and I saw you bring your friend in but it didn´t concern me so she wasn´t booted out.

This ward is locked with intercom access only, I fully appreciated the need for security etc but if you can vouch for someone then you would have thought it would be ok.

Nice, what happened to emotional care too, surely, rules should be implemented upon individual circumstances

With luck Rebecca might get her 4 hour home visit today, the second cultures should be back late tomorrow, so its a day to day thing at the moment.

Completely changing the subject, I thought Kelvin was a well deserved winner for the Strictly trophy, the others were very good too, but he just had the edge.

and

We usually have a real Christmas tree, but last year it didn´t even get one bauble on it due to what happened, so we decided not to bother this year, but we were given a very nice bushy, two tone artificial one which looks really pretty, especially with all the favourite hand made decorations on it. I also put up a few other bits n bobs to make it look festive.

This stand usually holds little swinging metal baskets for tea lights, but I thought it was a bit dangerous with the furries about so turned it into this

Hand made felt trees set into little slices of Almond wood, which is very hard but does the job well

Very low key but at least there is something

Been busy in the garden yesterday and today, but that´s another story

take care

xcx

Update

Thank you all so much for your lovely comments.

They were erring to perhaps let her go home yesterday or today, but the cultures came back and revealed that whatever bug/virus had started this has been completely overrun by the fact she now has blood poisoning.

Basically which they gave her by putting the cannula in

the first line of treatment is penicillin, which she can´t have being allergic to it, so next its IV antibiotics which will take longer to control it, so her proposed going home has now turned into 12 more days in hospital

Her first thought was if its in my blood then the baby is sharing that, but they didn´t seem concerned about that.

I appreciate they don´t want to worry her but we have been through so much what with the chemo etc, then Rose, we are people who wish to know, not to worry, but just to be informed.

It´s not a very nice place to be in right now, and of course we have Rose´s birthday on
Wednesday, I certainly don´t want her to be on her own on that day as Antoni will be working in London.

I think I have made an executive decision to just go

take care

xcx

Intuition

Do you pick up on those ´gut feeling´vibes,

We do it all the time, I find it´s best to act rather than over think them

Well that´s what happened on Monday early evening, I just knew, so rang Rebecca and found her not very well at all and feeling rough.

I managed to persuade her to act on doctors advice of if anything changes go straight to A & E.

She was seen very quickly with no long hours of waiting and admitted.

With both their heart rates elevated, high even for her, they were hooked up to monitors where they managed to get it under control.

She had freezing shivers and hot flushes so a virus was suspected, the fact that she had recently been given a flu jab followed a week later by the triple whooping cough vaccinations, was deemed not to be the culprit!?

I´m not a medic but do have my own thoughts about that.

Antibiotics and paracetamol were given with very frequent obs.

It took 4 attempts to insert the cannula in her arm, until she asked for a more experienced person, then a scan.

They thought it might be flu, subsequently ruled out, they have been ruling out possibilities but still have no idea.

Tuesday evening her arm was terribly painful at the cannula site, upon investigation there was a raging infection going on with tracking creeping up her arm. Certainly not helping

How on earth did they manage to inflict that on her, poor hygiene or damage to the vein?

Straight onto IV antibiotics and then would you believe a bag of medicine as a precaution against sepsis, which obviously they had caused. One response to her questions over this was ´well hospitals are dangerous places´!! Fills you with confidence doesn´t it, NOT

Rebecca has been asking all along the way is this ok for baby? The monitor tracking his heart rate also has a button to press each time he moves as apparently, rather like us when we take exercise it naturally increases.

The baby, well he seems to be having a ball, with Rebecca on bed rest, he is obviously enjoying the quiet time and is unbelievably active, he is also picking up on her not so good moments by squirming even more. 

Cultures should return today so we may be more enlightened.

All very tense and scary, the site I use for flights and train times has been regularly visited, continuously updated with various scenarios. 

I can still get a flight into next week at very reasonable prices (not that, that matters)

so as Rebecca said, we wait.......

take care

xcx

Over too soon

The days just whizzed by (as usual) but we did launder all the baby things and they are now away all ready. 

I didn´t manage to make the brushed cotton burp cloths but can do that next time, although I crochet some more and of course had to finish sewing the binding of the quilt. It was all pinned and I was concerned security might take the pins away but they didn´t query it or the bamboo knitting needles holding a baby blanket, but unfortunately one broke in the case, another item to finish off.

Black Friday seemed to happen all week so on one of my excursions into town I bought a few new tops, including a couple of jumpers all with varying discounts between 10 and 30%, then on Thursday we visited John Lewis to take advantage of the 20% off baby items.

Joyce (MiL) gifted them the money to get a next to me crib and sheets, so that was on the list along with other essentials. Rebecca gets a further 25% off by using her store discount card so we got some really good bargains.

Although Mothercare is closing they were not offering very good discounts, maybe nearer the end but they still seemed expensive.

