Cee unveiled

By telling me, that my blog did not appear very chipper Cee was not having a go – what she was really saying was “You love writing, you love your blog, and you’re not doing what you love. There must be something taking up a lot of head space going on, what is it and how can I help”

I have been meaning to write about Cee for quite some time – let’s start with the fact that her name is actually Cass but as I’ve changed the names of everyone on the blog that is what she got lumbered with. When I first wrote about Cee as one of my Special Women I mentioned that she had her own blog and that, with her permission, I’d let you know about it. I would really like to let you know about her blog – she is hilarious. In fact, you may have heard one of her stories – the ketchup incident. I think it has become an urban legend. When Cass first phoned to tell me about the ketchup incident, I was home from University on Christmas break, my Mum came into the kitchen to find me on the floor with tears streaming down my face. She very nearly phoned an ambulance and it took a wee while for her to realise that I was laughing uncontrollably.

So what is the point of this rambling you are asking? Go ahead and just link already! Well I would do but I am scared, it goes back to my whole anxiety over anonymity (yes other than the photos of my face). As far as I am aware, no one who knows me in real life other than Cass and O has actually found the blog and I would rather like to keep it that way. Cass on the other hand is very public with her blog; she has sent the link round to all her friends and family and has posted it through her Facebook page. My fear is that if I link to her blog then you lovely people go and read it (and you might possibly mention me) and if her friends and family get curious and link to you, they might find me. Paranoid me? YES big style!

If I do link to Cass’ blog and you comment you have to promise not to mention me (as R or Spare Thoughts).

If you do go and read her blog – you have to promise to be NICE, not that I would expect you to be anything else but I am fiercely loyal.

Tumble

There is nothing like your best friend telling you your blog doesn’t look chipper at the moment to kick start you into activity. Chipper is not exactly a word I would use to describe my mood or my life at present (or my blog - sorry).

Those of you that don’t follow me on twitter (why not?) won’t have heard that just over two weeks ago #2 (middle sister) took a tumble off her bicycle as she was on her way to work. That Monday O and I were driving home from our weekend with his parents. When we got home at about 4pm there was a missed call on my mobile with a voicemail from my Mum. “You’re probably still driving but give me a call.” There was no “asap” no “immediately” but from her tone of voice, I knew there was something wrong. I phoned and heard that #2 had come off her bike, no one is sure what happened but she was in hospital with cuts and bruises, about seven stitches to her lip, a broken cheekbone and four smashed teeth. Her CT scan was all clear and they were expecting to release her that evening – they kept her in. Her boyfriend and #1 (eldest sister) had been with her for the day and a wee while later I spoke with #1 to hear her side of the story. The theory is that #2 had swerved to avoid something (not sure what) and had hit the back of a van. She was taken to hospital on a full trauma call (team of doctors, strapped to the board, head in brace – have watched too many episodes of ER). However by the time her boyfriend got to the hospital (he works outside London) and by the time #1 got to the hospital (the one day a week she car shares) the police had left. No one could tell them what had happened. #2 cannot remember and is missing about 3 hours of the morning – she can remember cycling along and then being in the hospital and her boyfriend arriving, but none of the activity at the scene, none of the ambulance journey and nothing in the trauma room. Although she was apparently alert and conscious the entire time meaning, she must have answered all their questions correctly even if she cannot remember any of those conversations.

She will eventually receive a copy of the police incident report and have to deal with the repercussions if she was at fault and caused the accident – I had thought that if the only person she has hurt is herself then where is the blame to assign? However, if she has caused damage to another vehicle she will need to pay. Equally if she is not at fault, she is currently off work unpaid and has new teeth to buy (she has just started a new job and is not currently eligible for sick pay).

I was busy with work last week and whilst I wanted to see her, I didn’t really understand how I could help other than look at her and be there (plus she had a house full already) – I didn’t really understand her injuries at that point. Then I caught a cold and was told to stay away. The last thing she needed was a cold, plus she was under strict doctor’s orders not to blow her nose or she could put her cheekbone out of alignment. Feeling much better and a lot less contagious on Friday morning I boarded the plane to London, I was spending the weekend as my parent’s were going home to have a break and her boyfriend was flying to New York to run the marathon – which he did in 3 hrs 42 mins 58 secs – uhmazing!

