401

This, according to the dashboard is my 401st post on this blog. Hence the title.

I had intended to call it something else but I can't remember what, my memory is totally shot at the moment!
I could do with a holiday ha ha shame my bank statement doesn't agree!
Well, what can I say, My Husband is at work, Beth has gone away to stay with friends for a few days and Litlun is out...as usual. So I am again home alone.
Yesterday I was taken by some friends to Walsingham, it was a good day the weather held out until it was time to leave and the "boycotters" were let down as the procession was diverted so they couldn't shout abuse at us, which is what they apparently have done each year.
There were thousands of people there, but even so there were less than in previous years due to the mass exodus to Rome earlier in the year by many priests and their whole parishes.
I should write more on this but have lost the ability to think right now.

Routine

The Mouse is home! I was quite sorry to leave the yard where she was, as the people there were extremely knowledgeable and both Mouse and I benefited from it, still its good to be back at our own yard really, where I know where everything is and we have our routine again.
That is, at the moment the only thing that is still routine, I have been signed off for another two weeks, I am beginning to wonder just how much longer I will be able to manage with this ongoing stress.
I am also beginning to see who my true friends are, and am extremely grateful for them too, I hope that if my friends ever needed me I would be there for them as much as they are for me.
When I say that was the only thing still routine, my lovely husband who is obviously going through the same situation with our daughter, is still fab, and I love him. Sometimes I forget he is going through it too and I can be quite selfish.

Escape..

A little bright window, other than the weather that is, today I went and rode mouse in a bridle, traditional style for the first time. . . she was brilliant, and I loved it. An hour of escapism, before re entering the real world again.

spinning

For the past week I have been signed off sick, thanks in the most to my 14 year old daughter who sees fit to trample all over us, she comes in at gone midnight... on a school night and will not do anything at all that we ask. She lies to us and has tins of food in her room that we have not bought?? She is not getting any pocket money as her room is a tip and she is so rude! Where is this stuff coming from? To add insult to injury she expects us to do things for her, and if we do the good will is thrown straight back at us and if we wont, oh does she make us pay! I have another week signed off then its back to work. I don't know if I am coming or going at the moment, and am beginning to feel as if I am on a constant fair ground ride which is making my head spin but the operator wont let me off............. Where do we go from here?? Answers on a post card PLEASE!

Mouse trip!

Yesterday Mouse went away for two weeks.

A friend had broken her in for riding using the Pirelli/natural horsemanship methods, sadly I can not get the hang of it and the combination of green horse and novice "natural" rider doesn't work very well. Add to that the cost of ongoing lessons, just for daily hacking and its a recipe for financial as well as body disaster! To mention nothing of a very confused horse! So I decided to have her re broken in the way that I have been riding for 40ish years. One of the girls from the yard offered to take me in her horse box so we met at the yard and bundled all Mouses tack and a sweat rug into the box then added her! Then with the owner of the box Cilla, and another friend from the yard, Sarah we set off. On arrival at our destination we got out and one of the stable girls showed us where Mouse was to be stabled, Well!! Mouse and I both stopped dead in our tracks, the stable had to be bigger than my kitchen diner it was huge!, I was just about to tell the stable girl that when ever Mouse goes into her stable she will roll, when she did exactly that! Everybody thought she was beautiful, and such an unusual colour, I suppose I am biased as she is mine and as for the colour I guess I am used to it now. Having had a cup or tea, and met the yard people and funny furries (lamb who thinks its a human and a grumpy donkey as well as the horses) we set off back to our yard to tidy up and do Cilla and Sarah's ponies. What shall I do with myself, no stable work for two weeks!

Crash test dummy

I feel like a crash test dummy......

When you have kids you have a rosy picture in your head (and don't tell me you don't!) of happy mummy and daddy with bouncing baby on your knee and possibly a brother or sister for the fore mentioned baby, in due course all happy and smiling. . .