The pre-loved market is strong around their area and they have got quite a few items of new or nearly new, a great help at such an expensive time

I bought Rebecca a dress as she has a couple of ´do´s´to go to, but I changed the button feature from gold to crystal, more her taste, so with accessories it will be really nice.

Rebecca was scheduled to go on maternity leave on the 20th December, which I thought was way to late, in my opinion she needed to rest, relax and think of herself during the last few weeks.

Little bubba had other ideas and he is quite low, making walking etc difficult, plus the fact that her company within JL store refused to allow her to sit whilst on the shop floor, insisting that she spread her breaks out and go to the rest room. The fact that it is up on another floor and they are not permitted to use the escalators or lifts just the stairs meant that most of the break time was taking getting to and fro. Absolutely ridiculous and very short sighted, so Rebecca explained it all to the doctor who immediately signed her off, so as from the 1st she has been able to take things easy and not soldier on like she was doing.

Bless, she was rather reluctant to do so, but once the decision was made she realised just how much she had been pushing herself and was relieved to just ´be´at home.

I strongly supported her in this as her and bubba´s health come first, especially when the employer treated her so shoddily.

Wednesday was my last day and Rebecca had a scan followed by a consultant appointment in the morning.

Absolutely wonderful to see bubba, he was really wriggling around and wouldn´t be still to take the measurements, which took several attempts. He was even really cheeky and gave us a full flash, no mistaking he is a boy then!

The consultant was running an hour late but he didn´t rush and made sure Rebecca was happy in the care, full explanations and any concerns dealt with.

Another scan on the 18th, they have decided that they will not let her go much beyond 38 weeks so  will he arrive this year or next?

My train was due to depart at 1.30, we were so long at the hospital and the traffic was really heavy that we only managed a quick goodbye and hugs before I had to go, I made it, with 3 minutes spare, squeaky or what! Just had to hang around for a while at the airport for my 5.45 flight.

My flight is booked for the 27th, unless something happens so I´m on standby mode

I intend to wrap pressies so everything is ready, including for Chris´s birthday

It´s all go!

take care

xcx

Shower party

I am back from being absent (you may or may not have noticed! lol)

I tried using my tablet and phone whilst away but they have different passwords and I couldn´t remember my log in one, so obviously I was unsuccessful in doing any posts or commenting.

Like many of us, I have so many different codes it gets really hard remembering which is which.

A pleasant journey outbound, smooth flight, no lumps and bumps and I met my train connection with half an hour to spare. On inquiring which platform I needed, it was very kindly suggested that I didn´t venture down until 10  minutes to go as there were artic winds blowing down there, sure enough when I did, I think even the penguins would have shivered.

Out over Alicante

We then turned and I snapped our mountain range just in from the coast at Calpe

Unfortunately Rebecca had to work on Friday but I had bits n bobs to get in town, thinking in advance of Christmas presents, so met her for a Japanese lunch, different and tasty and a wonderful opportunity to share and chat. 

Daniel, Shine and the girls arrived early Saturday evening and we spent a lovely evening catching up, sharing a meal and enjoying family time. The girls asked for pencils and paper and spent hours just drawing and colouring, brilliant interacting with them. We even video called ´Grandad¨ which was fun too

Sunday dawned a bright if cold day but we arrived at the baby shower just a little fashionably late.

(Having had a text message to do so as they weren´t quite ready)

The venue was at the Harvester but in a side private room, plenty big enough for our gathering but cozy.

There was a buffet, which I must say kept the 25 odd guests well fed as they kept coming to top it up with a superb range of dishes to suit all tastes 

The decorations were brilliant too

as you can see from the table there were a few fun games to participate in too, although I must admit quite a few (men) by passed the nappy one lol, it looked gross but basically different baby foods were spread on the nappies and you had to guess the food. Nothing wrong in that but just not an everyday occurance - smelling nappies lol, interestingly the ladies got more right than the gents!

Guess the quantity of socks in the jar had really wild results as did guess the date and weight

another was telling the difference between a beer belly and a pregnant one, that one got the most debates

This was fun too, a great way to make people relax and not be po faced, everyone had a go in ´the frame´

Basically light hearted, fun, relaxed and a good time had by all

Then of course the cake

Daniel and Shine brought the cake, delicious Filipino recipe

Beautiful gifts, wonderful sentiments and more importantly sharing the day with the people that mattered, a superb day filled with laughter, family and friendship, such a happy day, so many memories made.

They loved the play mat

The most touching was all Rebecca´s girls (workmates) from the floor (departments) at John Lewis, how despite all the traumas and heartache she has endured over the past few years, they all would miss her sunshine, radiance, calming ability, wisdom and soothing vibes.

Oh my gosh that nearly floored me, talk about blink quickly 

As people drifted away and the clear up began Daniel and Antoni decided to sport bumps too, although no balloons were hurt during this process, I would like to point out that they were both told if only it was that easy!!

Then the hard part of saying cherrio to Daniel, Shine and the girls,

Probably a good place to stop before you all start yawning

Me, well I´m remembering and welling a bit, so

take care

xcx