I did not realise or I would have been there sooner.

(although not sure how I’d have dealt with the cold).

Externally she looks ok, her cuts and bruises had more or less gone, quite a few of the stitches in her lip came out while I was there and the swelling was going down. Her teeth still look terrible but it will take time for her jaw to stop aching (think she hit the ground, jaw first, with quite a clatter) she is fed up of mashed potatoes.

What I had not appreciated and had not been fully explained to me (trying not to worry me) is that she is constantly exhausted – I thought this was because of the bruises and the aching but actually, her brain is just tired, it took a big jolt.
She struggles to cope with more than one conversation at a time and found my parents and me chatting around her exhausting because she could not follow the numerous threads. She hasn’t managed to watch the TV although we did try watching Strictly Come Dancing – the movement of the screen, the bright lights and the noise made her incredibly tense, she frowned at the TV and tried to back away into the sofa. She struggles to use the computer for long periods because the flickering screen makes her head hurt. She doesn’t like going into the kitchen because the fridge is noisy, as is the dishwasher and washing machine and the clatter of the dishes. She is a wreck whenever she leaves the house, being in cars is extremely scary and even walking along the pavement because she feels everything is so unpredictable. We did go out for some walks and she is trying to go out more as she feels rather trapped inside – but it is taking small steps and she is a quivering wreck if a cyclist passes her.

Mum has been with her practically since it happened, leaving this weekend to have a break and only because she knew I was there – she is coming back on Thursday. Thankfully, Mum is a clinical psychologist with forty years experience so she has seen many, many victims of road traffic accidents and is putting all her skills to good use trying to build up #2’s confidence.

Having to leave her yesterday was just heart breaking as it was the first time she had been left alone since the accident, it was just for a couple of hours as her friend came in to make her food but she was in floods of tears. Trying hard to be strong but not really managing it. She is also feeling guilty that she cannot just snap out of it and get on with stuff.

It is obviously going to take time for her to recover and we will need to see whether she gets any memories back. Being the baby sister I am not used to having to be the strong one – not sure I like it much. Looking forward to having her fit and well again, no matter how long that might take.

Spooky Nights

(source)

Happy Halloween!

I'll be spending Halloween having a girly night with some of my best friends. 

Oh and trying to get used the change of the clocks which happened this morning. It means an extra hour in bed but also that we leave the house in the dark and come home in the dark - becoming vampires never seeing any daylight.

*Revision, I'm actually spending the night 

with snotty tissues in front of the tv*

Work

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This picture perfectly illustrates my attitude to my job for the last few weeks. 

I need to get out of this rut. 

Anyone got any tips/ideas how to get my motivation back?

This morning

(source)

*Sound of O’s alarm buzzing*
O: *grunt*
*Pause*
O: huh?
Me: *turns over attempts to get head inside pillow*
O: huh? Am I supposed to be getting up at 5:51?
Me: huh? I don’t think so.
O: then why does the alarm think I should?
Me: I don’t care switch it off and go back to sleep.
*5:56 sound of O’s alarm buzzing*
O: huh?
Me: *SIGH*

Writing a list

Check out the other wonderful books from badbooks

Driving

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This weekend we are driving up North to spend time with O's family. I'm looking forward to homemade soups, baby cuddles, leaning on the rayburn to absorb as much heat as possible and listening to the rain and wind battering off the velux windows.

I'm also looking forward to the long drive with my husband where we get the chance in our little cocoon to talk about everything, anything and nothing. We'll sometimes listen to an audio book. We sometimes play car games - will there be more VWs or Fords passing us in the next 30 minutes? This only works when we go north (where there few motorways or dual carriageway) because it is hard and dangerous to play on the motorway. 


#2 and her boyfriend are terrible in the car together they just argue and get stressed. I don't really understand that and they weren't impressed with my suggested car games.

I'm looking forward to my alone time with my husband.

How do you cope with long car journeys?
Do you have any nice weekend plans?