But, what happens when that picture doesn't quite look like that in real life, for instance the bouncing baby grows up and turns into a teenager that detests you and everything you have or stand for? What happens when they just go completely off the rails and don't care at all for you or your feelings, when they go out and stay out late and you have to get the police involved, when they do the opposite of what you say just "because"! when they are rude and hurtful and they upset you every day. They can't or won't see your point of view, after all you were never young!! And when anything you do to try and mediate gets thrown back in your face...... What happens? I'll tell you what happens, you cry, . . lots! But you won't get any help, none at all not from social services (yes it is that bad!) and in the end you will feel totally empty, totally. . . and will you come back out the other side.................................. I don't know!

Time to breath

Ahh my last shift of the set done and dusted, now I have some time off, not that it isn't busy.
sometimes I wish I didn't fill my diary so full... Take today for instance, I finished my shift at 06:30 and got home, managed to take my granddaughter to school and vote at the poling station come back home and get a couple of hours sleep before going down to the stables to wait for the vet to come and give Mouse her inoculations, then go home then go back to the school collect Flower, back to the stables for the farrier then home for some dinner before being able to relax properly, 1 down, 5 to go! Hmm, I wonder what tomorrow will bring?

:-(

Just a quick update, The Northern Bird did not win the competition. She made it into the finals but that's where it stopped. Sorry Hunni, I had everything crossed. xxx

Out of control

Father forgive me for I have sinned, it has been way too long since my last blog!
It has as you can see been over a month since my last blog. Things here are in a muddle, my youngest daughter is totally out of control (I blame the parents!) and she acts as if she hates us. We have tried to get help but where do you turn for help with things like this? I even tried social services, who have twice said they will send me a letter with some information sheets in and have twice NOT done so. I am getting close to the end of my tether, and when I reach it I'm sure I don't know what will happen. One or two of my friends know whats going on but to be honest its not the sort of thing you go round talking about! This sucks.
To add to this we are receiving constant text and phone calls from one of our friends ex partners, I have not replied or answered the phone so I have no idea whet they want but I have no wish to be drawn into a slanging match...My friends are my friends I will always be on their side (unless they do the dirty on me, at which point they no longer qualify as friends!)
On the plus side, My husband will be ordained priest this June, we also have a three day event with the Army to go to, this is to see for our selves if this is the path we want to take once my husband has finished his curacy. He is seriously thinking of becoming an Army Chaplain, personally I think he would be perfectly suited to the job, what with his past military experience and the things he does now, it'll be me who will have to get a grip with the military way.... still can't be any worse than the Ambulance service!
Amen.

A year in one night!

Tonight my Husband will go to work aged 47 years, when he gets home in the morning he will be 48 years old! Its the start of the silly season in our house, tomorrow its his Birthday then on Saturday its Beth's, then on the 7th its our youngest sons then our Daughter in laws (I think I missed a few!! But you get the picture.

Down with this sort of thing

We have a new Grandson, his name is Jack. He is one month and two days old, and today we travelled to London to see him, our son and daughter in law before they fly out to Spain at the end of the month.
Unfortunately London was in chaos today as there was a "peaceful" rally/march going on there were somewhere in the region of 250,000 people. To be fair most of them were peaceful but as usual there were a minority who went there just to cause trouble, and they certainly managed that all dressed in black with balaclavas to hide their identity.
On the way back several of the underground stations were closed or having trouble, one of them had apparently been seriously paint balled and that was causing an almost complete stand still.
I have never seen so many mobile detention vans. and just as a point of interest not one of the ones I saw was from London they were all from other counties.

Spring Forward...

Oh the joy!!! An hour less sleep tonight! Don't forget to change the clocks tonight.

Stay awake.

When we do a night shift, my crew mates and I do a six hour stint at attending then swap over and do six hours of driving. Or vice verse of course.
Last night Tepic drove first and I attended, we were sent all over the place, mainly jobs but one or two cover moves, at half past midnight it was all change and my turn to drive, well for the two nights before this shift my husband was on nights, (hate it when our shifts collide and we see nothing of each other for a few days), anyway when ever he is on nights I don't sleep very well taking this into consideration together with the fact that our days were very busy I was absolutely exhausted and by three thirty the road had become not much more than a blurry haze in front of me, and I could feel sleep pulling my eyelids shut. No good! on our way to the cover point I pulled in at the first garage to get a can of Red bull, well they had an offer on which was too good to miss so I got two cans and decanted them into my empty water bottle. . . once at the cover point, then again after the next job I drank my way through 500mls of Red bull!! Yes!! it worked the road was a road again and I was wide awake and quite able to finish my shift in the knowledge that I wasn't going to crash the ambulance.
We finished on time and I drove home. Once there I began to feel fidgety and anxious it was a really uncomfortable feeling. I then remembered the same thing had happened when I had a can before, a long time ago whilst doing my EMT training. It took until about 1130-1200 before I started to feel normal again, I don't think Red bull agrees with me!

Aaaahhhhhh........................

FIRE trucks.

Today I got up early drove 32 miles to collect my friend and my Godson then drove then back here where we went to church, then for a walk in the surrounding countryside, before going to the fire station where my husband works, to let my Godson see the fire trucks. My Husband got the truck out, and let him squirt water, look through the thermal imaging camera and sit in the front of the fire engine. He had a huge grim on his face and was really interested in all things fire. Before he left my husband found him a few bits and bobs to take away with him, I hope both he and my friend, his mum, had a good time as I certainly did.

Still Crossed

Well, the crossed everything worked the Northern Bird is into the finals, now I have to keep everything crossed that they win that!

My good boy

Today I was at the museum, I had decided to work the Old Fella as tomorrow there is a timber extraction course and the Big Boy is doing that, also I am not happy about driving the Youngster yet as he is more than a little spooky still, and the horseman has not given the OK for anyone to work him yet. When I got to the field I was so glad to see the choice I had made was a good one! The Big Boy was covered in mud, but my lovely Old Fella was as clean as he could be. What a good boy. On top of this was the fact that the sun shone all day. I couldn't think of anywhere I would have rather been today.

Crossed....

Has everything crossed for the Northern Bird. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Children

Every Friday the children from the local primary school go across to the church for their assembly. Usually the Priest in charge Fr Matthew takes the service and all is well...
Today Fr Matthew is away on retreat, he and some others have gone to Waslingham in Norfolk, which leaves the service in the hands of the assistant curate... My husband, who other than telling stories to our four children has not a lot of experience with the small, " short attention spanned" variety of person.. So I thought I would go down to the church and "sit in the wings" for some moral support! Did he need it? No he didn't.
The children (and the teachers) were all dressed in their pyjamas as its red nose day today (comic relief) which was a little surprising but they all listened and were very well behaved.
My husband did brilliantly, even with our Granddaughter waving at him, as she attends this particular school.

To be confused.

Well What a day it has been!

It started off at 615 when the alarm went off, so that is at least a 1 hour 30 minute lay-in but then having walked to the hospital that I do bank work at I found the ward and then my patient. (Today I am "Specialing" someone, which means I stay with just that one patient for the duration of my shift, I have done this before and don't (usually) mind it!)
Today I had a ninety one year old lady, well she may have been old and poorly but boy could she scratch bite pinch thump. All I could do was try and make sure my face and arms were out of reach, not easy when you are supposed to be washing dressing changing bed linen and doing observations on her.
I have battle wounds.
The other thing she did was to tell me how awful I was how mean I was and how I was keeping her there against her will she called me all sorts of names, even though I knew she had no understanding of what was going on, and that she was unwell its still not a nice thing to have to hear and all the time just keep smiling and trying to be nice, after all there was no point getting upset or cross as she wouldn't have understood that either.
Its quite sad really, if she got better and was shown a video of how she was behaving she would probably been absolutely mortified. Sadly she won't get better in that sense, but with any luck she will recover from her operation and be well enough to return to where she had lived before her op, where things are familiar and she can settle back into her normal routine.
Having finished work I then had to rush to the stables to have mouses feet trimmed by the farrier.
Now I am going to sink into a hot bubble bath and have an early night.