Mini Moon 2

While we were driving back to Scotland from the Lake District, we had various thoughts about what we might want to do with the rest of our time off. O has less holiday allowance than me and it seemed a waste to spend the weekend and three days annual leave loafing about at home (not that there is anything wrong with loafing at home in fact I could be a professional). We also couldn’t afford to spend any more time at the Duck which is why the stay was short. We talked about heading up North to see his family, without the distraction of the wedding, so we could spend more time with our nephew who is growing and changing so rapidly. It turns out that people won’t allow you to hold babies while you are wearing a wedding dress they worry that they might puke on you – I was rather annoyed as I’d been looking forward to lots of baby cuddles. However when we got home we got some news from O’s family that meant that we wanted to be with them.

So Saturday morning it was back into the car and on the road up North. Our departure was slightly delayed by the fact that the DVDs with our professional photos on arrived just before we were about to leave so we HAD to stop and look at them. We had a lovely trip with lots of family time, even getting to see my parents who were on a tour of Scotland in their caravan. We took our nephew swimming (with his Mum and Dad) which was both lovely and terrifying. It is amazing to see his little limbs kicking about it the water but I was so scared that I might drop him or that he might swallow all the water, he was splashing everywhere. We were even given the privilege of baby sitting while his Mum and Dad went off for some couple time. At the time baby nephew hadn’t figured out how to crawl yet and moved around the floor doing seal flops. He was particularly determined in his mission to bang his head off the marble fireplace so it was a constant job to turn him round so he could seal flop off in a different direction.

We left on Tuesday afternoon, leaving my parents with O’s parents – a scary experience don’t really trust any of them to behave themselves without us acting as moderators. We spent Wednesday (my birthday) our final day of leave, after a long lie in, going to the different banks with our marriage certificate to get my name changed (living the high life).

Then it was back to reality and work.

Dreams of lace

(image 1, image 2, image 3, image 4)

The amazing, fantastic, wonderful Rebecca is getting married today. I can't put into words how excited I am for her and James.

Wishing you both a day and future full of happiness

Enjoy your honeymoon but come back quick and tell me all about it. 

I'm going to miss you!

I call upon these persons here present

I’ve been trying to compose this post in my head for about a week and it hasn’t gone well so we’ll see how it goes written down. I do have a point really so please be patient.

Wedding range in size from teeny tiny to grand swaths of people, however no matter what the size you need to have two people other than you and your partner to make the marriage legal. Someone has to witness the promises that you have made to each other.

In most traditional services the couple being wed stand with their backs to the guests. Bride on the left and groom on the right. The Bride’s friends and family then sit on the left and Groom’s friends and family are on the right (or vice versa if you are looking from the registrars point of view). This means that when the bride and groom turn to each other and when they are not staring lovingly into each other’s eyes and when the bride sneaks a nervous look behind her all she can see is the groom’s friends and family.

Now when we met with the registrar we had stated that we didn’t care where people sat. When I gave instructions to our usher (nephew) via #1 I again stated we don’t care where people sit let them sit anywhere. I do find that it is a bit of a popularity contest – the groom had more people on his side or the bride had more. However when I started walking down the aisle I noticed that we did indeed have a grooms side and a brides side.

We’d made ‘reserved’ signs to be placed on seats for Cee and her husband (there was a chance they might have been running late), the piper O's brother and my Dad. For some reason the reserved signs for Cee and her husband had been placed in the front two seats on O’s side (where his Mum and Dad really should have been sat). It was no great disaster and it meant that I had a friendly* face to look at as I made my small glimpses at all these people watching us publicly declare that we would love each other forever.

Are you still with me?

*Now friendly is really unfair to O’s side. I love his parent’s to pieces and it was lovely seeing them smile as they welcomed me into their family. I get on very well with his friends and seeing them helped me not to take things too seriously or get over emotional.

HOWEVER these are not MY people, I would have liked to see my friends and family – I want to know if my Mum cried (although perhaps we’d have both been in pieces). I’m sure there is some deep seated tradition about looking forward to the family you are joining and having your family behind you or some such nonsense.

But if you are still to be wed it is worth considering even planting one of your friendly faces within the groom’s side to pull funny faces at you (maybe it is just me).
If you have already been wed did you have a bride and a groom side and is it just me that thinks it is a bit unfair?

AND please have a word with your venue about how they lay out the seats (unless of course your seats are fixed). Our venue laid out rows of 3! Which is great for any single people but most of our guests were part of a couple and therefore had to split up and spread themselves out! An annoying little detail that there was nothing I could do about by the time I was at the top of the aisle.